World-renowned graphic designer, prominent film producer co-headline 2009-2010 Caroline Werner Gannett Project

Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister and film-producer Joslyn Barnes will headline the Caroline Werner Gannett Project’s 2009-2010 “Visionaries in Motion III” series this fall. The series features public lectures and colloquia with imaginative thinkers in design and media arts, film, architecture, religion, neuroscience, technology, environmental activism and the humanities.

Barnes, a noted film producer and political activist who co-founded Louverture Films with Danny Glover, will discuss “Imagination and the Cinema of Resistance” on Sept. 21. Barnes was executive producer of the 2008 film Trouble the Water, a chronicle of a couple’s struggles in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, that was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature.

Sagmeister, thought-provoking graphic designer, will present “Design and Happiness” on Oct. 5. The internationally-known Sagmeister has placed his personal maxims, published in Things I have Learned in Life So Far, all over the world, in spaces usually occupied by advertisements, promotions, billboards and other projects. He is also noted for his designs for HBO, Time Warner and the Guggenheim Museum as well as his album covers for the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and David Byrne. Sagmeister’s design of Once in a Lifetime, a Talking Heads box set, won a 2005 Grammy Award.

On Nov. 4, activist, historian and award-winning author Rebecca Solnit will talk about “Other Loves: Public Life and Unsaid Emotions,” based on her newest of twelve books, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.

Neuroscientist and serial entrepreneur Christopher deCharms has developed a new kind of “real-time functional MRI” that allows patient as well as doctors to see and control visual representations of brain processes as they happen. DeCharms will speak on April 19 about the future of systematic training and building our minds through non-invasive technologies.

Other speakers in the 2009-10 season include astrophysicist, Adam Frank (December 2); artist and architect, Michael Singer (January 19); independent webcomic creators, Nicholas Gurewitch and Chris Onstad (February 10); writer and Muslim scholar of religions, Reza Aslan (March 15); and media arts scholar and director, of the Tangible Media Group, Hiroshi Ishii (March 29).

The Caroline Werner Gannett Project was created in 2006 by Dr. Mary Lynn Broe, Caroline Werner Gannett Professor of Humanities, to explore new intersections among the various disciplines. The Project’s Working Group collaborates to bring to campus 21st century thinkers and scholars in the arts, sciences and technologies who ask the unasked questions.

For more information about the series visit www.cwgp.org. All Gannett events are free and open to the public.