Hear from artists, scholars, and scientists about how R. Buckminster Fuller inspires their work.
All discussions are free and open to the public and take place at 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge.
Saturday, January 15, following the 7:30 show: Peter Meisen, Founder of GENI (Global Energy Network Institute)
Peter Meisen is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego (1976) with an Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences degree. Meisen founded GENI (www.geni.org) in 1989, to conduct research and educate business leaders and policy-makers to the strategy of linking renewable energy resources around the world. www.wrsc.org
“One sentence in Bucky’s final book Critical Path changed my life. The “integrated world electric energy grid is the World Game’s highest priority objective.” The challenge seemed overwhelming at the time. Now, the world has caught up to the message.”
— Peter Meisen
CNN Interview with Peter Meisen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EG3aWuzmnQ
Sunday, January 16, following the 7:30 show: Allegra Fuller Snyder
Co-founder, first President, and now Honorary Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, Allegra Fuller is Bucky’s daughter. She is Professor Emerita of Dance and Dance Ethnology, UCLA; former Chair of the Department of Dance; and founding Coordinator of the World Arts and Cultures Program. She has served on the Dance Faculty at Cal Arts as well as Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, Guildford, England. She is a recent (2006) prestigious Marion Chace Foundation lecturer for the American Dance Therapy Association; and recipient of an award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research from the Congress on Dance Research, as well as 2006 Dance Resource Center of Los Angeles Gary Bates Service to The Field Award, and the 1992 American Dance Guild Honoree of the Year. She began her career as a performer and choreographer and has been concerned with the relation of dance to film since the late 1940s. She has made prize-winning documentary films on dance. She was the recipient of several Fulbright Scholarships and has done dance research around the world. Among many special projects, Snyder was a Core Consultant on the PBS series “Dancing” for WNET/Channel 13. On her recent return to performance, Jennifer Fisher of the L.A. Times said of her in “Spirit Dances 6: Inspired by Isadora,” “She was a haiku and an epic.”
Tuesday, January 18, following the 7:30 show: D. W. Jacobs, writer and director of R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE
Thursday, January 20 at 6:30 p.m.: Amy C. Edmonson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, has been on the Harvard faculty since 1996. Her current research examines novel collaborations among individuals and organizations in the development of sustainable urban communities. She has studied leadership influences on learning, collaboration and innovation in teams and organizations, leading to over 60 articles published in academic journals, management periodicals and books. Before her academic career, Edmondson was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked closely with founder and CEO Larry Wilson to design and implement organizational change programs in numerous large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for Buckminster Fuller, and her book, A Fuller Explanation, clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organizational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design, all from Harvard University.
Friday, January 21, following the 7:30 show: D. W. Jacobs, writer and director of R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE
Saturday, January 22, following the 2 p.m. matinee:
Educational Exhibit with Special Geometry Activity
Organized by the Synergetics Collaborative (SC), Foundation for New Directions (FND), and the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath).
SC (SynergeticsCollaborative.org), FND (fnd.org), and MoMath (MoMath.org) are organizing a special exhibit in the West Lobby. Each organization will have several facilitators on hand to engage participants with the displays. The exhibit will feature several hands-on displays. George Hart of the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) will lead participants of all ages in building (“barnraising”) a hands-on geometry activity of a human-scale artifact with a connection to the geometrical work ofR. Buckminster Fuller and Dr. Marvin Solit whose work was inspired in part by Bucky.
Sunday January 23, following the 2 p.m. matinee and the 7:30 show: Thomas T.K. Zung, Architect
Thomas Zung, one of Fuller’s architectural partners, will give a short overviewon the inventions of Buckminster Fuller with comments on Bucky’s Dymaxion car and the New Car #4 recently unveiled in Madrid by Lord Norman Foster at the Ivory Press Exhibition Gallery. The talk will include Stanford University Library materials.
Tuesday, January 25, following the 7:30 show: Donald Ingber, MD, PhD, Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
Donald Ingber, MD, PhD is the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology in Pathology and Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston. He is also a Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Founding Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Ingber has made major contributions to cell and tissue engineering, as well as angiogenesis, cancer, systems biology and nanobiotechnology. He is best known for his discovery that living cells structure themselves using Buckminster Fuller’s tensegrity architecture, and his pioneering work explaining how mechanical forces control cell and tissue development. Ingber has been a recipient of awards in diverse disciplines, including Breast Cancer Innovator Award (Department of Defense), Pritzker Award (Biomedical Engineering Society) and Rous Whipple Award (American Association of Investigative Pathologists) and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for In Vitro Biology; he was also named one of the world’s “Best and Brightest” in 2002 by Esquire. Ingber has authored over 300 publications and more than 40 patents in areas ranging from anti-angiogenic therapeutics, tissue engineering, nanotechnology and medical devices to computer software. He also helped to found two biotechnology start-ups, and has consulted for multiple pharmaceutical, biotechnology, cosmetic, venture capital and private investment companies, as well as New York Public Radio.
Wednesday January 26 at 6:30 p.m.: Annie DiMario, Production Dramaturg
A discussion of R. Buckminster Fuller and insights into the A.R.T.’s production.
Saturday, January 29, following the 2 p.m. matinee: Antoine Picon, G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design
Trained initially in science and engineering, Antoine Picon holds a Masters in architecture and a PhD in history. He is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has published extensively on the relations between architecture, urban design, science and technology. He is the author of French Architects and Engineers in the Age of the Enlightenment (1988 and 1992), Claude Perrault et la Curiosité d’un Classique (1988),L’Invention de l’Ingénieur Moderne (1992), La Ville Territoire des Cyborgs (1998), Les Saint-Simoniens. Raison, Imaginaire et Utopie (2002), and Digital Culture in Architecture (2010). His research has led him to Buckminister Fuller on various occasions. He was one of the contributors to the book Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe edited by his colleague K. Michael Hays and Dana A. Miller.
Sunday, January 30 at 6:30 p.m.: Annie DiMario, Production Dramaturg
A discussion of R. Buckminster Fuller and insights into the A.R.T.’s production.
Wednesday, February 2, following the 7:30 performance: Post-performance discussion with Jessica Lipnack, author and CEO, NetAge (www.netage.com), with systems theorist Jeffrey Stamps and former Bucky colleague Ed Hauben
In 1973, Jessica Lipnack, author with Jeff Stamps of seven books including The Networking Book (foreword by Bucky), Virtual Teams, and Thinking Networks (forthcoming) accidentally discovered 19th-century phenom Margaret Fuller. She soon learned that Bucky had been profoundly influenced by his long-dead great-aunt. In Jessica’s novel, The Persuasion, the ghost Margaret and the real Bucky are key characters with parallel ideas. Joining Jessica are systems theorist Jeff Stamps and Newton Community Education Director Ed Hauben, who worked with Bucky in New York and Carbondale; all were instrumental in bringing Bucky to Boston many times.
Saturday, February 5, following the 2 p.m. matinee: Thomas Derrah, Actor (R. Buckminster Fuller)