Mario Livio + Isabel Behncke + Paola Prestini

Renowned astrophysicist Mario Livio, Chilean primatologist Isabel Behncke, and composer Paola Prestini take part in an expansive conversation about curiosity, play, evolution, and creativity, moderated by NS+ curator Elena Park. Livio, a best-selling author whose inquiry often explores the intersection of science and art, recently published a new book: Why? What Makes Us Curious; he has appeared on The Daily Show, 60 Minutes, and NOVA. Behncke studied animal behavior and evolutionary anthropology at Cambridge and Oxford; she walked 3000+ km in the jungles of Congo to research the social behavior of bonobos (pan paniscus, a species of chimpanzee). Her widely-viewed TED Talk (“Evolution’s gift of play, from bonobo apes to humans”) explored ideas of play, trust, and sex. Prestini, National Sawdust’s CEO and Artistic Director, has been called “visionary-in-chief” by Time Out New York. Her music has been commissioned by and been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, BAM, and the Barbican Centre, by groups such as Brooklyn Rider, Attacca Quartet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The New York Philharmonic, and Choir of Trinity Wall Street, among others. Inspired by Livio’s pioneering work on the Hubble Space Telescope over more than two decades, Prestini collaborated with him on The Hubble Cantata, an ambitious piece featuring large musical forces and a VR film to tell the story of the birth, life, and death of a star.