25.05.2008 | Einsteinsaal, Archenhold-Sternwarte, Alt-Treptow 1, 12435 Berlin-Treptow

Field of Genius

Sunday, May 25, 2008 / 8 pm

Einsteinsaal, Archenhold-Sternwarte, Alt-Treptow 1, 12435 Berlin-Treptow, S8/S9 Plänterwald, S41/S42 Treptower Park, Bus 166/265/365 Alt-Treptow

Dear Paul, I am Kristina Norman, the artist you are supposed to meet at the biennial in Berlin…. Actually, I dreamt of writing you a thousandthanks letter about five years ago when I read your wonderful book called Superforce. You opened a new world to me. The way Superforce is written and the book’s message was something I would never have expected from a book I bought by chance because of its funny name from a second-hand bookshop in a provincial Estonian town. “It’s been on the shelf for years and nobody wants it anyway ’cause it’s in Russian,” I was told. It was published in Moscow in 1984 and its name in Russian is Supersila. Thus, by a stroke of luck, this book became the single most important source of inspiration for my art practice and changed my whole way of thinking. I wonder what you think about my film The Field of Genius (which got its kick start by your mention of Albert Einstein in Superforce) and whether it could possibly inspire a topic for your lecture (or performance) at the biennial. Very much looking forward to your reply. With warmest regards, Kristina Norman Norman’s Field of Genius is accompanied by an artist’s book published as part of “On Paper”, a cooperation between the 5th biennal and A Prior magazine. Kristina Norman, born 1979, lives and works in Tallinn (EE). Paul Davies is theoretical physicist and cosmologist at the Arizona State University. He lives and works in Arizona (US).