APRIL 28th SPECIAL EVENT!! Finger Lakes Bioneers Presents A New Film That Explores a Different Way of Seeing and Knowing Nature
(TITLE ): “An Ecology of Mind- A Film and Conversation About the Pattern that Connects"
Location of event: Cinemapolis, 120 East Green St. in downtown Ithaca
SATURDAY APRIL 28th, 1-4PM: Finger Lakes Bioneers and Sustainable Tompkins are very pleased to host a visit to Ithaca of the international tour by director Nora Bateson who will introduce her new documentary An Ecology of Mind. The 60-minute film presents a richly engaging portrait of the very relevant and compassionate insights of her father Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). He was and is recognized as an influential figure in a number of arenas of thought especially family therapy, anthropology, early cybernetics and environmental philosophy. Nora walks the viewer through a landscape of ideas her father (the son of one of the founders of genetics) explored and together we better appreciate "the pattern that connects." The film offers a "tender and poetic portrayal…of one of the most provocative thinkers of the last century but also a vivid relationship between a daughter and father."
Humanity faces highly complex and interwoven problems. Crises and conundrums. Science and art -- our search for pattern-- help us find solutions yet our understanding of relationships is lacking. We are all interconnected and speedily we advance, we hope, in the direction of well-being for all. BUT we are all on a learning curve here and now--
co-educators struggling to cope and seeking still to inspire. Gregory Bateson's ideas and Nora Bateson's film can help to cut through the din and assist in the quest to design for the "pattern that connects." In An Ecology of Mind we discover a resonant voice and renewed insights for advancing human wisdom and ethics as well as for guiding technology.
The afternoon event begins at 1PM (doors open at 12:30) and will include Nora and other panel members in a stimulating exploration of themes related to education, systems thinking, biomimicry, indigenous wisdom, and the interwoven economic, political, and environmental problems we face. Panelists include Derek Cabrera of ThinkWorks and Dana Levy of NYSERDA’s Industrial Research Program. Visit the Finger Lakes Bioneers Facebook page and website: http://wemakeourfuture.org/ where there is more info about this and the ongoing regional film events organized by Finger Lakes Bioneers and Sustainable Tompkins. This event is made possible by the generous support of NYSERDA, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and Sustainability at Ithaca College. With thanks for the important contributions of La Tourelle Resort and Spa and the Cornell University Department of Anthropology and its Graduate Student Association. Appreciation for its collaborative outreach is extended to Cornell University's Mann Library ongoing programming for "Connected Minds, Resilient Communities." The film is being shown as part of a regional film series organized by Finger Lakes Bioneers, a program of Sustainable Tompkins. More details about the film series are at www.wemakeourfuture.org.
Tickets at door: students and under 21 - $3.00, adults - $7.00 includes refreshments.
For More Information: Nick Vaczek, tel. 607-227-7222 or Nick AT sustainabletompkins.org
"Bateson’s style of presentation was an essential and intrinsic part of his teaching. His central message was that relationships are the essence of the living world, and that we need a language of relationships to understand and describe it. One of the best ways to do so, in his view, is by telling stories. “Stories are the royal road to the study of relationships,” he would say. What is important in a story, what is true in it, is not the plot, the things, or the people in a story, but the relationships between them ...To experience the essence of Bateson’s message, you would really have needed to experience his own live delivery of that message" -- which is now possible thanks to this unique film.
HOMAGE TO GREGORY BATESON
by Fritjof Capra
<< More quotes from reviews of film from this website:http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/emind.html
"Edwin Land said that people who seem to have had a new idea have often just stopped having an old idea. Gregory Bateson taught us how to stop having the most fundamental old ideas--the static, separating, reductionist fictions that disintegrate an integrated world. Nora Bateson's beautiful portrait of her father's key insights is a stunningly effective antidote for a new generation that now needs his wisdom more than ever."
Amory B. Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute, Author, Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run: A Call to Save the Earth
"An inspiring, meditative film that shows Gregory Bateson's range and depth and ultimately gives us a larger glimpse into our place within nature and the cosmos, asking us to consider: What pattern connects art to science, and the cave to the universe, and all of that to us? Bateson-father and daughter-have not only asked a challenging question, they have given us the tools to reimagine our world."
Wild River Review
"Exquisite...The film conveys [Bateson's] complex ideas in such a way as to take us right inside them so that we see them as clearly as pebbles in a crystalline mountain stream. That the film accomplishes this is a testament to the filmmaker's artistry and her grasp of her father's subtle and unique style of thinking...A beautiful and important film."
Dr. Marilyn Wedge, Huffington Post
"Gregory Bateson revolutionized our understanding of the dynamic relationships in (and between) our human consciousness, our communities and societies, and our ecological systems. His work still challenges and informs us as we create new pathways toward health and resilience in our lives, and in our world. An Ecology of Mind is the first documentary film to explore the life and innovative ideas of this essential thinker. Through this deeply thought-provoking film, we follow Bateson on his remarkable journey toward insight. We discover how his own life experience led him to comprehend the patterns in our reality. Bateson's work remains indispensible as we come to terms with our responsibilities to future generations and to the larger community of life."
Dr. Curt Meine, Director,Conservation Biology and History, Center for Humans and Nature, Author, Correction Lines: Essays on Land, Leopold, and Conservation
"This documentary kindles the spirit of Gregory Bateson, and guides you on two fascinating journeys: One of a daughter's effort to understand her father who died before he could tell her everything she yearned to know, and the other through the ideas that Gregory Bateson developed for us to understand ourselves in the larger ecology to which we contribute. Gregory was an anthropologist, naturalist, cybernetician, and philosopher who never returned to where he came from, restlessly searching to expand the boundaries of our thinking and acting in a world in which everything is connected to everything else. The documentary continues the conversation he started among friends and acquaintances whose lives he touched."
Klaus Krippendorff, Professor for Cybernetics, Language and Culture, University of Pennsylvania, Author, On Communicating: Otherness, Meaning, and Information
