Point of View, II – The Event

Thursday 12th’s “Point of View, II” event was a huge success. See here for the blurb on what was coming up. Below I intersperse that with a little about what actually took place, and give you a link to video of the event.

One of the great things about the format is that we’ve no clear idea what each presenter is going to do, where they will take things in their examination of the theme, so it adds somewhat to the excitement of the events. Do come along to some of the Categorically Not! events (of the same type) which happen every month at Santa Monica airport. Web link here.

Don Marolf of UCSB will tell us what Einstein’s relativity REALLY means to the physicists who study our world. Different observers’ perceptions of space, and even of time itself can give different answers. How do we make sense of that, and what are the consequences?

We started with Don Marolf (click image on left for larger view), who did a really great job of telling the audience about what the theme “Point of View” meant to physicists, in the context of Relativity. He had some great computer slides, but in addition he produced various items from his pockets during the talk to use as props to illustrate things. Don is an excellent presenter with a huge amount of charm and energy and an infectious laugh and so gave us a great start to the evening.

Poet and author Michael Datcher, who teaches literary nonfiction and poetry at Loyola Marymount University, will talk about the role of the writer as a witness and also his newly launched journal of literary nonfiction, The Truth about the Fact.

We then went in a very different direction with Michael Datcher (click image for larger view), who gave us a very energetic tour of his take on the idea of the writer as a “witness”, and the power of the spoken word. He also has a huge amount of charisma and energy, and so the audience continued being thoroughly engaged and riveted by what he had to say. He’s very visual too, moving around the stage and projecting powerfully as he moved.

Rosanna Gamson will show and tell us about her work, “Grand, Hope, Flower”, which pretends to be a lecture on quantum electrodynamics, but is actually about L.A.

Rosanna Gamson (click image right for larger view), the dancer and choreographer, started out by explaining the piece, and how she arrived at it. She stood closer to the audience than the others, and as a result made just as much contact with them in her own, different style, which was interesting to see. She was a New Yorker, arriving in Los Angeles for the first time, with all of the shocks that brings (getting used to the different culture here), and she poured a lot of that into the piece. The title refers to her confusions around those streets in the downtown LA area (familiar to some) and the piece is a lot to do with light, both literally (the physical thing) and otherwise. She apologized in advance for the physics in the piece, and this set me (and Don, and others I learned later) to getting a bit worried about what was to come when we saw it… And we had nothing to worry about. Except for a few things which I think are fine to let by in the scheme of things (given how excellent the piece was overall), I think the physics -and how it worked with the other metaphors- was great! It’s actually one of the more successful pieces of this type that I’ve seen. I’d love to see it again.

We then ended with what I think is often the most interesting thing about the whole evening participation from the audience and interaction among the presenters. They all came up to the stage at the end and pass the microphone around and got involved in a bit of thinking on the spot, with regards issue like truth and perspective, contrasting further the different takes on this from a physicist, a poet/writer and a dancer/choreographer. It was a real pleasure.

Well, here’s the great thing: You can see it all yourself because I arranged for someone to come and record the event, and it was put (thanks, Joe Ollinger!) on the web for you to download and view. Even some of the dance piece (which was projected up on screen) came out relatively well, so you can sit back and enjoy the whole thing yourself. Keep track of the conversations, which are interesting, including questions and contributions from the floor (for example, when science writer (and my collaborator in organizing the event) K C Cole spoke up to disagree -importantly- with Rosanna about her mis-characterization of progress in science as truth becoming untrue and replaced by something new rather than a continuing process of refinement – a seemingly subtle but important difference).

Anyway, once you’ve viewed it, come back and let us know what you think, if you like. Here is the link.

Well, I will admit that while I enjoyed helping make these events possible, I’m glad it is all over, because I am exhausted. It ended on a very high note, and the four events overall really fulfilled my vision of how they could contribute to the Provost’s whole Arts and Humanities (Visions and Voices) idea. I must remember to buy K C Cole a large helping of her favourite drink as thanks for collaborating with me to bring her Categorically Not! concept to USC. It was just great.

-cvj