Lecture: InterPlanetary Poetics
This week, in lieu of a new interview, Alien Crash Site hostess Caitlin McShea had the great privilege to talk Sci-fi influence on Science (and vice versa) as part of the New School’s Transceiver lecture series, presented by the School for Policy and Design for Outer Space, and the Program for Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research.
Abstract:
How are scientific discoveries made? Some argue that science proceeds by falsification. Others argue that it proceeds by paradigm shifts. Both sides have obvious merit, but they leave out the discoveries generated by imagination in the minds of those outside of the scientific discipline. Sci-fi novels, cartoons, films, music, art, and video games are fantasy worlds to a certain degree. They’re labeled as such by virtue of the counterfactuals they explore. But how often have we seen prophecies in art come true decades or centuries after their initial imaginative expression? In this talk, Caitlin McShea looks at the role that counterfactual art plays in contributing to future scientific pursuit and technological innovation.
She’ll explore this idea by looking at examples of interplanetary poetics and their eventual influence on our current scientific world. On the precipice of becoming a spacefaring civilization, recognition of this relationship is more important than ever. Although this talk will be largely descriptive, it will also be an attempt to inspire the perpetuation of this art-science symbiosis.
Learn more about everything referenced in this lecture by clicking the links below:
EM Forster’s The Machine Stops
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, and Return to the Moon
Robert Heinlein’s The Long Watch
Isaac Asimov’s Runaround
Ted Chiang’s The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
Poe’s Eureka
Ted Chiang’s Seventy-Two Letters
De Rerum Natura by Lucretius