August 28, 2011
Decon Unit: On Film
If you missed us at Glastonbury, you can see what the Decontamination Unit – featured in The Guardian, The Times, Getty Images and Q magazine – was all about in this short film about our Decontamination Unit at Glastonbury, by Virgin Media Shorts winner and BIFA nominated filmmaker Oscar Sharp.
August 25, 2011
The Glamour Factory: Full Programme
We will host our very first event at the National Portrait Gallery as part of Contemporary Vintage‘s late night The Glamour Factory, an extension of the NPG’s current exhibit, Glamour Of The Gods.
Marlene Dietrich
Part of the NPG’s Late Shift Extra series of events, Contemporary Vintage has brought us and The Broken Hearts on board to create a large-scale event to complement Glamour of the Gods, a celebration of Hollywood portraiture from the industry’s “Golden Age”, 1920 to 1960. From Greta Garbo and Clark Gable to Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, it is these portraits that transformed actors and actresses into international style icons.
On October 7, for one night only, the National Portrait Gallery will be transformed into the “NPG Film Studios”. Upon arrival, you will pick up your “NPG Studio” contract and enter the Glamour Factory. Visit the seven star-making departments to be transformed into a Hollywood icon.
* Free tickets will be required for some activities and will be available in advance – please check regularly on the NPG website for updates.
Dress Code: Black and White
Full program for the night can be seen on the NPG’s website here.
With Vintage Visage makeovers by Illamasqua, Strike a Pose classes in finding the perfect angle with Anna Berlyn in the NPG Photography Studio, and a night of live music and dance in the Broken Hearts Cocktail Lounge, Contemporary Vintage is bringing their unique twist, moving beyond the traditional content of the exhibition to explore how the themes resonate today. Unexpected angles will be explored, mixing art with science and mainstream culture with the underground.
Guerilla Science is joining the cultural fray, and invite you to put glamour under the microscope and look behind-the-scenes to uncover how the Golden Age of Hollywood was manufactured and how image continues to be manipulated today.
We will bring scientific concepts into this cultural cornucopia, including explorations of the science behind facial recognition, identity, and gender to departments 1, 4 and 6.
Department 1: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING
What is Beauty?
18.00 – 18.45, 19.00 – 19.45 & 20.00 – 20.45
Drop in to meet Danny Rees from the Wellcome Library and explore physiognomy. Is there any truth to the symmetrical ideals of beauty?
Vintage Drawing Class
18.30 – 19.15 & 19.45 – 20.30
Turn heads in this stylish drawing class. Introduced by Nina and Issidora of Nina’s Hair Parlour; drawing led by Susan Wilson with a discussion led by Professor Mark Pagel.
Is Gender an Illusion?
19.15 – 19.45 & 20.15 – 20.45
Clinical psychologists Dr Polly Carmichael and Dr Victoria Holt explore notions of identity and unpick the confusion of chromosomes.
Department 4: IMMORTAL DREAMS
Immortality Tour
19.15 – 19.45 & 20.15 – 20.45
Join this specially created tour exploring notions of life, death and immortality with Dr David Gems (Institute of Healthy Aging, UCL) as he explores the Gallery from a scientific angle.
Department 6: POWER DRESSING
The Glamorous Debate
19.00 – 19.45
Is glamour really in the eye of the beholder? Our glittering array of experts explore the power of fashion. Chaired by Pamela Church-Gibson (Reader in Cultural and Historical Studies, London College of Fashion,) with panellists Ted Polhemus (anthropologist and writer), Grace Woodward (stylist and fashion broadcaster) and Semir Zeki (Professor of Neuroaesthetics, UCL) and Janty Yates, Academy Award-Winning costume designer, Gladiator.
* Free tickets required, please see website nearer the time for details.
Clark Gable and Joan Crawford.
August 17, 2011
SGP: Orang-utan > Zoe
I expected to smell better than two boys who had not washed for 40 days.
I did not expect to be deemed less attractive than an orang-utan.
“You will never live this down,” my best friend grinned.
The things we do for science.
At the Feast of Stenches at the Secret Garden Party this past July, we presented our audience with an array of human scents for them to sample, judge and rate: two boys, a woman (myself), and an ape (Hannah, a female orang-utan, only revealed to be non-human after the judging).
More than 50 eager noses took turns sniffing our Smell Stations, plastic boxes containing ripped shreds of fabric from t-shirts worn by our four research subjects.
This was a Guerilla Science take on the famous t-shirt experiments, which investigate the molecular basis of attraction and by examining how humans preferentially rate the smells of other people.
“We humans usually think that we pick our mates according to how they look – we think of ‘love at first sight’ – we don’t appreciate the importance of smell,” says Dr Leslie Knapp, a biological anthropologist who specialises in immunogenetics at the University of Cambridge and a global authority on the relationship between smell and attraction in primates. “But studies of primates and even studies of humans have shown that our ability to smell is very important, even in present day society – how we perceive the smell of someone has an influence on how we react to them, and there is good evidence to suggest that it has important influences on how we choose our mates.”
Anyone who has ever known the smell of a lover may be able to relate: the scent of that certain someone is utterly distinct, wholly individual, and – when it belongs to the right person – completely intoxicating. Once upon a time, it was the smell of someone that lay in the crease between his nose and his face that made me weak in the knees.
The mysterious charm and allure of a particular person’s scent is seemingly impossible to put into words, though a few have uttered some rather poignant phrases: Napoleon is reputed to have written to Josephine, “Will return to Paris tomorrow evening. Don’t wash.”
August 15, 2011
SGP: Chemical Assault Course
“Chemical assault course” – it might sound like what costumed revelers put their brain through at a festival, but this was in fact a showcase event, sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering, featuring researchers from University College London.
Contestants maneuvered a cornstarch race track and giant filtration sieves (in the form of four metre wide swathes of fabric) while encumbered with hats, backpacks and plastic balls (representative for antigens) to mimic the chemical synthesis and refining process.
And thus, punters became the drugs, purifying, centrifuging and vacuum-packing themselves into pharmacological treats. Pure, chemical poetry.
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