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Compost Modern Discussion Forum

Thursdays, this spring,  1-3PM

The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining.  Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of postmodernism was to deconstruct traditions, it has left us with a fertile soil out of which new forms may emerge. It is with the belief that all new forms of art must evolve from a history that we approach the guiding question of the forum: What is creativity?

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Compost Modern Discussion Forum

Thursdays, this Fall,  1-3PM

The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining.  Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of postmodernism was to deconstruct traditions, it has left us with a fertile soil out of which new forms may emerge. It is with the belief that all new forms of art must evolve from a history that we approach the guiding question of the forum: What is creativity?

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CompostModern Discussion Forum

Thursday, September 27, 2012.  1-3PM

Our popular discussion forum is back! Live online! The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining.  Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of postmodernism was to deconstruct traditions, it has left us with a fertile soil out of which new forms may emerge. It is with the belief that all new forms of art must evolve from a history that we approach the guiding question of the forum: What is creativity?

Admission free. Reservation required.  Write to info@dactyl.org for the meeting link.

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CompostModern Discussion Forum: Fridays

New Summer Hours 2011  4-6PM

The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining. We meet every Friday, and at least once or twice a month, we have a featured guest or two. Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of postmodernism was to deconstruct traditions, it has left us with a fertile soil out of which new forms may emerge. It is with the belief that all new forms of art must evolve from a history that we approach the guiding question of the forum: What is creativity?

Admission free.

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Biosemiotics Conference June 21-25, 2011

The Eleventh Annual International Gathering in Biosemiotics will be held from June 21 to June 26, 2011 under the auspices of the Dactyl Foundation at the Rockefeller University for Biomedical Research in New York City, USA.  Biosemiotics is an interdiscipline that seeks naturalistic understandings of metalistic phenomena, grounded in biology, and, in turn, seeks understandings of biological processes in terms of a general semiotics.

What can be learned about human semiosis, interpretation, communication, creativity and meaning-making by studying less complex but analogous phenomena in cellular signaling, chemotaxis, zoosemiotics, embryonic development, or the immune system? Can the pervasive metaphoric usages of chemical “message,” genetic “information,” and  “signaling” in contemporary biology be defined more precisely by taking them literally? While human symbolic representation may be species-specific–or at least unique to unusually big-brained animals–it must have emerged out of less complex semiotic processes and proto-semiotic processes.  What are the antecedents of human semiosis? And how can the exploration of these antecedents help bridge the unnatural gap between body and mind that was imposed centuries ago more for religious than scientific reasons?

All are welcome to attend. For registration information click here.

Want to learn more about Biosemiotics?  Visit the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies website, or listen to ISBS Vice-President Don Favareau on BBC radio.

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CompostModern Discussion Forum: New Summer Hours

Every Thursday 4:00 – 6:00 PM

Featured Guest Nathan Cabot Hale, Sculptor. July 29.

Nathan Cabot Hale is a sculptor, painter and author of numerous books on art, including Abstraction in Art and Nature, Creating Welded Sculpture, and Exploring the Roots of Human Emotion in Sculpture. Hale will speak about, among other things, how lines of growth and structure, water and liquid forms, weather and atmospheric patterns, luminosity, earth colors, many other elements are shown to be wellsprings of creative abstraction. Continue reading “CompostModern Discussion Forum: New Summer Hours”

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Cultivator Playreading Series

Friday, June 25, 2010 5-7 pm
Open Readings with Katalina Mustatea

The aim of The Cultivator series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts in progress, and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. The Cultivator invites thoughtful experiments with form and language, and encourages spontaneous, organic collaborations between playwrights and performers. Each script presentation will be followed by a salon-style discussion, where participants and audience can talk freely about the work presented, or else consider the broader implications of theater and performance art in our culture. Part of the weekly CompostModern Discussion Forum at Dactyl, this monthly series will follow the forum’s general scope and format. Continue reading “Cultivator Playreading Series”

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CompostModern featured guest Elisa Perea

Friday, June 4, 2010  4-6PM
Documentary maker Elisa Perea talks about and shows clips from “Nogales aqui es…” (Nogales, this is it… the border city)

A film  presenting the creative experiences of a generation of visual artists in their playground; their field of dreams…Nogales… the city. The one they see and the one they imagine… a bordertown awakened through their work… a journey via their art and testimony… offering an alternative description of a territory that is often misunderstood by both bordering countries. This project was funded by The National Council for the Arts and Culture of Mexico and by the Sonoran Institute of Culture. Continue reading “CompostModern featured guest Elisa Perea”

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CompostModern Forum: featured guest Laura Otis

Friday May 21, 2010  4-6PM

Laura Otis began her career as a scientist, earning her B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale in 1983 and her M.A. in Neuroscience from the University of California at San Francisco in 1988. Before receiving her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Cornell University in 1991, she worked in labs for eight years. Since 1986, she has been studying and teaching about the Continue reading “CompostModern Forum: featured guest Laura Otis”

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Cultivator Play Reading Series

Friday, April 30, 2010 5-7 pm
with Katalina Mustatea, Don DiPaolo and Amy Staats

The aim of The Cultivator series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts in progress, and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. The Cultivator invites thoughtful experiments with form and language, and encourages spontaneous, organic collaborations between playwrights and performers. Each script presentation will be followed by a salon-style discussion, where participants and audience can talk freely about the work presented, or else consider the broader implications of theater and performance art in our culture. Part of the weekly CompostModern Discussion Forum at Dactyl, this monthly series will follow the Continue reading “Cultivator Play Reading Series”

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CompostModern Forum: featured member Victoria N. Alexander

Friday April 2, 2010, 4-6 PM

Victoria Alexander will give a 30 min talk at 5PM

Secular Teleology for the 21st Century

In a teleological narrative, all the events depicted, or at least the key ones, are chosen and included because of the way they reflect, refract, or prefigure a general theme of the story or the end of the story, the resolution of a problem. There is usually progression or development.  Events exist in the story because of the purpose they serve. Critics of  “teleological” narratives may claim that “realistic” representation should capture a world in Continue reading “CompostModern Forum: featured member Victoria N. Alexander”

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Cultivator: Play Reading Series

Friday, March 26, 2010 5-7 pm
The Beauty of Fragments: Talks with and about the NYC performance group Radiohole

The aim of The Cultivator series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts in progress, and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. The Cultivator invites thoughtful experiments with form and language, and encourages spontaneous, organic collaborations between playwrights and performers. Each script presentation will be followed by a salon-style discussion, where participants and audience can talk freely about the work presented, or else consider the broader implications of theater and performance art in our culture. Part of the weekly CompostModern Discussion Forum at Dactyl, this monthly series will follow the forum’s general scope and format. Continue reading “Cultivator: Play Reading Series”

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CompostModern Discussion Forum

ghostEvery Friday in 2010 4:00 – 6:00 PM

The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining. We meet every Friday, and at least once or twice a month, we have a featured guest or two. Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of Continue reading “CompostModern Discussion Forum”

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Featured Guests, Tyler Volk and Dorion Sagan, authors of Death & Sex

Friday, February 19th, 2010
4:00-6:00 PM
CompostModern Discussion Forum

Meet the authors of the critically acclaimed Death & Sex
a great excuse to talk about your favorite subjects in public…
Dorion Sagan has written and co-authored twenty-three books on evolution, cooking, and sex, translated into eleven languages. Sagan is the son of astronomer Carl Sagan and biologist Lynn Margulis.
Tyler Volk is a professor of biology at NYU who has written extensively on the Gaia hypothesis and life and death in the ecosystem. He is the author of four books and is affiliated with space life support research at NASA. Continue reading “Featured Guests, Tyler Volk and Dorion Sagan, authors of Death & Sex”

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CompostModern featured guest Michael Schippling, robotics artist

S_IMG_1674.JPGNov 20th 4:00-6:00 PM

Why Are They Fighting?

Michael Schippling is an artist who builds robots designed to act creativity. He notes that most independent artists working in robotics have succumbed to building fighting machines for TV audiences. Michael will be a featured guest at our Compost Modern discussion forum, giving us what he calls a “quirky history of Machine Art with a proposal for the future.” Continue reading “CompostModern featured guest Michael Schippling, robotics artist”

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CompostModern Discussion Forum

Spring / Summer 2009

Every Wednesday 2:30-5:30

“CompostModern,” a salon-style discussion forum, revolutionizing the way we present the work of poets and writers to the public. We have opened the floor to the community, bringing you in to participate in the planning, discussion, and hopes for the future of art, poetics and science. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of postmodernism was to deconstruct traditions, it has left us with a fertile soil out of which new forms may emerge. It is with the belief that all new forms of art must evolve from a history we approach the guiding question of the forum: What is creativity? At each weekly meeting, Dactyl members, noted artists, poets, Continue reading “CompostModern Discussion Forum”

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Jennifer Michael Hecht, discussion

Monday Sept 8th


TRUTH UNCORKED: Where Wine Flows Like Conversation – a discussion Forum with Jennifer Michael Hecht

Join the Center for Inquiry and the Dactyl Foundation for the Arts & Humanities for a Truth Uncorked event, with author, poet, and intellectual historian Jennifer Michael Hecht. Our main event, featuring a salon conversation over wine and light hors d’oeuvres, begins at 6:30 p.m. An optional, intimate dinner with the speaker will follow. Continue reading “Jennifer Michael Hecht, discussion”

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Maggie Jackson, discussion

Thurs., Jan. 15, 6:30 PM

wine & conversation with Maggie Jackson: Discussion Forum

Cohost: Center for Inquiry

CFI’s next Truth Uncorked wine and conversation event will take place on Thursday, January 15 with Maggie Jackson. Jackson is an award-winning author and journalist known for her penetrating coverage of U.S. social issues. She writes the popular “Balancing Acts” column in the Sunday Boston Globe, and her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Gastronomica and onNational Public Radio. Her latest book, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (Prometheus Books, 2008) Continue reading “Maggie Jackson, discussion”