David Edwards

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome Harvard engineering professor and artscience pioneer DAVID EDWARDS as he looks at the future of scientific research and his new book, The Lab: Creativity and Culture.

Six months before opening Le Laboratoire in Paris, David Edwards visited Hans Ulrich Obrist, who had co-curated the famous exhibition "Laboratorium" that explored connections between art and science. “Famous, yes,” said Hans, “which I find ironic since almost nobody saw it. You have to be careful getting too near contemporary science.”

But this was precisely where David Edwards chose to be. His new book, The Lab, promotes surprising innovations in culture, industry and society by exploring new ideas in the arts and design at the frontiers of science. Edwards argues for a new kind of educational art lab based on a contemporary science lab model—the “artscience lab.” With examples ranging from breathable chocolate to contemporary art installations that explore the neuroscience of fear, he demonstrates how students learn by translating ideas alongside experienced creators and exhibiting risky experimental processes in gallery settings. Idea translation, making the conception real, is in turn facilitated by a network of complementary labs whose missions range from education to industrial and humanitarian development.

A manifesto of a new innovation model driven by the arts, this is the first detailed description of an emerging cultural phenomenon in the United States and Europe where artists and scientists collaborate to produce intriguing cultural content and surprising innovations.