How can we free ourselves from fear and social barriers to live more fulfilling and meaningful lives? What does it take to overcome trauma and turn it into triumph, and failure into reinvention? How can we shine a light on the marginalized and misunderstood to create social change that transforms the lives of women?

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism.

“As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman.
In making this film, every single person who we called whose voice we wanted to include wanted to contribute. They wanted to say something about Diane, because she had left such a mark on their lives. Our producers’ jobs, Tracy and Fabiola, was to juggle those schedules. How do you juggle the schedule of secretary Hillary Clinton with Oprah Winfrey? How do you make sure that Anderson Cooper and Mark Jacobs, you know, in the filming time that we had, that we could put all of these people together? But Diane's friendships run deep with people, and people made sure to make time.

You know, she was a single mother, and I think that young single mothers watching this film will feel for Diane, especially single mothers who are trying to be entrepreneurs, and creating businesses, and trying to find their way into the world to be able to raise a family. To do that as an immigrant in a new country is challenging, and Diane shows you just how challenging it is. In making choices about living her life, in being with her children or expanding her business, there were sacrifices that were made, and those sacrifices are boldly put on the screen for viewers to watch.”

www.hulu.com/movie/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge-95fb421e-b7b1-4bfc-9bbf-ea666dba0b02
https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge/1jrpX9AhsaJ6
https://socfilms.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman.
In making this film, every single person who we called whose voice we wanted to include wanted to contribute. They wanted to say something about Diane, because she had left such a mark on their lives. Our producers’ jobs, Tracy and Fabiola, was to juggle those schedules. How do you juggle the schedule of secretary Hillary Clinton with Oprah Winfrey? How do you make sure that Anderson Cooper and Mark Jacobs, you know, in the filming time that we had, that we could put all of these people together? But Diane's friendships run deep with people, and people made sure to make time.

You know, she was a single mother, and I think that young single mothers watching this film will feel for Diane, especially single mothers who are trying to be entrepreneurs, and creating businesses, and trying to find their way into the world to be able to raise a family. To do that as an immigrant in a new country is challenging, and Diane shows you just how challenging it is. In making choices about living her life, in being with her children or expanding her business, there were sacrifices that were made, and those sacrifices are boldly put on the screen for viewers to watch.”

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism.

www.hulu.com/movie/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge-95fb421e-b7b1-4bfc-9bbf-ea666dba0b02
https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge/1jrpX9AhsaJ6
https://socfilms.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"Imagination has a central role in teaching philosophical thinking because it's only imagination that can get us out of our biases and out of the fixating on the patterns that we've been tuned to."

Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science.

www.keithfrankish.com
www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-science/F9996E61AF5E8C0B096EBFED57596B42
www.imprint.co.uk/product/illusionism

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“Before I decided to become a philosopher, I wanted to become a filmmaker, and in my education in France, where I'm originally from, there was a lot of emphasis placed on the humanities and arts. I still have a deep passion for the arts, and when it comes to our future, I am of two minds about the role that AI will play in how we interact with creative fields. Going back to my first love of cinema, there are various young filmmakers who are experimenting with AI systems to generate shots and short videos. They’re using it creatively. I think there is a tremendous potential there to usher in a renaissance of surrealist cinema where we can generate images and shots that could never have been made with a traditional camera, certainly not without a huge budget. Lowering the barrier to entry to artistic creation is something I'm excited about. On the other hand, of course, there are the various issues we've raised about the potential for plagiarism, for exploiting human artists, and also concerns about people gradually losing artistic skills because we have these tools available, and about the homogenization of taste. How is AI going to influence the kind of art and content entertainment we like to consume? How does engagement with AI-generated artifacts change the way we relate to art? I don't have the answer to that question, and I think it could go either way. I think it could come with good and bad. It could homogenize preferences and the little quirks we have in the way we engage with music, video, and literature—but it could also, on the other hand, supercharge creativity. That's perhaps the one thing I'd like to say about the future: I hope these new technologies are used to empower human creativity and human flourishing instead of stifling it.”

Dr. Raphael Millière is Assistant Professor in Philosophy of AI at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His research primarily explores the theoretical foundations and inner workings of AI systems based on deep learning, such as large language models. He investigates whether these systems can exhibit human-like cognitive capacities, drawing on theories and methods from cognitive science. He is also interested in how insights from studying AI might shed new light on human cognition. Ultimately, his work aims to advance our understanding of both artificial and natural intelligence.

https://raphaelmilliere.com
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/raphael-milliere

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can we ensure that AI is aligned with human values? What can AI teach us about human cognition and creativity?

Dr. Raphael Millière is Assistant Professor in Philosophy of AI at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His research primarily explores the theoretical foundations and inner workings of AI systems based on deep learning, such as large language models. He investigates whether these systems can exhibit human-like cognitive capacities, drawing on theories and methods from cognitive science. He is also interested in how insights from studying AI might shed new light on human cognition. Ultimately, his work aims to advance our understanding of both artificial and natural intelligence.

“Before I decided to become a philosopher, I wanted to become a filmmaker, and in my education in France, where I'm originally from, there was a lot of emphasis placed on the humanities and arts. I still have a deep passion for the arts, and when it comes to our future, I am of two minds about the role that AI will play in how we interact with creative fields. Going back to my first love of cinema, there are various young filmmakers who are experimenting with AI systems to generate shots and short videos. They’re using it creatively. I think there is a tremendous potential there to usher in a renaissance of surrealist cinema where we can generate images and shots that could never have been made with a traditional camera, certainly not without a huge budget. Lowering the barrier to entry to artistic creation is something I'm excited about. On the other hand, of course, there are the various issues we've raised about the potential for plagiarism, for exploiting human artists, and also concerns about people gradually losing artistic skills because we have these tools available, and about the homogenization of taste. How is AI going to influence the kind of art and content entertainment we like to consume? How does engagement with AI-generated artifacts change the way we relate to art? I don't have the answer to that question, and I think it could go either way. I think it could come with good and bad. It could homogenize preferences and the little quirks we have in the way we engage with music, video, and literature—but it could also, on the other hand, supercharge creativity. That's perhaps the one thing I'd like to say about the future: I hope these new technologies are used to empower human creativity and human flourishing instead of stifling it.”

https://raphaelmilliere.com
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/raphael-milliere

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“Philosophy is both an academic discipline and also something that everybody does. Everybody has to have reflective views about what's significant. They also have to justify to themselves why it's significant or important. The nature of justice itself, and the various opinions that have been written about in philosophy about justice, can get to a very high level. So there's this unusual connection between philosophy and human life. We've inherited from the Middle Ages, this incredible tradition that's now developed into a chance for young people to spend four or five years, in a way, released from the pressures of life. The idea to pursue your ideas a little further in these four years you have, exempt from the pressures of social life, allows philosophy to have a kind of position unique in the academy. In confronting what the best minds in the history of the world have had to say about these issues, the hope is that they provide for the people who are privileged enough to confront philosophy a better and more thoughtful approach to these fundamental questions that everybody has to confront.”

What is the importance of philosophy in the 21st century as we enter a post-truth world? How can we reintroduce meaning and uphold moral principles in our world shaken by crises? And what does philosophy teach us about living in harmony with the natural world?

Robert Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he teaches in the College, Committee on Social Thought, and Department of Philosophy. Pippin is widely acclaimed for his scholarship in German idealism as well as later German philosophy, including publications such as Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, and Hegel’s Idealism. In keeping with his interdisciplinary interests, Pippin’s book Henry James and Modern Moral Life explores the intersections between philosophy and literature. Pippin’s most recent published book is The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy.

https://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/directory/Robert-Pippin
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo208042246.html

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“​​I love working with historic sites. I've done a few events and installations working in old cathedrals; we did one with And& Festival in Leuven, and in Carlisle Church in Belfast with the AVA Festival guys, and the Acropolis of Athens, and lots of other venues. I love venues where I can turn up and map projections onto architecture. Particularly when you're using old historic buildings, they're full of feelings and ideas before you, you know, from the history and what you associate them with. That embeds itself into the music and the visuals that you're presenting, so you get this extra layer of engagement and emotion and ideas coming through, which I love. I generally use projectors rather than screens for that reason, so that I can use the architecture and try to make the show itself interact with it. Whenever I can, I try to project. It adds to the storytelling, I think, and it makes it feel more special.”

How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness.

Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific exploration. His latest project, Seme, commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival, merges Italian musical heritage with contemporary techniques, was also performed at the Barbican in London.

He supplied music for a video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis for COP26.

In 2016, Cooper founded Mesh, a platform to explore the intersection of music, science and art. His Observatory art-house installation is on display at Kings Cross until May 1st.

https://maxcooper.net
https://osterfestspiele.at/en/programme/2024/electro-2024
https://meshmeshmesh.net
www.kingscross.co.uk/event/the-observatory

The music featured on this episode was Palestrina Sicut, Cardano Circles, Fibonacci Sequence, Scarlatti K141. Music is from Seme and is courtesy of Max Cooper.

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness.

Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific exploration. His latest project, Seme, commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival, merges Italian musical heritage with contemporary techniques, was also performed at the Barbican in London.

He supplied music for a video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis for COP26.

In 2016, Cooper founded Mesh, a platform to explore the intersection of music, science and art. His Observatory art-house installation is on display at Kings Cross until May 1st.

“​​I love working with historic sites. I've done a few events and installations working in old cathedrals; we did one with And& Festival in Leuven, and in Carlisle Church in Belfast with the AVA Festival guys, and the Acropolis of Athens, and lots of other venues. I love venues where I can turn up and map projections onto architecture. Particularly when you're using old historic buildings, they're full of feelings and ideas before you, you know, from the history and what you associate them with. That embeds itself into the music and the visuals that you're presenting, so you get this extra layer of engagement and emotion and ideas coming through, which I love. I generally use projectors rather than screens for that reason, so that I can use the architecture and try to make the show itself interact with it. Whenever I can, I try to project. It adds to the storytelling, I think, and it makes it feel more special.”

https://maxcooper.net
https://osterfestspiele.at/en/programme/2024/electro-2024
https://meshmeshmesh.net
www.kingscross.co.uk/event/the-observatory

The music featured on this episode was Palestrina Sicut, Cardano Circles, Fibonacci Sequence, Scarlatti K141. Music is from Seme and is courtesy of Max Cooper.

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast