- 27 March:
Posts Tagged ‘David Rothenberg’
BALTAN SESSIONS # 2 – Art, Science and Evolution.
| 20/03/2013 16:00 to 18:00 16:00 to 18:00 |
Van Abbemuseum, Auditorium (Stratumsedijk 2, Eindhoven, back entrance)
20 March. Start: 16.00
Entrance: free
* We offer a unique 10 Euro discount during the Baltan sessions for the book “Bullet Proof Skin – Exploring Boundaries by Piercing Barriers” by Jalila Essaïdi for only 15 Euros. Buy your signed copy on March 20!
(img: Jalila Essaïdi)
“A project that embraces both art and science and balances on the border of imagination and reality. Which is perhaps the most exciting place to be – as a scientist and as an artist!“ - Robbert Dijkgraaf
Book presentations
Baltan Laboratories explores the possibilities and boundaries of the merging of Art and Science with two compelling book presentations by Jalila Essaïdi and David Rothenberg. Both speakers reveal their fascination for the arts and the natural world through their unconventional research practices, which enable the ability to comprehend the unexplored behind nature’s genius.
Dutch artist Jalila Essaïdi will present her book “Bulletproof skin, Exploring Boundaries by Piercing Barriers” about the project 2.6g 329m/s. As one of the three winners of the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Awards, Jalila Essaïdi (1981) created a piece of ‘bulletproof’ skin. For this purpose spider silk, proportionately many times stronger than steel and made by transgenic goats and worms, was seeded with human skin cells and has grown into a ‘bulletproof’ human skin. By creating this ‘bulletproof’ human skin Essaïdi wants to explore the social, political, ethical and cultural issues surrounding safety. With this work she shows that safety in its broadest sense is a relative concept, and hence the term bulletproof.
Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg (USA) presents his a talk based on his book ‘Survival of the Beautiful: Art,Science and Evolution’. An exciting and almost hallucinating book about why nature is beautiful and how art has influenced science. Artists get inspiration from nature, but can we say that nature itself creates art? Survival of the beauty starts with a walk in an Australian forest. A bird has built a beautiful sculpture of twigs, blue feathers and blue cutlery. It’s made by the male to entice a female to mate. A biologist explains that the bird in case of shortage of material won’t hesitate to kill a blue bird just for its feathers. Even with humans killing for your art is rare. This bird, says Rothenberg, gives food to the thought that art in a pure form can be created by animals other than humans.
About Jalila Essaïdi
Jalila Essaïdi is a BioArtist who uses Biology and the Life Sciences as an artistic medium. Her artwork is about the recognition of the transience of matter and a human desire to keep and hold. Jalila Essaïdi studied Bioart at Universiteit Leiden and is the founder of BioArt Laboratories. The project received an honorary mention of Prix Ars Electronica 2012. This was truly a “bullet heard round the world”— Jalila’s story was immediately picked up by the Associated Press, the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, CNN, EuroNews and the BBC.
Watch Jalila at CNN: https://www.youtube.com/v/lcQbMMyJ6bI
About David Rothenberg:
Rothenberg has written and performed on the relationship between humanity and nature for many years. Taking inspiration from Charles Darwin’s observations that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg dives into the mysteries of why we create art, and why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty. Rothenberg is the author of Why Birds Sing, on making music with birds, that was turned into a feature length BBC TV documentary. Rothenberg is professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Watch the BBC documentary “Why Birds Sing”, after a book by Rothenberg
BALTAN SESSIONS #2 – Performance
| 19/03/2013 19:00 to 23:00 |
David Rothenberg performs Music From Nature.
“A sense of virtuosity traveling all over the world.” John Cage
Location: Ketelhuis, Ketelhuisplein 1, Eindhoven.
When: Tuesday 19 March. 19.00 – showtime 20.30
Entrance: 14,- Euros including tapas.
Baltan Laboratories and Ketelhuis present an entertaining evening with music and food. Highlight of this evening is “Music From Nature” performed by David Rothenberg (USA).
He is a rarity who is both a high praised musician/composer and a famous eco-philosopher. He plays music like he writes, playful and curious. He wonders why nature is beautiful? If you can play a duet with a bird? Or how come the music of a whale has the same patterns as that of a nightingale?
David Rothenberg has long been interested in the musicality of sounds made by inhabitants of the animal world. He has jammed live with lyrebirds, broadcast his clarinet underwater for humpback whales, and covered himself in thirteen-year cicadas to wail away inside a wash of white noise. In this concert he presents a musical trajectory through several of his favorite species, revealing their distinct and evolved aesthetic senses in an attempt to show that music can reach across species lines, from human to animal, and back.
Rothenberg has written and performed on the relationship between humanity and nature for many years. He is the author of Why Birds Sing, on making music with birds, that was turned into a feature length BBC TV documentary. Rothenberg is professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
As part of the evening, Restaurant Ketelhuis presents pinchos and tapas including locally made biological cheeses, homemade sausages, self produced olive-oil and freshly baked bread from the bakery downstairs. For reservations email: reserveringen@ketelhuis.com of via +31 6 87 24 73 48 with subject “Music from Nature”.
