ANNA ABRAHAM - Author of “The Neuroscience of Creativity” - Director of Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development

ANNA ABRAHAM - Author of “The Neuroscience of Creativity” - Director of Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development

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Author of The Neuroscience of Creativity
Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development, University of Georgia

I love podcasts and things like that, if only to listen to people who've done incredible things. We live in a kind of unusual time where we can hear firsthand people talking about their own experiences, and what they went through when they were creating something. And while artists differ greatly from one another in terms of the specifics of their process, what certainly seems to be the case is that they're extraordinarily interested in their own mind, and they have what we would call a metacognitive awareness. They know almost quite precisely, at least what doesn't work for them. They're very cued into what to avoid and how to sort of generate the mental conditions that are necessary in order to be as generative or as creative as they're likely to be in a specific situation. So that is a deep medical awareness that they have about their own process that is really quite something. They know themselves very well.

Highlights - JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Highlights - JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

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Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

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Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

Highlights - Julio Ottino - Founding Co-Director of Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems

Highlights - Julio Ottino - Founding Co-Director of Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems

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Julio Ottino is an artist, researcher, author, and educator at Northwestern University. He is the author, with Bruce Mau, of The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. He was the founding co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. In 2008, he was listed in the “One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era”. In 2017, he was awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education from the National Academy of Engineering.

Today's complex problems demand a radically new way of thinking — one in which art, technology, and science converge to expand our creativity and augment our insight. Creativity must be combined with the ability to execute; the leaders and innovators of the future will have to understand this balance and manage such complexities as climate change and pandemics. The place of this convergence is THE NEXUS. In this provocative and visually striking book, Julio Mario Ottino and Bruce Mau offer a guide for navigating the intersections of art, technology, and science.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Riya Patel with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Riya Patel.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

Julio Ottino - Author of “The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science”


Julio Ottino - Author of “The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science”


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Julio Ottino is an artist, researcher, author, and educator at Northwestern University. He is the author, with Bruce Mau, of The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. He was the founding co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. In 2008, he was listed in the “One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era”. In 2017, he was awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education from the National Academy of Engineering.

Today's complex problems demand a radically new way of thinking — one in which art, technology, and science converge to expand our creativity and augment our insight. Creativity must be combined with the ability to execute; the leaders and innovators of the future will have to understand this balance and manage such complexities as climate change and pandemics. The place of this convergence is THE NEXUS. In this provocative and visually striking book, Julio Mario Ottino and Bruce Mau offer a guide for navigating the intersections of art, technology, and science.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Riya Patel with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Riya Patel.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker - Creator of "Words That Move"

Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker - Creator of "Words That Move"

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Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker & Speaker
Creator of the Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move

Technology has very much changed the way we read and take in information and shortened it into quick bursts and attention spans. We're living in a new world, for sure. And how do we communicate in this new world? Not just in a way that gets the reach, because there are whole industries aimed at what do I do to get the most likes or the most attention, and all of that, which I don't think is very fulfilling as artists.

It's sort of a diminishing of our art form to try and play the game because then we're getting the attention and getting the hits, as opposed to what do I really want to create? How do I really want to create it? How do I want to display this? And can I do it in a way that breaks through so that if I do it my way, it's still going to get the attention, great. But if it doesn't, can I be cool with that? And can I be okay creating what I want to create, knowing that that's what it's about. It's about sharing in an honest, authentic way what I want to express without letting the tentacles of social media drip into my brain and take over why I'm literally doing the things that I'm doing.

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker - Creator of "Words That Move"

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker - Creator of "Words That Move"

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Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker & Speaker
Creator of the Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move

Technology has very much changed the way we read and take in information and shortened it into quick bursts and attention spans. We're living in a new world, for sure. And how do we communicate in this new world? Not just in a way that gets the reach, because there are whole industries aimed at what do I do to get the most likes or the most attention, and all of that, which I don't think is very fulfilling as artists.

It's sort of a diminishing of our art form to try and play the game because then we're getting the attention and getting the hits, as opposed to what do I really want to create? How do I really want to create it? How do I want to display this? And can I do it in a way that breaks through so that if I do it my way, it's still going to get the attention, great. But if it doesn't, can I be cool with that? And can I be okay creating what I want to create, knowing that that's what it's about. It's about sharing in an honest, authentic way what I want to express without letting the tentacles of social media drip into my brain and take over why I'm literally doing the things that I'm doing.

Highlights - Adam Alter - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”

Highlights - Adam Alter - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”

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Author of NYTimes Bestseller Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked ·
Anatomy of a Breakthrough · Drunk Tank Pink

The other thing from a creativity perspective is we know that more people around you is good for creativity. It's one of the axioms in thinking about creativity in general. You need time. An artist, a writer. I'm a writer. I need time on my own. I also paint and draw. I cannot do that with other people around. It's just my process. But before you get there, before you get to that point where you need that time alone, that space apart, for almost everyone being around other people is good. It's good for creativity. It's both about diversity of opinion and idea and just about having more - just more information, more thoughts, more ways of looking at the world. And some of the most profound research I've come across in preparing for this book suggested that it's better to be around people who are deeply incompetent than it is to be around no one, which I found very surprising.

Adam Alter - Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”, “Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

Adam Alter - Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”, “Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

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Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Drunk Tank Pink, which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and a host of TV, radio, and publications. His next book Anatomy of a Breakthrough will be published in 2023.

Highlights - Etgar Keret - Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director - Author of “Fly Already”, “The Seven Good Years”

Highlights - Etgar Keret - Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director - Author of “Fly Already”, “The Seven Good Years”

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Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director
Author of Fly Already · Suddenly a Knock on the Door · The Seven Good Years

For me, there is something about art, it's not a monologue, it's a dialogue. Some people, it doesn't matter who they speak to, they will speak in the same way they would speak to a five-year-old or to an intellectual or to somebody who doesn't speak the language very well. They would speak the same way and they don't care because this is what they have to say, but I think that the natural thing in the dialogue is really to look into the eyes of the person you speak to and see when he understands or when she doesn't understand or when she's moved or when he's angry. And basically out of that, kind of create your own language.

Etgar Keret - Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director - Author of “Fly Already”, “Suddenly a Knock on the Door”

Etgar Keret - Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director - Author of “Fly Already”, “Suddenly a Knock on the Door”

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Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director
Author of Fly Already · Suddenly a Knock on the Door · The Seven Good Years

For me, there is something about art, it's not a monologue, it's a dialogue. Some people, it doesn't matter who they speak to, they will speak in the same way they would speak to a five-year-old or to an intellectual or to somebody who doesn't speak the language very well. They would speak the same way and they don't care because this is what they have to say, but I think that the natural thing in the dialogue is really to look into the eyes of the person you speak to and see when he understands or when she doesn't understand or when she's moved or when he's angry. And basically out of that, kind of create your own language.

Highlights - Sam Levy - Cinematographer of “Lady Bird” “Confess, Fletch” “Frances Ha”

Highlights - Sam Levy - Cinematographer of “Lady Bird” “Confess, Fletch” “Frances Ha”

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Award-winning Cinematographer of Lady Bird · Frances Ha · While We’re Young · Confess, Fletch

Every movie is different. Every story is different. I think if we're lucky in our lives, we can choose the path that we want to go down, whether it's something creative or in the arts or something else. And I think if you're lucky, you can spend your life or your career following something you really love or spending time following the path, whether it's a hobby or your career. And spending that time paying the attention that the craft or the hobby or the creative pursuit wants.

Sam Levy - Award-winning Cinematographer of “Lady Bird” “Frances Ha” “While We’re Young”

Sam Levy - Award-winning Cinematographer of “Lady Bird” “Frances Ha” “While We’re Young”

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Award-winning Cinematographer of Lady Bird · Frances Ha · While We’re Young · Confess, Fletch

Every movie is different. Every story is different. I think if we're lucky in our lives, we can choose the path that we want to go down, whether it's something creative or in the arts or something else. And I think if you're lucky, you can spend your life or your career following something you really love or spending time following the path, whether it's a hobby or your career. And spending that time paying the attention that the craft or the hobby or the creative pursuit wants.

Highlights - Oberon Sinclair - Founder CEO of Creative/Branding Agency My Young Auntie

Highlights - Oberon Sinclair - Founder CEO of Creative/Branding Agency My Young Auntie

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CEO & Founder of Creative/Branding Agency My Young Auntie

If someone comes to me, and they say, “Oh, I have a new brand. It's a startup.” First of all, I have to like the person, they have to like me. It's a two way street. And that's the most important thing with anyone in life, not just work. In life, why do we make friends with who we make friends with? They are relationships. And if you connect with someone, magic will happen. If you don't connect with someone, and someone doesn't understand or have the same aesthetic or a similar way of thinking – you have to have something in common with someone. And if you have those qualities, which I look for, honesty and loyalty, and they're genuine, and you just know if you're going to get on with someone or not.

Oberon Sinclair - Founder CEO of Creative/Branding Agency My Young Auntie - Queen of Kale

Oberon Sinclair - Founder CEO of Creative/Branding Agency My Young Auntie - Queen of Kale

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CEO & Founder of Creative/Branding Agency My Young Auntie

If someone comes to me, and they say, “Oh, I have a new brand. It's a startup.” First of all, I have to like the person, they have to like me. It's a two way street. And that's the most important thing with anyone in life, not just work. In life, why do we make friends with who we make friends with? They are relationships. And if you connect with someone, magic will happen. If you don't connect with someone, and someone doesn't understand or have the same aesthetic or a similar way of thinking – you have to have something in common with someone. And if you have those qualities, which I look for, honesty and loyalty, and they're genuine, and you just know if you're going to get on with someone or not.

Highlights - Dickie Landry - Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist

Highlights - Dickie Landry - Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist

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Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist

Einstein on the Beach, it's a masterpiece. America, in 1976, was to be celebrating its 200th year of existence, and Michel Guy, the French Minister of Culture, came to New York to offer a commission to Philip Glass and Robert Wilson to write an opera. This was the gift that France would give for America's two-hundredth anniversary. That was the first time I met Robert Wilson.

Dickie Landry - Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist

Dickie Landry - Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist

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Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist

Einstein on the Beach, it's a masterpiece. America, in 1976, was to be celebrating its 200th year of existence, and Michel Guy, the French Minister of Culture, came to New York to offer a commission to Philip Glass and Robert Wilson to write an opera. This was the gift that France would give for America's two-hundredth anniversary. That was the first time I met Robert Wilson.

Highlights - Gloria Pacis - Artist

Highlights - Gloria Pacis - Artist

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Artist

I just feel there is already a connection, something I have to come to, but that I'm trying to search it out or see what's already there. I feel that we are truly connected as a world. And I'm just trying to make people aware of an existing connection we already have, to send that message out there. And I like to do it in the form of...I guess you'd call it a mundane image, where it's not really about bells and whistles, but it's about something in it makes you want to look, and you want to know why. And it's because you've been there before, regardless of whether you are a dancer or that particular guy in the subway, you know you've been in his head in that mood that he's experiencing.

Gloria Pacis - Artist

Gloria Pacis - Artist

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Artist

I just feel there is already a connection, something I have to come to, but that I'm trying to search it out or see what's already there. I feel that we are truly connected as a world. And I'm just trying to make people aware of an existing connection we already have, to send that message out there. And I like to do it in the form of...I guess you'd call it a mundane image, where it's not really about bells and whistles, but it's about something in it makes you want to look, and you want to know why. And it's because you've been there before, regardless of whether you are a dancer or that particular guy in the subway, you know you've been in his head in that mood that he's experiencing.

Highlights - Johnjoe McFadden - Author of “Life is Simple” - Prof. Molecular Genetics, Assoc. Dean - U of Surrey

Highlights - Johnjoe McFadden - Author of “Life is Simple” - Prof. Molecular Genetics, Assoc. Dean - U of Surrey

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Author of Life is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe
Co-author of Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
Professor of Molecular Genetics & Assoc. Dean (Int’l) · University of Surrey

I think that's what art is all about is communicating these big, complex objects, which are ideas inside our head, but in a non-dissected way in which the object isn't completely dissected, or it's dissected in such a way it can be reassembled in somebody else's mind. So you get a full experience of what the artist had or as close as he or she can make it. So I think that to me is what art does. It's a way of communicating these wonderful ideas and feelings that we have inside our heads. And they're trapped there, and art allows you - by playing music or painting, or writing poetry... - it allows you to communicate this in this holistic kind of way.