DATEBOOK PICK

Artist and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain and her husband, artist and UC Berkeley robotics professor Ken Goldberg, have been partners and artistic collaborators for nearly three decades. That collaboration informs their shared exhibition at di Rosa SF, “Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time and Technology,” which feels like a culmination of their individual and collective work, exploring gender, the environment and the dynamics of power. 

The di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art just announced plans to sell its bucolic Napa campus, but it is still going strong at its new downtown San Francisco galleries. The new exhibition, featuring local husband and wife artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg, originally appeared in 2024 at the Skirball in Los Angeles for “Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide.” I

In my continuing “better late than never” series of exhibitions I wished I had reviewed while open but still feel are worth noting: Sometimes a small exhibition can cast a wide net. Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology, an exhibition of work by Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg at the Skirball Cultural Center (which was on view through March 2) is a great example of how a seemingly simple idea can not only be a work of art, but also provide a teaching moment, and be an engine for social action.

LOS ANGELES — Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology at the Skirball Cultural Center is a mind-bending installation and learning library by the Bay Area artist duo Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg. Presented in conjunction with the Getty’s PST ART initiative, Art & Science Collide, the exhibition pays homage to the ongoing human quest for knowledge by documenting its evolution through a series of timelines inscribed over the rings of fallen tree fragments, culled from salvage yards, using the age-old technique of pyrography (wood burning). These timelines address the histories of such topics as knowledge itself, California trees, science, and Judaism.

In her visual art, Shlain—a filmmaker, best-selling author, and creator of the Webby Award (which, incidentally, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year)—is best known for challenging conceptions of patriarchy, colonialism, and the passage of time. In his, Goldberg—professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, co-founder of Ambirobotics and the Moxie Institute—is best known for visualizing ideas through telerobotics, automation, and AI.

The majesty of trees fills the air breathed by Californians who wander beneath giant redwoods; it fills the imaginations of travelers who come to witness their grandeur. To stand in the presence of a great oak or cedar or redwood is to marvel at their age: their endurance, their resilience, their tenacious survival. With yearly growth rings that record their age, that respond to drought, swell with growth in generous rainfall, and steadfastly measure a hardened time, some of these trees have stood, giving oxygen and shelter for thousands of years.

Even more exceptional are when the people in those literal marriages extend their individual tendril-like professional paths toward each other, braiding them into endeavors that become something greater than either could have created alone. The “mine and yours” are rendered indistinguishable from one another.

Gather on the eve of International Women's Day for an event featuring special guest Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an artist-led tour, “Gravitas: Participatory Pendulums” interviews with women — including Planned Parenthood Northern California president Nicole Barnett, She the People founder Aimee Allison and others — on a swing-set installation, art activities and more. Visit the museum’s “Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time and Technology” from the reliably dynamic local art and science duo of Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg, which will be on view through April 11.

What we now know as Muir Woods became a national monument in 1908. But scientists believe the oldest coast redwood in Muir Woods is at least 1,200 years old. It has stood through the times of the First People, Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind sailing by in 1579, Mexican settlers establishing Marin footholds in the 1830s and loggers threatening its existence in the late 19th century.

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Tiffany Shlain grew up in Marin, feeling a close kinship to the redwoods, bay laurel, bigleaf maple and tanoak that are native to Muir Woods. The artist created her moveable monument, Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring, in 2022. Now, with husband and fellow artist Ken Goldberg, she has expanded that vision in the major show, “Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology,” on view at San Francisco’s di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art through April 11.

Artist and life partners Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg utilize technology to express the human connection to (or disconnection) from nature. Goldberg’s “Bloom” video translates live San Andreas seismic activity into whirling color.

Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg are not only partners in life; they’re also frequent collaborators in art. Shlain, an artist, filmmaker and writer, and Goldberg, a fellow artist and a professor of robotics at UC Berkeley, have joined forces to create the exhibit Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology at di Rosa SF in San Francisco. The exhibition was launched in January 22 during San Francisco Art Week and will run until April 11. We checked in with the creative couple to learn about the inspiration behind their new show, their career highlights and what it’s like working together.

When Tiffany Shlain was in fourth grade, her dad, a surgeon and writer, came to parent day at her Mill Valley school and presented her classroom with a human brain soaked in formaldehyde. “A lot of the kids screamed and ran out,” Shlain said. “I was riveted.”

ONGOING: Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time and Technology from Bay Area artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg is a sweeping exhibition at di Rosa SF that blends salvaged wood sculpture, video and artificial intelligence to explore how we perceive time. Highlights include a video portrait and tree census of San Francisco neighborhoods built from open-source ecological data, along with the opportunity for visitors to create personal tree tributes. January 22 through April 1

Artists Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain harness the beauty and power of trees through tree-ring sculptures — two of which are inscribed with milestones in L.A. history. Visitors can also pay homage to the special trees in their lives by submitting information online, which will be turned into tributes by the artists using AI.

It was Burning Man for the dot-com darlings, the Oscars for the internet, and the last great party for the an era about to disappear forever.

Tree-rings are like time machines. They tell ancient stories about the Earth and its climate, marking wet years, dry years, and periods of growth. Artist Tiffany Shlain and her husband, roboticist Ken Goldberg, decided they would make a perfect canvas for a set of artworks that explore the ways art and science are embedded in nature.

Tiffany Shlain is a multidisciplinary artist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, national bestselling author, and the founder of the Webby Awards. Ken Goldberg is the William S. Floyd Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley and an award-winning roboticist, filmmaker, and artist. They join to discuss the life they share together and their many artistic collaborations.

In “Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology,” a new installation by Bay Area creative couple Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain, the artists juxtapose the timeless, organic intelligence of trees alongside products of human ingenuity. On view at Los Angeles’s Skirball Center through March 2, 2025, the exhibition is part of the Getty Museum’s “PST ART: Art and Science Collide” initiative. Stars like Diane Von Furstenberg, Nadya Tolokonnikova, and Kristen Bell made appearances opening night.

This exhibition is a rare combination of exquisite craftsmanship and dedicated scholarship, using the ancient science of dendrochronology: tree-ring dating that uses the annual growth increments of trees to estimate their age. Featuring six large tree-ring sculptures made from salvaged wood, the works draw parallels between the past, present and future to remind us that trees and humans have always been interdependent in scholarly, scientific, artistic and spiritual practices. Trees also outlive humans and bear witness to human history.

Ken Goldberg (Why Don’t We Have Better Robots Yet?) is an award-winning artist, roboticist, and engineering professor. Ken joins the Armchair Expert to discuss being born in Nigeria, growing up in rough and tumble City of Brotherly Love, and on how that taught him how to not take things lying down. Ken and Dax address the elephant panties in the room, how a course he took in 1981 began his trajectory in robotics and AI, and the tragic archetype of Pygmalion and the hubris of falling in love with your creation. Ken explains the Czechoslovakian etymology of the word “robot,” why don’t we have better robots yet, and how he stays optimistic doing a job predicated on failure.