July 26, 2011
SGP: New Scientist Culture Lab
This year’s Secret Garden Party deep in rural Cambridgeshire, UK, got off to an inauspicious start as a metal walkway leading into the festival proved a tad too springy to walk on with a heavy rucksack and bounced your CultureLab reporter – covered in an impressive amount of blood – into a 90-minute stay at the field hospital.
Nothing daunted and no sign of concussion detected by the fine paramedics, I was up, bandaged and heading straight for… the science, of course!
And flattered we were when the hardy and brave Liz turned up at our tent, head bandaged and bleeding. That’s the spirit we like to see. Read the rest of Liz Else’s wonderful post about our tent and Impossible Alone on the New Scientist website here.
July 17, 2011
Secret Garden Party: July 21-24 2011
Discover how truth is unequivocally stranger than fiction with the SGP’s favourite renegade researchers as they mix science with art, music and play.
Acquire the wisdom of whores, embody the drug, race a cockroach, listen to the sun, smell an orangutan, feast on filth, count to infinity, cradle a maggot, speak to aliens, draw the intestines, dine in space, and come ponder how remarkable it is that you are reading these words at all.
THURSDAY: ASCENT
17:00-22:00 Blind Robot’s Bluff: Adam Spiers Navigate through darkness with the Haptic Lotus, a cybernetic instrument that manoeuvres through space with engineered grace. Use the unfolding petals to guide you to your destination, and ponder the meaning of light in the dark.
FRIDAY: INVENTION
11:00 Bionic Ear: Ifat Yasin & Tobin May Your ears are feats of biological engineering – yet they may decieve you. Come find out how they work – and how they can be fooled – with Tobin May and his giant Bionic Ear and Ifat with her incredible auditory illusions.
12:30 Sounds of the Universe: Lewis Dartnell Hear the bassy reverberations of the surface of our Sun, the eerie shrieks of Jupiter, and feverish radio pulses from the cores of dead stars with astrobiologist Lewis, an expert in the search for life beyond our world.
13:30 Science of Extreme Sport: Science Junkie Greg Foot Fire tornados. Liquid runways. Flaming spheres. Half science geek, half adrenaline junkie, daredevil scientist Greg will push science and himself to the limit. See him reveal the laws of nature by breaking all the rules.
14:30 Digging Black Holes: Marek Kukula Join Royal Observatory astronomer Marek for an intimate introduction to quasars, pulsars and the farthest reaches of the universe. Skirt the event horizon, trip the light fantastic and delve into the heart of nothingness.
15:30 Visualising Vibrations: Reeps & Steve Mould Watch as we transform sound into light as our physics maestro Steve and beatboxer Reeps turn the auditory into the optical with fire, smoke and mirrors. Magic? Nope. Sublime? You bet.
Guerilla Science and chef Joe Gray bring you a feast of filth, each course inspired by the physical, biological, ethical, architectural, social, political and temporal dimensions of dirt. Eminent experts will accompany each course, feeding guests with ideas about the nature of dirt, with scientists Zarinah Agnew, Rachel Edwards-Stuart, Aidan Horner, Elizabeth Pisani, and beatboxer Yasson.
TICKETED EVENT: £20 per head. BUY TICKETS HERE.
SATURDAY: DIRT
11:00 Dirty Minds: Zarinah Agnew Would you masturbate inside a brain scanner? What if somebody else joined you? The story of how we mapped the naughty bits in the brain is almost as enticing as what it all means – truth is stranger than friction.
12:00 Wisdom of Whores: Elizabeth Pisani Democracy is a dirty word, argues Elizabeth. After spending 10 years working on HIV prevention in SE Asia, she’s convinced that public morality stands in the way of sensible decisions – especially when “dirty” behaviour is involved.
13:00 Feast of Stenches: Leslie Knapp & The Smelly Tweeter What role does scent play in how you play? And how can one person smell so sweet? Compare boy with man, man with woman, and orangutan with guerilla (yes, really) in our scintillating celebration of the pleasures of the nose.
14:00 Dirty Life Drawing: Virginia Smith & Evy Jokhova With body paint, tribal patterns and microbial stencils, Evy will expose our model’s veins, viscera and vice. Go head to toe and explore the filthy features of the figure with cultural historian Virginia. Just what, exactly, is unclean?
15:30 Disgusting Little Beasts: Tim Maynard & Fran Meeten Grab a fist-full of maggots. Eat dog food. Cuddle a tarantula. Or – better yet – watch somebody else do it. Join psychologist Fran and zookeeper Tim for an exploration of disgust, fear, and the evolution of our primal instincts.
16:30 Dirty Sexy Quiz: Steve Mould & Zoe Cormier Guerilla Scientists Steve and Zoe will run us through tawdry trivia and filthy facts. Delve into the epidemiology of fisting, radioactive contraceptives, the fetish spectrum, and a rousing round of the pin the penis on the brain.
These events are part of the Wellcome Trust’s fantastic and filthy Dirt season
SUNDAY: THE UNIVERSE
11:00 Impossible Alone: Tim Murray-Brown, Tiff Chan & Andrew Robertson An interactive installation where music, movement and games collide: make soundscape through synchronised dance. Match your moves and build a sonic charge – deviate, and it will evaporate. How strong is your physical affinity?
12:00 To Infinity & Beyond: Marcus du Sautoy & Victoria Gould What is infinity? Is it a number? Can you count it? And are there different infinities? Expand your mind to infinite proportions with mathematician Marcus du Sautoy.
13:00 Galactic Gourmet: Rachel Edwards-Stuart & Jessica Chambers Experimental epicures Rachel and Jessica will take us on a whistlestop tour of the history of space food – eating in orbit is even harder than it sounds. Sample interstellar ice cream, dehydrated steak and zero gravity cake.
14:00 Chemical Assault Course: UCL Engineers Become the drugs as they are made and fight for survival through the obstacle course filtration process: first one to make it to a blister pack wins. Come purify, centrifuge and vacuum pack yourself into a pharmacological treat.
16:00 Chemistry Vs Physics: Andrea Sella & Steve Mould Summer snow. Elastic liquid. Quickfire worms. Flaming noise. Andrea and Steve will make molecular music together – some of it sweet, some of it bitter, most of it smelly, with a few explosions thrown in for good measure.
OUT AND ABOUT ALL WEEKEND
11:00-17:00 Microbial Menagerie: Microbiologist Zookeepers Featuring the flora and fauna of the human body. Spot the bum!
11:00-13:00 & 14:00-16:00 The Dirty Bin Man Of Love: Alyn Gwyndaf Visit the Bin Man to meditate on your inner dirt.
13:00 Creepy Cornucopia: Tim Maynard Scorpions. Snakes. Tarantulas. Maggots. Oh yes.
16:00 Cockroach Racing Winner takes all.
22:00 Travelling Observatory: Elisa Kraus Explore the nightsky with top-notch telescopes.
22:00 Bioluminescent Bacteria: Simon Park Come chat to aliens with our array of glowing petri dishes.
With thanks to our generous funders the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Science & Technologies Facility Council.
July 5, 2011
Secret Garden Party: Dirt Banquet
Working in partnership with chef Joe Gray, Guerilla Science will host a Dirt Banquet on the evening of Friday July 22 at the Secret Garden Party at sunset – the second and last time we will host this unparalleled experience. The first was held inside London’s unrivaled Crossness Pumping Station with experimental food artisans Bompas & Parr.
As before, this feast of filth will showcase dirty delicacies such as radioactive cheese serum, ambergris, Islay whiskey, and an aphrodisiac dessert - each course inspired by the physical, biological, ethical, architectural, social, political and temporal dimensions of dirt. Full menu, which will vary from the Crossness feast, will be announced a week before the date.
Eminent experts will accompany each course, feeding guests with ideas about the nature of dirt. Neuroscientists Zarinah Agnew and Aidan Horner will introduce us to the dirty bits of the brain. Gastronomist Rachel Edwards-Stuart, former apprentice of Heston Blumenthal, will accompany canapes. Epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores (catch her fantastic TED Talk here), wh0 will speak on sexuality over dessert. And beatboxer Yasson will serenade us with the snarling trills of the spiralidoo.
Laphroaig jelly breast smothered in ambergris at the Dirt Banquet in April. Photo Credit: Mike Massaro.
This edible adventure will provide diners with an unrivaled culinary experience that promises to be both thought-provoking as well as surprisingly appetizing – check out write-ups of the first Dirt Banquet in The Guardian and New Scientist.
Buy tickets here! Limited numbers available – this is an intimate affair.
This event is part of the Wellcome Trust’s fantastic and filthy Dirt season of events.
July 2, 2011
40 days of filth: highlights
For our Smelly Tweeter competition – a challenge to last 40 days and 40 nights without washing – contestant Daniel Farrel kept a regular blog about his experiences: 40 Days Of Filth.
Choice cuts:
[There have been] some pretty good reactions from people… Generally the reaction’s been a sort of vaguely amused disgust… My girlfriend has started to refer to me as ‘Stinky’, and she does claim I was unpleasant this morning, but again I reckon this is the result of her knowledge of my cleanliness not its actual effect…
Either I’m going to start to reek and everyone will notice or, and I think this is probably more likely, I’ll not be too noticeable and people will start to forget about it pretty quickly.
Not that I won’t smell at all, merely that I don’t think it’s going to get unbearable, and I do have some tactics planned…. [such as] nudity. My thinking is that if I spend most of my time at home bollock naked and exposed to the air it will mitigate the smell a bit. Even if not then it’ll keep me amused. Could be a little awkward if any of my friends decide to drop by unexpectedly though…
There was a point yesterday; when the ambient temperature in the office was about 24C and I could vaguely smell myself even through freshly laundered clothes; when I did start to get a bit paranoid about it, but I think it should be OK. Today was a cooler and my odour was definitely less obvious…
I’ve got used to the vague stickiness and greasiness that goes along with being unclean and my girlfriend doesn’t seem to mind physical contact. She did roll over the other morning and end up with her nose in my armpit which lead to a fairly comic reaction but apart from that it’s appears to be fine. No real complaints and only the occasion ‘I can smell you from here’ from the other side of the living room….
I am sitting less than three metres from a bathtub. This is torture. I will persevere. I WILL persevere…
It’s the last day. I’m a little disappointed. I’m not exactly going to miss the many and various odours that the different parts of me are currently producing, not exactly. There is a strange sort of comfort to be had from your own smell though. The one produced at about armpit level that is; any lower than the waist and things can be a bit shocking…
Maybe not disappointed, more preemptively nostalgic. I am the source of a variety of distinct odours. Not strong necessarily, but present, and mine. In some ways it’s strangely comforting. I smell undeniably of myself.
Illuminating. Read all of Daniel’s thoughts, opinions and complaints here.
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