Photo: Robert J. Lang
Folded Wonders: The Art and Science of Origami
GETTY CENTER
Museum Lecture Hall
This is a past event
Robert J. Lang, one of the world's foremost origami masters and former NASA physicist, explores how mathematics, science, art and technology intersect on a single sheet of origami paper. This 30-minute talk is free and open to all ages.
Complements the Cut! Paper Play in Contemporary Photography exhibition.
Robert J. Lang
Throughout his life Lang has been and avid student of origami. He began making origami at age six and produced his own designs by age eleven. Now the former NASA laser physicist is recognized as one of the world's foremost origami masters celebrated for his seemingly impossible and realistic origami designs.
With a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech, Lang has, over his career at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored over 100 papers and 50 patents in lasers and optoelectronics. He received Caltech's highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, in 2009 and was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2013.
Lang developed formal design algorithms for folding and has created and diagramed more than 500 original origami compositions. He has consulted on applications of origami to medical devices, air-bag design, and space telescopes, is the author or co-author of fifteen books and numerous articles on origami.
Lang's origami artworks have been featured in over fifty museum exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mingei Museum of World Folk Art, San Diego, and the Nippon Museum of Origami, Kaga, Japan, among others. Many examples of his work may be found on his website, http://www.langorigami.com.