Unfolding Origami

GAMBIER, Ohio (January 29, 2010) Robert Lang, a world-renowned origami artist and designer, visits Kenyon on Monday, February 8, to share his insights into the art and science of folding paper into figures.

Lang is a physicist who left a career as a research scientist to pursue origami, the Japanese art of paper folding without the use of cutting or glue. Lang has designed about 500 origami compositions and his work has been displayed in museums around the world.

A hands-on folding party follows his talk "Circle-packing and Origami: A Discussion about the Mathematics of Origami" at 3:10 p.m. in Hayes Hall (room 109). At 7:30 p.m. he will discuss "From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes: The Modern Science of Origami" in the Higley Hall auditorium. The events are free and the public is encouraged to attend.

"The exciting stuff is the stuff where you don't even know how to begin," Lang told the New Yorker in 2007. His creations range from a Black Forest cuckoo clock to insects to an orchestra. He has created a Darth Vader, a moose, and a pteranodon, among a host of others.

Lang earned a doctorate in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology and worked as a research scientist for NASA and JDS Uniphase. He holds 46 patents in semiconductor lasers, optics, and integrated optoelectronics. Lang became a folding enthusiast as a child, and, in 2001, he gained enough traction in the origami world to pursue the art full-time.

Lang designs origami computer programs. And he is the author or co-author of eight books on origami. He was an artist-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004.

The events are sponsored by Kenyon College Faculty Lectureships.