Tiffany Shlain & Ken Goldberg
Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology:
Trees, Time & Technology
PRESS
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
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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.
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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.
Berkeley husband-wife art team’s ‘Ancient Wisdom’ exhibit coming to S.F.
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.
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.”
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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
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.
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Skirball Cultural Center, ‘Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology’
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.
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NAUTILUS
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.
DESIGN MATTER
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.
CULTURED
Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Ingenuity: Trees, Time, and Technology Collide in Los Angeles
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.
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HYPERALLERGIC
Two Artists Seek Out the Ancient Wisdom of Trees
WHITEHOT MAGAZINE
Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg’s Ancient Wisdom For A Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology at Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles for Getty’s PST Art & Science Collide
ARMCHAIR EXPERT
Tiffany Shlain
Ken Goldberg
