MUSEUMS/EXHIBITIONSTrompe l’Oeil: The Art of Illusion
The skill of the painter is the key to this art form. The artist produces two-dimensional images designed to trick the visual cortex into thinking it sees a three-dimensional assemblage of objects. It’s an old art form that is still popular today. This exhibition brings together the leading trompe l’oeil painters currently at work across America.
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Ala.
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October 7–December 3
334-240-4333
Slocum Puzzle Room at the Lilly Library
Love puzzles? A puzzle enthusiast, author and collector by the name of Jerry Slocum just donated 30,000 puzzles to the Lilly Library, and some 400 of them have gone on exhibit. These are all mechanical puzzles, such as the Rubik’s cube or three-dimensional entanglements of metal, wood or glass that you have to figure out how to disassemble.
Lilly Library, Bloomington, Ind.
Ongoing
812-855-2452
www.indiana.edu/∼liblilly/index.html
[break] LECTUREPositive Psychology: The Science of Happiness
Tal Ben-Shahar—a psychologist at Harvard University, instructor of one of the most popular courses there, and author of The Question of Happiness (Writers Club Press, 2002)—gives a lecture on the study of happiness according to positive psychology: “the scientific study of optimal human functioning.” The lecture is in conjunction with the exhibition “Body Worlds 2.”
Museum of Science, Boston
October 4 at 7 p.m.
Free, but seating is limited;
call 617-723-2500
[break] CONFERENCENeuroscience 2006
At the Society for Neuroscience’s 36th annual meeting, one presidential lecture will be on the molecular neurobiology of Alzheimer’s disease. Frank Gehry will also talk about “Architecture and Perception.”
Atlanta
October 14–18
202-962-4000, info@sfn.org
[break] MOVIES49 Up
In 1964 director Michael Apted interviewed a group of British seven-year-olds about life and their hopes for the future. Every seven years since then, he has revisited the same (more or less) group, providing time-capsule-like snapshots of the ups and downs of human lives in progress.
U.S. distribution by First Run Features
Theatrical release: October 6
Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) was, as a teenager, sent off to be raised by the family of his mother’s therapist. There we have the beginnings of a memoir, on which this film is based, of a bizarre childhood in which Valium, squalor, sexual abuse and Santa Claus figure prominently. The question of what is truth or fiction has been the subject of lawsuits brought after publication of the book in 2002, but the story also functions as a morality play about borderline insanity in a modern family. Ironically, the famously separated Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were producers for the film.
TriStar (Sony Pictures)
Opens October 11
Pierrepoint/The Last Hangman
Albert Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) had an odd career: he was the chief executioner of Britain for 14 years. The film takes the viewpoint of the man who took pride in the work that killed 450 men and women—Nazis, traitors, gangsters, jilted lovers and innocents. He was content to make a living from death, but long after he resigned he spoke out against capital punishment, having concluded that hanging solved nothing and that criminals who had escaped his noose were reprieved for the most capricious of reasons.
U.S. distribution by IFC Films
Scheduled to open November 17
[break] RADIOPsyched!
A weekly program broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio (LIME, Channel 114). Hosted by Scientific American Mind contributing editor Robert Epstein. Guests have included Daniel Gilbert of Harvard and Rosalynn Carter.
877-PSYCHRADIO (877-779-2472)
[break] WEB SITES
Hugo Heyrman is a “Belgian painter and new media researcher” who has put together this highly cerebral site on the aesthetics of mind. For those readers who enjoyed our “Body Language” section this month, take a look at “What human beings tell with their bodies,” a series of ultrabrief video loops that clearly show the body language of the inner mental state.
The ultimate collaborative artwork facilitated by the Web: “collective sketching of the collective consciousness.” You can add your own lines to an ongoing work and vote on lines drawn by other e-artists. Aesthetically the end result resembles the doodles on your (insert boring subject here) notebook at the end of the semester, but knowing that a sketch such as “Mt. Rushmore” was drawn by up to 1,000 people gives it a great philosophical weight.
Compiled by Dan Schlenoff. Send items to editors@sciammind.com