Lunä Event
On September 28, the latest installment of Marjolijn Dijkman’s LUNÄ talk took place at Museum Boerhaave: a conversation around a reproduction of the oval dinner and discussion table of the Lunar Society. This society of renowned scientists, philosophers and inventors was founded in 1765 in Birmingham and gathered around this table at full moon to exchange new scientific discoveries and insights. Two and a half decades after the foundation of the Lunar Society, at full moon, various scientists and interested individuals gathered in the Boerhaave room, invited by Dijkman. In the room that once was a hospital room and was named after one of the leading scientists in clinical pathology – Herman Boerhaave – they discusses immortal, artificial and extraterrestrial life.
This evening’s scientists each introduced a subject, interest or observation by bringing an object which was subsequently visible on the table during the conversation, or was passed through the hands of those present. An old planetarium, a meteorite, a dissertation on computers and law, an artificial hip, a dvd of science fiction film 'Contact', a brain model, a pile of Duplo blocks, an original scripture of Christiaan Huygens, a reproduction of the picture ‘Earth Rise’ and images of ‘fractals’; they ushered an evening of speculation and discussion on technological innovations and their societal implications. The conversation moved along 5 kilometer long gas cloud aliens, moral evolution of artificial intelligence (and the anthropomorphic concepts we use to describe these processes) and people constantly leaking data everywhere, whether unaware or deliberately.
Conversation partners were, amongst others: Dirk van Delft (director Museum Boerhaave), Marjolijn Dijkman (artist), Peter Pels (Prof. Anthropology and leader of research group The Future is Elsewhere), George van Hal (science journalist and author of a.o. Robots, Aliens and Popcorn), Jaap van de Herik (Prof. in Law and Computer Sciences), Maarten Lamers (creative researcher in Media Technologies and Computer Sciences) and Dorien Zandbergen (anthropologist specialized in digital culture).
