Strangers in the Mirror
Friday, June 4, 2010, 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
What’s it like to face a faceless world? Acclaimed neurologist Oliver Sacks once apologized for almost bumping into a large bearded man, only to realize he was speaking to a mirror. Sacks and photorealist painter Chuck Close—geniuses from opposite ends of the creative spectrum—share their experiences of living with a curious condition known as “face blindness,” or prosopagnosia. With RadioLab's Robert Krulwich, they discuss the challenges of maintaining interpersonal relationships—when even family and close friends appear as strangers.
Moderator: Robert Krulwich
Participants:
Chuck Close is a visual artist noted for his highly inventive techniques used to paint the human face, and is best known for his large-scale, photo-based portrait paintings. He is also an accomplished printmaker and photographer whose work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions in more than 20 countries, including major retrospective exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and most recently at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has also participated in nearly 800 group exhibitions.
Robert Krulwich is an award-winning radio and television journalist who has been called ‘the most inventive network reporter in television’ by TV Guide. He is an ABC News correspondent, NPR science correspondent, and co-host of WNYC's science documentary program, Radio Lab.
Oliver Sacks, a physician and author, has been called “the poet laureate of medicine" by The New York Times. His books and essays, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, are used in schools and universities around the world. He is also the author of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, and a forthcoming book, The Mind's Eye.
