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CULTURE The man who runs the Since the mid-1960s, John Brockman has been at the cutting edge of ideas. Here, John Naughton misammiessam introduces a passionate advocate of both science and the arts, whose website, Edge, is a salon for the world's finest minds. On the facing page they discuss Marshall McLuhan, elitism and the future of the internet o say that John to Brockman that he read George to how it may appear, is not exclusive. T Brockman is a literary Gantow's One, Two, Threw... Infinity and Elitist, yes, but in the good sense ofan agent is like saying The Mysterious Universe. Gerd Stern, open elite, based on meritocracy. The that David Hockney co-founder ofmedia collective USCO, way someone is added to the Edge is a photographer. who performed in conjunction with list is when I receive a word from a For while it's true talks by Marshall McLuhan, introduced Steven Pinker, a Brian Eno. a Martin that Hockney has Brockman to several scientists and Rees or a Richard Dawkins. telling indeed made astonishingly creative eventually arranged for him to meet me to do so. It's as simple as that and use ofphotography, and Brockman is McLuhan and his colleagues. I don't recall ever saying no in such indeed a successful literary agent who In cyberspace. Brockman is best circumstances." represents an enviable stable of high- known for Edge.org. a site he founded Ever since it appeared online, profile scientists and communicators, as a continuation of what he describes Edge.orghas consistently been one in both cases the description rather as "a failed art experiment" by his of the most thought-provokingand understates the reality. More accurate late friend, performance artist James interesting sites on the web. As I write, ways of describing Brockman would he Lee Byars. Byars believed, Brockman the front-page lead is an extraordinary to say that he is a "cultural impresario" recalls. "that to arrive at a satisfactory piece by the evolutionary biologist or, as his friend Stewart Brand puts it, plateau of knowledge it was pure folly Mark Pagel in which he argues that an "intellectual enzyme". to go to Widener Library at Harvard humans' capacity for social learning The first thing you notice about and read six million books. Instead, has made us less intellimt than we Brockman, though, is the interesting he planned to gather the 100 most like to think we are. "If livingin a way he bridges CP Snow's "Two brilliant minds in the world in a room, population of people;' he writes. "and I Cultures" - the parallel universes of the lock them in and have them ask one can observe those people, and see what ars and the sciences. When profilers another the questions= been they're doing, seeing what innovations ask him for pictures. one he often sends asking themselves. The expected result they're coming up with, I can choose shows him with Andy Warhol and Bob - in theory - was to be a synthesis of among the best of those ideas, without Dylan, no less. But he's also one of the all thought" But it didn't work out that having to go through the process of few people around who can phone way. Byars did identify his 100 most innovation myself. So, for example. Nobel laureates in science with a good brilliant minds and phoned each of if.trying to make a better spear. chance that they will take the call. them. The result 70 hungup on him! I really have no idea how to make Cynics might say that this has Byars died in 1997, but Brockman that better spear. But if I notice that something to do with the fact that persisted with his idea, or at any somebody else in my society has made Brockman has a reputation as an agent rate with the notion that it might be a very good spear, I can simply copy who can extract massive advances possible to do something analogous him without having to understand why. from publishers. And he is indeed a using the internet. And so Edgeorg was "What this means is that social hustler who spotted early on that there born as a kind ofhigh-octane online learning may have set up a situation in was a massive audience for writing salon with Brockman as its editor and humans where... we have been selected about science, but there's more to host. He describes it as "a conversation. to be very, very good at copying other it than that Brockman is genuinely We look for people whose creative people, rather than innovating on our passionate about big ideas. He is work has expanded our notion of who own. We like to think we're a highly fascinated, he told Wired magazine, and what we are. We encourage work inventive, innovative species. But social "by people who can take the materials on the cuttingedge of the culture and learning means that most of us can of the culture in the arts, literature and make use of what other people do and science and put them together in their not have to invest the time and energy own way. We live in a mass-produced culture where many people. even Brockman can in innovation ourselves." This essay is a perfect illustration many established cultural arbiters. limit themselves to secondhand phone Nobel of Brockman's idea of what Edge.org should do: to serve as a forum for big, ideas. Show me people who create their own realityt who don't accept an laureates with intriguing and/or disturbing ideas advanced by intellectuals who have a ersatz, appropriated reality. Show me the empiricists - and not just in the a good chance track record of major achievements in their fields. He doesn't seem to have sciences - who arc out there doingit, rather than talking about and analysing that they will much time for the scholar who crawls along the frontiers of knowledge with a the people who are doing it." Brockman's immersion in both sides take the call magnifying glass. This philosophy is also what drives of the Two Cultures runs deep. He did one of his annual rituals. Every year, an MBA at Columbia in the early 1960s the investigation ofideas that have not on the anniversary of the launch ofthe and started his own financial leasing been generally exposed." site, he poses a question and invites company on Park Avenue. But a friend As of now, the roll call ofcurrent and Edge participants to answer it. introduced him to avant-garde theatre, deceased members of the Edge salon What kinds of question? "Questions thereby launching him on the primrose runs to 660. They include many of that inspire answers we can't possibly path into the arts. the usual suspects (Richard Dawkins, predict_ My goal is to provoke people He then got involved in the city's Craig Venter and Stewart Brand, for into thinking thoughts they normally underground movie scene, becoming example). It's a predominately male might not have' In previous years, the manager ofthe Film-Makers' crowd, with women accounting for questions have included: Cinematheque, the home of only 16.5% of the members - which is underground cinema, in 1965, where probably a reflection of the fact that What do you believe even though you his mandate was to produce a festival science is still largely a male-dominated cannot prove it? (2005) that expanded the form of cinema. business. There are a lot ofwhat one What is your dangerous idea? (2006) He commissioned 30 performance might call the "digerati" - the Clay What are you optimistic about?(2007) pieces by world-class artists, dancers, Shuicys. Douglas Couplands and What will change everything?(2009) poets, dramatists and musicians. The Howard Rheingolds of this world. resulting festival made a big splash. Two generations of the Dyson clan In 2010, Brockman's question was: "Intermedia", the term Brockman arc represented - the great physicist "Howe is the internet changing the way coined and used as his logo, was Freeman and his two kids,Esther and you think?" He received 172 replies suddenly hot. A number ofnotable George. Edge seems biased towards in the form ofmini-essays of varying art-world figures were immersed in the the Anglo-Saxon world: at any rate, length. These were published on the genre. among them Les Levine. Robert there are surprisingly few continental Edge site in the usual way, but ISO of Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol. several Europeans or Asians. Brits. on the other them have now been collected between kinetic and "happenings" artists, avant- hand. figure prominently names that hard covers under Brockman's garde film-makers and dramatists, the stand out include those of Brian Cox, editorship. The result: a whopping Velvet Underground, and composer Charlie Leadheater. Colin Blakemore, hardback, How is the Internet Changing John Cage. Karl Sabbagh. Martin Rees. Mark Pagel, the Way You Think?The Net's Impact This immersion in New York's Lewis Wolpert, Patrick Bateson, Simon on Our Minds and Future. published arts scene also led to deep interest in Baron-Cohen, Ross Anderson, Tim last week by Atlantic Books. science and technology Many of the Bemers-Lee and Helena Cronin. Reading it over Christmas. I was pieces at the festival were informed by Asked how he had assembled this intrigued by the book and entailed artists' interest in cybernetics. They intriguing posse ofthinkers. Brockman John Brockman to discuss some of were readingand discussingbooks by replied: 'It's all based on word of the thoughts it evoked. What follows is scientists. Rauschenberg suggested mouth and reputation. Edge, contrary an edited transcript ofour exchanges. 12 THE NEW REVIEW I 08.01.12 I The Observer EFTA00607424