Monthly Archives: September 2011

Random Dance

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I had been looking forward to seeing Wayne McGregor’s new performance FAR since I saw his company of dancers rehearsing a couple of weeks ago – when invited by DK who is collaborating with him on a cognitive science project. I had been inches from their writhing, flicking bodies, fluidly transitioning between shapes and forms that defy our normal perceptions and understandings of the body.

I was enraptured then. But I was ecstatic now – watching their live show being performed just for one night at the Brighton Dome – a magnificent stage for a majestic spectacle. Even this morning long after the curtains had come down I am still in a state of suspended animation.

Words cannot describe the absolute beauty and depth of the 70-minute piece. Everyone in the audience was breathless and transfixed by the dancers, the lighting, the set, the music, the body-mind language, the metamorphoses, the flux between deft touches and powerful thundering rips across the stage. One moment a dancer seemed to defy gravity and do a single handstand, with the rest of her limbs looking like a cross, the next another dancer is pattering his fingertips delicately across another one’s arched skeleton-defined body, like gentle waves. Such flowing movements were simply divine…

I wanted it to go on and on and on – in the way one plays a track endlessly on discovering it resonates addictively with your inner self. It surpassed any modern/contemporary dance I have seen on every dimension (and I have been to many).

I later read David Jays review called ‘Unpeeling the Layers’ in the programme and I simply cannot match his eulogizing eloquence. It is in itself a dance of words written against a monograph photo of the set – very clever.

“they throw themselves into whiplash spins, let waves ebb through their necks, build counter-intuitive curves and angle into limb and spine.”

“buttocks jut outwards while knees swivel inwards; a pulse skedaddles down a limb yet changes direction at the joint.”

“Everything was up for grabs, and that’s very much McGregor’s own inquisitive approach to the world, wide-eyed and curious.”

David Jays writes about the inspiration for the piece interspersed with words from the great man himself. The piece draws from Roy Porter’s book ‘Flesh in the Age of Reason’ (FAR) – all about the 18th century explorations of the body, mind and soul – where new medical discoveries challenged the philosophical thinking of the day about emotion and thought. The beginning of the Enlightenment – and this is what Wayne uses as his starting point to unpeel the layers of creativity and explore physicality and the mind-body relationship.

What David Jays doesn’t mention in his review is anything about the larger than life set – a huge 100 foot long white mattress-looking ambient display, embedded with an array of white neon lights, that dominates the back of the stage and foregrounds the dancers – and is raised above them as they start the piece. It was developed by rAndom International at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, New York.

It works brilliantly, as an essential and interactive ingredient; synching with the dancers, providing pyrotechnics one moment and then a sky studded with shooting stars, the next; other times echoing Muybridge still shutters of body forms, always lighting the stage and dancers in magical ways. The dancers seem to disappear and reappear instantaneously behind and in front of it like molten drops. It is a truly remarkable piece of design, technology and engineering. Puts my research into ambient displays and behavior completely in the shadow.

What more can I say, other than Wayne is a genius.

Printed Pants

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There has been a lot of buzz recently about how 3D printing is going to revolutionize manufacturing. Artists and designers have taken it by storm creating all sorts of new artefacts which are now appearing in our museums and art galleries. I even heard a guy called Murray Moss this morning on the Strand arts programme talking about 3D printing in terms of Industrial Revolution, 2.0!

He outlined a future cottage industry, where plumbers would have a 3D printer in the back of their white vans so that they could print a replacement in real-time when coming across an unexpected broken part when fixing the plumbing in someone’s house. And he talked about how making clothes will be transformed; people will go to a store and get their body scanned in 3D. Then select a dress or suit from a website and it will be cut to their exact body size and be 3D printed, not sewn.

And soon it will be possible to print out artificial blood vessels that can be used as part of lab made organ transplants. German researchers in tissue engineering are experimenting with 3D printers to make the tiny vessels. People will no longer have to wait for a suitable donor, nor will the general public have to deliberate over the moral dilemma of whether to decline the option of automatically having to donate their kidneys when applying for a driving license.

But it is not just parts and pants that will be spewing forth all over the globe. Some creative researchers at Exeter University have even come up with the idea of using a 3D printer to make chocolate treats – that will print layers of chocolate instead of plastic. It wont be long before anyone can go to a choccie website and design their own box of individual chocolate faces of all the family and pick it up an hour later at their local store for that special Christmas treat.

Mass production of everyday objects will never be the same again.

Vegetarian Apartheid

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I always get a bit anxious about attending conference dinners. You can end up sitting for hours around a big round table, feeling uncomfortable, bored and lonely, and compensating by drinking too much headache wine. This time, the conference was in Beijing, and the meal had been elevated to a banquet to be held at the Summer Palace. The local organizers wanted to make it a night to remember. And the Chinese certainly know how to put on a good show, being such great hosts. I tried not to think about it but the anxiety started stirring during the pre-dinner boat tour on the lake.

I put on my brave face as we made our way towards the entrance of the great hall. And then suddenly my jaw dropped. In front of us was a big board with a prominent sign, saying “Tables for Vegans and Vegetarians in room 3” with a big hand drawn -arrow pointing to the right. I stopped in my tracks and simply stared at the words; meanwhile, the rest of our party had walked into the large, pretty lit-up outdoors dining area in the middle of the palace. I waved at them but they did not see. Resigned to my destiny, I made my way to a deserted back room with tables covered in signs saying vegetarian. Talk about over-egging it. Luckily, Janet, my colleague – who is also vegetarian – helped me pick my humour up from the floor. I am used to being served last in set meal dinners but being segregated like this took the biscuit.

As we sat in the empty room watching the tables outside fill up with happy faces a flashback came to me. I was brought up as a vegetarian as a child. This was extremely rare at the time, especially in my neck of the woods, but my parents seemed to think it was perfectly normal. Trouble was the junior school I had just started, at the impressionable age of 7, had no concept of vegetarianism. And so it was agreed that I would take in each day a Tupperware container with some non-meat protein in it and hand it over to the cooks in the canteen.

It was in the days when dinner ladies served you. All the other kids got served first and I had to wait. By the time my plate was brought to me they had all finished. So all eyes at my table locked onto my plate as it was lowered down to me. There was a deadly hush as they all looked on aghast.

Floating in a thick brown sea of gravy were some cashew nuts. The cook had also given me a blob of mashed potato and some cabbage. I could not bear to look up again at all those saucer eyes. Desperately, I tried to push the cashew nuts into the potato, as if hiding them would make the horror go away. The next day the kids all followed my plate on its journey to the table with searchlight eyes. And it was not just those sitting at my table. Word had gotten around. The dinner lady looked kindly at me as she placed the dish in front of me. This time it was cottage cheese floating in a dark ocean of gravy. I just wanted to cry. I have repressed what happened next. And I don’t remember how long this ordeal went on for. I think possibly a few weeks until the school got the hang of making me a cheese salad.

In the end the banquet turned out to be a real hoot. As the room filled up with more vegetarians, who had also been plucked away from their friends, I was summoned to another room. Being one of the conference chairs meant I had to sit at the high table in the grand room, overlooking the stage. But this caused a bit of a commotion amongst the waiters – as the banquet was to be a long series of plates spun around on a lazy Susan (which just so happened to be the size of a football pitch). It would not work with vegetarians at the table. You could not mix and match dishes like that. And there was not enough space for more dishes. James, chief chair, would have none of this and came to our rescue. With his mighty authority, he ordered some extra dishes just for myself and Don – another co-chair who had also been pulled out of the vegetarian and vegan room.

Eventually, we all sat down and the Lazy Susan started to spin with fishes, chickens and other tasty looking morsels. Our veggies were going to be a while and so Don and I sat there looking on, gulping at our wine. The headwaiter kept coming over to us and saying “Prof, food coming”. Our fellow diners felt sorry for us and tried all of the dishes as they arrived to see if there were any we could eat.

There was no need to talk quietly to one’s nearest neighbour, as I had done last week at the stilted cheese dinner. People were yelling from all sides of the very large round table as the Lazy Susan was playfully spun clockwise and anti-clockwise to ensure we got some jellied bean curd and pickled walnuts.

Finally, our plates of greens arrived and we vegged out. Next morning, Don was grinning from ear to ear, tinged with green.

Breaking Buffet

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I like going downstairs first thing in the morning when staying in a hotel, anticipating a good buffet spread to start the day – even more so when suffering chronic jetlag. This time I had just arrived in Beijing for a conference that I was helping to organize.

I was not disappointed. The spanking new Holiday Inn had been kitted out with a very large food emporium. I wandered from station to station, examining the platters and opening up all the silver lids to peer in. Then I watched some of the Chinese fill their bowls with dumplings, spring onions and pickled fishes, topped by a token western pastry.

I turned to the last table that was discreetly placed to one side, and spotted the real McCoy – a set of local pukka dishes that looked very colourful and quite different from anything I had seen before. One was even labelled ‘grandmother drunk fish’! That tickled my fancy but I did not have the nerve to try it. Instead, I selected cornflakes, watermelon and a slice of brown bread.

Many years ago, M and I were staying at one of those posh Pousada’s in Portugal – a fine old castle that had been restored in splendid medieval style. The breakfast buffet was a work of art, voluptuously balanced like a Giotto still life. We piled our plates high with an assortment of fruits, cheeses, eggs and breads, savouring them with eyes closed. Mid-way through the feast M went back to get some more coffee. Trouble was he was enjoying the culinary delights so much that he over-zealously replaced the coffee jug on its heater base.

It made a mighty chrquesssrrrr bang and cracked wide open in spectacular fashion. The contents gushed forth all over the pristine white cloth that held the still life together. It continued to spread with its own volition – staining the front and sides of the buffet canvas, like a mudslide. M froze and gasped; he was understandably mortified.

We then both gulped at the enormity of the moment as the liquid snake continued its course to the floor; looked at each other like guilty children and stealthily left the dining room, red-faced and empty-handed.

Stilted Cheese

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I was invited to dinner as part of a celebration between my department and a well-known computer company for the select few – that followed an evening lecture given by one of their top guys and a drinks reception. We arrived late at an elegant french restaurant that had lots of cornered areas, filled with happy smiling faces, all bathed in a glowing, warm atmosphere. But instead of taking our places in this convivial painting we were escorted upstairs to the top floor to our very own private dining room.

Admittedly, it was beautifully decorated with tasteful artwork, candles, flowers, light and mirrors but it was quiet, bright and stark in comparison. Moreover, the room was dominated by a massive round table perfectly laid out for a party of 15. Someone had taken a huge amount of care arranging the napkins so that the understated menus were discreetly nested in them – ready to glance at without necessarily taking hold of. Nice touch, I thought.

I put my bag to to the side of the room and awkwardly stood behind a chair facing in – waiting for the signal from the boss to be able to sit down. After I sat down I looked around and saw you could see everyone’s face but you could only talk to your nearest neighbour. The table was too big to talk across to anyone else – shouting was not the order of the day. It was not a wedding reception. But strangely, one could vaguely make out what others were talking about even though you could not hear them. Well at least when they looked your way and you saw them talking in a certain way you knew they were talking about you. But as eye contact could not be made they did not know you were looking at them looking at you. A panoptic paradox.

So I spent most of the meal talking with the chap on my left. He was in the business of smart cities and coop-etition – a neologism that the computer, energy, architecture and infrastructure industries have all latched onto as they try to work together while still all trying to make money wiring and interconnecting us ever more into the 21st century.

The starters arrived and I had ordered melon soup. A brightly filled plate was placed in front of me, looking like a dessert – ice-cold, very sweet, bright pink, water-melon froth with a blob of lime green, basil ice-cream floating in the middle. I looked around the table and saw no one else had ordered it. Big mistake. Made worse by being reminded of the transformer colour combo sweets from my first day at the new job. It did not taste of the real thing and my head and stomach got very confused by having pudding first.

Time ticked on. It was creeping towards 11 when the true desserts were eaten and the coffees served. I looked up to my boss to let him know I wanted to leave in order to get the last train home but he was a million miles away on the other side of the table. So I had to get up, say my farewell to my dining companion, walk half the way around the room, and tap the boss on the shoulder to be excused.

A few months ago I was captivated by the formal stately dinner the queen was laying on for President Obama when he was over visiting – it was being televised live and I happened upon it while channel hopping. Not sure why I was so transfixed; maybe because it was live it made for compelling faux pas viewing. The tables, again, were beautifully laid out, but the guests were even more separated by individual fans of fine glassware and silverware.

Is it possible for formal dinners to be less stilted? Maybe the answer lies in the seating rather than the detail to plating. The one exception that I have enjoyed – is high table at King’s College, Cambridge where much merriment and laughter can be seen and heard filling the cavernous high ceilinged dining room. And there everyone dresses up and sits very closely together at one long wooden table – facilitating all sorts of kitty-corner conversations.

Slow Time

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It has only been just over a week since I started my new job but it feels like an eternity. So many new experiences encountered one after the other – people, sounds, sights, tastes, paths, notwithstanding the myriad of obstacles and challenges that come with trying to become part of a new institution. And all that travel on Southern trains.

I am so not used to it – no wonder I am exhausted this weekend. I dipped into Eugene Ionesco’s “Fragments of a Journal” this morning – remembering when I first read it, being struck by how he poignantly captures the stretching and shrinking of time in people’s lives. When he was 8 years old he remembered:
“everything was joy, everything was presentness. The seasons seemed to spread out in space.”

But paradise does not last long:
“since then I have tried, every day, to cling on to something stable, I have tried desperately to recover a present, to establish it, to widen it. I have travelled in search of an intact worked over which time would have no power. Indeed, two day’s travel, the discovery of an unfamiliar city slow down the rush of events. Two days in a new country are worth thirty spent in the place we are used to, days shortened by triteness, debased by familiarity. Familiarity smooths down time, so that you slip on it as on an over-polished floor.” (p. 11)

It got me thinking about part of the problem of aging is the paradox of routine. Having a structure in life gives it meaning but our string of daily habits makes life all too familiar, and so we slip on time. And as we slip out of the routine of work into the routine of retirement our habits become even more familiar and yet we linger on them, trying to stretch them further but in doing so shortening the present. Taking an hour to drink a coffee, and reading the paper from cover to cover. And then it is lunchtime.

Given this inevitability how might we change time, even trick our perceptions of it, as we get older? How might we evoke memories that make the present more present rather than simply triggering faded, fond memories? Is it possible to build on the Proustian experience of involuntary memory – “…than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me…” to doing something more with them – that is if we are lucky enough to encounter them in the first place?

Pill Power

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As I got off the train today and entered Victoria concourse I noticed a tall elderly chap wearing a bright yellow sash holding a collecting tin for the homeless. He stood erect and motionless as the commuters swarmed around him threading their way to the tube – like one of those static mimes you see in cities all over Europe. It was quite bizarre.

As I ambled myself towards the underground I noticed another old chap wearing the same yellow sash but who looked a bit more approachable. I walked up and put some money in his collecting tin. Then I said to him:
“You look very well”.

He replied:
“It’s the pills. It’s the pills.”

He then asked me how old I thought he was. I answered in the way you do when you want to flatter someone – by knocking off a couple of decades.
“Oh, 62-63.”

He glanced at me in amusement and then laughed.
“Now you know that is way off the mark.”
“OK, how about 82?”
“Close. 83, 83.”
“You still look very good for 83. How do you do it?”
“It’s the pills. It’s the pills. I tell you.”

I then asked him if I could take a photo of him and he was a little hesitant until I told him I was researching aging as wisdom. Then he told me his name and how he is stands there every month on a Tuesday morning. Next time he is there he wants me to bring a print of the photo I took of him.

I am struck by the contrast between the small pleasures that can be had in later life – that I have been encountering on the streets – with the big reports and prosaic books I have been reading recently on aging. The latter usually begin with a bombardment of stats about how the number of old people is dramatically increasing followed by a long list of cognitive, social, medical and other problems that beset us as we age.

Reading them makes me feel depressed. But the lovely chap I met today filled me with hope that we can rethink ageing in new ways. So long as there are the pills!

Pleasure Essence

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I had just sat down on the train back to Brighton after a very agreeable afternoon with DK and was mulling over the day’s events – watching Random Dance troupe rehearse at the Lilian Baylis theatre, discussing our project for studying creativity and cooking over a light luncheon at Metcalf and a peripatetic brainstorming stroll down Pentonville Road – when in walked two good looking black boys who sat down at the table beside me on the other side of the carriage. They both looked at me and one said “Don’t worry lady, we aint gonna hurt you. We’re nice boys.”

I thought, oh no, here we go. No one else was in the carriage. I looked at them, smiled, picked up my book and pretended to read it. They went back to joshing with each other. Moment over. I glanced at them a bit later and saw paraphernalia on the table; the one nearest me had started rolling a big fat spliff. I returned to looking at my book and then I don’t know what got into me but said in a really pompous joking voice:
“Boyz! Are you going to smoke that on the train?”

They both looked up at me in amazement. A split second of unknowing on both sides. A slow motion Muybridge moment. Then I smiled again and winked at them. Their fear dissipated, they began joking with me.

“This here, is for medicinal purposes.”
“Yes, you do look well”
“That’s why I am so well.”

The banter continued and the one nearest me grinned, showing off a mouthful of gold teeth. I asked him why he had so many for such a young man. He said it was his identity when he was young. And then he started on about his cram and graffiti and being recognized on the trains for his cram. And how he did not smoke on the trains anymore. He was now 31. Over that. Smoked at home. I asked him what cram was – thinking it was some kind of crack – and he said it again, slowly, ‘crime’.

The penny dropped. Then he started talking in a nice English accent – almost public school – and said how people prided him on his English speaking.

After a while he asked me what I was reading. I showed him the cover “How Pleasure Works” by Paul Bloom (a well known Yale psychology professor).

He smiled wryly and said “that’s good coz it is about how pleasure works, man, not what pleasure is. It is all in the mind. Body shows the mind.”

Then he started telling me about the book he was writing on being inside your body. About “the essence”. About what’s inside.

I then read out aloud a bit of the blurb on the back of the book:
“We are attracted, whether we know it or not, to the hidden aspects of things and people… some teenagers enjoy cutting themselves with razors. Some men pay good money to be spanked by prostitutes.”
He was clearly puzzled by this and replied “them men – it is in the mind why they like that kind of thing. Not that they get more pleasure from it.”

He then gave an example of his take on pleasure: “how when you do nice things for a girl, like you buy her chocolates, take her out for a nice meal, it opens her up, makes her feel good and that makes you happy, and you do it to get to her mind, and you get more pleasure and she gets more pleasure.”
I then commented on how Bloom’s book was all about essentialism, the hidden essence of things and read part of a quote from John Locke that was on page 9:
“And thus the real internal, but generally… unknown constitution of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their essence”.

He started nodding, and agreeing. Then he carried on a bit more about the topic of inner self and his essence.

He was well pleased with his pop philosophy on pleasure.

The train stopped at East Croydon and they got up, cleared their debris and the gold toothed one asked me my name, told me his, and said it was a pleasure talking to me. Then on the platform he looked back at me through the window, winked, smiled and did a gesture with his fingers and thumb – as if to say “we connect”.

I do hope he does write his book “Being Inside Your Body”. It would be a match for Prof Bloom’s “How Pleasure Works.”

Flat Whites

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About 3 years ago I was in Melbourne at a conference. I met a longstanding friend of mine, Paul, for coffee at one of the many unassuming cafes near our hotel. He suavely asked for a flat white. I was rather puzzled having not heard of one before. So instead of asking for my usual cappuccino, I nodded and said meekly “the same”.

The coffee arrived at our table in lovely china cups (the staff bring it over to you instead of you standing awkwardly waiting until you hear your name barked). I took a sip and had a Proustian moment – transported momentarily back to living in France when I was first introduced to a certain Parisian café to discover the joy and sheer delight of a creamy smooth strong French coffee.

A year ago, the flat white arrived in the chain cafes in the UK. I ordered one in my local Costa and was pleasantly surprised at the care the barista went to in making a flower design on the top by deftly moving the metal jug, containing the perfect temperature, frothed milk, from left to right and up and down over the cup.

It reminded me of the playful shamrock bartenders sometimes add to the top of a pint of Guinness – if they like the look of you.

At my designated café on Tottenham Court Road they go one better. Each day they create a different pattern – sometimes lots of little flowers, other times swirls. You can see the intense concentration in their eyes as they finish with a final flourish. It is a magical moment.

Cicada on Heat

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The doorbell rang and two gentle giants appeared at the front door (both 6 foot 2): Paul and Mozzy. I’d texted them earlier to come and fix a dimmer switch that had broken. But then it occurred to me as they came in that I could ask them to fix another problem which the hob had developed the night before.

The bit that lights the gas had got stuck in the middle ring and was clicking incessantly like a cicada, flickering its tip manically. I tried in vain to bend it, push it, twist it – but no joy. The cicada would not go away. So I ended up switching the hob off at the socket to keep it quiet. It is one thing to be lying by a pool in Tuscany listening to them fazing in and out of the heat; another to have them in a permanent catatonic state in the confines of one’s kitchen.

But how could I get the guys to do two jobs when I had called them to fix only one? We all know how they hate being asked to do more and will raise their hands at the mere mention of another faulty light switch – saying they have too many other jobs to go to after yours. So I thought just maybe if I was very chummy with them they might find it hard to say no.

But they beat me at my own game and were even more chummy with me. They were bowled over by the house the moment they walked in, commenting on the gorgeous floorboards and the high ceilings so I nodded knowingly and gave them a grand tour of the rest of the house. That did the trick. As we cornered into the kitchen I slowed down and stopped opportunistically by the hob and asked: “Would you mind having a quick look at this.” The “Ah, but” started to form in Giant 1’s throat but I looked at him and he melted, and said instead “Arrr, OK.” So I switched the cicada back on and he looked for a second at the controls, then removed the top off the one furthest to the left, took his pliers out, twiddled about with the bit underneath and then turned the gas on. Magic. No more clicking. He’d zapped the cicada.

I was mightily impressed and asked him how he knew which of the five possible knobs to go for and what to do once he’d prized the top off. He said he could just see the one on the left was slightly lower than the others. I couldn’t see it until he pointed it out. That was what had caused the cicada on the central ring to think it was on heat. The control for the front ring had got stuck causing the middle one to go mental.

After that me and the two giants got on swimmingly well. And of course they fixed the dimmer switch.

So the electrician saw the hob console as a pattern of shapes and deviations. The prof just heard noisy clicks. Guru Don would love that.

Transformer Sweets

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As I got off the train at Victoria on my first day at the new job I tried to embrace the role of being a London commuter rather than casual visitor. After brazenly holding up my season ticket for the first time, level with the eyes of the ticket barrier man, I then waltzed through with a brashness I thought befitting of someone in the know.

Victoria concourse is always a bit of an assault course to get through but I weaved my way through in nonchalant fashion. In the middle a gaggle of brightly clad people were thrusting yellow packets at passers-by. Usually, I take a swift glance at such freebie advertising and pass by empty handed. But this time I put my hand out and accepted the gift – seeing it as part of my new act. I put it in my bag and then forgot about it.

A couple of days later I was rummaging in my bag for a pen and noticed the yellow packet. I took it out and read the label “guzzle puzzle: what’s your fruity formula?” I ripped the packaging open. Inside was an assortment of strangely shaped and assorted coloured jelly things – some rings and others in the shape of plugs. The secret is to mix and match the two – placing a ring on top of a plug – to create your own fusion of flavours.

The red (raspberry) and the green (lime) when mixed are meant to create ‘pink lemonade’ flavour. The orange and yellow (banana) turn into bubblegum and the green (lime) and the dark maroon (cinnamon) into cola. I got my researchers to come and experiment with them, combining green and maroon plugs and rings to see if they were able to taste the ‘real thing’. There were not enough of the sweets to do a more thorough blind-fold study but they did think they were chewing on cola.

Who ever invented the idea of transforming coloured fruit flavoured candies into fizzy drinks had a streak of creativity in them. Not sure, though, about the process of putting a ring on top of a plug or vice versa.