News + Media
Below is a collection of news articles, media coverage, and blog posts featuring my artwork and projects.
Interviews
What happens to our digital data after we die? Futurist Sinead Bovell explores the emerging space known as the digital afterlife from three different angles; what happens to our data, how can it take on a life of its own, and what does it mean to be digitally immortal.
Spotlight Portfolio Contest Winner
Here's how Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University lecturer Dr. Joshua Sarinana introduces himself on researchgate.com: "I study the role of neuromodulation on hippocampal encoding of spatial information.'" Think of all the artsy neuroscientists you know who would say exactly the same thing about their work.
A Portal into Another World Through Puddles on the Street
For Dr. Joshua Sariñana, photography offered a reprieve from a path in life that had extracted more than it returned. After studying neuroscience at UCLA and MIT, Sariñana began focusing on the practice and theoretical study of photography. In his hands, the camera becomes a tool of investigation, contemplation, and consideration of the mystical realm where the physical and spiritual become one.
Rfotofolio Selections
Joshua Sariñana was one of the photographers selected in the 2018 Rfotofolio selections. Today we are please to share his work with you.
Elegiac Musings
When I first saw Joshua Sariñana’s photographs, one of them reminded me of an image that appeared on the cover of Paula Hawkin's psychological thriller, The Girl on the Train. As I continued to go through them, I sensed a pattern. The pictures moved from partially obscured frames to prismatic designs, thus weaving an unfathomable story around them.
Catalyst: Interviews
I’ve always felt that we can learn a lot from those whom we feel are more intelligent or more successful than ourselves. Though there will always be exceptions, I think for the most part that this is true. I’m the last person you’ll find calling themselves any kind of expert in any field, including photography. What I have is experience - quite a bit, in fact - but it’s my experience. I also have this insatiable curiosity and a willingness to embarrass myself with the topics that I lack any knowledge of.
Art Projects
AI has a Bias Problem. Could Art be the Solution?
The connections between art and technology, however, are not always obvious — a gap that the Poetry of Science public art installation in Cambridge, MA, set out to fill. A collaboration between the Cambridge Arts Council and the People’s heArt Project, the project paired scientists of colour at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with local poets of colour.
Makinde Ogunnaike and Josh Sariñana talked about how they turn physics and neuroscience into art and poetry
Makinde Ogunnaike and Josh Sariñana talked about how they turn physics and neuroscience into art and poetry, and the intersection of physics and religious faith. Ogunnaike is a PhD candidate in physics at MIT, where he researches quantum systems and the new states of matter they can create. He also runs the Harvard-MIT chapter of the National Society of Black Physicists. Sariñana is a fine art photographer, a writer and neuroscience marketing professional. He’s also the director of “The Poetry of Science.”
The poetry of physics
Condensed-matter theory PhD candidate Makinde Ogunnaike is featured in the Poetry of Science project.
3 Questions: Maaya Prasad and Kathleen Esfahany on Vision, Perception, and the Poetry of Science
Students featured in public art exhibits in prominent locations throughout Boston.
Joshua Sariñana (PhD ‘11) Believes in The Poetry of Science
Joshua Sariñana (PhD ‘11) has always asked big questions. “I wanted to understand consciousness,” Sariñana says of studying neuroscience at MIT. “Where do we begin? Why is there something versus nothing at all?” His voracious curiosity has led Sariñana to traverse various disciplines in his intellectual career, from philosophy and psychology to written and visual arts.
What Does Neuroscience-Inspired Art Look and Feel Like?
Although he originally wanted to be a physicist, a love for psychology and philosophy landed Joshua Sariñana PhD ’11 in neuroscience. “I wanted to study consciousness at multiple levels—the behavioral, physiological, and the genetic—how the brain communicates information from single neurons to larger networks of the brain.
Histories of the Body in Art, Science, and Society
The Longfellow Fall Lecture Series takes place annually each October-November, and is free and open to the public. Each talk offers an opportunity for audiences to connect with scholarly, poetic, and artistic work that broadens the context in which we understand the site's history.
The Poetry of Science and The Peoples’ heART: Connecting Poetry and Science with Health Care and Social Justice
Two art projects, The Poetry of Science and The Peoples’ heART (Health Equity x Art), have come together to confront health equity and under-representation through the combination of science and art.
3 Questions: Sheena Vasquez and Christian Loyo on communicating science through poetry
PhD students discuss their participation in The Poetry of Science project and the importance of bringing the arts into science communication.
The Poetry of Science project highlights two Media Lab students
The Poetry of Science project, supported by the Cambridge Arts Council Art for Racial Justice Grant and directed by MIT alum Joshua Sariñana, profiles several MIT students, two of whom are students at the Media Lab: Huili Chen (research assistant in the Personal Robots group) and Shannon Johnson (research assistant in the Synthetic Neurobiology group).
Racial Justice Through the Lens of Science, Poetry, and Photography
Racial bias is well documented in photography—consider, for example, photographers’ inability to capture and expose darker skin tones with film. Within the emulsion of film, the chemicals that recapitulate light, is inherent social bias. There’s a distinct prejudice within the algorithms of our digital imaging technologies.
JASON SAMAROO SELECTED FOR THE POETRY OF SCIENCE PROJECT
PhD student Jason Samaroo of the Larkin Lab was recently selected for a project with The Poetry of Science, an initiative directed by the Cambridge Arts Council in which poets and scientists of color from the Cambridge area collaborate to create poetry for a public art installation centered around science, poetry, and racial social justice. Through this collaboration with the Poetry of Science, Jason is hoping to further understand the relationship between life and art, analogous to the perspectives of science and poetry.
Poetry Meets Science at BBF’s Lit Crawl 2021
The Poetry of Science is a project aimed at addressing the lack of representation for People of Color (POC) in both poetry and the sciences. Their session at Lit Crawl Boston 2021, “Poetry+Science: New Realities,” will be their first demonstration of the similarities between the sciences and humanities. Joshua Sariñana, their director, was able to answer a few questions about Poetry of Science ahead of June 10.
Art project will pair poets and scientists of color, post and publish, but first it must find its poets
The Poetry of Science was funded in February as part of Art For Racial Justice Grants, in which Cambridge Arts gave nine projects $5,000 each. Each poet selected for the project will get a $75 cash prize from the funding and be published in an issue of the Massachusetts-based Spry literary journal dedicated to it, the project’s FAQ says.
Cambridge artists awarded $5K to create art for racial justice
Sariñana explained the poems could cover a wide range of topics, including “the motivations as it relates to the research. Could be about their methods, it could be about the history of their background, how it relates to why they got into scientific work, or how Cambridge impacts their views on scientific research.”
$45,000 In Art For Racial Justice Grants Announced By Cambridge Arts
These are among the nine projects that have been awarded Art for Racial Justice Grants by Cambridge Arts and the City of Cambridge. The new funding program—grants are $5,000 each, totaling $45,000 overall--support artists to create work with a lens of resilience and racial equity to benefit people who live or work in Cambridge.
Joshua Sariñana: Promotes photography and poetry ‘Through These Realities’
I caught up with the multi-faceted Joshua Sariñana to talk about his new project with the Somerville Arts Council, titled Through These Realities, that will seek six local poets and photographers of color, who will create a series of images, inspired by prompt-guided poetry from poets.
Photography
Striking Winners of the 2017 Chromatic Awards for Color Photography
As a new entry on the photography contest scene, the first annual Chromatic Awards is a celebration of color photography. The contest, which was a huge success, saw 3,000 entries from photographers in 75 countries. Across 20 categories, amateur and professional photographers submitted their best work in a wide variety of styles.
Representation of Hidden Communication by Joshua Sariñana
Although he originally wanted to be a physicist, a love for psychology and philosophy landed Joshua Sariñana PhD ’11 in neuroscience. “I wanted to study consciousness at multiple levels—the behavioral, physiological, and the genetic—how the brain communicates information from single neurons to larger networks of the brain.
Image of Structure by Joshua Sariñana
The Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is seemingly alive. Because of the reflective and angular elements of this structure are sharp.
Art that wants you to step away from the phone
A brand new art project from Dubai-based Gulf Photo Plus wants to encourage people to slow down and appreciate the art of storytelling.
Las mejores fotos del 2017 tomadas con iPhone
La fotografía de celular esta cada vez mas vigente, y este concurso deja en claro que no es necesario un gran equipo para hacer imágenes de calidad. El IPPAWARDS comenzó en el 2007 y este año convocó miles de fotógrafos de 140 países. Está dividido en 19 categorías más un gran premio general. Estos son los primeros puestos de todas las categorías.
Winning Entries in the iPhone Photography Awards 2017
The winning entries in the annual iPhone photography awards have been announced, chosen from thousands of entries submitted from around the world. The overall winner: children in Iraq playing against a backdrop of oil wells set aflame by Isis.
These Are the Best iPhone Photos of the Year
The winners were selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from over 140 countries. More than 50 prizes were also given in categories such as Portrait, Still Life and Abstract.
Scene at MIT: Reflections on Stata
"I always have at least one camera with me at all times, and now that I have a toddler most of my images are made between work and home. Because I work across the street from the Stata Center — which contains the Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL) and Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, among other things — I come across the building several times a day. It’s an easy building to shoot in that it lends itself to photography, and I’m constantly bumping into people taking a photo of it.
20 Of The Best Photos From The EyeEm Awards So Far
La fotografía de celular esta cada vez mas vigente, y este concurso deja en claro que no es necesario un gran equipo para hacer imágenes de calidad. El IPPAWARDS comenzó en el 2007 y este año convocó miles de fotógrafos de 140 países. Está dividido en 19 categorías más un gran premio general. Estos son los primeros puestos de todas las categorías.
These Award-Winning Photos from around the World Were Taken on an iPhone
The 2015 iPhone Photography Award winners prove that great photography is in the eye, not the camera.
Griffin Museum of Photography opens an exhibition of black and white images by Joshua Sariñana
Joshua Sariñana’s black and white images of The Stata Center building at MIT are as disorienting as the neuroscience research he conducted there on campus. Expecting to enter the realm of research and find answers, he came away with more questions. In response, he created these photographs, representing his feelings of uneasiness with the constant ambiguity of science.
iPhone Photography Awards Winners Revealed
The iPhone Photography Awards, an international photography contest that fosters iPhone and mobile photography, has announced the winners of its eighth annual competition.