Ramon Llull (1232-1315) was a Mallorcan philosopher, logician, writer and religious figure who published many texts that are still widely read to this day. Born to a wealthy Catalan family in Palma, he possessed a formidable intellect, working in Catalan, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew. He also created an innovative debating and reasoning tool called the ars combinatoria.
The ars combinatoria has lead some to pronounce LLull as the founder of modern computing. Its system of logic was the beginning of information science. The ars combinatoria was a paper machine made of concentric circles that rotated and, in doing so, combined symbols, which represented universal ‘truths’ about the world.
A renaissance man in pre-renaissance Europe, Llull’s concept of reality was formed by combining ideas from different fields such as philosophy, theology, science, politics, astronomy, medicine and law.
The use of this mechanism, and its aim to unify the various branches of knowledge, was intended to create peace between religions by means of deduction, demonstration and dialogue. This desire to create peace between religions was bron from the times Llull lived in, a time when Spain had recently expelled Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Catholicism. His thinking clearly resonated through the ages in our own time.
A fascinating new exhibition at the CCCB combines historical documentation of Ramon Llull’s life with contemporary art pieces from artists who have been inspired by his work. It opens on the 14th of July and runs until the 11th of December and features work by artists including:
Arnold Schönberg, Athanasius Kircher, Bernat de Lavinheta, David Link, Francesc Pujols, Giordano Bruno, Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Italo Calvino, Jacint Verdaguer, Jean-Jacques Grandville, Jeongmoon Choi, Joan Desí, Johann Heinrich Alsted, John Cage, Jorge Oteiza, José Luis Alexanco, José María Yturralde, Josep M. Subirachs, Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny, Josep Palau i Fabre, Josep Soler, Juan de Herrera, Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Manfred Mohr, Manuel Barbadillo, Marius Schneider, Miquel Bestard, Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, Nikolaus Joachim Lehmann, Perejaume, Philipp Goldbach, Pietro Mainardi, Rafael Isasi, Ralf Baecker, Ramon Llull, Raymond Queneau, Razen, Rosa Leveroni, Salvador Dalí, Sebastián Izquierdo, Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, Valère Novarina, William Morris, Yehudá ha-Leví and Daniel V. Villamediana.
Find out more: http://www.cccb.org
