How art can help science and t'other way about

Reading William Shakespeare could give physicians a fresh insight into the links between emotion and illness, a retired doctor and scholar believes.
Dr Kenneth Heaton says many doctors fail to connect psychological problems with physical symptoms - and argues the playwright could help them do it.
He listed dozens of examples in which Shakespeare described these phenomena in his works.
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Artist JMW Turner's work may have been influenced by scientific theories that he overheard, new research suggests.

While the painter was in the Royal Academy, he was in the adjacent rooms to where scientists of the Royal Society held regular meetings.
Turner biographer James Hamilton says the thin walls would have allowed the artist to overhear their discoveries. He believes one of Turner's works makes use of Sir William Herschel's theories about the sun.

And of course BBC Radio 3's Free thinking Festival has a number of  interesting talks and discussions to download or listen to online including landscape architect Charles Jencks' call for a new cosmic art arguing that understanding the universe is too important to be left to scientists and theologians..........


Guy Morgan

Sufi music meets the Infinite

There's a new sound installation at Jodrell Bank Observatory which combines the sounds of pulsars and the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

"For the opening of Asia Triennial Manchester 2011 the artists, Tasawar Bashir and Brian Duffy collaborated with astrophysicist Dr Tim O’Brien, who provided all the cosmological sounds, to perform a live version of the Infinite Qawwali. 

For the duration of ATM11 the Infinite Qawwali will be presented as an installation of sounds and abstract Islamic geometric visuals at the University of Manchester’s recently opened Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre. The whole installation is inspired by a 1000 year-old Sufi poem called Conference of the Birds by Farid Uddin Attar where 30 birds embark upon an epic journey to the edge of the known world in search of a golden feather and its owner the King of the Birds, the Simorgh. 

A live data feed based on whatever the giant Lovell radio telescope happens to be listening to will trigger a sound bank of 30 sounds that include different cosmological sounds and a range of vocals taken from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahib’s masterpiece Allah Hoo (God Is) to create an endless self-generating qawwali. The radio data will also trigger a visualisation of a classic Islamic geometric pattern. 

Qawwali is a centuries-old devotional music form inspired by the universal wisdom of Muslim Sufi thinkers. Traditionally, the music begins as a vocal drone and raaga to build steadily into a high-energy experience, inducing hypnotic states in musicians and audience members..."

It's on at the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre  until 27 November.

Hear the piece about it on Radio 4's Front Row podcast from Thursday 27th October (about 20nminutes in).

Guy Morgan

Painting with Bacteria

Simon Park, a microbiologist at the University of Surrey, notes that many people – including Alexander Fleming – have painted with bacteria. But now, in collaboration with watercolourist Sarah Roberts, he says the bacteria themselves have been turned into painters.

Guy Morgan

Crows, children and choreography

From Nature News:

A leading dancer and a Cambridge scientist discuss their collaboration.

Seven for a secret, never to be told shows at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow 3–5 November and then in Norwich, London, Bradford and Plymouth.

Guy Morgan

Not Ant Music but Ant Dance

BBC Radio 4's Front Row had a feature on Friday about Pestival and how "Bridget Nicholls, artist-in-residence at London Zoo brings artists and scientists together to work on insect-related projects, resulting in works such as the Ant Ballet"
 The Ant Ballet will be installed in London Zoo’s BUGS zone from mid-October 2011 until May 2012, then will be touring Brazil and the US.

NB The link to the Front Row feature may expire by October, so hit the link now.



Guy Morgan

Sounds of the Sea

Sound artists using water to make the rest of us listen to the world around us is a long standing theme. Bill Viola is a veteran of this by now, with his latest work White Sound broadcasting the waves of Chesil Beach along London's Euston Road.
Another artist who explores sound in this way is New Zealand born Annea Lockwood. She's recorded great rivers such as the Danube and the Hudson and she talked about her work on BBC World Service's The Forum along with Ocean scientist Paul Snelgrove.

Guy Morgan

Choreographing the Audience: Mobile technology, Choreography and Urban Territories

instantdissidence

presents

Choreographing the Audience: Mobile technology, Choreography and Urban Territories

Friday, 9th September 2011

4.30-5pm

Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth

Booking enquiries to felicity.alwell@dancedigital.org.uk, +44 (0)1245 346036, or http://digitalfuturesindance.org.uk/?page_id=23.

One day I was walking around my city (Leeds) on a Sunday morning and I spotted some blood on the pavement, which made me wonder: Who fought here last night? Why? Are they ok? I then began to consider how every city’s physical environment holds memories (or ‘ghosts’) of stories such as these.

Rita Marcalo and Lucy Barker have been awarded an Artist Residency in the context of the Digital Futures in Dance National Conference. The residency research is entitled Choreographing the Audience: Mobile Technology, Choreography and Urban Territories, and the objective is to develop a prototype of a mobile app which can be utilised by spectators to navigate a particular environment in an immersive choreographic/dance experience.

The artists will be in residency at Pavilion Dance between 4th and 10th of September, developing the prototype in relation to specific physical spaces in the city of Bournemouth. They aim to complete a short downloadable version which can be accessed by conference delegates using their android or iphones (or ipads), and which will take delegates on a choreographed journey through Bournemouth.

On the 9th September the artists will talk at the conference about the process and the result of their research, and invite questions from delegates who have experienced the work. We recommend that delegates experience the work in advance of attending the talk.

For more information on how to do so please consult the conference website (http://digitalfuturesindance.org.uk/?page_id=25#top) or email Rita Marcalo directly on info@instantdissidence.co.uk

Choreographing the Audience: Mobile Technology, Choreography and Urban Territories was commissioned by Digital Futures in Dance, a consortium between Dance South West (Pavilion Dance), Dance Digital, Bournemouth University (The Media School) and South East Dance. A first experimentation with this concept was commissioned by Dance4 and Nottinghamshire County Council.

Further information about the company can be found on http://www.instantdissidence.co.uk/.