cambridge 1999

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• Methods of Understanding in Art and Science
  The Case of Duchamp and Poincaré
  November 5-7, 1999
  Harvard University Science Center, Cambridge MA
  url: www.marcelduchamp.org/symposium/.

• The 'Method of Understanding in Art and Science: The Case of Duchamp and Poincaré' took place at Harvard University Science Center on November 5-7, 1999. The Symposium aimed at examining concerns, relevant to and shared by the mathematician-philosopher Henry Poincaré and artist Marcel Duchamp, pertaining to issues that also promise to integrate the methodology and subject matter of art and science. During the three-day sessions, topics encompassed scholarly discussions such as unconscious intuition and choice during the creative process, the importance of doubt, the beauty of "gray matter" (mental beauty), and probabilistic systems sensitive to initial conditions in nature. Participants in this celebrated event were internationally acclaimed physicists, mathematicians, artists, and art historians including Gerald Holton, Arthur C. Danto, Hector Obalk, Bonnie Clearwater, Madeline Gins, Richard L. Gregory, David Joselit, Richard Brandt, André Gervais, Dieter Daniels, Craig Adcock, Herbert Molderings, Rhonda Roland Shearer, and the late professor Stephen Jay Gould.

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• PROGRAMME

• FRIDAY 5 November
• Session I
  • The Case of Duchamp and Poincaré
    Joseph Koerner - Moderator
    10:00 - 10:45 am Gerald Holton: Poincaré and the Process of Discovery. A later version of this paper was published as 'Henri Poincaré, Marcel Duchamp and Innovation in Science and Art', in Leonardo 34, Number 2 (April 2001) 127-134.
    10:45 - 11:30 am Arthur C. Danto: Space and Stoppages
    11:30 - 12:15 pm Rhonda Roland Shearer: Duchamp & Poincaré: Conspiracy Theory Going Wild or Tested Hypothesis Meeting Predictions? (with computer animations)
    12:15 - 12:45 pm Audience Discussion
  • 2:30 - 4:30 pm Panel
    Stephen Jay Gould - Moderator
    Hector Obalk: The Green Box Behind the Large Glass:The Story the Large Glass Really Tells
    Hans de Wolf: Le Hasard de l'Oasis: Some remarks on an imposter Postcard sent by Marcel Duchamp in 1933
    Bonnie Clearwater: 8½ =Tu m': Marcel Duchamp and Frank Stella

• SATURDAY 6 November
• Session II
  • Chaos, Chance, Probability: The One in Many and the Many in One
    Philip Holmes - Moderator
    9:00 - 9:45 am Dieter Daniels: Duchamp: Interface: Turing: A hypothetical meeting of the celibatary machine and the universal machine
    9:45 - 10:30 am Richard Voss: Dust Breeding: How Big is a Rock?
    10:30 - 11:15 am Craig Adcock: Visual Geometries in Art and Science, with Special Reference to Marcel Duchamp and Henri Poincaré
  • 11:45 - 1:45 pm panel and Audience Discussion
    Walter Gilbert - Moderator
    Herbert Molderings - Philosophy, Pata-Physics and Non-Euclidean Geometry On Marcel Duchamp's "Three Standard Stoppages"
    Donald M. Davis - Poincaré's Role as the Father of Topology
    Ivars Peterson - Poincaré: Prophet of Chaos
• Session III
  • Discovery, Intuition, Doubt, and "The Beauty of Gray Matter"
    George Smith - Moderator
    3:00 - 3:45 pm Richard L. Gregory: Reflections and Creations
    3:45 - 4:30 pm Jeremy Gray: Poincaré, Duchamp and Intellectual Aesthetics
    4:30 - 5:15 pm David Joselit: What is an Object? The Belated Career of the Readymade
    5:30 - 6:30 pm Donald Shambroom Exhibition: The Juggler of Gravity Atrium at Mather House, Harvard University

• SUNDAY 7 November
• Session IV
  • Art Historical versus Scientific Method
    Joseph Koerner - Moderator
    9:00 - 9:45 am Caroline A. Jones: Paradigms, Modernism, Science and Art
    9:45 - 10:30 am Richard Brandt: The Geometry of Duchamp
    10:30 - 11:15 am Mitchell Feigenbaum: Measured Illusion
  • 1:00 - 2:30 pm Grand Panel and Audience Discussion
    Peter Galison - Moderator
    Martin Rosenberg: Poincaré, Bergson, Duchamp: The Science, Philosophy and Art of Interpretation
    Christopher F. Chabris: Marcel Duchamp: The Artist as Chess Player, and Vice-Versa
    André Gervais: Lodging One's Syllogism
    Donald Shambroom: Leonardo's Delay
  • 2:30 - 3:15 pm I. Bernard Cohen: Poincaré, Birkhoff and the Transformation of Space & Aesthetics.
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