November 5th and 6th | 9.30pm to 11pm

NOV 5th - What is Creativity?

With:

• Maria José Goulão, Art History Professor at Faculty of Fine Arts, Porto University, Porto

• Tiago Guedes, Director of Porto Municipal Theatre, Rivoli and Campo Alegre, Porto

• Carlos Martins, Founder and Managing Partner at Opium, Porto

• David Bowden, associate director, Institute of Ideas

And:

• Alastair Donald, Associate Director Future Cities Project, London

"It is claimed that we are living in an ‘Age of Creativity’. Researcher Richard Florida has identified the rise of a creative class, ‘whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content’.

Everyone, they say, has the capacity to be creative.

As scientists look to our neurons for answers, architects and urban designers often argue that the key influence on creativity is our environment.

Can design cultivate creativity? Do we know how to encourage creativity or even what it is? Is it one of those abstract concepts that can mean everything and nothing all at once, even as it is widely debated?"

+ info http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10416

6 NOV - Public Space: Collective Common or Virtual Reality?

With:

• Ana Castro, ou Ana Muska, Designer, Circus Network, Porto

• Alastair Donald, Associate Director Future Cities Project, London

• Teresa Novais, Architect, Founder and Partner at aNC arquitectos, Porto

• André Tavares, Chief Curator, Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2016

And:

• Alan Miller, Chairman, Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), London

"After much talk in recent years of the public sphere moving online, there’s a resurgence of interest in the physical world.

Yet the question remains as to what actually is public space and who is it for?

Hannah Arendt wrote that public space is where people act rather than work: ‘it is a space where political action takes place urged by freedom and the need for self-realisation of the individual’. But if public space is the arena where we, the public, make something of ourselves, then do we really need public authorities to cultivate engagement through public space? To what extent can public space create a public? Should public space have to bear this burden at all?"

+ info http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10418