The first in a series of Site Sessions, featuring:

Katharine Vega (chroma.space), Dr Sean Power (Trinity College, Dublin) and Simon Ings (New Scientist).

Who has the claim to what’s true, in these rational times? To what extent are art, science and belief “branches of the same tree” as Albert Einstein once said, and what happens when some of those branches begin to crack? Join us in the revered surroundings of Sheffield’s Upper Chapel on the 27 April to discuss these questions and more, with our expert panel from the worlds of art, science and ideas.

Speakers:

Simon Ings
Simon started out writing science fiction stories, novels and films, before widening his brief to explore perception (The Eye: A Natural History), 20th-century radical politics (The Weight of Numbers), the shipping system (Dead Water) and augmented reality (Wolves). His latest is Stalin and the Scientists. The co-founder and editor of Arc magazine, a digital publication about the future, he now works at New Scientist magazine as its arts editor.

Katharine Vega
Katharine Vega is an artist, researcher and educator inspired by cybernetics and ecological thinking. She collaborates across disciplines – from dance to architecture, magic to neuroscience, anthropology to physics. Katharine is working on a PHD at the University of Sussex, researching emotions, sensing and how we create our sense of reality. Her studio chroma.space creates playful experiments that explore physical and virtual worlds, with work ranging from large-scale projections on castles to intimate performances in deconsecrated churches, and VR. Recent commissions include FACT Liverpool, Brighton Digital Festival and London’s Science Museum.

Dr Sean Enda Power
Sean lectures in philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. His philosophical research interests are on time, the mind, and knowledge, particularly as those subjects relate to illusion and science. His papers include Philosophy of Time: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, forthcoming in 2018). He is also editor of a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies on the experience of time (April 2017). Sean has collaborated with practitioners in art, science, and technology, and engaged with the public through talks, articles and podcasts.

Site Sessions
Site Sessions is a new off-site programme of events for people interested in big ideas. Taking place in various surprising venues across Sheffield, these STEAM events will be a lively cocktail of science, tech, arts and fun. You’ll get up close and personal with experts from every field (and the odd robot). You’ll meet other members of Sheffield’s great unwashed intelligentsia, make friends and perhaps enemies, and always leave feeling a little bit cleverer than you went in.

A City of Ideas project.

http://www.sitegallery.org/site-session-art-science-and-the-truth/