August 19, 2010

Green Man Festival, August 20-22

The sublime Brecon Beacons beckon. Catch us August 20 to 22 in Einstein’s Garden.

Sounds of the Universe: Lewis Dartnell & Andrew Pontzen

Walks: Friday 1330 & 1630, Saturday 1100, 1400 & 1715, Sunday 1300 & 1545

Talks: Friday 1630 w/ Andrew & Sat 1330 w/ Lewis, Yurt Stage

Hear the the bassy reverberations of the surface of our Sun, the eerie shrieks of Jupiter, and feverish radio pulses from the cores of dead stars. Plus a talk on astrobiology with Lewis on Saturday.

The Synaesthesia Game: Guerilla Science & Coney

Saturday 1215 and Sunday 1345, Yurt Stage

The Professor has made a brain – but it has synaesthesia: it hears sounds when it sees colours. Come see what it thinks you sound like to look at. Unlike anything you’ve seen – or heard – before.

Flavour Feast: Becki Clarke & Rachel Edwards Stuart

Friday 1530, Saturday 1630, Sunday 1745, Workshop Tent

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.

Jelly Brain Dissections: Guy Billings

Friday 1530, Saturday 1630, Sunday 1745, Workshop Tent

Come for a cuppa and a slice of delicious jelly, set in the shape of your marvellous cerebrum. We will dissect, discuss and digest the most complex thing in the known universe: your mind.

Liars Picnic: Lynsey Gozna & Rachel Taylor

Friday 1900 & Sunday 1445, Yurt Stage

How good are you at spotting a lie? Forensic psychologists 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.

August 18, 2010

Wellcome Trust Blog

Summertime means music festival season for many, but revellers at some of this year’s events may encounter science alongside the singing. Zoe Cormier, ‘guerilla scientist’, tells us more.

Agency of adventure and play Coney with our synaesthetic brain.

Anyone who passed by the Guerilla Science tent at the Secret Garden Party in July would have had reason to look twice: costumed revellers standing in front of a giant eye to make an enormous brain sing a cascade of strange noises.

The giant, pink, flowery brain is not just any giant brain. It has synaesthesia, a condition that up to one in 23 people may possess where two senses become entwined: words can have tastes, or numbers may have smells. Agency of adventure and play Coney, paired with neuroscientist Thomas Wright, devised an interactive performance to give those with a more typical sensory framework a better appreciation of what synaesthesia feels like. Contestants were asked, as Coney put it, “to see what the brain thinks you sound like to look at” and the result was a sonic and visual feast.

By blending the latest from biomedical research and neuroscience with art, music and play to create a noisy and colourful interactive experience, the Synaesthesia Game is a unique and (we hope) effective way to introduce people to a scientific concept in ways the written word or a lecture cannot.

Guerilla Science specialises in scientific events like this. Since we began staging events at music festivals in 2007 we have moved beyond simply speaking to our audiences. We try to engage people with the latest in research by blending science with art, music and play to create interactive and memorable events in unusual and generally arts-focused settings. Our handle, ’guerilla’, stems from how we pop up in places where science and scientists are not normally found: nightclubs, food markets, cinemas and (most importantly for us) music festivals.

By nestling ourselves among cabaret dancers, fire sculptures and mud wrestling pits, we aim to challenge widespread assumptions about what science is and how it works. By surprising people with a new finding (some people in vegetative states are actually conscious) or a challenging question (is gender actually an illusion?) we hope to inspire more people to think in new ways about their own lives. And through this, we hope more people understand how ‘science’ provides a window into the complexities of the human condition.

This year’s programme was larger and more experimental than ever, in great part thanks to our funding from the Wellcome Trust. After a string of smaller events in London (including a sensory feast in Borough Market and an immersive installation on perception with Secret Cinema) we are in the middle of our biggest summer festival season to date.

July took us to the Lovebox festival in London and four days at the Secret Garden Party. Now we are gearing up for the Green Man festival this coming weekend (20-22 August). The Synaesthesia Game will be with us. Transporting a giant brain from a warehouse in East London to a yurt in the middle of a field in Wales is certainly not easy, but it is most definitely worth it.

By Zoe Cormier for the Wellcome Trust

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 22, 2010

Secret Garden Party, Saturday July 24: Escape

See the electricity in your skull, shed all inhibitions, show us your secret places,learn to love pain, and set yourself free. 

11am Visualising the mind, Luciana Haill, The Institute For Unnecessary Research, with Magician Darius Ziatabari

See the brain brought to life with soundscapes and optical treats woven from the electricity inside your head with neurofeedback artist Luciana. Darius will add live hypnosis demonstrations to show what happens under mastery of the mind.

12pm The Synaesthesia game, Coney & Guerilla Science

The Professor needs your help! After making a musical brain that mixes the senses, he needs to feed it with visual stimuli hidden around the Secret Garden. Transform colour into sound and learn through play with Guerilla Science and agency of adventure Coney.

1pm Learn To Love Pain With Sampa von Cyborg

Explore how body artist Sampa von Cyborg transcends the pain threshold with a session of live piercing, cutting, hooking, dragging and burning while hooked up to biomonitoring equipment so you can see his heart race (as yours does too). Take a ride to the event in a car – dragged by Sampa himself. What a way to start the day.

2pm Body Mapping  and the Science of Sex, Petra Boynton, UCL

Show us where you like to be touched with sex educator Petra, who will explore your intimate places with intimate questions. Shed your inhibitions, open your mind and share your secrets. Then jump in our boat for an extra intimate chat on the way out to science island.

3pm Pink  My  Poop,  James King & Daisy Ginsberg

Give yourself a health check with The Scatalog. Speculative designers Daisy and James will show how synthetic biology could be used to help monitor disease with E. chromi, a yogurt drink designed by Cambridge biologists that turns your poop pink if something plagues you. Help us make magenta manure.

4pm Mastering Memory, Ed Cooke

Explore the nooks and crannies of your mind and improve your powers of recall at the same time with memory maestro and Times columnist Ed. Learn to keep the unforgettable unforgotten.

5pm Science Pub Quiz, Frank Swain, Science Punk

Bring your grey matter for a workout in this pub quiz with a twist. Our quizmaster is back with the fan favourite: tricky trivia, boistrous heckles and witty drunkards await. Learning is fun, especially with beer.

And out and about…

10am The  Miniature  Zoo,  Tim  Maynard of the Living Classroom

Snakes. Tarantulas. Chameleons. Scorpions. Stick insects. Oh yes.

11am Kitchen Science, Nikolai & Pete

Discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.

1:30pm Flavour feast, Rachel Edwards-Stuart & Becki Clarke

Celebrate the manifold facets of flavour with a sensory smorgasboard.

1pm Photography in Five Dimensions, Anab Jain & Jon Ardern of Superflux

If parallel universes exist, what would they look like?

3pm Rosie The Organ Grinder With Physics Maestro Steve Mould

Discover the secrets of sound with a hand-made street organ.

Dusk-2am The Traveling Observatory, Elisa Kraus

Explore the night sky with top-notch telescopes.