When Physics Meets Art with Andy Osmant, Cambridge Mechatronics

When Physics Meets Art with Andy Osmant, Cambridge Mechatronics

Examining how contemporary tools reshape human perception, attention, and judgement, questions that have long been central to the work and writing of David Hockney. Hockney has consistently explored how technologies, from photography to digital drawing, alter the way we see and understand the world, an inquiry that continues in the forthcoming exhibition David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and some other thoughts about painting at Serpentine North later in the year.

By looking at stabilisation, computational imaging, and augmentation as forms of perceptual outsourcing, the lecture asks how human cognition changes when aspects of seeing and remembering are shared with machines. Bringing together art, physics, and design, it considers questions of authorship, dependency, and responsibility, aligning closely with the series’ wider inquiry into how intelligence is formed, sustained, and shaped during periods of technological change.

The Cambridge Lectures on Art and Intelligence are rooted in the ideas that underpin David Hockney’s sustained inquiry into perception, perspective, and the cultural power of images. Across his work and writing, David Hockney has consistently challenged the assumption that there is a single, neutral way of seeing, arguing instead that technologies of vision, from painting and photography to film, television, and now digital systems, actively shape how reality is understood, shared, and governed.

Rather than positioning art as illustration or enrichment, The Cambridge Lecture Series on Art and Intelligence treats visual culture as a serious cognitive and social force, one that shapes how societies organise knowledge, authority, and innovation. It reflects a shared concern between MODO and ACE CIC that as systems become more automated, forms of human thinking rooted in perception, interpretation, and judgement must not be marginalised.

The Cambridge Lectures on Art & Intelligence is conceived as a multi-year public inquiry, with the series planned to continue over the next three to five years. Future programmes are expected to bring together a broad range of contributors spanning education leadership, research, cultural practice, and applied fields, building a sustained conversation rather than a one-off event.

The lectures are not framed as a debate about technology. Instead, they offer an inquiry into how human intelligence has evolved through changing image systems, and how it might continue to do so under conditions of rapid technological change.

MODO, is the independent Cambridge gallery that specialises solely in the work of David Hockney, we have announced the launch of The Cambridge Lectures on Art & Intelligence, a new public lecture series developed in collaboration with Art and Culture Education CIC (ACE CIC).
ALL Ticket sales from the series support ACE CIC, a not for profit organisation working to address the systemic marginalisation of the arts within education, and to strengthen the conditions in which inventive and expansive thinking can develop. THANK YOU!
The lectures will take place again in Cambridge in 2027, with further programmes relating to the NOW! The already expansive 2027 Speakers list will be announced following this years series.

The support has been inspiring, thank you!!!!!

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