On Saturday (tomorrow), I’ll be talking with science writer Philip Ball at the Malvern Festival of Ideas! The topic will be Science and Art, and I think it will be an interesting and fun exchange. It is free, online, and starts at 5:15 pm UK time. You can click here for the details.
I’ll talk a little bit about how I came to create the non-fiction science book The Dialogues, using graphic narrative art to help frame and drive the ideas forward, and how I really wanted to re-shape what is the norm for a popular science book, where somehow using just prose to talk about serious scientific ideas has become regarded as the pinnacle of achievement – this runs counter to so many things, not the least being the fact that scientists themselves don’t just use prose to communicate with each other!
But anyway, that’s just the beginning of it all. Philip and I will talk about the intersection of science and art in several different spheres, I imagine. Art is a powerful tool for helping communicating science, for engaging people with science… but it is (in my view) a big mistake to think of it (as most scientists do) as mere decoration – it can be a major component of the tools we use to drive scientific discovery too! Maybe more recognition of that will help enhance scientific discovery, since the toolbox is enhanced, *and* through broader kinds of skillsets people have that are useful for science. I hope we get to talk about that too!
Go ahead and register for (free) access to the event, and I’ll see you there! Philip and I will be signing books after, I think. We’ll sign bookplates that will be attached to books that you order, and then it get sent to you. Details on the festival site.
–cvj
