I'm very excited to officially launch the website for my artwork Flows/Flujos.
Head over and take a look!Narratives in science
I’ve been asked to contribute to an EC whitepaper on the use of narratives to convey science, particularly with respect to the impact of digital tools and community engagement.
Here’s what I wrote for them. I had to keep it short because of their incredibly low word-count (800 words). I’ve incorporated thoughts on interdisciplinarity, digital tools and community engagement. Though there’s much more to say, I tried to at least touch on all the important and pertinent aspects that I could.
Any comments and thoughts most welcome – I’m going to meet at the EC next week.
Pictures from my Mexico exhibition
Flows has debuted at the Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, Mexico. Here are some pictures of the work in situ!
The Flows website should be going live at the start of next week, very excited.
Advertising
If you have all the information about products at your fingertips, then brand recognition would be redundant, and that would do away with the value of advertising. Come on internet, step up to the challenge.
Have you seen the light?
Last week I got the great opportunity to spend 2 hours of my working day wandering around Light Show at the Hayward Gallery .
The exhibition plays with the medium of light, really bringing to your attention the fact that this energy informing our sight is something to look at as well as to look with.But, as I point out in my New Scientist review, Light Show also asks fundamental questions about how we conceive of light. The exhibition includes a piece by Cerith Wyn Evans, called S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E, (“Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill underlying motive’s overspill…”). The three pillars covered in clear bulbs flare in time, evoking the rhythm of breathing. As the filaments pulse on, the whole room is infused with their heat – drawing attention to the glaring light even from those who don’t have the sculpture in their line of sight.
It’s an interesting effect, in an exhibition otherwise filled with cold forms of electric light. Urban environments are assaulted with light. Light pollution is up by as much as 20 per cent every year in some areas, which has detrimental ecological consequences and can degrade human health by disrupting the circadian rhythms – it’s a point another piece of work in the exhibition calls to mind. David Batchelor’s Magic Hour makes use of old neon signs from Las Vegas (a city struggling with extreme light pollution), turning their bright advertising to face the wall, so that the observer just views their reflected glow, free to imagine the brightly-lit fantasy beyond the gallery’s confines.
The two faces of “me-centred” mapping
I’m sitting in my living room, every now and then checking my iPhone to see when my friend will arrive for lunch.Back in the good old days of the 2000s, I’d have been reading a text message to get his personal estimated time of arrival. Now, I watch the little purple dot approach as his bus travels ever closer to the stop near my apartment. I’m using the Find Friends app. It’s a bit freaky – if you allow them, select of your contacts can watch your whereabouts at all times, and they can allow the same for you – but it’s useful for situations like this where I want to stay indoors and work up to the time he arrives.
That’s one of the benefits of digital mapping combined with GPS location and smartphones. You can optimise your life for efficiency: minimising travel time, optimising savings when shopping, avoiding traffic jams, maximising your chance of finding the right home when you move. That’s all great, but there are some downsides.
Change
As some of you may know, I recently have gone part time at New Scientist. I've also moved house. These are some big changes, and I'm really excited about them. The change at work particularly is great because it means I am able to spend more time on much longer projects. I've got offers of collaborations coming in, and I'm working on a couple of art proposals for bigger pieces that express more of what I've been thinking about recently – connections, complexity and networks. I'm also very excited to be writing a chapter for a book on theory choice in chemistry as part of Ad HoC the History of Chemistry group I've been part of since its inception 8 years ago.
Not to navel gaze too much, but I find this change really empowering and that's something I'd like to share. There is immense power in making a change not for the purposes of mitigating pain, but in order to achieve something you're aiming for. A pull rather than a push. That in itself is a change for me, and it's definitely a change for the better.
