scienceisamazing

Wow - 3 days working at Kings on the Development Neuro Academy Summer school. I ran a couple of workshops on day 1, exploring how to navigate the tricky issue of team building through DNA, and developing ways of communicating abstract concepts through anatomical models. It's a true pleasure working with such fantastic, thoughtful people. Day 2 was awesome, I was part of two workshops - one looking at data analysis of brain cells and thinking about how we read information and the other, exploring how cells in the brain come to exist and change by hypothetically building one in a dish! Really enjoyed the mental gymnastics. It allowed me to reflect on and rethink some current work and led to revelations on how to develop my own practice. I was able to bring to the table ideas of ethics and practical concerns about bias and prejudice. Superb discussions ensued. It was wonderful to be valued as an educator and to learn from students, experiences that are rare. I wasn't able to attend the whole week due to having to attend graduation and working on timetables for next year at Norwich. But I was straight back for the celebration and sharing on Friday after a day of admin on Thursday. The whole day was an extraordinary experience. The focused energy of the enquiring students was so infectious and a real pleasure and privilege to be part of. The film is made up of one of the outcomes from day one. The brightly coloured models come from my DNA workshop, building self-similar sets. Saturday was all about exhibitions - dropped into South London gallery to see Firelei Báez’s Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) - there is some interesting works on 'found' papers and a large installation. Sid and Jim had a couple of great works in Hot in Here at The Bomb Factory. I particularly loved we're still everything we always were. The work was both funny and poignant - a sculpture of a melted ice sculpture, in theory created by their childhood selves imagining what they would look like as adults - a great idea. 

benicetoeachother

this week teaching has been all good - working with eight year 3 students from the Textile Design Course at NUA who are creating work for a show at CraftCo in Southwold http://www.craftco.co.uk/ the exhibition is called made and the work in process can be followed on instagram https://www.instagram.com/nuatextiles2017/ #madeinprogress. If the work that's proposed by the students  is made it will be an exciting exhibition. Enjoying the latest output from artists and friends - a conversation set up to talk about contemporary art between sid and jim on soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/artistsandfriends/such-a-squeaky-chair  nice to reference a free art experience - a lift in the Southbank - the original (if there is such an idea with Martin Creeds work) is in the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. Looking forward to Klanghaus in St George Works in Norwich next week https://klanghaus.co/ sounds and looks like it might be a return to 80s warehouse interventions which obviously in turn references 60s happenings which probably goes back to Neanderthals hanging out in a neighbours cave.

moretestinghands

exploring the potential of moving image and the book - I've
been working with some films I made as a continuation of the robotics work at
Kings College - trying to create something between a cold war document of the
paranormal and a close up magic show. interesting blog post from sidandjim - just
put the phone down and walk away  http://www.sidandjim.com/new-blog/2016/1/18/d-o-y-o-u-s-l-e-e-p-w-i-t-h-y-o-u-r-p-h-o-n-e-
and if you enjoy your film experience confrontational and drenched in blood see
the hateful eight and spot Tarrantino's
love of film references - my favourite was the obvious - Carrie. a great talk
from alumni of the MA Book Art course at Camberwell yesterday from collective
investigations - http://collectiveinvestigations.tumblr.com/
looking forward to the year 3 textile pecha kucha learning agreement
presentations tomorrow - potential is in the air.