Sci-fi and real-world science don't always go hand-in-hand, but a collaboration between a few of the Valley's creative, innovative, and scientific organizations will offer insight into the intersection of science, history, and exploration.
This Friday, well-known science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson will join Desert Initiative Direector Greg Esser, and Portuguese artist Miguel Palma in an hour-long panel-style discussion titled "Landscape, Art and Other Worlds."
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The discussion will address how fiction, art and history affect our imaginations of landscapes on this and other planets, according to Esser.
"We're really looking at the role of imagination in human exploration and knowledge," Esser says.
The event will be one of the first put on by the newly established Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. The center encourages creative collaboration and ambitious thinking between different areas of the university. They will be working in collaboration with the Desert Initiative, which launched Desert Initiative: Desert One earlier this fall.
Joining Esser on the panel will be Kim Stanley Robinson, author of a collection of science-fiction books including the award-winning Mars trilogy. Robinson has written numerous books addressing ecological and sociological themes and was sent to the Antarctic by the U.S. National Science Foundation as a part of the Antarctic Artists and Writers' Program.
"Land, art and artistic activity really play a role in [his] novel," Esser says of Robinson's latest work, 2312. "I think it's going to be a fantastic event."
Providing context for the discussion in the Arizona locale will be Miguel Palma's exhibition, "Trajectory," which is currently on display at the ASU Art Museum. The exhibition is a visual representation of exploration with ties to the local history and an investigation of how the past will affect the futures of both inter- and extraterrestrial exploration.
Seating is limited for the event, which will take place Friday, October 26 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. in the Kresge Gallery at the ASU Art Museum on the Tempe campus.
To RSVP visit the Eventbrite page. For more information see the Center for Science and the Imagination website.
