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Religion Art and the Brain
10th - 13th
March 2005
at Winchester Cathedral and
Theatre Royal Winchester
Jewry Street,
Winchester SO23 8SB
Box Office 01962 840 440
Tickets:
£8 per day session - £6 concessions
£10 evening session - £8 concessions
Day ticket £30
Religious experience
is a uniquely powerful and universal human characteristic.
What triggers the brain to produce it, how does it do it,
and why?
This
three-day festival explores these questions from a
psychological and physiological perspective, and demonstrates
how music and art can be used to bring about the transcendent
state of consciousness we identify as spirituality.
In
our most ambitious festival to date, Art and Mind brings together
a powerful mix of practitioners – Buddhist, Christian, Sufi
and more – with artists, scientists and academics to explore
the use of sacred spaces, epilepsy and ecstasy, consciousness
and religion and the uses of religious music and ritual.
Through discussion,
performance, exhibition and ritual we promise a weekend experience
of such richness, fascination, revelation and pure pleasure
that none of us will leave unchanged.
Thursday 10th
March
Winchester
Cathedral
7.30pm - The
Mystery of Faith - a concert of works composed by John Tavener
This
will include the world premiere of a new work by John Tavener
commissioned for Art and Mind by University College Winchester.
All
further sessions at Theatre Royal Winchester
Friday 11th
March
Daytime Programme
for Schools
Session 1
6.30
- 6.40 Festival Director’s introduction
Garry Kennard
6.40
- 7.10 Science and Spirit in an Age of Secularism
Professor A. C. Grayling
Reader in Philosophy,
Birbeck College, University of London
7.10
- 8.30 The Mystery of Faith
John Tavener, composer, in discussion with June Boyce Tillman,
Professor of Applied Music, University College Winchester
Evening Performance
8.30 - 9.30pm
The
Mystic Heart of Islam - A performance by members of the Turkish
Art Music group Nihavend will perform sufi music from Turkey:
The
main piece will be Beyati Mevlevi Ayini composed by Kocek
Mustafa Efendi (about 40 minutes). This will be followed by
some ilahis, shorter religious songs in Turkish.
Whirling derwishes
will be Sheikh Ahmed fro the Netherlands and three of his
adherents.
Saturday 12th
March
Session 1
11.00 - 12.45
Cradle of Thought - Carved in Stone - Art and Religion in
Prehistory,
Paul Bahn, archaeologist and leading authority on ice age
cave art
The
Evolution of God – The Deity in the Brain
Prof Todd Murphy, Behavioural Neuroscientist from, the Laurentian
University
Session 2
2.00
- 3.45 Music and Mind - Sacred and Profane - Decoding the
spiritual world of Bach
Prof Paul Robertson, master violinist, with (in period costume}
Baroque Dancers, Robin and Christine Stokoe
Concludes with
full performance of Bach’s celebrated ‘Chaconne’ for Solo
violin
Session 3
4.30
- 6.30 The Egoless State - Mind of the Buddha - Spirituality
and the Brain
Guy Claxton, Professor of the Learning Sciences, University
of Bristol
Art
and Mind Panel Event plus Q&A with Todd Murphy, Paul Bahn,
Paul Robertson, Guy Claxton plus Chair
Evening
Performance: 7.45 - 9.30 Power of Compassion - Sacred
Dance and Ritual Chant
The
Tibetan monks from Tashi Lhunpo Monastery perform their spectacular
dances and music
Sunday 13th
March
Session 1
11.00 - 12.45
Art and Perception - Perceptual Projections - Virtual Realitites
of the Mind
Professor Richard Gregory
Psychology, Bristol University
Sacred Spaces
- Architecture and the Self
Garry Kennard, Artist, Director of Art and Mind
Session 2
2.00
- 4.00pm Transcendence and Ecstasy - Viral Faith - Religion
as Meme
Dr Susan Blackmore - neuroscientist and Zen practioner
Intoxicating
Minds - Drugs and the Brain
Prof Ciaran Regan - Pharmacology, University College Dublin
Session 3
4.30
- 6.30 Man and the Cosmos - Images of Passion
Richard Harries - Bishop of Oxford
Art
and Mind Panel Event plus Q&A
Richard Gregory, Garry Kennard, Susan Blackmore, Ciaran Regan,
Richard Harries plus Chair
7.30pm onwards
(limited room)
Chill
Out with speakers and Directors at the function room at Savannah,
Jewry Street
Box Office
01962 840 440
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