October 24 - 26 LETI - Science - Creativity program tests alternative tools for scientific research and innovations. The program includes a panel discussion on 24 October and a three-day Nautilus 4.0 school session.

St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" actively develops the science-art community. Last summer, the Chair of PR studies in partnership with the Botanical Garden held a three-day school "Nautilus. Immersion". Four inter-university groups developed project concepts at the intersection of science and creativity. What's next?

"My colleagues and I hope that the invited experts from the autumn school will have an impact on the establishment of meta-engineering at LETI"

Key experts share their views on the engineer’s mission in art and the creative input into the LETI's unique potential realization.

"For me, any engineer is a source of creative thinking. The function of creative engineering cannot be overestimated, because practically any contemporary artistic project requires not only an understanding and knowledge of technology but also the ability to adapt it to the creative task, and this is an almost exclusive ability to turn a text into the object".

The project experience makes Lisa assert that due to the core engineering competencies, his role in art is not that of an assistant or a second fiddle - without him, the project cannot come into life.

"When we put together an interdisciplinary project, the group can include people from different professions - designers, artists, historians and the engineers - it's a team that acts as a single organism."

Among the projects produced by Lisa is "A Measure of Chaos. Science as a mode of communication", an Art&Science exhibition and educational project. It was created within the 15/24 project Museum of the Hermitage XXI Century Foundation and was located in two cities - St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. Novosibirsk did not appear by chance - at some point it became clear that art&science could be a cultural driver for the development of the city of which Akademgorodok is a part. In St Petersburg, the site for the project was the Popov Central Museum of Communications. The aim was to explore and actualize a productive dialogue between scientific disciplines, contemporary art and humanitarian knowledge in order to find new solutions in each of these spheres. The project included a small exhibition and a large educational program, where contemporary practices were divided into the four dominant tracks: quantum technologies, biology, deep media and artificial intelligence.

Today, under the auspices of PJSC Gazprom, St. Petersburg hosts a large festival of creative and educational projects called "Friends of St. Petersburg". Where Liza is the curator of the Great Embassy program. The name refers to the "engineering internship" of the young Peter in Europe, after which he became, according to Liza, "Russia's first innovator". The importance of hands-on project work for students and young scientists cannot be overestimated.

"It is very important for young professionals, because when they graduate from their university, they go out to implement their projects, and they already know how it works. If we have more people knowing how it works, the overall quality of cultural processes will be better."

Lisa Savina opens the panel discussion of Inter Week on 24 October at 14:00

Ilya Shalashov is an invited expert in the three-day school as part of the LETI - Science - Creativity program, and a metal artist. He is known at LETI as the author of the "AI Monument", which has a more catching name LETIBIT. The story of LETIBIT itself is the materialization of an idea that can be equally treated an art object and a scientific tool.

In the midst of covid isolation, Ilya was asked to make an art object, which was to be a hallmark of LETI. Accordingly, to be located not on campus, but to broadcast the university's innovativeness in one of the city's public spaces. The order was urgent, its deadline was the start of university’s admission campaign. As a result of a creative and technological brainstorming, Ilya and a team of co-thinkers with different professional competencies created LETIBIT in a month. Installed in the Sevkabel Port public space in the summer of 2021, it became an outpost of LETI in St. Petersburg.

The scientific and historical source for LETIBIT's creative process was the available information on Popov's inventions, the acoustic research of the American designer and experimentalist Harry Bertoia, and LETIBIT team own knowledge of acoustics and metal science. LETIBIT is an "aeolian harp" art object, i.e. it is visible, tangible and audible.

"I am interested in outdoor art objects because they contribute into urban environment. We plunge into it every day. Each of our daily routes belongs to it. We assimilate with the space around us, and over time what we see and perceive becomes a part of us."

LETIBIT is now located in the Lenpoligrafmash space. You can learn more about Ilya's creative and materialistic approaches by meeting him at a Nautilus School workshop on October 24-26.