Language of Forms

Randal Thurston, Matthew Brand, and Kai von Fintel

Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 6-7 pm

Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Monadnock Room

Three extraordinary thinkers and makers joined a discussion about form. Cut-paper artist Randal Thurston creates intricate wall installations, which explore mythology, history, memory and science. He uses sources both scientific and art historical, striving to achieve an underlying structural harmony in his overarching desire to map the world of ideas. Scientist Matthew Brand studies perception, learning, and control -- what is optimal; what compromises does nature make? In the studio he exploits nature's shortcuts to create "optimized illusions" of unexpected beauty. Noted linguist Kai von Fintel is interested in meaning. His work investigates many topics in the area of natural language Semantics and Pragmatics and their intersection.

Randal Thurston's work cuts across many disciplines including Printmaking, Sculpture, Installation, Design and Public Art. He currently teaches in the School of Art and Design at Suffolk University. Since 1990 he has been exclusively cutting paper silhouettes. His work is included in many private collections and public collections including the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and the MFA, Boston.

Matthew Brand is a research scientist and Fellow at MERL and founder of Zintaglio Arts, a studio where perceptual psychology and novel fabrication technologies are leveraged into new art forms. Brand's research into the mechanisms underlying learning, perception, and control has led to several industrially successful technologies, over 100 scientific publications and technical patents, and uncountable manipulated images on the web.

Kai von Fintel is Professor of Linguistics at MIT and works on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Philosophy of Language. He is also Associate Dean of MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. He lives in an intentional community (Mosaic Commons Cohousing) in Berlin, MA. He was born on a cold winter's night in a small village on the Lüneburg Heath in Northern Germany.