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CBC
2 days ago
- Health
- CBC
Through nature walks, insect trails and stained glass, this artist seeks healing in wonder
Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist Laura Hudspith's experience with language, her body and its relationship to nature changed when she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic illness. Hudpsith's work spans sculpture, installation, photography and text. She's worked extensively with copper, algae and sea glass. Her art explores her understanding of health, the body and the molecular. While completing her MFA at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Hudspith became inspired by language and the weight words carry in different circumstances. Language, like meditation, can offer healing, clarity and introspection, she explains. Through her ritualized walks, which have become central to her life, Hudspith discovered insect trails in the wood of fallen trees. The language-like shapes left by the insects became the inspiration behind her latest exhibition, Wanderer, which is now on view at Zalucky Contemporary in Toronto Hudspith's newest body of work seeks to find the connections between autoimmunity, language and magic. Guided by her experiences with illness and her interests in philosophy and science, Wanderer explores the microbiological implications of turning inward to heal oneself. The exhibition is made up of floor and wall-mounted sculptures made from stained glass and copper. The organic and fluid shapes of each work mirrors the asymmetry often found in nature. Tendrils of copper branch out throughout the borders of each mounted piece, paralleling the insect-like sculpture, a head, and behind, and to either side. CBC Arts spoke with Hudspith to discuss her work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. CBC Arts: You explain that your experience with chronic illness has informed your view and interpretation of nature in a metaphysical sense. Can you elaborate on this further? Laura Hudspith: Becoming chronically ill marked a profound shift for me in many ways. I witnessed the transmutation of my psyche and soma. Through these experiences, I've learned to allow my body and illness to act as guides, and endeavour to train my focus toward considering the bio-possibilities that could emerge from rethinking bodies and illness through the lens of the molecular. I've come to see molecules and cells, viral and inorganic matter, as possessing distinct autonomies. These kinds of recognitions open me up to experiencing the healing properties of coming to know something truly profound about oneself and the world — what I call "wonder." And the experience of wonder can be so encompassing that it begins to matter-me to its shape, soothing my body, even assuaging a flare-up of autoimmune symptoms altogether. In this way, wonder becomes a form of molecular healing, and I seek this sensation out. You've brought up this concept of "magical thinking," something that stems from meditative walks. Could you explain what magical thinking means to you in the context of your art and how it informs your work? I've found that the act of walking can be practised as a form of healing, particularly when walking amidst densely wooded or pastoral areas outside of urban spaces. There's something really special that happens here: the thump of footfall feels as though it's held closer to our bodies, and to all of the many non-human bodies around you, be they animal, vegetal, geological. In my experience, the effect of this sound dampening, at least of my own movements, creates a spatial sense much like being in a bubble of tranquillity and solitude that moves with you, a bubble that I find ideal for turning inward. And yet, in these spaces, you simultaneously become so much more aware of the density of a place, its liveliness and also its expansiveness. I find this heightened, dual awareness to be ideal for reattuning ourselves to self, to our innermost core, but also the world. Walking opens us up for encounters, both within and without. The work marks a turn toward "magical thinking" insofar as peeling back the metaphysical properties and biomechanical processes behind how immaterial matters — such as language, or the social and cultural structures that order our everyday lives — affect the material world in meaningful ways, such as making us ill or well. Their effects can seem almost "magical" in nature. In entering the terrain of inquiry that this word "magic" opens up as it relates to healing, Wanderer draws from my image archive of insect trails I've collected while walking, and from mystical figures of our own making, said to represent the core of our being. Here, I look to the archetypal figure of the "wild woman." Like walking rituals that carve pathways in me for healing, wild woman mythos offers insight for deepening our self-knowledge and worldly connection. She embodies our intuition and wisdom and the untamability of our core being. She is conceived of as a healer and life-giver, and as a death doula, even a necromancer or a witch. As our wise and intuitive core, she senses what is no longer working for us about ourselves and guides us through transforming that self-material into something that will better serve us. That is, if we attune ourselves to listen and allow our bodies to act as guides. How did you make the connection between language and the insect trails found on your meditative walks? I've always been drawn to words and texts — how meaning can change and deepen when a few words are strung together. I became more particularly fascinated with semantic linguistics through my experiences with autoimmunity and coming to understand how language shapes our bodies and internal systems. The same words can carry distinct meanings and connotations when uttered outside or inside the medical sphere — for example, differences in meaning that can gnaw at you. Through my years of practicing walking meditation, I've amassed an archive of photographs documenting the burrowed insect trails in the cambium layer of the wood in fallen trees. Their trails have always appeared to me as some kind of arcane language or unknowable script that articulates a wisdom truly its own; its meaning is wholly illegible to me as a human, yet nevertheless intelligent. I began tracing these complex markings and serpentine trails, building stained glass patterns for what would become my Seer series, the wall-hanging works inWanderer. What sparked the evolution of the Seer series? Seers is inspired by the intricate, organic patterns produced by these wood-burrowing insects. Wild woman's eye (2024), made of stained glass and copper, was the first piece made in the Seer series, composing my imaginings of what her ancient and wizened, milky eyes might look like if she were to take corporeal form. She is perhaps capable of reading non-human text. My glassworks incorporate these tracings as either reflections in her eye or a way of seeing. Throughout the series, I began to evolve a geometrically perfect oval into increasingly amorphous eye forms with slight asymmetries. Our brains have a preference for symmetry, and encountering slight asymmetries can produce a subtle psychedelic effect. I love the idea that meeting the wild woman's gaze — whose gaze is also our own — might have this effect. What was the process like translating the intricate, microscopic realities of insect trails into tangible art forms? The process of translation has looked different for each body of work. In my Seer series forWanderer, using my walking image archive was most intuitive. Some glass patterns were created by tracing the trails directly, building the eye form around them, while others were formed by bringing together or overlaying several trails more instinctively. I felt that allowing for an intuitively-led process would serve as a way for me to honour the source of these images, while also echoing notions of wandering and meandering that are explored throughout the exhibition. I love glass, copper, algae and salts. Copper atoms have free electrons that are constantly searching for space and a point of connection, which I find so beautiful. Copper atoms are indeed on the move, changing and becoming just like you and I. I see my materials as collaborators who might help reorient our thinking as we peer into our being. Through other bodies of work, I've observed and imaged many of my own cellular structures — breast, ovary, and lymph, for example — as well as molecular bodies that we are often in close relation to, from algae to sedimentary rock. I find that the varied textures and uneven luminosity inherent to stained glass render these microscope-gathered histologies with such clarity and revelation.
National Post
2 days ago
- National Post
How Canadian fentanyl smuggling to the U.S. really works and who's behind it: Full Comment podcast
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content Article content Between President Donald Trump claiming there's a flood of fentanyl from Canada to the U.S., and people here insisting there's almost none, the truth is elusive. A new American report gets to the bottom of what's really going on, and its author, Jonathan Caulkins, talks to Brian about what he found. Specializing in crime systems, the professor from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College breaks down how global supply chains run by criminal organizations moving from Mexico to China to Australia feed Canadian labs with precursor chemicals. And how much of the final made-in-Canada product actually ends up on America's streets — including, unexpectedly, in Alaska. Article content Article content
American Military News
4 days ago
- Business
- American Military News
Videos: $92 billion in energy, technology investment unveiled by Trump admin
President Donald Trump touted $92 billion in technology and energy investments in Pennsylvania by 20 different companies during a speech at Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday. The president claimed that the investments reflect the 'true golden age' of the United States. 'I think we have a true golden age for America. And we've been showing it, and it truly is the hottest country anywhere in the world,' Trump said during Tuesday's Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University. 'And you're going to see some real action here. So get ready.' .@POTUS: "We are building a future where American workers will forge the steel, produce the energy, build the factories… I think we have a true Golden Age for America… it truly is the HOTTEST country anywhere in the world." 🔥 — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 15, 2025 'This afternoon, 20 leading technology and energy companies are announcing more than $92 billion of investments in Pennsylvania,' Trump said. 'This is a really triumphant day for the people of the Commonwealth and for the United States of America. We're doing things that nobody ever thought possible.' 🚨@POTUS announced $92 BILLION of investments coming to Pennsylvania!💸 — The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 15, 2025 According to The Daily Caller, the $92 billion in technology and energy investments announced at Tuesday's summit include investments in Pennsylvania's natural gas plants, hydropower facilities, and artificial intelligence data centers. During Tuesday's Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, Trump explained that the energy and technology investment commitments by 20 different companies will ensure that 'the future is going to be designed, built and made right here in Pennsylvania and right here in Pittsburgh, and, I have to say, right here in the United States of America.' READ MORE: Video: 'American Drone Dominance' unleashed by Trump admin The president added that the investments discussed at Tuesday's summit include over $36 billion in new data center projects and over $56 billion in new energy infrastructure. Trump also noted that 'a lot more' investments would be 'announced in the coming weeks.' The White House confirmed that Tuesday's investments include a $25 billion investment by Google into infrastructure and data centers, a $25 billion investment by Blackstone into natural gas plants and data centers, and a $6 billion investment by CoreWeave into data center expansion. Trump also announced on Tuesday that Knighthead Capital Management is investing $15 billion to help 'resurrect' the Homer City Generating Station. The president said the former coal-fired power plant will become the 'largest natural gas-fired power plant ever to be built in North America.' .@POTUS: I promised I would save the Homer City Power Plant that Biden's Green New Scam forced to shut down — and I'm pleased to report that with a $15B dollar investment from Knighthead Capital Management, the Homer City site is being resurrected as the largest natural gas-fired… — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 15, 2025
Newsweek
4 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Emerald AI Has a New Approach to Meeting AI's Energy Demand
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet highlighted the surging demand for energy that will be needed to power the growth in artificial intelligence (AI) at an event this week in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Republican Senator Dave McCormick organized an AI and energy summit Tuesday at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he and other political and business leaders framed the race to develop AI as crucial to economic and national security interests. "This is a competition we must win," McCormick said in opening remarks at the event. Billionaire businessman Jonathan Gray, president and CEO of the asset management firm Blackstone Group, said in a panel discussion at the event that access to energy has emerged as the main constraint on AI. President Donald Trump and Pennsylvania Republican Senator Dave McCormick at an event Tuesday focused on AI and energy. President Donald Trump and Pennsylvania Republican Senator Dave McCormick at an event Tuesday focused on AI and energy. Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University "Energy is the limiting factor," Gray said. "Unless we get the energy side right, we can't do this." Energy analysts predict a coming spike in electricity demand for energy-hungry data centers. A Department of Energy report in December predicted that electricity use by data centers in the U.S. could nearly triple over the coming three years, consuming as much as 12 percent of the country's total electricity output by 2028. Tech companies are racing to secure connections to the electric grid, pouring money into new energy sources and, in some cases, securing their own power supplies. Grid managers, utility companies and regulators, meanwhile, are wrestling with how to meet the growing demand while keeping the power supply affordable and reliable. Sustainability is also at risk as the AI boom drives up greenhouse gas emissions, knocking many tech companies off target for their net-zero climate goals. Against this fraught backdrop, one emerging technology seeks to make AI data centers friendlier users of the power grid. "Our goal is to make these data centers flexible in their power consumption," Varun Sivaram, CEO and founder of Emerald AI, told Newsweek. Emerald made waves this month when it announced a $24.5 million round of financing backed by big names connecting the tech, energy and climate worlds, including chip maker Nvidia, former climate envoy John Kerry and Kleiner Perkins chair John Doerr. Sivaram explained that Emerald's platform allows grid managers to remotely shift power demand for data centers without affecting AI performance. "That makes it possible to connect far more data centers to today's energy system and more efficiently use today's energy system without a massive build-out of new infrastructure," he said. Utility companies and grid managers must plan for peak energy demand—those times when electricity use will be highest across the service area—and build electricity generation capacity to match those peak moments. Often, some of the most expensive and most polluting sources in a regional power fleet are "peaker plants," the ones that turn on only at times of peak demand. But if those power companies could better anticipate and control the demand for electricity, they might avoid the need for those extra peak power supplies and reduce the risk of blackouts. Sivaram said Emerald applies that concept of demand-side management to the special properties of data centers, giving power system managers more flexibility. "They don't have to assume that a 200- or 500-megawatt data center is going to ask for its full allocation at that exact, worst moment when everybody's running their air conditioning on a hot summer day," he said. Emerald and some partner companies put the technology to a test recently in Phoenix, a place with a high concentration of data centers and a pressing need for air conditioning. "I think it was like 96 degrees that day," he said. "Everyone was using their air conditioning." When the local power provider alerted Emerald that peak energy demand was approaching, the company put its platform into action, reducing power consumption by AI chip clusters by 25 percent while the rest of the city needed the most energy. "We held that lower period of power consumption for three hours, during which time the power peaked and started coming back down," Sivaram said. Sivaram said he thinks this approach has the potential to flip the script on the AI energy issue, turning data centers into "grid allies" instead of a potential threat. "Communities are afraid their rates will go up, their power grid will crash, and these data centers will use diesel generators, which are dirty and create air pollution," he said. "Emerald AI's approach to flexibility mitigates all three of these." Newsweek will dive further into the issues around data center energy demand during an all-day event in September during Climate Week NYC. Mark your calendar for "Powering Ahead" on Thursday, September 25.
Business Journals
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Journals
Power shift: How CMU is helping shape America's energy evolution
As AI models grow more powerful, their appetite for energy also increases, straining an aging and outdated grid and prompting urgent questions about infrastructure, security and access. From reimagining AI data centers to modernizing and securing the electric grid, Carnegie Mellon University researchers are working on practical solutions to pressing challenges in how the U.S. produces, moves and secures energy. The AI-energy connection While AI drives economic growth and scientific breakthroughs, it's also straining the energy infrastructure that is currently in place. The good news? AI can help solve that problem. expand Zico Kolter 'As work across Carnegie Mellon shows, AI has the potential to drastically improve our energy consumption by assisting in developing more efficient techniques for grid operation, building better materials for batteries, and potentially even truly revolutionizing energy by accelerating the development of technologies like nuclear fusion,' said Zico Kolter, head of the Machine Learning Department in CMU's School of Computer Science. 'These are all big bets, to be clear, and advancing science is never a sure thing, but AI at its best can be a unique enabler of so many beneficial downstream technologies.' Getting into the fast lane Carnegie Mellon is pioneering the use of AI to modernize the electric grid to meet current and future needs. 'Transmission moves power from the locations where it is produced to the locations where it is needed, and the U.S. urgently needs more capacity,' said M. Granger Morgan, the Hamerschlag University Professor of Engineering at CMU. 'The Department of Energy predicts the country will need to more than double high-voltage transmission capacity over the next several decades. At the same time the construction of new long-distance transmission has stalled. Breaking the logjam that often makes it impossible to build new transmission capacity without placing an unacceptable burden on consumers' electric bills is a major challenge.' expand M. Granger Morgan CMU researchers are developing 'AI fast lanes' — special lanes on the electricity "highway" just for clean energy projects that power AI and data centers. These fast lanes would let clean energy projects connect to the grid faster, ensure the electricity stays affordable and reliable, help protect the environment and make things fair for everyone. These innovations are crucial as the U.S. grid integrates more intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar. Securing the future As the grid becomes more digitized, security gaps widen — unless we address them. CMU's CyLab Security and Privacy Institute and Electrical and Computer Engineering department in the College of Engineering are working to stay ahead of the threat curve, using AI to anticipate and neutralize cyberattacks before they cause widespread disruption. 'AI-driven energy expansion is a prime opportunity to harden our infrastructure against cyber threats,' said Audrey Kurth Cronin, director of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. 'Upgrading energy infrastructure for AI offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to replace vulnerable legacy systems with inherently more defensible technologies.' CMU researchers Lujo Bauer, Larry Pileggi and Vyas Sekar are calling on the research and policy communities to develop more comprehensive and accurate grid evaluation frameworks and datasets, and for updating threat models and grid resiliency requirements to match cyber attackers' realistic capabilities. As part of their research, they interviewed 18 grid security specialists and analyzed four major threats, from overloading smart devices to taking over entire power plants. They found wide disagreement on how likely or dangerous these threats are. 'Our work has shown that inconsistencies in threat assessments occur because of ad hoc simulation and modeling methodologies, as well as dataset errors,' Sekar said. 'This shows the need for the creation of standardized public toolkits and datasets and for recommending ways to increase the accuracy of evaluations. This will enable us, as well as other researchers, to develop more rigorous foundations for securing tomorrow's electric energy grid.' Policy that meets the moment CMU's expertise extends beyond the labs and code to shape public policy through systems modeling, data-driven decision making and collaboration with government and industry. Ramayya Krishnan, director of the AI Measurement Science and Engineering Center, has said CMU's ability to look at issues from a systems standpoint is what makes the university uniquely positioned to address the complex challenges and opportunities that lie at the intersection of energy and AI. "That's our sweet spot," Krishnan said. "At CMU, we have strength in all the different layers. We have deep expertise in energy, deep expertise in AI and deep expertise in public policy, and we understand how these elements come together." Carnegie Mellon University brings together experts across disciplines to address real-world challenges and create lasting impact. From advancing technology to improving lives, CMU is committed to research, innovation, and education that drives meaningful change in society, industry, and communities around the world.
