Rendezvous Problem: Formulations on the Optimal Ways for Art and Science to Meet

-        series of public presentations at AVU –

Two people have a date in a park they have never been to before. Arriving separately, they are both surprised to discover that it is quite a large area, and as a result it is difficult for them to find one another. Faced with this situation, each of them has to choose between waiting in a fixed place, in the hope that the other will find them, or else starting to walk around, in the hope that the other has chosen to wait somewhere. If they both choose to wait, they will never meet. If they both choose to walk, there is a chance that they will meet and there is a chance that they will not. If one chooses to wait and the other chooses to walk, there is a theoretical certainty that they will meet eventually; in practice, however, it may take too long for it to become actualised. The question posed, then, is: what strategies should they choose to maximize their probability of meeting?

The premise of the series is that such a rendezvous between an artist and a scientist is staged. They promise to engage with the same topic, on condition that they each talk about it from the perspective of their own discipline: the scientist only talks about science, the artist speaks only about art. At certain points in the course of their respective address, they might intersect. Equally, a complete disconnection, despite the common thematic space shared, might present itself. A conversation following the two presentations explores these intersections and discontinuities.

Organised by Anetta Mona Chișa, Irina Gheorghe, Jakub Podgorný

The project is a cooperation between

Akademie výtvarných umění/ The Academy of Fine Arts Prague 

LARGE Laboratory for Art, Research and Graduate Education

Velrybí srdce, z.s