SURVIVING PROGRESS+panel discussion

May 17, 2012 20:30

Date Published: May 04, 2012 15:49 by DocHouse |

Tagged as: culture environmentalism

Tricycle Cinema, 269 Kilburn High Road, London

Places: london

SURVIVING PROGRESS UK Premiere & Panel Discussion

with Dr Jonathan Aldred author of The Skeptical Economist & Dr Marius Kwint curator of the Wellcome Collection’s Brains Exhibition

Tricycle Cinema | 8.30pm | 17th May | £7/5 concs

From cave-dwellers to space explorers, mankind has it all, or so it thinks.

Produced by Martin Scorsese, this compelling film asks whether we've taken too much and civilisation is on a knife-edge.

SEE THE TRAILER

Humans are incredible in their ability to problem solve and create. But the problem of what to do about extraordinary consumption in a world of finite resources is not being faced. Stephen Hawking tells us to find homes in space, Margaret Atwood says that unless we preserve the planet there will be no economy, and Craig Venter, whose team decoded the human genome, is designing synthetic organisms he hopes will create artificial food and fuel for all. There is hope that our ingenuity and moral evolution can save the day but the clock is ticking.

‘This is a provocative film, one which gets to the fundamental nature and effects of the human condition with disturbing precision.’ (Vancouver International Film Festival Catalogue)

Dr Jonathan Aldred is a lecturer in Economics at Cambridge University. His book The Skeptical Economist: Revealing the Ethics in Economics challenges the assumptions behind the economics of our current way of life asking how we ought to live, what we value and why.

Dr Marius Kwint is Senior Lecture of Visual Culture at Portsmouth University and was commissioned by the Wellcome Collection to curate their current exhibition Brains exploring what humans have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning and technological change. Marius’ research, teaching and curatorial interests include materiality, form and cultural modernity such as the history of collecting and consumerism.