Transcendent Man is a remarkable new documentary about the life and ideas of futurist Ray Kurzweil (the subject of Time magazine’s cover article this week). Rumor has it that the director of The Imaginary Foundation was spotted at the film premiere in Los Angeles this Wednesday, but he slipped into a wormhole before anyone could snap a photo. A fan did, however, get a couple shots of Imaginarian Extraordinaire Jason Silva sporting his Multiverse shirt and handing a deck of All-Star Pattern Seeker trading cards to Kurzweil.

Director Barry Ptolemy, Raymond Kurzweil, actress Heather Graham, Jason Silva. (Image: The Imaginary Foundation)

About the Imaginary Foundation

The Imaginary Foundation is a think tank from Switzerland that does experimental research on new ways of thinking and the power of the imagination. They hold dear a belief in human potential and seek progress in all directions. The small clandestine team is headed up by the mysterious “Director,” a 70-something Uber-intellectual whose father founded the Dadaist movement. Avoiding direct publicity, the team has sought clothing as an unlikely vehicle for bringing their ideas beyond the academic realm and into popular culture.

In his vision for the Imaginary Foundation, the Director knew that the human mind has more than one mode, that indeed it has an “ecology” of being. He knew that imagination, intuition, inspiration are basic to psyche. . . . A philosophy of research began to form: imagination as fundamental to all learning; artistic making as a model of integrating vision, materials, structure, and imagery. “What makes true vision is the poetry of life and the richness of nature.” The Foundation’s basis has been a strong sense of community, free inquiry, creativity, and the experimental spirit. Over the years the Foundation has generated a critical mass of creative people in many different fields, for whom it’s been a catalyst for experimentation and innovation. “The Imaginary Foundation is a crazy and magical place, and the electricity of it’s members seems to make for a wonderfully charged atmosphere, so that sometimes before sessions one becomes excited and a little anxious, as though a thunderstorm were sweeping in.”

Also see:
The Imaginary Foundation website