TED Blog » Frans Lanting

Science and art, long-lost lovers, reunite for opening night of the World Science Festival

junecohen — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:27:08 +0000

The second year of the World Science Festival got off to a spectacular start last night at New York’s Lincoln Center, with a program star-studded from both science and the arts. We loved it here at TED, not just because it featured so many of our TED favorites — physicist Brian Greene (who co-founded the Festival with partner Tracy Day), biologist E.O. Wilson, actor Anna Deavere Smith, Nobel winner James Watson, photographer Frans Lanting and cellist Yo-Yo Ma to name a few — or because we share a lot of cross-disciplinary DNA with WSF, or because it was held in the new Alice Tully Hall (designed by TED speaker Liz Diller) but also for the its fresh, innovative approach and playful sense of fun.

The evening paid tribute to legendary biologist (and beloved TED Prize winner) E.O Wilson, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, but the program was really a love letter to science itself — for its importance, yes, but also for the inspiration and wonder it offers, and for its deep but often-unacknowledged kinship with the arts.

“Tonight, science and art, long-lost lovers, reunite” Alan Alda said, as he opened the show. And that sensibility pervaded the program, as it blended science and the arts in innovative and unusual ways — from a sequence of broadway musical stars singing light-hearted tributes to science (For example, a guided tour of the periodic table, set to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “I am the very model of a modern major general”. Brilliant!) to an intellectual pas de deux, featuring Brian Greene waxing eloquent on the nature of the universe, and Joshua Bell performing lyrically on the violin.

The evening included several heartfelt odes to Wilson — the transcendent cellist YoYo Ma performed playfully as young “ants” wiggle-danced around him (Wilson’s career was built on his research on ants); Anna Deavere Smith impersonated Wilson as only she could. And Nobel winner James Watson (of Watson & Crick double-helix fame) paid homage in his own eccentric way: “When we first met, Ed thought I was the most unpleasant person he’d ever known,” Watson explained to a chuckling audience. “And when I first met Ed, I didn’t think there was any point in knowing him. Because everyone knew: Biology was the dumb part of science.”

Photos: Robert Leslie. Courtesy WSFWatson and Wilson ultimately became great friends and colleagues. And Watson conceded, in his endearing curmudgeonly way: “We should all be happy that he hasn’t died prematurely.”

The centerpiece of the evening was the soaring New York premiere of Frans Lanting’s, “LIFE: A Journey Through Time.” The multimedia performance sets Lanting’s extraordinary images of the natural world to a Philip Glass score, performed live by the St Luke’s Orchestra and conducted by creative collaborator Marin Alsop.

Lanting, a National Geographic photographer and poet on the side, presented an early version of the LIFE project at TED2005, and it’s extraordinary to mark its progress and evolution. LIFE is now a book and traveling exhibit, as well as a live performance. It captures the beauty and drama of the natural world through a choreographed collage of contrast and color, pattern and motion. A tiny gazelle at the foot of an elephant; a lion half-hidden in twilight grass; a dove soaring; a frog staring; insects, amoebas, volcanoes, sand dunes. Stunningly beautiful, it leaves the audience struck by both the unity and diversity of life.

And the powerful live performance underscored Wilson’s central messages: The beauty and interconnectedness of life, and our urgent need to engage the broader public with the natural world. During a short speech at the reception following the event, Wilson called on everyone to rise to this challenge. “Entire species are slipping away, and we’re just nattering on,” Wilson said. “We must turn our attention to the natural world. And we need everyone’s attention.”

Photos: Robert Leslie. Courtesy WSF

TED and National Geographic: Shared mission, shared planet, shared stage

Shanna Carpenter — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:21:37 +0000

National Geographic shares stories that inspire people to care for our world, and TED leverages the power of ideas to change the world. It could be said that we share some common ground.

Unsurprisingly, almost half of the National Geographic Explorers, as well as a few members of their staff, have given TEDTalks. Below the jump is a list of links to all the talks that bring TED and National Geographic together.

Here’s National Geographic Explorer and TED Prize 2009 winner Sylvia Earle:

National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence:

Robert Ballard, Oceanographer
Robert Ballard: Exploring the ocean’s hidden worlds

Jared Diamond, Scholar
Jared Diamond: Why societies collapse

Louise Leakey, Paleoanthropologist
Louise Leakey: Digging for humanity’s origins

Paul Sereno, Paleontologist
Paul Sereno: What can fossils teach us?

Jane Goodall, Primatologist and Environmentalist
Jane Goodall: What separates us from the apes?

Jane Goodall: Helping humans and animals live together in Africa

Wade Davis
Wade Davis: Cultures at the far edge of the world

Wade Davis: The worldwide wed of belief and ritual

Tierney Thys, Marine Biologist/Filmmaker (a 2004 Emerging Explorer)
Tierney Thys: Swim with giant sunfish in the open ocean

Spencer Wells, Genographer (a 2004 Emerging Explorer)
Spencer Wells: Building a family tree for all humanity

Zeresenay Alemseged, Paleoanthropologist (a 2004 Emerging Explorer)
Zeresenay Alemseged looks for humanity’s roots

Joseph Lekuton, Teacher (a 2006 Emerging Explorer)
Joseph Lekuton: A parable for Kenya

Corneille Ewango, Tropical Botanist (a 2007 Emerging Explorer)
Corneille Ewango: A hero of the Congo Basin forest

Nathan Wolfe, Biologist (a 2009 Emerging Explorer)
Nathan Wolfe: Hunting the next killer virus

National Geographic staff

Frans Lanting, National Geographic Photographer-in-Residence
Frans Lanting: A lyrical view of life on Earth

Keith Bellows, Editor in Chief, National Geographic Traveler
Keith Bellows: Celebrating the camel

David Griffin, Director of Photography, National Geographic Magazine
David Griffin: Photography connects us with the world

E.O. Wilson on PBS: Why should we care if the woodpecker goes?

bgiussani — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:55:01 +0000

The last “Bill Moyers Journal“, the weekly report on PBS, featured a long interview (video – transcript) by Moyers with biologist and TED Prize 2007 winner EO Wilson. The focus was very much on Wilson’s career — “No one in our time has added more to our understanding of Earth’s ecology than Ed Wilson” is how Moyers described him — but Moyers took the opportunity to also ask questions about the Encyclopedia of Life. The EOL is Wilson’s TED Prize wish (video – summary – text): It’s a vast project aimed at documenting all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth, and those yet to be discovered (“We’re maybe today about 1/10 through the discovery of species”, says Wilson). Efforts towards an EOL have been underway since January 2006, but Wilson’s TED2007 speech has significantly accelerated the process, with the McArthur Foundation leading a US$ 50 million funding commitment, leading scientific institutions including Harvard University and the Smithsonian teaming up, and agency Avenue A/Razorfish creating a first design concept for the Encyclopedia and a video to explain the ambitious vision behind the initiative, using photography by Frans Lanting (watch his TED 2005 speech) and others.

Moyers is a great interviewer. At a certain point, he asks Wilson: why should we care if the woodpecker goes? I mean, we’ve lost—how many species have we lost?

Wilson: How many species going extinct or becoming very rare do you think it takes before you see something happening? We now know from experiments and theory that the more species you take out of an ecosystem like a pond, a patch of forest, a little bit of marine shallow environments, the more you take out the less stable it becomes. If you have a tsunami or a severe drought or a fire, it is less likely that that ecosystem, that body of species in that particular environment, is going to come back all the way. So it becomes less stable with fewer species. And then we also know it becomes less productive. In other words, it’s not able to produce as many kilograms of new matter from photosynthesis and passage through the ecosystem. It’s less productive. It sure is less interesting, though, isn’t it? And more than that: we lose the services of these species.

Moyers: The services of these species.

Wilson: Yes, services of these species to us. Like pollination and water purification.

Moyers: That we get free from nature.

Wilson: Yeah. Here’s an easy way to remember it.

Frans Lanting on TED.com

tedstaff — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:44:03 +0000

In this stunning slideshow, celebrated nature photographer Frans Lanting presents The LIFE Project, a poetic collection of photographs that tell the story of our planet, from its eruptive beginnings to its present diversity. Soundtrack by Philip Glass.