Portraits of Planets in Other Solar Systems
Bryce Croll, Astronomy

Over 300 planets have been discovered to date in solar systems other than our own. The characteristics of these planets have been odder and more diverse than our simple theories suggested and that we could even imagine in our wildest dreams. In the past 15 years we have moved from the discovery of the first exoplanet around a sun-like star, to now where we have begun to characterize the temperature of these planets, the chemicals in their atmospheres, and the strength of the winds on these planets. In the near-term future recently launched space telescopes will allow us to find an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone and begin the quest for the Holy Grail: the search for life on distant worlds.

Inhabitable Maps and the Performance of Space
Marcin Kedzior, Architecture

Space does not exist as such but is continually made and re-made, construed and constituted through encounters with things: animate and inanimate bodies, images, values, stratifications, social forms and maps. Through an analysis of several ‘inhabitable maps’ I will discuss the interplay between space and imagination and some political and social repercussions.

The Reproduction of Space
David Court, Visual Studies

I will be speaking about my thesis exhibition Changing Installation for the UTAC Lounge as it can be related to concerns in contemporary spatial discourse as well as giving some attention to the language of location and offering some thoughts on the space of art. My work is an investigation of the identity, appearance, and function of a particular space – the lounge adjacent to the official gallery space allocated for the exhibition and other similar spaces around the campus (e.g. hybrid and multi-use spaces that mix the public and the private, the domestic and the institutional, and that seek to cultivate an atmosphere of relaxation
and idleness). The resulting installation includes a number of discrete components, offering a space of multiple potential framings and connections, fluctuating between particularity and ambiguity, and operating on the level of the liminal and peripheral.