Alana Valentine

Alana Valentine colloquium: Ear to the Edge of Time

Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

Playwright Alana Valentine’s two weeks residency at the Parkes Radio Telescope in 2009 inspired an interest in pulsar scientists and the ‘culture’ of astronomy that took her around the world to meet Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell in Oxford, Emeritus Professor Andrew Lyne at Jodrell Bank as well as astronomers in Greenwich, Italy and even Vatican City. The result of her research became the fictional stage play ‘Ear to the Edge of Time’ which won the 5th STAGE International Playwriting Award in 2012. This prestigious award is given to a play about science or technology and attracted over 200 entries from 19 countries. In 2012 the judges were Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights Tony Kushner, David Lindsay-Abaire and Donald Margulies, and Nobel Laureates Robert C. Richardson, Frank Wilczek and David J. Wineland.

Ms Valentine will share her perceptions about ‘observing the observers’, the tensions of attribution and the conversations between art and science at a colloquium on April 30 at the CSIRO’s Marsfield facility in Sydney between 3 and 4pm.