Regine art in London, performance, science

#A.I.L – artists in laboratories, episode 42: X&Y, a theater play about mathematics, humour and infinity

The new episode of #A.I.L – artists in laboratories, the weekly radio programme about art and science i present on ResonanceFM, London’s favourite radio art station, is aired this Wednesday afternoon at 4pm.

0X&Y credit Benjamin Ealovega.jpgX &Y. Image Benjamin Ealovega for the Science Museum

Today’s guests are not the usual suspects as they are scientists using art to explore and communicate mathematics. Marcus du Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Victoria Gould is a mathematician and actress.

Marcus and Victoria have just spent several days and evenings at the Science Museum in London to perform X &Y, a theater show that use mathematics, humour and theatre to navigate the known and unknown reaches of our world and ultimately to approach some of the biggest philosophical and scientific questions we might encounter: where did the universe come from, does time have an end, is there something on the other side?

I saw one of the last London performances fearing everything would fly high above my head (math classes are far far away from my mind now) but the whole show is incredibly accessible, whether you’re a child or a retired professor of physics. I’m neither of those and i found X&Y surprisingly entertaining. I even enjoyed the language of equations and laughed. About mathematics! In the process, i learnt that zero is a relatively new number and that there are many sorts of infinity.

If you’ve missed the shows, you might want to head to the Science Festival in Manchester. I know i might. The programme is very tempting: an exhibition about contemporary architecture in Antarctica, retro computing events, a talk about the application of quantum physics on communication technology, a presentation about controlling brains from the outside, etc. And a series of X&Y performances from October 30th to November 3rd.

0X&Y credit Benjamin Ealovega (1).jpgX &Y. Image Benjamin Ealovega for the Science Museum

0X&Y credit Benjamin Ealovega (3).jpgX &Y. Image Benjamin Ealovega for the Science Museum

The radio show will be aired this Wednesday 23rd of October at 16:00, London time. Early risers can catch the repeat next Tuesday at 6.30 am. If you don’t live in London, you can listen to the online stream or wait till we upload the episodes on soundcloud.