Scientists & Artists Ponder the Aesthetic of Evolution
An All-Day Wonder Cabinet, guest-curated by David Rothenberg
featuring Jaron Lanier Richard Prum, Laurie Anderson, Philip Ball, Gail Patricelli, David Soldier, Vitaly Komar, Tyler Volk, Baba Brinkman, and many others
Saturday Feb. 25th, 2012, from 10:45 am till 9:30 pm
NYU’s Cantor Film Center, 36 E 8th St, NYC
Free and Open to the...
[read more] Scientists & Artists Ponder the Aesthetic of Evolution
An All-Day Wonder Cabinet, guest-curated by David Rothenberg
featuring Jaron Lanier Richard Prum, Laurie Anderson, Philip Ball, Gail Patricelli, David Soldier, Vitaly Komar, Tyler Volk, Baba Brinkman, and many others
Saturday Feb. 25th, 2012, from 10:45 am till 9:30 pm
NYU’s Cantor Film Center, 36 E 8th St, NYC
Free and Open to the Public
This program is made possible by support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
For schedule and updates, visit
http://nyihumanities.org/event/survival-of-the-beautiful.
A day of multimedia presentations from scientists, artists, performers, musicians, and digital innovators--many of whom feature in David Rothenberg's recent book, Survival of the Beautiful (Bloomsbury, 2011;
www.survivalofthebeautiful.com). At issue will be the question of whether nature’s beauty is actual, imaginary, useful, excessive, or perhaps even entirely beside the point.
SURVIVAL OF THE BEAUTIFUL, SATURDAY FEBRUARY 25
Cantor Film Center, 36 E. 8th Street, NYC
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
SESSION I
10:45 am
DAVID ROTHENBERG and JARON LANIER offer a musical and conceptual introduction.
11:00 am
GAIL PATRICELLI on building a fembot bowerbird to study how male bowerbirds woo females through elaborate dancing and decorating rituals; drawing on her example, RICHARD PRUM explains why everyone misses the point of sexual selection except him.
12:00 pm
OFER TCHERNICHOVSKI responds to Prum’s claim by way introducing CHRISTINE ROESKE, a postdoc in his lab, who, veritably haunted by the beauty of the nightingale’s song, nevertheless tries to subject it to scientific analysis.
12:45 pm
ANNA LINDEMANN, Prum alum turned performance artist, enacts her Theory of Flight.
SESSION II
2:00 pm
PHILIP BALL shows how chemistry and physics might trump biology in their ability to account
for formal natural beauty. TYLER VOLK deploys his concept of metapatterns to explain how 3 realms and 13 steps (from quarks to culture) make us who we are.
3:00 pm
We know how Science is regularly said to influence Art, but SUZANNE ANKER explores the flow in the other direction. DAVID SOLDIER and VITALY KOMAR revisit their classic elephant art experiment, asking whether we can learn anything about art by teaching animals to make it.
4:00 pm
Composer DAVID DUNN details his proposal to use music to save the forests of the American West from destruction by pine bark beetles. DAVID ABRAM on how synaesthesia (the blending of the senses) might help us feel our way into the experience of another animal.
SESSION III
5:30 pm
Digital artist SCOTT SNIBBE recounts how he helped morph Björk’s love of science into the Biophilia app.
6:15 pm
BABA BRINKMAN, direct from off-Broadway, performs a special version of The Rap Guide to Evolution.
7:00 pm
JARON LANIER explains why if squid only had childhoods, they would rule the world.
LAURIE ANDERSON explains how animals can learn music and art,
along with ELISABETH WEISS.
Closing music by JARON LANIER and DAVID ROTHENBERG.
(Times listed above are approximate at best.)
More on participants at
http://nyihumanities.org/event/survival-of-the-beautiful.
This program is free and open to the public on a first-come, first-in basis.
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