August 14, 2010
Green Man Festival, August 20-22
If you missed us at Lovebox and the Secret Garden we’ll be heading to the beautiful Brecon Beacons in two weeks time for the Green Man festival. Whilst based in Einstein’s Garden for our Flavour feast and Liars picnic, we’ll be invading the woods with our Synaesthesia Game and Sounds of the Universe walk. Look out for our musical brain amongst the trees…more info to follow!
By Jen
July 7, 2010
Lovebox: Exposed To The Elements, July 16-18
Photograph yourself in another dimension, eat some brain and learn to lie. Catch us all weekend rain or shine at a smattering of shaded picnic benches near the Gaymer’s bandstand at the Lovebox music festival in London’s Victoria Park.
Photography in Five Dimensions, Friday July 16 1430-1500
If parallel universes exist, what might they look like? Anab Jain and Jon Ardern of cutting edge design collective Superflux explore the possibilities with their 5th dimensional camera.
Flavour Feast, Friday July 16 1500-1530, Saturday July 17 1300-1330, and Sunday July 18 1300-1330
Come celebrate the manifold facets of flavour with our sensory smorgasbord. Sample from our menu of taste tests with expert food scientists and explore the tantalizing mysteries of your senses.
Liars Picnic, Friday July 16 1530-1600, Saturday July 17 1330-1400, Sunday July 18 1400-1430
How good are you, really, at spotting a lie? Forensic psychologist Lynsey Gozna will teach you to spot the telltale signs. Then put your newfound shifty skills to the test in a lying match. Prizes for the finest fibbers. Cheating is compulsory – no exceptions.
Jelly Brain Dissection, Friday July 16 1600-1630, Saturday July 17 1230-1300, Sunday July 18 1230-1300
Get to grips with the most complex thing in the known universe: jelly, set in the shape of your marvellous cerebrum. Neuroscientist Zarinah Agnew will be on hand to help you dissect, discuss and digest it.
Biohacking Live! Friday July 16 1630-1700, Saturday July 17 1430-1500, Sunday July 18 1430-1500
What does synthetic biology have in store for us? Will super slime moulds take over the earth? Designer Tuur and synthetic biologist James will give us an idea, performing live biohacking with yoghurt and electricity.
July 6, 2010
A Feast Of Flavours At Borough Market
Jelly brains and cucumber spaghetti were on the menu last Sunday when we pitched up at London’s Borough Market to dish out mind-enhancing portions of science to all comers.
Organized as part of the London Festival of Architecture, the day’s event brought together makers of musical vegetables, a range of architectural takes on the allotment, cute baby farm animals, and some very tasty pork rolls (shamefully, I ate mine in front of the piglets).
For starters we served up a sensory feast that played with colour, aroma and sound to distort and confuse our diners, but also – we hope – reveal to them the role of the different senses in flavour perception. Anne-Sylvie Christinel and Hayzell van der Lowe from the University of Oxford were on hand to encourage diners to sniff and taste all manner of odd titbits, charmingly presented in petri dishes and test tubes.
Anne-Sylvie and Hayzell also brought along a rubber tongue, which they stroked with a cotton bud in a rather disturbing effort to conjure up an illusion akin to the famous rubber hand trick.
Hayzell and Anne-Sylvie have fun with a rubber tongue.
Our main course saw food scientists Becki Taylor and Rachel Edwards-Stuart explore the genetics of flavour perception with a supertaster test, before handing round the miracle berry pills – they’re legal, honest! Dissolved slowly on the tongue, these magical tablets take you on two-hour ‘taste trip’, transforming puckeringly sour flavours – limes, lemons, vinegar, etc – into sweet, moreish delights.
Becki Clark searches for supertasters.
We then dined on cucumber spaghetti prepared courtesy of top chef David Fuller and molecular gastronomy kit makers Cream Supplies, before sampling some rather worse-for-wear fruit jellies courtesy of yours truly. Hot summer’s day + train journey + gelatine = a sticky mess. Lesson learned.
Zarinah feasts on a lemon - it's so sweet!
And then there was dessert. Just look at that pud! Jelly brains, flavoured with raspberry, vanilla and panacotta, topped off with a fantastic bite-by-bite guide to neuroanatomy from brain expert Zarinah Agnew. And just as people’s appetites began to wane, in stepped Tony Goldstone to tell us how our brains control desire, reward and addiction…
So, all in all, a rather fun bit of alfresco dining. Not overcooked at all, unlike my puns. Look out for further flavour feasts and jelly brains at Lovebox, SGP and Green Man throughout the summer…
Tony Goldstone
By Louis
0