John Lobell
The Future, Technology and Art
John Lobell has a widely ranging mind addressing the future, technology, art, architecture, myths and movies, culture, and creativity.
He received degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and is a professor of architecture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. He has lectured at leading cultural institutions and on cruise ships throughout the world. You can find many of his lectures on YouTube where they have been viewed over 100,000 times.
Lobell is the author of numerous articles and several books, including:
- “Visionary Creativity: How New Worlds are Born,” about which The Boston Globe said, “Lobell shows us that a special kind of creativity, which he calls “Visionary Creativity,” not only brings us what is useful and beautiful but actually brings us into the future.”
- “Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn”
- “Joseph Campbell: The Man and His Ideas”
- “The Little Green Book,” on ecology and the environment
He has worked and studied with leading creative and cultural figures including the mythologist Joseph Campbell; architects Louis Kahn and Robert Venturi; Buddhist masters Chogyam Trungpa, Robert Thurman, and the Dalai Lama; and Tai Chi master Cheng Man-Ch’ing.
Lobell consults on high profile technology projects and is Director of Research for the cryonics and life extension organization, Timeship, which is developing next generation cryopreservation technologies. Find more at Timsehip.org.
Lobell is an informative but casual lecturer who comfortably interacts with his audiences and encourages questions and discussion. He enjoys making complex issues, such as our latest technologies, clear. All of his lectures are richly illustrated with PowerPoints.
Find more at JohnLobell.com.
Books by John Lobell
Below are eight lecture topics. I have from one to five lectures on each topic. My website, LecturesByLobell.com, gives a three minute overview of each lecture, as well as the full lectures.
VENICE:
Venice once dominated the Eastern Mediterranean and today it copes with floods and tourists. The art and architecture of the city, and Venice in movies. One to four lectures.
TECHNOLOGY & THE FUTURE:
Artificial Intelligence, self-driving cars, designer DNA. And quantum computers that derive their power from parallel universes. How is all this changing our lives? One to five lectures.
CREATIVITY
Visionary Creatives bring us new worlds. Understand what drives creative people, how you can nurture them, and how you can grow your own creativity.
MYTHS AND MOVIES
Our myths are now carried in movies. The Hero Journey in Star Wars; Clint Eastwood as a Buddhist Knight; Groundhog Day as eternal recurrence; and The Phantom of the Opera as a movie of archetypes. One, two, or three lectures.
ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE
Architecture is more than buildings, it is the crystallization of a culture in form. See how the cultures of East and West are prefigured in their architectures. Up to five lectures.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Frank Lloyd Wright, the Bauhaus, glass skyscrapers: what was Modern Architecture? And what was the Radical Architecture of the 1960s all about? Up to five lectures.
ART
East, West, Modern, Today: what does art tell us about our selves and our world? Up to three lectures.
Books by John Lobell
