The Method of Understanding In Art and Science...

[GReedDiamond]

Last edited Tue May 11, 2021, 08:35 PM - Edit history (1)

The Method of Understanding In Art and Science: The Case of Duchamp and Poincaré

So, way back in 1999, after I had 3 years earlier established the first "major" Marcel Duchamp Internet Web Site on the early (1996) web, I was contacted by Rhonda Roland Shearer and (her husband) Professor Stephen Jay Gould who invited me and my (still) girlfriend - all expenses paid for like 4 days! - to their Harvard University Symposium called:

METHODS OF UNDERSTANDING IN ART AND SCIENCE

The Case of Duchamp and Poincaré

The Method of Understanding Art and Science: The Case of Duchamp and Poincaré
November 5-7, 1999
Harvard University Science Center

I designed/built/still host! the web site they used to promote the symposium back in 1999.

Here's the link to their current site:

https://asrlab.org/

When you click on the ABOUT link, the first link is back to my site:

https://www.duchamp.org/symposium

ON EDIT: Corrected the Subject title to replace the missing word "in."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Will I need Netscape Navigator to view that?

I'm surprised it still works in Chrome.

Thanks.

[Escurumbele]

2. Is there a transcript of what was discussed during the symposion?

The link just shows the agenda for each session.

[GReedDiamond]

4. I've been a little sick the last couple of days...

...sorry for the delay in my response to your question.

The answer is...I don't know, but I suspect that the Art Science Research Lab may have posted a transcript to their site sometime later.

Probably the most memorable presentation for me was by James Randi, aka "The Amazing Randi," who gave a great presentation called Illusions in Science and Art.

But there were other moments, like when I rode in a cab with Timothy Phillips - Salvador Dali's assistant, who said he painted, entirely, some "minor pieces" attributed to Dali, and Duchamp's main biographer, Arturo Schwarz, who put together The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, who was with his young girlfriend, probably 35-40 years younger than Arturo.

I also had dinner with Schwarz, Phillips, and several other participants in the symposium, which included some very fascinating conversations.

Lastly, during one of the lectures in an auditorium, Arturo Schwarz, who was seated in the front row area, got up from his seat and started walking up the aisle toward my direction, where I was in a seat along the aisle. Right when he got up to me, he stumbled and started to fall, but I was able to jump up and catch him, stopping him from falling flat on his 75 y.o. face!

I thought, "that was pretty weird."

[mopinko]

3. well, that's cool.

ya know, i had an interesting chat w my neurologist/sleep doc a while back.
i wasnt rly having issues, and i love to just shoot the shit w this doc about brains and stuff.
i talked about the ways that i have figured out my own brain, and where the kinks are and why.
and a part of it is absolutely that i am a painter. what i paint is life size abstract figures. what is abstracted is the emotional energy inside a body, mostly mine. from the inside out.

this is supposed to be an inscrutable koan- how can the brain understand itself?
me- from the inside out, w both art and science.

i'm one of those people who love both art and science, and prolly never rly "made anything of myself" cuz i couldnt make up my mind. (a bogus idea, but one i still have to chase out of my brain once in a while. i've made a lot of things of myself.)
i feel that that duel outlook enriches understanding on both ends.