2006 News

2006 events archive

"40% wish to be able to play an instrument"
compared to wanting to be more attractive (35%)

Metro 21-12-06 p15

There was also something about improvisation via Neuron Journal and Stanford - can anyone find it?

Nature Journal smell issue
Research from University of California, Berkeley, reported in the journal Nature has suggested that humans can develop their smell to the point of following trails of smells through outdoor environments as dogs do! (Reported Metro 18-12-06 p24)

Here are some sample article titles from their November 16th issue. 

Smell images and the flavour system in the human brain Gordon M. Shepherd Nature 444, 316 - 321 (16 Nov 2006) Insight

Chemical sensing I-han Chou, Tanguy Chouard, John E. Spiro, Lesley Anson Nature 444, 287 - 287 (16 Nov 2006) Insight

Comparative chemosensation from receptors to ecology Cornelia I. Bargmann Nature 444, 295 - 301 (16 Nov 2006) Insight

Clothes will become your best friends
Shoes that talk to you? Well it's the iPOD that does the talking, the Addidas running shoes just send the data of your speed and distance, along with a heart rate monitor input. The iPOD then encourages you to further or less effort.

I do like the idea of clothes that look after you. How about a suit that calls for the paramedics, and gives your Geopos, when you collapse ("missy iPOD loves you and will stay with you while you drift over to the life hereafter..."); or a vest that gives you a chest massage when your heart fails (iPOD "I kept telling you to walk away from those damn bacon smells! Wake up you fool!"); or sex-me-up pants? (maybe not...) CC :-)- You read it here first (?)

Intelligent products and stupid commodities for Xmas...

Wee
The new Nintendo Wii offers further out roads from our fixation on computers via the screen alone with the motion detecting sensors in its controller. How long will it be before a visit the gym and a workout on the computer are one and the same?

The 'boxing' game in the sports package has one 'bobbing around the living room and leave you with arms of jelly' according to the reviewer in the London Metro 8-12-06 p39 Jonathan Goddard.

Music For Bodies
 Music for bodies is a research project linking the sonic mapping of human bodies to architecture, through a practical study of bioresonance and interface building.  - see the Music For Bodies wiki

Fugitive Moments
Fugitive Moments is a colour/movement-based installation .... which is generated and modified in real time using the physiological responses of the viewers to the installation imagery.

At the Bishop Otter Campus in Chichester and London at the Jerwood Space

Important Touch article
Micheline Mason's new website has her article on Touch on it in full. Link below:

Down load article here

There is also some great stuff on co-counselling, and some good poems.

"Touch is our first language."

Social Intelligence
"The ability to influence how others feel"

Interview in Times 2 18-09-06 by Anjana Ahuja, with Dr Danial Golemann famous as author of a book that popularised the concept fo emotional intelligence. This seems interesting in that it concerns the many brains in action rather than a singular brain. Having studied Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action this sounds like a move in the right direction. Book published by Heinmann on September 26th. 'Social Intelligence: the new science of human relationships'  Â£20.

Tokion Creativity Conference 2006

 * Tokion Creativity Conference 2006

''... art, design, fashion, photography, film, new media, publishing and marketing. In the same room for the first time, the people shaping today's popular culture will spend two days exchanging their ideas, methods and inspirations before an audience of 2,000.''

â€œSense & Sensualityâ€
Art you CAN touch! Paintings, sculpture and installations...

Venue: Bankside Gallery, South Bank, London

Opening Hours: 14th September - 7th October 2006 10am - 6pm 8th October 2006-10am - 4pm

More info here

Practical Intelligence Quotient
Sony follow Nintendo in "mental workout gaming craze"

Game style workout for Sony PSP. "Intelligence based" gaming is here to stay,

finding new users for the consoles. My local Tesco had a special box stand selling these - unknown for an ordinary game. This one evokes 'practical reasoning' to exit a virtual space.

'Practical Intelligence Quotient is Â£19.99 in English money.

Musical perception ability test
A study of musical perception ability in the general population

The online test takes 10 minutes. It involves listening to pairs of tunes and deciding whether they are the same or different...

Music listening test here

Smellophone anyone?
Phones that smell!

The Smellophone was 'announced' as soon come in the Metro 29th June 2006 But there was an article about the same from September 2004...

timeonline

Smellophone Ideas range from one that can sense its owners unique smell to one that puffs out perfume instead of a ring tone.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training
This is a programme for the Nintendo DS. Consists of memory puzzles and simple arithmetic and logic problems for daily practice 'on the go'. Anyone fancy doing a review?

Watch out for the Doctor K's Big Brain Academy later this year!

Could there not be a open source mobile version? (which could possibly adapt the STA exercises and structure?)

The Metro review of this (19-6-2006 p.17) mentions a mobile phone product called IQ Academy which is being produced by Upstart Games Upstart Games

BBC news on these and impact on Gaming industry

5 reasons to start walking
|0|71113314327|p|113|0&parentkey=AX707|0|71113314327|p|113|0 5 reasons

For other advice, events and walking research see: Walking the way to Health

Illustration: 

Simon Pope continues walking:

Hearing Voices
BBC language and dialect recordings

Recordings from the 'only nationally comprehensive, systematic survey of spoken English carried out according to modern linguistic research principles' that was the basis of a week of radio programmes in August 2005. from an article by Jonathan Robinson Playback 35 British Library Sound Archive bulletin.

BLSA

BBC-Voices

The Taste Tour of Britain
The MMM Metro food section (16-5-06 p19) had a feature by Anthony Jones (food@ukmetro.co.uk) which listed nine upcoming UK food festivals:

May 18-21 Birmingham

June 3-4 Looe Cornwall

June 15-18 Regents Park, London

July 1-2 Tarbert (seafood) Scotland

July 14-16 Pontefract, Wales (liquorice)

July 15-16 Brighton

August 5-6 (Chillis) Chichester

August 19-20 Isle of Wight (garlic)

September 2-3 Bristol (organic)

THE OPTICAL SOUND SHOW
Resonance FM 104.4 (was 9 - 9.30pm Wednesdays)

Presented by David Leister, The Optical Sound Show listens to an eclectic collection of 16mm soundtracks from the film archives of the Kino Club. The Optical Sound Show plays exactly what it says on the film can. So sit back and conjure your own images.


 * Resonance FM 104.4
 * Podcast

"In Tokyo, this movie is really going to smell"
The New World is a new film, starring Colin Farrell, from NTT Communications Corp. Seven different smells will be used in different parts of the film using machines under the back rows of two cinemas in Tokyo.

from The Wall Street Journal (Europe) 13 - 17 April 2006 p4.

new journal! The Senses and Society
BERG Vol 1 Iss 01 March 2006 ISBN 184520487-5

Eds. Paul Gilroy, David Howes & Douglas Kahn & Michael Bull

This exciting new journal claims that it will "recuperate the original meaning of the aesthetic not as a form of judgement but as a disposition to sense acutely" p6.

The collective sensorium is the dynamic and ever changing pattern of sensory use which characterises the cultures we are part of. It is culturally normative and each individual may have a sensorium which varies in from this norm and may come into conflict with it. This view of human functioning now constitutes a revolution in many disciplines from history to anthropology which challenges or has overtaken the prior focuses on language (1970s), visual representation (1980s) and embodiement (1990s).

"The sense are lived and understood differently in different cultures and at different historical periods" David Howes p 114

READ THE FIRST ISSUE FREE ONLINE AT:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/tsas

Walking as an Art Form: invitation 9.45am 24th March 2006
[http://www.informal.org.uk/wiki/index.php/TakingTime 'Taking the Time for a Walk' with Simon Pope. A walk from the meridian to The Foundry in Old Street, carrying 'the time' so that it can be broadcast by Resonance fm.]

"If you wanted to know the time in 1930s London, you could listen for the pips on the radio, subscribe to a telegraphic time service - or arrange a weekly visit from an octogenarian spinster called Ruth Belville. For almost 50 years, Miss Belville had carried Greenwich Mean Time from its home at the Royal Observatory to a few dozen clients around the city, using a watch even older than she was."


 * See also The Fatman Walking - walking for health Gordo 09:41, 22 March 2006 (GMT)

http://static.flickr.com/68/164988918_ea7383cebe_m.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/loopzilla/164988918/

Image and link added by Gordo 16:34, 12 June 2006 (BST)

The 'Low Tech' wiki is now open
"The 'Low Tech' wiki is now open: we hope that you will contribute your own Low Tech strategies and systems so that others may learn from them. This is an extension of the PDF manual on "Low tech sensors and actuators", a co-production with Adam Somlai-Fischer, which was released last year at lowtech.propositions.org.uk." OH

Go Look

Hearing Things
FRIDAY 3 MARCH 2.30pm-6pm

Seminar Room, EAR Institute, University College London 332 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8EE

A series of presentations will be given by artists and those working in the arts whose practice is concerned with sound and hearing. The event is aimed specifically at arts and science practitioners with an interest in sound and hearing.

Speakers:

Aaron Williamon - Royal College of Music

David Chapman Ë† artist

Aaron Williamson Ë† deaf performance artist

Damien Robinson - deaf artist working with new media and sound

Alf Linney and Alexa Wright - Scientist, and Fellow at EAR Institute

Newsweek on Aging and Exercise
"Athletic Aging As the world's fitness generation grows older, it is changing the way doctors and equipment makers look at exercise" c14th Feb 2006

WALKWALKWALK An archeology of the familiar and forgotten
a project by Gail Burton, Serena Korda and Clare Qualmann

Night Walk 2 is on 21st February in London E2. Go to link for invite

Ancient Greek Health Guidance
"Galen the father of health games, liked ball games because they make you run sideways and backwards as well as forwards, which targets all the muscle groups..."

Ad for British Museum seen on London Underground 05/02/06

Do the Plank (and Side Plank)
The UK Guardian G2 Thursdays is currently (3rd Feb 2006) in the middle of a 'Get Fit in 12 Weeks' course. Some good exercises including the Plank.

The plank and side plank

Xmas Book token idea
McGough, Roger ed. Sensational: poems inspired by the five senses Macmillan 2004/5