Science in the City Programme

ESOF2010 will involve the entire city with the Science in the City programme, the meeting point between citizens and experts, between science, research and the city. From 2 to 7 July, science will come to life in the streets, squares, museums and other particularly significant places of the city.

Piazza Castello and Piazza Carlo Alberto will host exhibitions, experiments, interactive installations, and workshops designed to involve people of all ages. The squares will be brought alive by scientific street games, inspired by traditional games that will draw the public into exciting challenges, such as the “green” snakes and ladders and the trivial pursuit on life, the anecdotes and discoveries of the brilliant Albert Einstein.

With Science in the City, the research method will become the occasion for entertainment: the great stage in Piazza Castello will be a theatre for concerts and spectacular scientific lectures conducted by leading personalities in Italian scientific communication such as Piero Angela, Mario Tozzi and Piergiorgio Odifreddi and that will involve the international protagonists of ESOF2010 during the Nobel Night and the Night of Seductions.

There will be, instead, a more intimate atmosphere at the Arena, which will be located in the courtyard of Palazzo Carignano, a space that will see a succession of presentations, theatrical performances, entertainment and debates between researchers, journalists and writers.

A cycle of meetings will be hosted in the Conference Room of the Circolo dei Lettori, which will also be home to one of the event’s most original initiatives: the exhibition that will transform the prestigious building in Via Bogino into a laboratory and examine the probabilities of winning with tables for roulette and baccarat, where the cognitive and emotional self-deception that lead beyond the threshold of dependency on games and gambling will be revealed.

The programme will be enlivened and enriched by the rich and varied series of exhibitions, lectures and workshops offered by the city’s museums that traditionally concentrate on disseminating scientific knowledge such as the Regional Natural Science Museum, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, the PAV – Park of Living Art, the Museo A come Ambiente (environment) and Infini.To – the planetarium of Pino Torinese. The exhibition routes will go from physics to chemistry, nanotechnologies to biotechnologies, astronomy to energy and creative biology, leading the visitors to discover science and its interaction with society.

In addition, some of the city’s artistically and symbolically most important places of culture will open their doors to science: the splendid rooms of Palazzo Madama will host a lesson by Franz Ossing on the relationship between science and art. The Accademia Albertina delle Belle Arti will display the works of young artists who have enquired into the relationship between mathematics and art. The Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria will host an exhibition on aerospace technologies and role-playing games that will involve the young public in enthusiastic debates on the most topical questions in research and innovation.

Again at the Biblioteca Nazionale there will be one of the performances in the theatre programme, whose heart will be hosted in the atmospheric areas of the Cavallerizza Reale (Maneggio Reale and Manica Corta). Among the names that stand out are Valter Malosti, who will direct and act in a show on Primo Levi, and Edoardo Erba, the author of the pièce that will recount the Italian experience of an Einstein little more than an adolescent.

Science will also be the talk of the town in unusual places, such as the Caffè Fiorio, one of Turin’s historical bars that will host the scientific cafés of the JRC of Ispra, during which it will be possible to discuss informally some of the most burning and controversial issues in scientific debate today.

An important part of the Programme will be held at Lingotto, alongside the Exhibition Area where institutions, research centres and European companies will have the chance to present themselves to the international participants: thanks to the exhibitions and workshops that will be held in the centre, visitors will be able to use advanced research instruments, observe and conduct analyses and thus appreciate the intimate elegance, the potential utility, the magic and the beauty of science and technology.

The detailed Programme will be available soon.