When I was in Cambridge reading mathematics, I went to Amsterdam for the International Mathematics Congress. There I saw M.C. Escher's fascinating work. That inspired me to try my hand at drawing such impossibilities.
Interpretation
Roger Penrose reflects on how M.C. Escher's artwork inspired him to explore creativity through drawing.
In this quote, Roger Penrose shares a personal experience where attending an international congress exposed him to M.C. Escher's artistic creations, which are known for their paradoxical and impossible structures. This encounter sparked Penrose's interest in the realm of art and mathematics, demonstrating how inspiration can lead to attempts at creativity and innovation in one's own work.
In practice
In a speech about innovation, one could quote Penrose to emphasize the importance of seeking inspiration from different fields.
Some people take the view that the universe is simply there, and it runs along - it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.
Consciousness ... is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.
Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor’s New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.
I believe there is something going on in a conscious being, which includes many animals, as well as ourselves, that is not a computational activity. And to be conscious at all is not a quality that a computer as such will ever possess - no matter how complicated, no matter how well it plays chess or any of these things.
Some people take the view that we happen by accident. I think that there is something much deeper, of which we have very little inkling at the moment.
The image of Stephen Hawking - who has died aged 76 - in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter.
When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
I had so much fun doing Django, and I love westerns so much that after I taught myself how to make one, it's like, 'OK, now let me make another one now that I know what I'm doing.'
Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms.
If you want to find out what a writer or a cartoonist really feels, look at his work. That's enough.
A film is a terrible thing to waste.
I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist…..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.
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