Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Max Richter at (Le) Poisson Rouge

Some iPad-drawn memories from a phenomenal, moving Max Richter sold-out show at (Le) Poisson Rouge tonight. The composer presented and played on stage "Recomposed": Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" with the ensemble LPR, conducted by Tito Muñoz and Daniel Hope on the first violin. That was so beautiful...

Conductor Tito Muñoz and First Violin Daniel Hope
Composer Max Richter
Composer Max Richter during the second part of the concert, with string instruments, keyboards and laptop.



Monday, December 3, 2012

TEDx "Rise Of The Machines" with Ray Kurzweil & Juan Enriquez

Today, we're backing up our data. Soon, we'll be backing up our brains.  
"Everything is a gateway to the cloud" ~Ray Kurzweil

Today, I had an incredible opportunity to attend TEDx SiliconAlley at Terminal 5 in New York City, themed "Rise Of The Machines." Curated by Chris Grayson, the day was filled with amazing speakers.

"Fireside chat" between Ray Kurzweil and Juan Enriquez



 
Personally, I came to hear and draw Ray Kurzweil. This man, who has 19 honorary doctorate degrees aside from the long list of inventions, entrepreneurships, books and other notabilities, has been fascinating me for years. His insight into the exponential growth of technological innovation enables him to accurately predict the future, time and time again. According to Ray, development of intelligence is the next logical step in evolution, which, in turn, breeds artificial intelligence and posthumanism.





Ray Kurzweil's talk today was followed by a "fireside" chat with Juan Enriquez, who, to quote Wikipedia, "is recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on the economic and political impacts of life sciences." Juan also gave a talk earlier, a remarkable talk. He reminded us that historically, tattoos are permanent identifiers and storytellers. Today, by the virtue of sharing our personal data electronically, we have digital identifiers and stories. So Juan asked: what if Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., are our electronic tattoos? "Does Google make you immortal?" And "What if Andy was wrong? What if it's longer than 15 minutes?" (referring to fame, of course, and the notorious Andy Warhol prediction: "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.")


"What if we are darn close to immortality?" ~Juan Enriquez
"Human intelligence is based on recognizing patterns" ~Ray Kurzweil