Peace, Love and Urbanism: Emanuele Castano Explores the Individual and the City at the Guggenheim BMW Lab
On Saturday, September 31, Emanuele Castano, Associate Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research, will be participating in two events at the acclaimed Guggenheim BMW Lab.
The first two-year cycle of the Lab, entitled Confronting Comfort, explores the role of urban environments in city dweller’s wellbeing. Confronting Comfort also addresses the pressing need for social and environmental responsibility. This weekend’s events highlight the sense of community that exists within urban environments, celebrate the way strangers come together to form a cosmopolitan city, and explore the delicate balance that underlies this existence.
The first event, which takes place Friday, September 30, 2011, from 7-9 pm, bears the evocative title Love Night,, and is designed to celebrate the sense altruism and trust that exists between people, even among strangers. Emanuele Castano, neuroscientist Paul Zak, and Kio Stark of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program come together to create an evening of playful experiments complete with mulit-media performances.
On Saturday, September 31, 2011 from 12-1 pm, professor Castano and neuroeconomist Paul Zak will host a discussion entitled Strangers, Terror, and Kindness in Cities., The dialogue will explore the ways people from different cultural backgrounds connect and exist peacefully despite the constant mediation of an internal struggle between instincts for fear and trust.
Designed to address contemporary issues, the Guggenheim BMW Lab is a mobile forum for public discourse and a unique think tank for forward-thinking solutions for city life. The Lab is poised to travel to nine cities over the next six years, uniting emerging thinkers in urbanism, architecture, art, design, science, technology, education, and sustainability.
Both events are free and will be held at the Guggenheim BMW Lab, First Park | Houston at 2nd Ave A. For additional information, visit the Guggenheim BMW Lab website.