We invited Neal Jahren and his students from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to respond to Dave Douglas & Bill Morrison’s production of Spark of Being. The class is Science and Culture in America. The Frankenstein myth, where technological innovation creates unintended consequences that then must be addressed by decision makers and society, apparently resonated with some of the material they are discussing in the class. They are interested in how ideas they have discussed in classroom applies to Spark of Being.
Some of the questions students will address include:
– In what ways does human and social creativity contribute to the risks presented in the Frankenstein myth?
– How can creativity contribute to resolving or minimizing those risks?
– What specific features of the film and what in the music compositions brought the themes in the performance home for you?
– How did the two mediums strengthen the theme?
– What was left up to the imagination?
– What was missing?
– What did you discover?
Feel free to comment on this post and answer along with the students too!