Conversation on “Creativity and the Beauty that Creates Havoc” with Teresa Amabile, Howard Gardner and Hans Rosling

14-17 June 2012

Tällberg Forum 2012: “Beyond Imagination – Eliminating Limits”
Tällberg, Sweden

9th February 2012 at 2:00pm

Kinetica Art Fair
Ambika P3
35 Marylebone Road
London NW15LS

Abstract:
Today the term ‘art and science’ is on everyone’s lips. But what is it and where is it going? I predict that in the future art and science – the traditional ‘two cultures’ that still often eye each other warily – will fuse to form a ‘third culture’. Interdisciplinarity will become a
discipline and art and science as we know them will disappear. Aesthetics and art itself will be redefined.

To explore this I will look at the interplay between art and science in the 20th and 21st centuries. How do collaborations between artists and scientists come about and how do these collaborations work? How does science affect art and art affect science? Are art and science fusing into a third culture and if so what will this third culture be like? I will look at these questions and more using illustrations and examples.

World in the Balance: The historic quest for an absolute system of measurement by Robert P. Crease

PRECISION and fastidiousness – at first blush the quest for a precise system of measurement might seem a plodding pursuit. But as philosopher Robert P. Crease makes clear in World in the Balance, it was anything but.

From prehistory to the present, Crease ties humanity’s search for precision to the history of nations and of ideas. Any measurement must be based on a “standard” that embodies a unit, such as a foot, a finger or a hand. Eventually standards came to be inscribed in stone or metal and stored in protected areas such as the Acropolis for the Greeks, and in later centuries in Paris and Washington DC. Ownership of the standard symbolised political and social power.

Read full review

Published in New Scientist on Dec 3, 2011

For the Colloquium: Art, Science and Culture: Towards a reevaluation of the work of Carl Gustav Jung

May 10-12, 2012
University of Strasbourg
Strasbourg, France

Abstract:
At a key time in his scientific development, the physicist Wolfgang Pauli underwent analysis by Carl Jung. The encounters were inspiring for both men and sparked changes in their work. I will talk about how two of Pauli’s most important scientific discoveries were affected by Jung’s analysis of his dreams: why atoms are structured as they are (the Pauli exclusion principle) and what this has to do with the archetypal number four; and the necessity for mirror symmetry as an archetype in physics as well as in the collective unconscious. A very different Pauli emerges, one at odds with esteemed colleagues such as Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

February 6, 2012 – 6:30pm

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
University of the Arts London
Granary Building
1 Granary Square
London N1C 4AA

(Open only to staff and students at CSM)

Abstract:
Almost simultaneously, in the first decade of the 20th century Albert Einstein discovered relativity and Pablo Picasso cubism. How – and why? This fascinating story involves their often turbulent personal lives; the high drama of their struggles to achieve new ideas in the face of opposition from contemporaries; and the unlikely sources for their creative leaps, ignored by everyone else.

To fully understand what happened involves coming to grips with wide-ranging questions such as: Are there similarities in creativity between artists and scientists? What do artists and scientists mean by ‘aesthetics’ and ‘beauty’? Can we unravel creativity at its highest level?

November 21, 2011 – 6:00pm

Le Laboratoire
4, Rue du Boubi
75001 Paris
France

Abstract:
Today the term ‘art and science’ is on everyone’s lips. But what is it and where is it going? I predict that in the future art and science – the traditional ‘two cultures’ that still often eye each other warily – will fuse to form a ‘third culture’. Interdisciplinarity will become a discipline and art and science as we know them will disappear. Aesthetics and art itself will be redefined.

To explore this I will look at the interplay between art and science in the 20th and 21st centuries. How do collaborations between artists and scientists come about and how do these collaborations work? How does science affect art and art affect science? Are art and science fusing into a third culture and if so what will this third culture be like? I will look at these questions and more using illustrations and examples.

November 14, 2011 – 3.00pm

Central Saint Martins
Bryam Shaw Building
2 Elthorne Road
London N19 4AG

Open only to staff and students at Central Saint Martins

Abstract:
Artists and scientists alike seek visual images of worlds both visible and invisible. They attempt to ‘read’ nature in a very similar way – drawings precede both the finished canvas and the completed scientific theory. Exploring this fascinating realm of highly speculative thought involves coming to grips with wide-ranging questions such as: Are there similarities in creativity between artists and scientists? And if so, what are they?

ARTHUR I. MILLER is emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London. He is fascinated by the nature of creative thinking and, in particular, in creativity in art (on the one hand) and science (on the other). What are the similarities, what are the differences? An experienced broadcaster, lecturer and biographer, he is noted for being able to write engagingly about complex social and intellectual dramas, weaving the personal with the scientific to produce page-turners that read like novels.

His latest book is Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung (W.W. Norton, 2009). The paperback version is 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession (W.W. Norton, 2010). Among his other books are Empire of the Stars (Little Brown, 2005), which was shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books, and Einstein, Picasso (Basic Books, 2001), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize

Presently he is writing a book with the tentative title, The Creative Revolution and also co-curating the show Art & Science: Merging Art & Science to Make a Revolutionary New Art Movement at GV Art gallery in London. For more see the e-catalogue here.

Thursday, October 27, 6:00 pm

Department of Art History, NYU
Room 301, NYU Silver Building
(Enter at 32 Waverly Place)

Abstract:
Art and science once seemed opposed, but some of today’s most innovative artists are fusing them. Striving to visualize the invisible, pondering what it will mean to be human in the future, they create objects that redefine our idea of “art.” A recent exhibition at GV Art (London) gathered together a group of these cutting-edge artists.

Exhibition curator Arthur I. Miller, author of notable books on Einstein, Picasso, Jung, and the nature of creativity, will discuss the rise of a new contemporary culture driven by science and technology. Taking the exhibition as a starting point, his talk will explore questions ranging from the practical to the philosophical. How exactly do artists and scientists collaborate? How does science affect art? How can art affect science? What will it mean to live in a new “third culture” that is a synthesis of the two?

6 October, 2011

Main Auditorium
CERN
Geneva
Switzerland

Abstract:
In 1930 a nineteen-year-old Indian graduate student, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, came up with the first mathematical proof of black holes. But five years later, when he presented his findings at the Royal Astronomical Society in London, he found himself pitted against the greatest astrophysicist of the day, Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, who scathingly dismissed both Chandra and his theory. It was a battle of personalities, generations, ideas and also of cultures which was to have a devastating impact on the development of astrophysics for years to come. Who were the two men, what were the ideas that caused such uproar, and how was the conflict finally resolved? I will discuss all this and also consider what this story has to tell us about what science is, how it works, and where it can go wrong.

4 October 2011

Theory Conference Room
Building 4-3-006
CERN
Geneva
Switzerland

Abstract:
Almost simultaneously, in the first decade of the 20th century Albert Einstein discovered relativity and Pablo Picasso cubism. How – and why? This fascinating story involves their often turbulent personal lives; the high drama of their struggles to achieve new ideas in the face of opposition from contemporaries; and the unlikely sources for their
creative leaps, ignored by everyone else.

To fully understand what happened involves coming to grips with wide-ranging questions such as: Are there similarities in creativity between artists and scientists? What do artists and scientists mean by ‘aesthetics’ and ‘beauty’? Can we unravel creativity at its highest level?