About
Cere Davis is a multidisciplinary artist and engineer based in Berkeley, CA. Her background includes work and studies in computer systems architecture, physics, and vocal improvisation. Her work freely crosses boundaries between playful laboratory experimentation and acousto-kinetic studies. Her current creations focus on interactive educational sculptures that viscerally demonstrate many subtle principles of physics through sonic means. Her works encourage the observer to explore their pre-conceptions of sound and movement.
Education
- BS Physics, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1993
Awards
- 2018 — Berkeley Civic Arts Grant
- 2018 — Awesome Award for Liquid Loom, Awesome Foundation SF Chapter
- 2015 — Voted Best Wind Sculpture at Thingamajigs Aeolian Day, Oakland, CA
- 1992 — McNair Scholars Program, University of Maine, Orono
Selected Exhibitions
Liquid Loom (2018)
- US Mutek Festival, Midway Gallery, SF, CA, 2019
- San Francisco Awesome Foundation, SF, 2018
- Leonardo/ISAST Convening & 50th Anniversary, San Francisco Art Institute, 2018
- Forms — Stanford University 200 year commemoration of Mary Shelley, 2018
Water Organ (2017)
- Liquid Assets Water Organ featured with Thingamajigs Performance Group, San Jose Art Museum, CA, 2017
- Last Festival, San Jose, CA, 2017
- Dorkbot SF, SF, CA, 2017
- Manylabs, SF, CA, 2017
- Paseo Prototyping Festival, San Jose, CA, 2016
God’s Eye (2016)
- Giant Steps Art Exhibition, Seattle, WA, 2016
- Leonardo Art Science and Technology Festival, Stanford, CA, 2016
- CCL Science-Art Presentation at California Academy of the Arts Nightlife, 2015
Piana Obscura / Chatty Spring Ballz (2013–2014)
- Megopolis Festival, SF, 2015
- Bay Area Maker Faire, San Mateo, CA, 2014
- Aeolian Day, Oakland, CA, 2014
Residencies
- Chabot Space & Science Center AiR, December/January 2017/18
- Featured Artist/Resident with Thingamajigs Performance Group, Bay Area, CA, June 2017
- Science-Art Fellow and Curator at Manylabs, SF, CA, June 2016–Present
- “Make-It-Move” Moving Sculpture Residency, Minneapolis, MN, September 2016
- Artistic Director and Curator at Counter Culture Labs, Oakland, CA
- Animotion, the art of motion — Leonardo Art and Science LASER Lecture Series, May 2016
Lectures
- On Creating ‘Second Ecologies’, Berkeley Public Library, 2019
- San Jose State University Laser Art-Science Lecture Series, 2019
- Reframing Human Affordances, Binary Salon 03 — Midway Gallery, SF, 2018
- Development of the Liquid Loom project — Awesome Foundation convening, SF, CA, 2018
- Science of Sound, Manylabs, SF, CA, 2017
- Kinetic Design Patterns Produced Through Motion — LASER Talks, UCSF, 2016
- The Art of Motion — LASER Talks, Berkeley, CA, April 2016
- Speaking panelist in SFMoma Open Space discussion on Open Spaces and Ownership, 2015
- Panel speaker at LAST Festival’s Homo Digitalis lecture series, Stanford, CA, 2015
Publications
- Instructables: Creating “Fire Ants”, Moving Sculpture
- Editor of “Captaincy, a naval miniatures game for the age of sail” by John Carnahan
- Instructables: Creating Long Acousto-Kinetic “Reverb” Springs
- C M Davis and S. McNutt, Lightning Associated with the 1992 Eruptions of Mt. Spurr Volcano, Alaska. EOS, Trans American Geophysical Union. vol.74, no 43, supplement, p. 649
- C M Davis and S. McNutt, Volcanic Lightning at Mt. Spurr, 1992. Colima Volcano: Fourth International Meeting, Colima, Mexico. January 24 to 28, 1994, p.112, Abstracts Volume
- C Davis, G Seshaajyar, Jp McClymer, A Comparison of Micro-Viscosity to Shear Viscosity in Lyotropic Nematic Liquid Crystals. Bulletin of APS, v. 38, issue. 768 (1993)
- S R McNutt and C Davis, Lightning Associated with the 1992 Eruptions of Mt. Spurr Volcano, Alaska