Wednesday 12 December, 5-6.30pm, Jarman Studio 2
The ability to re-live our memories and imagine the future lies at the heart of humanity. It is key to creativity and innovative problem solving. Artists have this ability in spades: but we all do it and on a daily basis. It allows us to understand diverse realities ~ to see alternative temporal and spatial perspectives, as well as the way in which others may see things similarly and differently to ourselves. It forms the cornerstone of our identity, both individually and within society. Identity is not the same as a label, and this will be discussed. Imagination is essential for considering future scenarios but in so doing it erodes our memories: for each time we retrieve the information we re-evaluate all that has gone before. This process is both disadvantageous and opportunistic in equal measure. The absence of the ability to engage in mental time travel is both striking and devastating, and fundamentally changes the way a person thinks. We see this exemplified in very young children and in patients with specific brain damage. The question can be asked whether we are unique among the animal kingdom in travelling mentally in time. Studies on animals create a window of opportunity to ask whether other alien minds might be capable of such feats. Such insight might open the door to new ways of thinking, providing a gateway to understanding alternative realities and ones beyond our own.
Nicky Clayton is the Professor of Comparative Cognition and a University Teaching Officer in the Department of Psychology at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Clare College. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2010. Her expertise as a scientist lies in the contemporary study of how animals and children think. This work has led to a re-evaluation of the cognitive capacities of animals, particularly birds, and resulted in a theory that intelligence evolved independently in at least two distantly related groups, the apes and the crows. She has also pioneered new procedures for the experimental study of memory and imagination in animals, investigating its relationship to human memory and consciousness, and how and when these abilities develop in young children. In addition to scientific research and teaching, she is a dancer, specializing in tango and salsa. She is also Scientist in Residence at the Rambert Dance Company, collaborating with Mark Baldwin, the Artitsitc Director, on new choreographic works inspired by science (Comedy of Change, 2009; Seven For A Secret Never To Be Told, 2011; What Wild Ecstasy, 2012). Her most recent collaboration with artist Clive Wilkins arose out of their mutual interest in imagination, and its consequences for consciousness, identity and memory. They also regularly dance tango together.
Clive Wilkins has worked as a fine art painter and has exhibited widely, including at the National Portrait Gallery, London on several occasions. He has also exhibited at the Royal Academy and in private galleries in Cork Street, London – where he had a one man show in 2007. His work can be found in public and private collections. Clive has produced portraits of Sir Howard Hodgkin and Sir Peter Blake amongst others and has been presented publicly to HRH Princess Royal. His writing and paintings have been in print on numerous occasions, most notably in his published work ‘The Creatures in the Night”, a story written and lavishly illustrated by Wilkins in 2008. His current project, 'Moustachio', is a novel in four parts, of which parts 1 & 2 are complete. It explores imagination and questions aspects of consciousness and reality amidst the miasma of being. He currently lives in the heart of England. In addition to writing, he continues to be a painter, teacher, performer and tango dancer.