Category Archives: Children

Surveillance Madness

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Recently, I read a newspaper article about a family who were having dinner in a restaurant when they all received an alert on their phones saying that someone had activated their home security system. They clicked on the app and watched in horror as they saw grainy infra-red images of masked burglars breaking their front door down. Their immediate reaction was to call the police. But before the police arrived the burglars had long gone, taking many of the family’s valuables with them.

The experience of witnessing a break-in at your own home by watching it remotely on your smartphone must be surreal. You must need to do several double takes. Apparently, according to other news reports, this new kind of surveillance experience has happened many times in the last couple of years. One woman, who it happened to in Kansas, exclaimed, “It’s nerve-wracking. Kind of makes you sick to your stomach.”

Why would anyone want to put themselves through their own home horror movie? Apparently, large numbers of people are buying these IoT home security systems now, as they become more affordable and the marketing blurb ever more reassuring. Lots of people have a CCTV camera set up next to their front door so they can be alerted while away and then watch who comes by. Many, too, have an array of sensors fitted on their windows to catch someone out if they try to intrude that way.

Sadly, the plain truth is that most burglars don’t appear to give a monkeys about the latest trend in DIY home security systems. They wear masks that make them unrecognisable on camera and they know how to get in and what to look for and where to find it in minutes. Given this is the case, why would anyone want to watch on helplessly and in a state of terror, knowing they can’t do anything to stop the criminals? Seems like torture rather than a reassuring deterrent.

Not only are we increasingly setting up cameras to watch who walks up to our front doors but we are also now using ever more child tracking software. There are countless apps available that aim to reassure anxious parents where there kids are at any time by tracking their phones using GPS in real time. One boldly calls itself Life360. Parents can be sent a barrage of buzzes to their phone or smartwatch as to their whereabouts – when their child reaches school, when they are playing in the park or even when they are just about to walk in the front door at the end of the day. The children can also be ‘geo-fenced’ where boundaries are set where they live that they must not cross. If they do, then the parents are immediately alerted. The upside of this helicoptoring is it can be nice for the child to know someone is looking over them; as one mum explained about her son, “so when he gets to the end of the road on his way home, I can just go and open the front door, so he doesn’t have to get his key out.” Yikes, what will happen when the child leaves home for good?

The apps can do more that show a child’s whereabouts. They can capture the child’s phone usage, letting you read their text messages and social media posts. As sagely written by Tanith Carey in an article in the Telegraph newspaper, “do they provide the reassurance they claim? Or are they creating a generation of parents who find it hard to cut the apron strings?” And therein lies the rub.

Alpha Generation

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When does childhood innocence disappear?  Does it get younger for each generation as they get caught up in the all encompassing digital world? The other day I was asked by a writer from Wired UK to comment on the latest Alpha Generation – kids who are  born after 2010. Most have yet to start school but many are no doubt merrily enjoying much screen time – watching cartoons, playing games and flicking through endless photos. The writer was interested in how technology and culture are shaping the development of this generation and how this will impact their attitudes and expectations. My honest answer was to say I have no idea other than they will be ever more tech savvy from an earlier age and kiddie-sized selfie sticks will become the next big craze. Toddlers will be able to look at the results of their nappy-clad, snapping, magically appearing on smart home-embedded displays that will pop up on the floors and walls and in the covers of books and even on their clothing – long before they have developed any sense of self consciousness. Seeing themselves everywhere will become the new norm, where their digital self is omnipresent.

On a more serious note, for many years, the pressing questions confronting parents have been: at what age do we let our children have a smartphone? How many hours a week should they be allowed screen time? How do we prevent them inadvertently or curiously coming across adult content or other unsuitable material? The BBC used to help parents by having a set children’s hour of TV shows and  a policy for a 9.00 o’clock watershed where TV producers chose carefully not to show crime, violence or sex before then. Kids were assumed to be in bed then or it became the responsibility of parents to chose what they watched with them. But with so many new TV channels, and the universal uptake of Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube, all able to be viewed on multiple platforms at any time – all that has changed. Now there are so many ways of viewing all sorts of content really easily. It is much harder for parents to control what their children watch – at school, in their bedrooms or even in the living room. If they are super conscious they can  set all manner of parental controls on everything. But children are instinctively curious and have a way of discovering what is forbidden or hidden from them with little difficulty.

New technology also opens doors for inadvertently coming across unexpected content. Only a few months ago a YouTube video went viral showing Amazon Alexa misrecognizing what a toddler asked it to do. The little boy said “Play Twinkle Twinkle” and Alexa heard it as “you want to go to a porn site” then proceeded to list all the options available. The video of the child’s parent intervening is very funny.

It is impossible to shield children from the dark side of adult life.

Not only are parents having to worry more about their kids being exposed to such unsavoury content through new tech, there is now pressure on them to embrace the latest range of apps that can track their baby’s movements, breathing patterns, crying levels and so on. But why stop at 6 months? Why not keep tracking them in to their toddler years, adding ever more apps – such as how well they are learning to speak, walk and play with other kids? What about measuring specific kinds of cognitive skills they are developing; all the drawings they ever made, their first attempts at writing a story, all their scores on tests from 5 years old and so on. And then there is the possibility of capturing what happens in their minds – their fantasies, made-up games and imaginary friends. I am sure someone will come up with an app that can conjure up their inner soul based on doing some trickery with all that data to hand. Whether it is a true reflection is another matter.

Soon, it will be expected that every parent should be measuring and monitoring their children growing up, and in doing so accumulating vast amounts of kiddy data that will be viewed as part and parcel of good parenting. The commercial opportunities will be endless.

Call me an old fogey, but childhood should be ephemeral, exciting and enjoyed for what it is – whether it is with and without toys, or in front of or away from screens. Just like everything else in life, there needs to be a balance between how much and when. For me, the scary unknown is the prospect that the Alpha Generation will have terabytes of data accumulating about them every day of the year: their every action, emotion, spoken and texted word that ends up as reams of digital summaries, albums, timelines, profiles, graphs and so on. An ever-lengthening shadow of themselves etched in the digital ether. It is going to make it much harder to imagine a future where they can freely use their creative juices to embellish, edit and shape their own stories and mental memories. Sadly, childhood innocence is being swallowed up by the cloud. The right to be forgotten by the Alpha Generation will need urgent attention.

Sheer Delight

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IMG_5877Last week I watched a 16 year-old girl dissect a cow’s eye in front of a bunch of 6-12 year olds at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It was gripping seeing her pulling bits of muscle and fat away from the eye to show the third eyelid and then removing other parts to reveal the lens, optic nerve and back of the eye, which was a beautuful turquoise colour. For 20 minutes the kids surrounding her were literary on the edge of the bench, all the time drawing in closer and closer, as she revealed and explained more about how the eye works. At one point, she slit the eyeball and some black sticky stuff spurted out, narrowly missing one of the kids – to which they all squealed with delight. It added to the excitement and suspense. At another point, she had them all in the palm of her hands as she explained how we see with stereo vision. She also asked them lots of questions to which hands shot up to the sky to give an answer. Why do cows have a third eye lid? The answer: to protect them from scratching their eyes when grazing harsh and prickly grass. I’d never thought about it in that way before and that has stuck with me since – making me want to find out more about what other animals have them and why we humans don’t have one (we don’t need one since we don’t put our heads in thistles to munch all the time). At the end she revealed the lens – as if it was a jewel – and got the kids to look through it to see upside images of themselves that she then got them to think about why they were not the right way up.

IMG_5884 The girl who performed the dissection did so with great skill. She was also an excellent teacher. She is hired as one of about 50 teenage explainers who work for the Exploratorium and who have gone through hours of training to learn how to engage members of the public in science. It is part of a programme started by Frank Oppenheimer, who was the founder of the Exploratorium and who believed that only through explaining to others do you learn at a higher level. You also learn a lot more about the people who you are explaining to – what they understand, what intrigues them, what they find difficult to understand and so on. At such a young age, explaining in public to whoever comes along helps them develop self confidence and social skills in approaching people, listening and talking – all fundamental skills that everyone needs to learn.

Later that evening, I watched a YouTube video of another teenager explainer dissecting a cow’s eye (there are several). While her explanation was very clear and followed more or less the same script as the one I had watched live there was something missing. The audience. In the live show, I could not help observing how the kids were so gripped by the dissection and how they kept getting closer and closer to the action. I also noted how others came to see what was so exciting and stood on the benches or squeezed in whatever space was available. A special learning moment for explainer and audience.

It was without question something that will stay with them forever and hopefully for some whet their appetite to learn more about the fascinating world of biology.

I was struck that even though explainers, teachers and members of the public can present on stage or in front of a camera it is never the same as being there in the moment when you can ask or answer questions, actually feel the eyeball in your hand, smell the liquid as it spurts out and talk about it to whoever is standing or sitting next to you. While you can learn a lot from watching videos these days you can never capture the wonderment that is central to wanting to learn more and importantly, be able to explain to others.

Ten Pieces

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Ten Pieces is a BBC initiative to inspire a generation of primary school children to listen to, explore, and get creative with classical music. It is the brainchild of Katy Jones, an executive producer at the BBC, who for the last two years worked tirelessly and with amazing energy, planning and masterminding the whole thing. The ten pieces represent some of the best and well known, a taster that can be listened to in one sitting or separately. They include classics such as Holst’s Mars from the Planets, Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5, and more modern pieces, including John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine. A film of the 10 Pieces was made and shown on British TV, where the pieces were introduced, performed and choreographed in electrifying and captivating ways.

It is not surprising that Ten Pieces has spread like wildfire in its first few months since being announced. At the beginning of the year, more than 120,000 children watched the film at their local cinemas throughout the country, triggering them to interpret and explore what they had seen and heard in their own creative ways. Since, it has cascaded through a multitude of different avenues, manifesting itself in many forms. Many more children together with their teachers, national orchestras, musicians, conductors and TV presenters have come together and re-presented and interpreted them in art, performance and other forms of expression. The official website is brimming with reports, blogs, tweets, videos and images of musical happenings, being added to each day. Only last week it was announced that two of the Proms planned for this summer will include concerts that will celebrate the first year of Ten Pieces at the Royal Albert Hall.

proms I have had the enormous pleasure of listening to Katy telling me over the years about her latest venture, project and ingenious way of engaging ever more children and adults. Sometimes, it was hard not to want to pick up a trombone, trumpet or flute to make music and join in the fun.

But tragically and unexpectedly Katy died last Friday completely out of the blue, aged only 51. Many heartfelt tributes from all corners are starting to stream in via social media, from those who have just found out about the terrible news. She touched many with her infectious smile and contagious ‘you can do’ it spirit. I hope her wonderful energy and special magic will live on and continue to fulfill her dream; inspiring all manner of generations from across the world to not ever think again that classical music is boring but to want to ‘get creative’ with it.

Jones

Photo from the Manchester Evening News

Bushy Tailed

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Today I found myself jumping and jigging around with a large furry tail strapped around my waist. I had been invited to a preview of a new theatre production called Dusk devised and directed by David Harradine and Samantha Butler, artistic directors of Fevered Sleep. It will go on public release in mid- November at the Young Vic. While the production is meant for very young children, aged between 4-7 years, adults and helpers are invited, but they have to join in, too, even being daubed with special green paint on their face.
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A colleague, Sarah, and myself, were visiting with a view to developing interactive technologies that the children could subsequently express their feelings and reflections about the piece. Getting children as young as four to reflect on their phenomenological experience is quite a challenge – but one we were inspired to think more deeply about in light of having taken part.

Dusk is set in a theatre where groups of children come into a darkened space and are met by a friendly host, who is wearing a tail. He makes fun of them not having a tail – thereby making them all want a tail. Piles of big bushy tails magically then fall from the sky and the children scramble to put them on. Tailed-up, they then follow him through an Alice-in-Wonderland like red door into a magical forest, where there are bright lights, stars, moons and trees. Not knowing what to expect or when to sit down or jump around with their tails they are like butter in his hands. The suspense is palpable and what is in store proves to be a real treat. The children are completely immersed in the experience – for well over an hour. Even the fidgety ones stop in their tracks and join in with all the others.
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Central to the piece is a 40 minute film that traverses the physical and the digital, time and place. A lost hybrid creature with horns and a tail wakes up to find he is all alone in the forest. He tries to find the other creatures he was playing with, before he fell asleep, and comes across the same door the children, at the theatre, have just entered. He walks though it and is confronted by an unknown world, where he experiences all sorts of emotions, from fear to joy. At various points he cries out in a haunting way, with the hope that someone will answer. Each time the children echo his cry sometimes spontaneously and other times egged on by the host. It was both mournful and joyful to listen to them bearing their soul, with heads high and mouths wide open – sounding like a pack of wolves.
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The narrative is about growing up, where the hybrid creature crosses mountains, seas, forests and terrains on a long and often lonely journey. He eats flowers to survive and takes comfort from seeing an owl, a deer, a snail and a beetle. Through his journey he comes across men destroying a forest using menacing logging equipment and then when he finally enters a city he sees a tree caged in by wrought iron – intended to protect it. Paradoxes like these of being unprotected but needing to be protected and being protected but needing not to be protected are one of many that are traversed through the piece. There is a lot going on – a rich layered tapestry of meanings. What would a four year old make of it all? Judging from their faces – a lot.

At various points of the journey it looks like the creature is about to make it home but in classic Shakespearian style some other obstacle or challenge gets in the way. During these moments, the children instinctively turn their heads to the physical door at the back of the theatre forest that they entered through – waiting in suspense for him to appear in person and then when he doesn’t, swivel their heads back to watching him virtually on the screen in front of them. Each time it occurred, it was for me a wonderful moment and so clever – the kids traversing the physical and digital and back again in seamless and seamful ways.

They seem to know when he will finally come home. Rather than jump out of the screen – like in the movies – he eventually and somewhat hesitantly comes through the physical door. He then wanders through the undergrowth where the children are sprawled and seated, kicking their tails and touching their faces, to make sure they are real. He then whoops them up into a crying frenzy and then spontaneously they are up on their feet, following him in his special tail-jigging dance. And all the adult audience members and helpers who had donned tails (called ‘big its’ by the host) find themselves joining in, spellbound and smiling – and that is how I ended up jigging on the spot with a whooshing large furry tail behind me.

The piece is both a film and theatre and sometimes neither. From the programme blurb, it says it is “an invitation to see the world with our eyes and ears wide open, smiling awestruck. To slow down and to look.” Judging from the absorbed reactions of the little ones it seems the directors succeeded in doing more than that. It was a far cry from any Disney film, TV show or cartoon that they feed off during their daily screen time. Instead of a sea of faces fixated ‘heads down’ mindlessly staring at a screen, we witnessed a group of ‘heads up children, enraptured, alive and embodied – being both an audience and being a part, being there and not being there. That is mindful interaction and a joy for all to see.

TEDx Einstein

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TEDx Barcelona I finally did it! I walked onto a spot lit stage, with big polystyrene red and white TEDx Barcelona letters behind me and a red carpet underneath me, and delivered my talk. It was not really a talk, though. It was a performance. Emerging from the darkness to a keenly awaiting audience with headlight eyes. There is an enormous adrenalin release and the race against the 15-minute timer on the monitor begins. Go, go, go. How stand-up comedians manage this transition from hiding behind the curtains to a sudden light bulb flash experience, day-in day-out, I don’t know.

But it is much more than managing stage fright; there is also having to deal with the roller coaster build up that precedes it. For starters, there is the humbling experience of being coached by a professional; the constant self doubt you are not up for it; the perpetual tweaking of the slides, the conjuring up of new lines you think might be funny and then realize are not and more. And then on the day, there is the final countdown shared with the other speakers; you each have your own look of fear and worry that rubs off on each other. In our case, we had hours of A/V complications with non-english speaking technicians; foreign laptops that did not work in the way ours did, beautiful fonts lost in the process, rehearsals to an empty auditorium – and lots of visits to the bathroom.

Then the show begins. Perched on my seat in the front row, I semi-listen to the other talks before mine, unconsciously, mentally rehearsing bits I had messed up during the rehearsal, especially phrases that did not flow. Last chance. And then all of a sudden it is my turn to be miked up and pushed from from behind the curtains. It all happens in a flash. And, it all comes together – except my one video clip does not play but somehow I smooth over it. I even manage to smile, gesture wildly and finish with a flourish. A wink and then a final thank you. I look up to a clapping audience. I can hear ringing in my ears. Then it is all over. I walk off and the organizers embrace me and apologize profusely about my video not playing. I don’t care at that point because it is all over. And then the next speaker is standing under the spotlight, looking up and talking in loud spanish about robots. I sit down and for a few moments just breathe very slowly and deeply.

At the break, I steel myself to check if anyone has sent any congratulatory emails. A few have appeared in my mailbox, saying great talk, wonderful. I am mightily relieved, and the last of the adrenalin finally drains from my system.

Our TED event had a mix of spanish and english speaking scientists and artists, talking about a diversity of things, from remote kissing machines to robots with a sense of self who fear humans. In the end, I played safe rather than be too soundbite-ish. I gave my talk a community spin rather than the ‘smart technologies make us dumb’ line, I had originally planned. Instead of retreating increasingly into our own digital bubbles why not think about how digital technology can be designed and used quite differently: to share, to galvanize, to collaborate and be mindful of others when being together. The post production version is now viewable online. I had not realized how much backwards and forwards striding I did as a result of being told to stay within the confines of the red carpet.

Over dinner, later that night, some of my fellow speakers talked about how the TED formula is taking over from the old school academic lecture. We discussed whether we‘re becoming entertainers for short-attention spanned audiences. The idea of sitting for an hour listening to someone reading and deliberating a nuanced philosophical argument from their hand written notes seems a thing of the past.

There is a piece online called ‘Against TED’ by Nathan Jurgenson, that I felt, perhaps, was a little too harsh and a tad too clever in its critique of modern day TED, starting with the gambit: “When did TED stop trying to collect smart people and instead collect people trying to be smart?” No matter what the cynics say about TED being ‘so yesterday’, and having lost its edge, it still is an amazing spectacle, especially for those who are speaking or attending such an event for the first time. And, perhaps the democratization of TED as it is today, with hundreds of TEDx events being held all over the world, every week, rings some truth to the weary Silicon Valley crowd who have seen it all before (and indeed when doing my homework watching several of the existing videos, I worried if there was anything new to say that had not been said before and more smartly). But just as Albert Einstein continues to inspire generations of children so, too, can TED talks. Billions have viewed the 1000s of online videos of the TED talks, that have been uploaded over the years since it was an exclusive club only for the smart, silicon-clad crowd. That is definitely an idea worth spreading.

What will stay most with me about my big day actually had nothing to do with TED. On first arriving at the CosmoCaxia Science Museum, where the TEDx Barcelona event was being held, I noticed a spot lit wax model of Albert Einstein sitting at the information desk in the foyer. For a split second you think he is real. The setting, the clothing, his hair, facial expression and pose are perfect. I watched as a group of excited school kids also noticed him for the first time and ran spontaneously in unison over to the desk from where they stood. They giggled and stared at him in awe, all reaching out as if to try and touch him. It was a moment to marvel at sharing their moment of joy. Whoever thought of that great idea had a stroke of genius in them.
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External Minds

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I was having a lovely daydream the other morning while sipping coffee at my local brasserie – that dreamily overlooks the mountains – when I suddenly found myself being drawn to the conversation going on between two guys at the adjacent table. One of them kept banging on about his son Murray. “Murray this, Murray that…” But it was not because Murray had done anything wrong; quite the opposite, he had become a saint.

The guy was very animated because Murray had changed beyond recognition since being introduced to a new learning method. What drew my attention was his description of Murray drawing on a chalkboard that they had put in his bedroom – that covered the whole side of one wall – with whatever was going on in his head. Instead of sitting terrified, clenching a book, whenever his mum or dad asked him questions about his maths homework that he was unable to answer (the guy enacted the mortifying scene grippingly), young Murray now runs upstairs and writes down what he had just read in a book or seen on the TV onto his chalkboard, using “mind maps, whatever, you know that kind of stuff”.

But it was not just this kind of externalizing that helped, it was also what he did in between his scribbling at the chalkboard. The guy by this time was even more bubbly: “Murray runs up to his bedroom, spends 10 minutes on his chalkboard, then runs around for 10 minutes or bounces a ball, and then goes back to his chalkboard and spends 10 minutes drawing again.”

The physical exercise was central. The chap was also on a roll and my ears pricked up more:

“His test results have gone up from being in the 50s and 60s to being in the 70s and 80s. His whole attitude has changed. He’s all left-brain (poor bastard, he gets that from me), but now he has changed completely. Only this morning he was up at 5.45 a.m. drawing on his wall… His mum and I don’t have to shout at him anymore – which never worked anyway. He just does it on his own. And we have changed, too. We no longer nag him “Murray have you done your maths? Murray have you done your homework?”.

And on and on he went. Just goes to show what a chalkboard and a bouncing ball can do to transform a previously dreaded experience into something that is enjoyable. I’ve always been fascinated with how externalizing one’s thoughts changes one’s thinking and the joy that comes from it. But combining it with running around and bouncing balls has enabled the lad to both embody and externalize, leading to his being proactive and excited by learning.

But it is not just learning that can benefit. Big whiteboards remain a pervasive and persistent technology in many walks of life. Ben, the chef I have got to know at Roganic, uses one in his kitchen to write down his half-baked ideas and notes that inspire his new dishes; Adam, the brilliant wine maker we met in Stellenbosch, has a very large one in his wine farm which he constantly consults to remember what state his fermenting wines are in, and which to mix with which. The large diagram of his cellars provide an external and shared resource that extends his mind and offers cues for inspiration.

Seeing More

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The Cape of Hope is a ‘beauty spot’ at the southwestern tip of Africa, famous for its dramatic scenery and steeped history. Its magic has captivated travellers for centuries; rugged rocks, sheer cliffs, white beaches, indigenous flora and fauna, stark lighthouses, galloping buck, cheeky baboons and fleeting zebras. When I visited last Sunday, coachloads and buses of excited tourists from all over the world were spewing forth out of their capsules, snaking their way along one of the ‘southern’ most points of Africa. Many were scantily clad and some even covered in garish bling that made us stare and snigger. The contrast been man and nature was stark.

I went with a local artist, H and her 11 year-old granddaughter, Tye who lives nearby. T had an amazing sense of the place, walking the whole time with bare feet, despite the harsh gravel, sharp dust and prickly plants along the paths. As we joined the crowds pounding the well trodden steps slowly rising upwards towards the pinnacle of a lighthouse, a few of our fellow sightseers looked at her feet and started pointing and talking in loud foreign voices. She smiled and leaped passed them like a mountain goat.

Not only did she have gecko-like soles, but radar-scanning eyes, spotting camouflaged creatures before me and her ommi had chance to saccade from the last amazing sighting; fat black lizards sunbathing on the rocks, a bald-headed eagle drifting by, a slinky family of mongese scuttling passed, some dassies hiding in the rocks (that look like a cross between a rabbit and a rat), and towards the end of the afternoon a big black male ostrich popping its long neck up from its skirt of black feathers from beneath the bushes and even a kelp-like shark in the distant sea. It was an unexpected feast for our eyes, as we followed her flitting movements and chirpy commentary. But her proudest moment was pointing out a very big puff adder lying right next to us, basking slothfully in the sun. We gasped in shock and then fumbled with cameras.

There were a few false alarms, too. A rock that looked like a tortoise and a stick that looked like another snake. We then had a very late lunch at the Two Oceans restaurant, near the point where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans join. We were joined by scavenging birds who showed no fear, as they tackled very crisp chips, by slapping them down on the table to break them into beak-sized chunks. One cheeky one even had the audacity to peck at the dried on ketchup on the side of the bottle to mix with his mini chips.

We then walked to a beautiful bay where very few tourists were and saw a rock formation that looked like an Egyptian dog head. T meanwhile had been darting dangerously near the edge of the cliffs, jumping over ropes and cascading off the boardwalk as if she was surfing on her gecko pads while at the same time talking in a hyper-manic way, regaling intricate and intimate stories of her antics back home, school and somewhere between. Later we realized it was the Coca Cola talking the walk. I was reminded of my hiking trip last weekend, when some of my fellow walker’s enchanted us with their epic tales which widened my pupils as I imagined what it must have felt like to be there; cobras hissing next to their sleeping bags, hyenas licking the outside of their tents; lions lying at the end of their marital bed, and baboons nonchalantly peeling bananas taken from the fruit bowl having gotten in through the kitchen window. These guys sure know how to tell a yarn – the kind we never get back in the UK.

Compared to the safaris where groups are caged in 4x4s, binocularing and then checklisting the big five African mammals, in anticipation, we just kept stumbling across the unexpected by noticing something strange. My big African moment was looking at some big brown rocks that suddenly started moving – turned out they were muscles and horns…it was a big herd of eland munching their way through the Fynbos. A rare, out of the blue, sighting. I, at last, understood what it meant to see more and to be like T.

Indaba Reality

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Design Indaba is a big exhibition held every year in Cape Town showing the best of South African design. This year, over 300 designers, from architects to coke tin sculptors, gathered for the weekend to show off their homemade wares, exhibiting an amazing diversity of skills. Jewellery, fashion, ceramics, furniture, décor, craft, candles, toys, lamps, knick-knacks and much more; everywhere you looked was an abundance of vintage and modern, sustainable and forward- thinking design. Now in its 9th year, the organizers claim in their brochure “that creativity can create livelihoods, transform communities and contribute to the country’s economy.” Judging by the thronging crowds at the event, it would seem all is well and thriving.

What struck me most was the reworking and repurposing of stuff. There were seats made of champagne corks, lampshades made of crocheted wool, marmite jars made of beads, and flowers made of recycled tin. I love it when an artifact makes you look twice. It seemed that one entrepreneurial lady had turned the art of beading into a must have artform. All the cool pieces on her stall, including household groceries and VW camper vans had red dots on their price tags. Snapped up by shrewd buyers. And as Sabelo, a local bead artist points out: “In our culture, beads tell stories about who people are, how old they are. The amount of beads you wear indicates your age, and the older you are, the more you’re respected because of the wisdom you have”. I like that idea but I like more the way these bead designers had intricately woven their beaded washing powder box and custard tins to be precise facsimilies.

In the middle of the hall, was a very large public electronic display, which projected a live video of the audience standing in front of it, mainly children. They seemed totally engrossed with their mirror image, dancing, waving and gesturing at themselves. At first it seemed just like a live feed from a video camera focused on them from above the screen. However, after a few moments of looking, I suddenly noticed animated cartoon characters appearing from nowhere onto the screen and then, after a few seconds of performing, disappearing. First a dolphin splashed around, then a spaceman floated by, then a leopard prowled by and then some larger than life dinosaurs waltzed on. I was reminded of the early 90s Smirnoff vodka ads, when an innocent cat turns into a panther as the camera panned across the glass bottle. Likewise, there was something seamless and surreal about the way the animated animals mingled with the virtual kids and the real kids played with the virtual animals.

The company that makes this interactive public display – Live Augmented Reality – has paired up with National Geographic. The set up now tours in public settings, such as shopping malls and Expos, and is a wonderful crowd stopper.

The kids happily joined in the make-believe, squealing with delight as the dolphin jumped and splashed around them. One 5 year-old boy, who was quite a dancer, started moving his hand as if to stroke the leopard, as it appeared to brush besides him – even though it was high up on the screen and he a few feet away from it standing on the floor. He was perfectly positioned to make it appear as if he really was touching it. The merging was a magical design.

The finale was a storm – lashings of animated rain, lightening and thunder descended upon the children. They loved holding their arms up to feel the virtual raindrops splashing on them and clapping their ears as the thunder boomed.

I watched the little dancing boy for a while; he was completely engrossed, repeating his slinky repertoire of dancing, stroking and cowering, as the short cycle of augmented cameo characters, returned again and again. The augmented reality illusion, created by the public display technology was a big hit with Cape Towners. Whilst self-conscious fashion models pranced the catwalk and famous chefs constructively talked the creative walk, the kids hyper-played – without an ounce of self-consciousness.

Toy Tots

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Post Christmas, in heavy rain, Hove’s Church Street was thronging with crowds of bargain hunters. It was not even 4.00p.m and yet darkness had descended; umbrellas pierced the downcast sky. In stark contrast, the shop fronts twinkled with Christmas lights and enticing goods beckoning people to go inside. Amongst the familiar stores, I noticed a bright new place, just opened, called Bertie and Belle. I looked in the window and saw a row of toy racing cars perched on pedestals facing a wall of mirrors and TV screens. I looked again and realized they were not for sale but were meant for kids to sit in and have their hair cut. Stenciled on the window were etched signs, ‘baby’s first haircut’, ‘super girlie candy nail bar’, where little girls will be in pampering heaven, pampered to perfection.

I was intrigued by this child’s LA paradise landing in deepest Hove and looked them up on the Web. On their home page they promise, “the ultimate destination for kid’s grooming, pampering, parties and shopping. From the first steps onto the Hollywood red carpet, up to the giant fish tank reception, Bertie & Belle will capture the minds and hearts of little people and adults alike.”

Trouble was there was not a tiny tot or mom in sight. Just the two owners looking wistfully, from behind the fish tank reception, outside at the rain. I felt sorry for them; clearly, they had invested a lot in their Hollywood-inspired enterprise, thinking it would tap into the Brighton scene.

I always thought that cutting your baby’s hair for the first time was one of those joyful moments parents could share. And painting nails bright purple or putting make-up on was something you did with mum, using her grown-up kit of lipstick, eye shadow and mascara. What has childhood come to when it is adult-accessorized – rather than only pretending to be doctors and nurses?

But it is not just make-up that is getting a make-over. Adult technology, too, has been turned into kiddie toys. Laptops, tablets and phones have been simplified and techno-coloured into kiddie versions. I was asked to write a report for Which magazine – which comes out next month – evaluating the various claims made by the toy companies about their lurid products, one being:

“Toy computers for kids have now been specially created with little children in mind. They have been made with sturdy plastics so that they are really durable and they have also been made with lots of bright colours and buttons to make them highly attractive to the users”


While indeed they are very bright, it seems they are missing a trick. Any parent who owns an iPad, iPod or iPhone, soon finds out how they become highly prized by their young ones; watching on as they learn with lightning speed how to interact with them, play games, scroll through photos, watch movies and listen to music. Savvy developers have also been quick to realize this; there are now countless apps that have been designed for kids that parents happily download for them – simply, they want the real thing. Kids have always liked nothing more than pretending to be grown-up, putting on daddy’s slippers or mummy’s shoes. The boundary between what is best to design for children or adults is increasingly blurred. But kiddy-fying adult products for commercial ends, when kids now feel more at home with the real grown-up ones, looks like becoming rapidly outmoded.

I wish Bertie and Belle a prosperous New Year.

(And it is now Sir Jonathan Ive)