Visited: 'Packed Lunch' Optimism talk @ Wellcome Collection

I went to another brilliant, free talk at the Wellcome Collection. This time with neuroscientist Tali Sharot on the subject of optimism.

It is estimated that 80% of the population are optimists and are in fact optimistically biased. Tali Sharot talked about the effect of this on our lives, particularly on how we see our lives in the future and future events. She also talked about how people maintain an optimist bias in the face of reality.

For example, it is a known fact that almost 50% of marriages end in divorce. However, when optimists are asked how likely they think their own marriage will end in divorce they answer much lower than the average. Further to this, people believe they will live much longer, healthier lives than that of the average person. It has been found that people will consistently answer questions about their own lives more positively and optimistically than that of reality, despite being fully aware of the statistics. They also don't correct themselves, to become more realistic, as events unfold in their lives and their optimism has been shown to be wrong. Also when asked to predict when a bad event, e.g. loosing their job, will happen in their lives, they predict it to be way into the future, whereas they predict happier events to occur sooner.

I also found it really interesting that, research shows, when people are asked to talk about someone else, or society generally, rather than themselves or immediate family and friends, they suddenly answered questions more realistically and closer to the national average!

It has been found that optimists, compared to pessimists, to live much longer, happier, healthier, more successful lives.

You can listen to the talk here.

This post is specially dedicated to my ever optimistic friend Nicole.

Visited: Brit Insurance Design Awards @ Design Museum

Me and my housemate Jamie went down to visit the Design Museum at Shad Thames, the other weekend, to see the Brit Insurance Design Awards. Not been to the Design Museum in ages and thought I should check it out.

I really liked YCN's Library concept -

'The Young Creative Network installed a lending library into their new headquarters at 72 Rivington Street to spark interaction with the local community. Members sign up in person before receiving their membership card in the post. They are then free to borrow any title from the collection, which is also delivered online. Details of which publications are on loan to other members can also be viewed. Regular guest reading lists are presented in person in the space and also online, keeping the collection fresh – and the members inspired. Guest reading lists have so far been contributed by Sir Paul Smith, Sir John Hegarty and Simon Waterfall.'

YCN Website

I liked this idea because, like many design consultancies, YCN probably have quite an extensive collection of art and design books, they are likely to be sent them free by the publishers and previously they would only be available for their employees to read. However, now they are sharing their resources, making more use of them, giving other people the chance to read these books and also creating interaction with the commuinty that surrounds their place of work. Also, it's a bit like Book Crossing because, unlike your average libabry, this concept was created with the intention to facilitate interaction and also has a digital extension.

This lead me on to think about how maybe other businesses should be doing more to become more involved and integrated with their local communities. Have more of a positive impact on the people that live arround the area they work, rather than acting compleatly independently from them. Medium and large companies have a lot of assets which are very rarely used at 100% efficency. Prehaps companies resources could be shared and utilised by local people for community projects or even used to support smaller or new businesses.

I'm not normally a big fan of car design but I really enjoyed seeing the BMW Gina concept car in real life, having previously only seen it on the internet. Despite there being many signs saying 'DO NOT TOUCH' I couldn't help myself and prodded it quickly when no one was looking! It's made of fabric - such an amazing car! See video.

Some Assembly Required

By Michael Johansson

I didn't realise, until I looked at his website, but he is the guy who made these really nice sculptures of household objects that all fit neatly together which I have previously seen.

Visited: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot Installation @ Barbican

An installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot commissioned for the Barbican. Went to see it yesterday. Amazing! Absolutely loved it!

Visited: Kinetica Art Fair @ p3

This was quite a while ago now but I went to the Kinetica Art Fair.

'Kinetica Art Fair is produced by Kinetica Museum and is the first of its kind in the UK. It provides collectors, curators and the public with a unique opportunity to view and purchase artworks from leading contemporary arts organisations and artists specialising in kinetic, electronic, robotic, light, sound, time-based and interdisciplinary new media art.'

Link here.

My favourite piece of work (shown above) was this robot that drew people's faces. First a camera took a picture of the person's face and then the mechanical arm holding a pen jerked across the piece of paper to reveal a line drawing of the face. It seemed to draw an outline of the face and then fill in the detail later on. I found it quite weird that the robot seemed to have its own style of drawing, but of course it had been programmed to construct the image in a certain way.

I also quite liked this mechanical drawing machine. People's heads had been cast in plaster, then as a head rotates a marker follows the 3D form of the head, spiraling down, which are then converted into a contour drawing of the head from above.

Some of the pieces were quite exciting but you could tell most of the work was created by artists and their main focus was for aesthetics or effect. It was interesting for me to see the work produced but imagine alternative applications for the technology and programming they had used.

I should have been working.

But I was reading this article in New Scientist last week about Extreme Empaths -

'HORROR films are simply a disconcerting watch for the majority of us, but for Jane Barrett they are literally torturous. She writhes in agony whenever the actors on the screen feel pain. "When I see violence in films I have an extreme reaction," she says. "I simply have to close my eyes. I start to feel nauseous and have to breathe deeply."

She is just one of many people who suffer from a range of disorders that give rise to "extreme empathy". Some of these people, like Barrett, empathise so strongly with others that they experience the same physical feelings - whether it's the tickle of a feather or the cut of a knife. Others, who suffer from a disorder known as echopraxia, just can't help immediately imitating the actions of others, even in inappropriate situations...'

Read the full article

Mind Controlled Pinball

From DesignBoom - the Berlin brain-computer interface group is currently presenting a live demonstration of their brain-controlled pinball machine at the CeBit exhibit in hannover, Germany. the project features a user wearing a specially designed cap with eeg technology embedded within it to measure brainwaves. the user first undergoes a training program to calibrate the machine to their brainwaves. 'while the player imagines left and right hand movements, algorithms decode his brain activity signals in realtime into control signals for the pinball machine'. once they have mastered the training regime, they are hooked directly to the pinball machine. there, their brainwaves are linked to the left and right paddles so they can play the game without using their hands at all.

http://www.bbci.de

Hoberman's Dome

Touched Echo

I read about this project while working on my final major project at university and just found it again. I really like it. Digital media artist, Markus Kison, uses bone conduction technology to tell the story of a terrible air raid on the Bruhl Terrace, Dresden, Germany, on the 13th February 1945.

More information - http://www.markuskison.de/touched_echo/index.html

NEWS - Twitter

I got a Twitter account. I'm not sure how much I'll use it yet....

Follow me if you wish.

Taking a break from folding origami

Mr. Buckminster Fuller