Beauty and the Origins of Electrophysiology, Telecommunications & the Global Theater
Best Bet
Lecture/Discussion/Panel/Talk/Q&A/Seminar
Science
Spirituality
Institute of World Culture, Concord Hall
**Events may have been canceled or postponed. Please contact the venue to confirm the event.
Date & Time
Mon, Oct 26 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Address (map)
1407 Chapala St., Santa Barbara, CA
Venue (website)
Institute of World Culture, Concord Hall
Beauty and the Origins of Electrophysiology, Telecommunications and the Global Theater
Presenter: Alan Macy
Monday, October 26, 2026, 7:00 – 8:30 pm (PDT)
In-person at Concord Hall, 1407 Chapala St., Santa Barbara, CA and livestream: www.youtube.com@iwcinsantabarbara/streams
What connects our experience of beauty with electricity, the human nervous system, the telephone, and today’s globally connected world? This talk traces a fascinating story beginning with 18th-century ideas about beauty, pleasure, emotion, and taste. The salons and writings of the Marquise de Lambert, together with the work of Sulzer, helped shape early psychophysiological thought, while the experiments of Galvani and Volta laid foundations for electrophysiology, electromagnetism, and telecommunications.
With the development of the telephone, electrical activity within the human body could directly mediate electrical signals traveling beyond it, allowing the human voice to reach across vast distances in real time. Our nervous systems, in a sense, began to extend beyond the boundaries of our bodies. As telecommunications became increasingly intertwined with electrical power generation and transmission, humanity entered an era of extraordinary connectivity, population growth, and energy consumption. In just 13 generations, these developments have helped transform how we communicate, relate, and experience our place in the world.
Alan Macy is an engineer, artist, educator, and longtime contributor to Santa Barbaras creative and civic community. He is the founder of the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology (SBCAST), a downtown community bringing together artists, scientists, technologists, and other creative thinkers in a collaborative live/work environment. His Santa Barbara involvement has also included leadership with the Summer Solstice Celebration, Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, the Waldorf School of Santa Barbara, and Fishbon, an artist-technologist collaborative known for experimental art, salons, and community events. Macy earned a B.S. in Electronics Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara, with emphasis in digital signal processing and biomedical engineering. He has taught at UCSB, Cal Poly, and Santa Barbara City College and is a founder, former president, and longtime Research and Development Director of Goleta-based BIOPAC Systems, where his work has focused on biomedical instrumentation and technologies for measuring human physiology.
Join us for an exploration of the surprising connections among beauty, emotion, electricity, communication, and the emergence of our global theater.
