Andrea Gleiniger, Angelika Hilbeck, Jill Scott (eds.): Transdiscourse 1: Mediated Environments (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · agriculture, architecture, art and science, climate crisis, design, documentary film, eco art, ecology, energy, environment, permaculture, recycling
– Encourages critical reflections that shed light on how combinations of art, architecture, technology and science could directly impact urban societies and their rural alternative
– Discusses the know-how-transfer between the arts and the sciences is facilitated
Mediated Environments addresses the problem that society interprets our environment through conditioned and constructed representations of mainstream media and not in a transdisciplinary way with the help of artists, architects, filmmakers, cultural theorists and scientists. The writers who come from these various backgrounds all wish to give media artists, designers and writers a new role in relation to the pressing issues of urban and rural life: ones that can address the challenges of human psychology, recycling, agricultural production, climate chaos and energy conservation. The main aims were to focus on the potentials of creative work to raise public awareness and to find new discourses that can be shared within the areas of mediated architecture, eco art, experimental documentary film, eco-emergent design and art and science collaborations. The editors believe that a closer transdisciplinary working relationship could encourage a more tangible approach to these problems of the future.
Publisher Springer, 2011
Producer Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
ISBN 3709102871, 9783709102879
216 pages
Barri J. Gold: ThermoPoetics: Energy in Victorian Literature and Science (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · 1800s, energy, entropy, literature, physics, science
In ThermoPoetics, Barri Gold sets out to show us how analogous, intertwined, and mutually productive poetry and physics may be. Charting the simultaneous emergence of the laws of thermodynamics in literature and in physics that began in the 1830s, Gold finds that not only can science influence literature, but literature can influence science, especially in the early stages of intellectual development. Nineteenth-century physics was often conducted in words. And, Gold claims, a poet could be a genius in thermodynamics and a novelist could be a damn good engineer.
Gold’s lively readings of works by Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Herbert Spencer, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and others offer a decidedly literary introduction to such elements of thermodynamic thought as conservation and dissipation, the linguistic tension between force and energy, the quest for a grand unified theory, strategies for coping within an inexorably entropic universe, and the demonic potential of the thermodynamically savvy individual. Victorian literature embraced the language and ideas of energy physics to address the era’s concerns about religion, evolution, race, class, empire, gender, and sexuality. Gold argues that these concerns in turn shaped the hopes and fears expressed about the new physics. With ThermoPoetics Gold not only offers us a new lens through which to view Victorian literature, but also provides in-depth examples of the practical applications of such a lens. Thus Gold shows us that in In Memoriam, Tennyson expresses thermodynamic optimism with a vision of transformation after loss; in A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens produces order in spite of the universal drive to entropy, and in Bleak House he treats the novel itself as series of engines; and Wilde’s Dorian Gray and Stoker’s Dracula reveal the creative potential of chaos.
Publisher MIT Press, 2010
ISBN 026201372X, 9780262013727
343 pages
Peter Galison, Gerald James Holton, Silvan S. Schweber (eds.): Einstein for the 21st Century: His Legacy in Science, Art, and Modern Culture (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, energy, geometry, philosophy, physics, politics, quantum mechanics, science
More than fifty years after his death, Albert Einstein’s vital engagement with the world continues to inspire others, spurring conversations, projects, and research, in the sciences as well as the humanities. Einstein for the 21st Century shows us why he remains a figure of fascination.
In this wide-ranging collection, eminent artists, historians, scientists, and social scientists describe Einstein’s influence on their work, and consider his relevance for the future. Scientists discuss how Einstein’s vision continues to motivate them, whether in their quest for a fundamental description of nature or in their investigations in chaos theory; art scholars and artists explore his ties to modern aesthetics; a music historian probes Einstein’s musical tastes and relates them to his outlook in science; historians explore the interconnections between Einstein’s politics, physics, and philosophy; and other contributors examine his impact on the innovations of our time. Uniquely cross-disciplinary, Einstein for the 21st Century serves as a testament to his legacy and speaks to everyone with an interest in his work.
The contributors are Leon Botstein, Lorraine Daston, E. L. Doctorow, Yehuda Elkana, Yaron Ezrahi, Michael L. Friedman, Jürg Fröhlich, Peter L. Galison, David Gross, Hanoch Gutfreund, Linda D. Henderson, Dudley Herschbach, Gerald Holton, Caroline Jones, Susan Neiman, Lisa Randall, Jürgen Renn, Matthew Ritchie, Silvan S. Schweber, and A. Douglas Stone.
Publisher Princeton University Press, 2008
ISBN 0691135207, 9780691135205
363 pages
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