Art & Science at the Hub

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First, get ready for an exciting conversation between Peter Turchin and Helga Nowotny about Turchin’s new book ‘End Times’ and the opportunity to have a book signed.

Then, we look forward to the exhibition opening with Regina Moritz.

Regina Moritz’s paintings evoke resonance, not reflection, of the elusive. They eschew mimicry in a breathtaking manner. The atmosphere she perceives forms the essence of her art, a genuine life experience. Through her role as an artist, she channels emotional and intellectual energies into an ‘open’ masterpiece. In her exhibited works, drawn from three distinct series, Moritz’s aesthetic prowess manifests as a wholly autonomous truth. It’s evident how her receptivity to sensuality and reactive brushwork differs from empirical encounters. Each canvas is a dynamic field, free from external rules. Moritz’s reduced palette, limited to black, white, and gray, unlocks unique painting possibilities, revealing the essence of her art. She consciously employs square canvases to accentuate the divide between pictorial and physiological reality, avoiding narrative focal points and countering any appearance of a storytelling concept. – Miel Delahaij

Peter Turchin, Helga Nowotny:
End Times

What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power?

For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no-one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models, he has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.

The lessons, he argues, are clear. When the balance of power between the ruling class and the majority tips too far in favour of elites, income inequality surges. The rich get richer, and the poor are further impoverished. As more people try to join the elite, frustration with the establishment brims over, often with disastrous consequences. Elite overproduction led to state breakdown in imperial China, in medieval France, in the American Civil War – and it is happening now.

But while we are far along the path toward violent political rupture, Turchin’s models also light the way to a brighter future. Drawing insight from those occasions in history where the balance was restored, End Times also points towards a different future: an escape from the patterns of the past.