Introduction to Panel: Art Praxis

This panel is comprised of Beau Lotto, Jules Davidoff and Olafur Eliasson.

Jules Davidoff, who will speak third, as a few of you know, is a Professor of Psychology, an evolutionary psychologist, a different kind of evolutionary psychologist, with a great amount of knowledge of cognitive neuroscience. He writes on color, very fascinating, he’s done benchmark pieces on color – and his notion of color works with a very sophisticated idea of culture as well as nature.

Beau Lotto will speak second on the postmodern brain. Beau is a neuroscientist; he’s going to speak about the brain apart from notions of linear causality.

Olafur Eliasson needs no introduction but I’ll give him one anyway. He’s one of the worlds leading artists. You’ll all know him from The Weather Project at the Tate Modern in 2003, The Blind Pavilion at the Venice Biennale also in 2003. One of his very first works, first very well known works was … was it called ‘Spotlight’? It was a spotlight in Los Angeles which was comprised of a hole he made in the ceiling of an art house. Olafur has very often addressed the kind of interface again of nature and culture. I think this will come up in all three of the papers. He has investigated perception through the recreation and intervention in natural phenomenon. Olafur has for a long time been involved in the kind of science arts initiatives that perhaps provide a bit of a framework for what the Arts Council and the AHRB have started to initiate two years ago or three years ago, this is way back to 1996, the original events in Japan and afterwords – Hans Ulrich Obrist, Blue Steele and a number of others. Olafur finally is an accomplished golfer, I’ve heard, I don’t play golf but I look like a golfer, he looks like an artist, so with no further ado, can I introduce Olafur Eliasson.