Art · The Creative Process: Artists, Curators, Museum Directors Talk Art, Life & Creativity The Creative Process

“​​I love working with historic sites. I've done a few events and installations working in old cathedrals; we did one with And& Festival in Leuven, and in Carlisle Church in Belfast with the AVA Festival guys, and the Acropolis of Athens, and lots of other venues. I love venues where I can turn up and map projections onto architecture. Particularly when you're using old historic buildings, they're full of feelings and ideas before you, you know, from the history and what you associate them with. That embeds itself into the music and the visuals that you're presenting, so you get this extra layer of engagement and emotion and ideas coming through, which I love. I generally use projectors rather than screens for that reason, so that I can use the architecture and try to make the show itself interact with it. Whenever I can, I try to project. It adds to the storytelling, I think, and it makes it feel more special.”

How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness.
Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific exploration. His latest project, Seme, commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival, merges Italian musical heritage with contemporary techniques, was also performed at the Barbican in London.
He supplied music for a video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis for COP26.
In 2016, Cooper founded Mesh, a platform to explore the intersection of music, science and art. His Observatory art-house installation is on display at Kings Cross until May 1st.

"I love Bernstein's excitement in talking about how he says, for Beethoven, was he the best harmonist? No. Was it his orchestral abilities? Absolutely not. It was just that each note that he chose was exactly the right note to follow the note that proceeded it as if he had 'a private telephone wire to Heaven' and that he was channeling the note that created and mirrored the divine harmonies of the universe.
And it was so striking to see John Adams compare the harmonies of a great piece by Handel to the harmonies of the State. And harmony is truth, which is reason, which is the Divine, according to the classical authority. And we have not only a right, but a duty to live according to reason in order to align ourselves with the divine harmonies of the universe.
Recently, I've started writing songs, and there's just something about the golden hour of the sunrise that waits for us each day. And whatever else is going on in the world or in our lives allows us to recommit to and experience once more the glorious beauty and harmony of the universe.”

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good?

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

"The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other."

How can we create positive change? What does it mean to have an ecological mind? How can interdisciplinary collaborations help us move beyond educational silos and create sustainable futures?
Paola Spinozzi is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ferrara and currently serves as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation. She is the coordinator of the PhD Programme in Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing and the co-coordinator of Routes towards Sustainability. Her research encompasses the ecological humanities and ecocriticism, utopia and sustainability; literature and the visual arts; literature and science; cultural memory. She has co-edited Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies and published on post/apocalyptic and climate fiction, nature poetry, eco-theatre; art and aesthetics, imperialism and evolutionism in utopia as a genre; the writing of science; interart creativity.