There are a few “lecture circuits” that the popular and famous visit.
One of them is TED: technology, entertainment and design. Its held each year in California, and occasionally special meetings happen in Oxford and, once, in Africa.
Here are some lectures somehow relating to art which might inspire you…
Shea Hembrey: How I became 100 artists
How do you stage an international art show with work from 100 different artists? If you’re Shea Hembrey, you invent all of the artists and artwork yourself!
Chris Anderson
The rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon Chris calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. But to tap into its power, organizations will need to embrace radical openness.
Nick Veasey
From TED: “Nick Veasey shows outsized X-ray images that reveal the otherworldly inner workings of familiar objects — from the geometry of a wildflower to the anatomy of a Boeing 747. Producing these photos is dangerous and painstaking, but the reward is a superpower: looking at what the human eye can’t see.”
Exposing the invisible
Bjarke Ingels
3 warp-speed architecture tales – Danish architect Bjarke Ingels rockets through photo/video-mingled stories of his eco-flashy designs. His buildings not only look like nature — they act like nature: blocking the wind, collecting solar energy — and creating stunning views.
Oblong
A cooly named company, Oblong, will be presenting their gesture-controlled film editing system at the Oxford TED in 2009. A preview is already available in a demonstration video…its scarily like what was shown in the 2002 movie “Minority Report”…
oblong’s tamper system 1801011309 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
Margaret Wertheim
From TED: “Snowflakes, fractals, the patterns on a leaf — there’s beauty to be found at the intersection of nature and physics, beauty and math. Science writer Margaret Wertheim (along with her twin sister, Christine) founded the Institute for Figuring to advance the aesthetic appreciation of scientific concepts, from the natural physics of snowflakes and fractals to human constructs such as Islamic mosaics, string figures and weaving.”
The Beautiful Math of Coral
Science as Art! Art in Science. Stick with this video, even if crochet is not your thing. You’ll grow to appreciate this art form, crochet coral, when you hear Margaret explain how it answers tough questions in mathematics — No kidding! You’ll also never eat lettuce again without first playing with it.
Stefan Sagmeister
Here are some talks by Stefan Sagmeister, a graphic design artist, best known for his CD album cover artwork.
1. Yes, design can make you happy
This presentation given by Stefan in February 2004 has some innovative artistic ideas in the second half…
2. Things I have learned in my life so far
This second presentation by Stefan was given in February 2008; he picks up where he left off at his previous presentation, with many samples of his artistic representations of his life’s learnings (so far)…
Ursus Wehrli
From TED:
Comedian and cabaret artist Ursus Wehrli is the author of Tidying Up Art, a visionary manifesto that yearns toward a more rational, more organized and cleaner form of modern art. In deconstructing the work of Paul Klee, Jaspen Johns and other masters into its component parts, organized by color and size, Wehrli posits a more perfect art world.
Tidying up art
Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art — by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size.
Sir Ken Robinson
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
Do schools kill creativity?
Elizabeth Gilbert
The author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some large topics. Her next fascination: genius, and how we ruin it.