Raphael and Spada explore the intersections of astronomy, evolution, mythology and countless other subjects. Like latter-day alchemists, they transmute a diverse selection of visual materials into rich, multi-layered perspectives on the nature of the universe.

Last summer, Raphael and Spada began to explore the libraries' rare holdings in fields ranging from Kabbalism to geometry. Inspired by their discoveries, the Southern California artists created "From Zero to Infinity," a series of digital prints that confront the eternal principles — creation and destruction, harmony and strife, infinity and void — that define our existence.

"From Zero to Infinity: The Story of Everything" traces Raphael and Spada's creative journey in three exhibitions: the objects that inspired their work, the multi-layered digital prints of "From Zero to Infinity," and visual materials that continue the artists' explorations of these exotic mysteries. Complementing Raphael and Spada's digital artworks, the libraries present "Notes from the Story of Everything," an exhibition of rare books and other materials from the special collections that partly inspired their creative journey.

An opening reception is scheduled for September 3, 5:30-7 p.m. Please RSVP by going to www.usc.edu/esvp and entering the code ARTSCIENCE, or by calling (213) 740-1744.

Daily: Thursday 09/03/2009 - Sunday 12/13/2009; All day

University Park Campus Doheny Memorial Library

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An exhibit follows each step in the selection of a new justice, highlighting historical figures, famous incidents and recent events.

With the recent confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the USC Gould School of Law takes a closer look at the nomination and confirmation of new justices.

The exhibition “The Path to the Supreme Court: The Nomination and Confirmation Process of a Justice” explains each step of the process, using photographs, political cartoons, news clippings, and the official Supreme Court Justice bobbleheads.

Daily: Thursday 09/03/2009 - Friday 12/18/2009; All day

University Park Campus Musick Law Building Foyer

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The exhibition will include pieces from the ongoing Space Field series, as well as work from Japan, Paris, Turkey, Mexico and Alaska. It will also feature work from several collaborations between Raphael and other artists.

Victor Raphael (born 1950) works in a wide range of media, spanning painting, photography, filmmaking, printmaking and digital technology. He creates complex and beautiful images that expand conventional views of time and space. For the past three decades, Raphael has produced a unique body of work by merging traditional media such as painting, photography and printmaking with modern electronic media, including video, digital printing and interactive technologies. In addition to his central themes of the exploration of the cosmos and aspects of travel — through space or time — and their visual records, the artist has developed an important body of paintings, in which water and its protean and timeless qualities form an important part.

Raphael's photography process of digitally manipulating NASA photographs of planets and other natural celestial phenomena into Polaroid prints, and next altering them by hand with metallic paints and gold and metal leaf, earned his work inclusion among the 50 best examples of Polaroid photography in Polaroid 50: Art and Technology, a 1996 international touring exhibition that commemorated the company's 50th anniversary.

Related Events

October 15
Songs in the Earth and Air, a concert of vocal improvisations inspired by Raphael's work.

October 23, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Artist talk. Raphael will discuss his body of work. Refreshments will be served.

October 29
Videos by Victor Raphael, a screening of six Raphael videos, and a discussion with the artist and David Wilson, director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Weekly: Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat 09/09/2009 - 12/19/2009; 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

University Park Campus USC Fisher Museum of Art Harris Hall

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Children from the USC Family of Schools express themselves artistically using only one color.

Each academic year, the USC Fisher Museum of Art plans, curates, and professionally installs four temporary student art exhibitions at the University Village Shopping Center food court for the Art in the Village program.

For this year's first exhibition, elementary school kids belonging to the USC Family of Schools (32nd Street/USC Magnet, Alexander Science Center School, Foshay Learning Center, John Mack Elementary, Norwood Elementary, St. Agnes Parish School, St. Vincent Parish School, Vermont Avenue Elementary and Weemes Elementary) were invited to create and submit artwork fitting the theme "Color Me..."

Each exhibition kicks off with an opening reception honoring the forty students with the best artwork. The children have the opportunity to speak with family, friends and community members about their artwork. They are congratulated for their achievements during an award ceremony, where they receive a certificate signed by Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks. 

Funded in part by a USC Neighborhood Outreach Grant, Art in the Village represents a partnership between the USC Fisher Museum of Art the University Village Shopping Center and the USC Family of Schools. 

Daily: Tuesday 10/27/2009 - Friday 12/04/2009; All day

University Village Shopping Center Food Court 3375 South Hoover Street Los Angeles CA 90007

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Undergraduates explore the end times through painting, drawing, photography, videography, printmaking, and mixed media installation.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! These familiar words acknowledge the current sense of alarmism, while evoking the potential for real danger. Based on real or perceived fears, the Apocalypse takes form as a shared social psychosis. The work in "Apocalypse Wow!" reconsiders this phenomenon by questioning the role of dominant structures and irreverently injecting humor into the veins of a serious subject. Working with issues as diverse as environmental vulnerability, the digitization of everything, future dystopia, and the complexity of connectedness, the young artists of "Apocalypse Wow!" are examining a more nuanced set of possibilities for their existence in a time of great uncertainty... while you run for the hills!

The opening reception will be held November 19, 5-8 p.m. The exhibition will run through November 27 and will be open Monday through Friday, 12-5 p.m.

The show will feature the work of Janelle Carabajal, Heber Rodriguez, Isabelle Alford-Lago, Renata Popenhagen, Jen Wohlner, Betsy Lastar, Jon Wingo, Katie Martinez, Nicole Arnell, Mor Germezi, Robin Hextrum, Senna Chen, Max Skeen, Martin Benson and Sydney Mills.

Dates: 11/19/2009, 11/20/2009, 11/23/2009, 11/24/2009, 11/25/2009, 11/26/2009, 11/27/2009: All day

Pacific Design Center B239 8687 Melrose Avenue Los Angeles CA 90069

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The University Park Campus Health Center, Residential Education and Recreational Sports offer presentations on living well.

Beyond Pizza: Eating Well at EVerybody's Kitchen and Parkside Restaurant
Just because it's "all you can eat" doesn't mean you have to!

SCuisine: Eating Well at USC
Making healthy food choices on campus and selecting snacks to energize you throughout your busy day

Energize Your Workout: Food to Fuel Your Inner Athlete
Understanding calories, proteins and carbs so that you can make healthy choices for your workout — all about sports drinks, energy bars and protein supplements

Eating for As: The Best Foods for Exams, Midterms and Finals
Choosing the foods for concentration, creativity and productivity — understanding the impact of coffee, tea, soda and energy drinks

Healthy Holiday Eating
One session about American holiday foods (international students welcome), and another about maintaining a healthy diet during the holidays

Dates: 10/09/2009, 10/12/2009, 11/13/2009, 11/20/2009, 11/23/2009, 11/30/2009, 12/14/2009: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Multiple Locations

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Join students and faculty for a presentation by James Fowler of the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems and UC San Diego.

Fowler is associate professor in the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems at CALIT2 and the political science department at the University of California, San Diego.

From Dr. Fowler: “I present intriguing evidence to show that our social networks drive and shape virtually every aspect of our lives. How we feel, whom we marry, whether we fall ill, how much money we make, and whether we vote all depend on what others around us — even those distantly connected to us — are doing, thinking and feeling. I show that these connections have an ancient evolutionary past, and describe how this will affect our new life as technology moves our networks online.”

Lunch will be served.

Monday 11/23/2009: 12:00 PM

University Park Campus Annenberg School for Communication 207

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A lecture by Hari Manoharan of the Department of Physics at Stanford University.

From Manoharan: "If we deform a material and restore it precisely back to its starting point, our everyday intuition tells us that the material before and afterward is identical. This is true classically, and was believed to be true quantum-mechanically until recently. Even if all the atoms, electrons and other ingredients are returned exactly to where they started, we now know that the restored material can differ from the undeformed material by nontrivial quantum mechanical phase factors. The importance of these so-called geometric or Berry phases has garnered increasing appreciation and attention in recent years. The quantum Berry phase can fundamentally alter the ground state of a system, lead to new states of quantum matter, and be exploited in quantum devices and topological quantum computing strategies. This talk will overview new experiments from our lab, which employ scanning tunneling microscopy and atomic manipulation to directly visualize Berry’s phase in nanostructures, graphene and topological insulators."

Monday 11/23/2009: 4:00 PM - 5:30 AM

University Park Campus Stauffer Science Lecture Hall 102

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Smith was the silver medal winner in the 2004 USA International Harp Competition. She made her National Symphony Orchestra debut in 2003 and has been honored in numerous competitions throughout the country. She performs as both an orchestral musician and concert artist.

Monday 11/23/2009: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

University Park Campus Ramo Recital Hall

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Author Russell Banks and filmmaker Atom Egoyan discuss the challenges and excitement of using history as a subject for literature and film.

Russell Banks is a novelist whose work spans the bleakest of contemporary stories (The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction) and a dazzling piece of historical recreation, Cloudsplitter, his novel recounting John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Banks’ novels turn on the understandings and misunderstandings brought by time, as characters challenge each other’s versions of the truth. Atom Egoyan’s films powerfully evoke the treachery of memory. His eerie and haunting visual style, particularly in his stunning adaptation of The Sweet Hereafter, uses our confidence in what we see to make us doubt what we know. Where Banks plays with the voices of four narrators, each undoing what came before, only to be deconstructed in turn, Egoyan, in films like Calendar, Exotica and Ararat, obsessively transforms vibrant images into memories before our eyes, moving us in and out of time, bringing the dead back and making the old young, just for a moment. 

Bringing these two geniuses of time construction together will open a new conversation about how we learn, forget and lie in time — and how history returns only to mock and mourn for us all.

The two will speak about their individual work, and then we will open a larger conversation about the particular challenges and excitement of using history as a subject for both literature and film and moving between the two media.

Organized by the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Monday 11/23/2009: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

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