GORDON PASK ON SCIENCE AND ART

GORDON PASK ON SCIENCE AND ART: A RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION ON A BRITISH CYBERNETICIAN

CURATED BY Gonçalo Furtado and Albert Müller /ORGANIZED BY Gonçalo Furtado, Albert Müller and Rui Póvoas
F.A.U.P. - ESPAÇO DO MUSEU, 1st to the 15th of June 2009, 9-13h and 14-18h.

"Gordon Pask (1928-1996) was one of the most important figures in British and international cybernetics, and an influential promoter of second-order cybernetics. Starting in the 1950s with the experimentation with adaptive machines and computers, Pask developed towards the 1960s and 1970s highly innovative theoretical approaches that could be applied to a variety of fields including social and natural sciences as well as the humanities and arts. So called Conversation Theory is certainly one of the most interesting unifying theories based on the framework of systems sciences.
Pask was regarded by friends, fellow scientists and students as a veritable “genius”. Being both a researcher and a charismatic teacher, Pask was able to maintain a balance between running his own research lab and pursuing his world-wide activities at universities and other institutions. In addition, and embodying the tradition of the Victorian dandy, he had aspirations to combine science achievements with art. In fact, Pask acknowledged the presence of both areas in his life, and he was involved in and made important contributions to the fields of architecture and design.
'Gordon Pask on Science and Art' is a retrospective exhibition on this British cybernetician. It presents hundreds of documents, photographs, reports, correspondence related to Pask’s life and work in general and to his relationship to art, architecture and design in particular. Visitors can tour a well-structured series of exhibition zones and are invited to explore the great variety of Pask’s work as well as the complexity of his mind.
The exhibition is a result of a cooperation of Oporto University and the University of Vienna, and benefited from the curatorial work of Gonçalo Furtado, an expert on Gordon Pask from the Faculdade de Arquitectura, and Albert Müller, a historian with the University of Vienna who is the archivist of the Pask collection. Professor Rui Póvoas is a co-organizer of the exhibition.
The exhibition will take place at FAUP’s museum exhibition space from the 1st to the 15th of June 2009, and it will open to the academic and general public. The opening will be accompanied by a public address by FAUP’s Vice-dean Rui Póvoas and Professors Gonçalo Furtado and Albert Müller. Furtado will focus on his primary research on Pask as well as his book (in-print) which provides an account of Pask’s life and career. Müller will underline the importance of archival material in history of science studies."