The Faculty of Fine Arts presents The Defiant Imagination Lecture Series 2008.
This dynamic lecture series brings together innovators of the critical imagination to explore the role of art in contemporary society.
Lecture #1: Theo Jansen - Strandbeest
View the video (below) from Theo Jansen’s lecture, given Jan. 23. [To play the video, mouse over the image and controls will appear.]
Artist and kinetic sculptor, Theo Jansen has been called a modern-day Da Vinci. Trained in Science at the University of Delft in the Netherlands, Jansen creates large-scale kinetic sculptures that are a fusion of art and engineering. Jansen’s interest in technology and the process of biological evolution have led to his development of his own creatures.
His animals (“Strandbeests”, or” beach animals”, as he calls them) are enormous skeletal, complex mobile structures made out of plastic pvc tubes that use computer programs to calculate their movements. Powered by the wind, these creatures, which have evolved through several generations, walk, flap, roll, and discern obstacles. Eventually, Jansen hopes to ‘release’ his animals in herds where they can live out their own lives.
To learn more about Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests, visit his website.
Lecture #2: David Wilson - The Museum of Jurassic Technology
View the video (below) from David Wilson’s lecture, given Feb. 7. [To play the video, mouse over the image and controls will appear.]
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, California is a museum like no other. A cross between a genuine museum, a wunderkammer (cabinet of wonders) and a performance art piece, it challenges the role of museum and archival practice, blurring boundaries between the real and the unreal.
David Wilson, its director and founder and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant (2003), has dedicated himself to the advancement of knowledge and public appreciation of the lower Jurassic. Wilson’s extraordinary collection of specimens, which includes spore-inhaling ants, s-ray bats, stink ants, human horns, peach-pit carvings and his novel theories of oblivion, are among the many marvels of Museum of Jurassic Technology. Currently, the museum and its director are the subject of a book by Lawrence Weschler entitled Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder.
Lecture #3: Carol Becker - What We Do: Values Implicit in Schools of Art and Design
When: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 6:00 p.m.
Where: D.B. Clarke Theatre, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd., W.
Admission is free.
Carol Becker is an artist, art historian and incoming Dean of The School of the Arts at Columbia University in New York. Becker’s research interests range from feminist theory, American cultural history and the education of artists, to South African art and politics. She is the author of numerous articles and several books including: The Invisible Drama: Women and the Anxiety of Change (translated into seven languages); The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Social Responsibility; Zones of Contention: Essays on Art, Institutions, Gender, and Anxiety; and, most recently, Surpassing the Spectacle: Global Transformations and the Changing Politics of Art.
Her talk examines the ethical assumptions, often unarticulated, that are unique and fundamental to art and design. These values include social justice, sustainability, historical consciousness, activism and preservation of the built environment and of human life. Becker explores how art and design can continue to be forces of social change, leading the conversation about the urgencies of our planet.
For more information, please call (514) 848-2424, ext. 4261, or visit the DB Clarke Theatre website.
Posted on January 7, 2008