Rush hour in Vietnam, a bipedal frenzy of noise and colour.

Over the course of four months, Barry Gibb visited our major overseas programmes in Africa and Asia to make a film about Wellcome Collection’s Art in Global Health project. In the fourth of his journal entries, Barry goes to Vietnam.

It’s amazing how quickly you adapt to traveling. One month after returning from Kenya and Malawi I was now off to Vietnam to start the first leg of the next filming double whammy. No butterflies, no hesitation, visas secured, bags packed, bloodstream flowing with (the antimalarial drug) Malarone. Of course, any feelings I had of being in control were completely misguided.

This sense of being out of control didn’t quite hit me immediately on arriving in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City; taxis and hotels have a wonderful way of mollycoddling you, protecting you from the very thing you’re trying to experience: culture. However, having checked-in around lunchtime, the first thing I needed was to eat, so off I went, gamely entering ‘real Vietnam’ to find a restaurant. That’s probably when the culture shock started to manifest itself.

The first thing that overwhelms you, beyond the humidity and heat, are the bikes – hundreds and hundreds of mopeds and motorbikes continuously driving on the roads… and the pavements. The streets are awash with them, a sea of colourful, noisy machines. Those not riding bikes are sitting on pavements, as if the only way the Vietnamese can move is when attached to a two-wheeled machine, a strange illusion enhanced by the many masks worn by the riders (apparently, this is not to avoid pollution but to prevent tanning…).

These bikes are used for everything. They carry newborns home from the hospital with mum and dad, transport fresh food, half a dozen crates of beer or a ridiculous number of five gallon water containers. They are the noisy, frantic locomotive lifeblood of the city.

In the first hour I was almost hit by a speeding bike twice. It would be easy to blame such carelessness on jetlag but it was really just cultural ignorance. In the UK, we tend to move quickly, or run out of the way of oncoming traffic. This is the precise opposite, I discovered, of what the Vietnamese do. Here, the appropriate way to move through traffic – no matter how dense – appears to be to glide slowly, deliberately, from one point to another. This is so counterintuitive, the only way I could do it and remain calm was by thinking of Bruce Lee’s instructions from Enter the Dragon: “Be like water”.

Noise

The next day I headed out to the Vietnam Research Programme and Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) and the jetlag had well and truly landed. Unfortunate, as I was about to meet Mary Chambers, in charge of all things public engagement, and Jeremy Farrar, OUCRU’s Director (and, little did I know at the time, soon-to-be Director of the Wellcome Trust!).These initial meetings were so vital. The most important thing I wanted to establish, in the short time we had, was a level of trust; that I was there to help, if possible, the Centre communicate its essence and ambitions. Mary and Jeremy were great in this respect and we quickly nailed the direction of the scientific interviews. Vietnam has undergone incredible change in the last 15 years, leaving behind its turbulent past to embrace a dynamic future, so we decided it would be good to use this theme of transformation for a (forthcoming) short film all about OUCRU.

I then went about the task of interviewing a steady stream of scientists in what was one of the most difficult filming days I’d had. Due to the strict laws concerning filming in Vietnam, we needed to film the interviews inside OUCRU, so was faced with what I call the filmmakers’ dilemma: visually boring, generic interior interviews with reasonably safe audio or visually interesting external (balcony) shots with noisy audio? I simply couldn’t bring myself to do the interviews inside – having come all the way to another country, I wanted to get a sense of it, so outside we went.

It rained, there was a storm, there was the ubiquitous growl of bikes (of course), the composition wasn’t right, the wind was too strong… For the sake of my sanity, a few of the interviews were done inside just, it seemed, at the moment the kitchen staff had decided they needed to do a lot of things with loud metal utensils. By the end of the day, I was physically and mentally exhausted, feeling that I’d let myself and the Centre down badly. Only when I got back to the hotel and had a chance to listen did I realise things weren’t as bad as I’d thought. An important reminder of why it’s great to work in teams – as a solo operator, trying to keep an eye on the interviewee, the camera, the sound, you can easily get distracted by any one imperfection, making for a frustrating experience.

The scientists spoke of their work with pride, the difficulties of being a scientist in Vietnam – learning English being one large additional ‘task’ they must add to their workload in order to both read and write their own scientific papers. They also spoke of the importance of family and it was at this point I started to grasp how matriarchal this society is: in Vietnam, women are strong and highly respected.

A bike into the unknown

My jetlag was even worse the next day – having to perform at a high level when exhausted is simply no fun. The plan was to film as much ‘science’ as I could, to wander throughout the labs capturing shots of these scientists at work. With hindsight, I’d been spoilt, given the kind of access other filmmakers could only dream of after passing through numerous bureaucratic hoops.

One of the best moments occurred just outside the bacteriology lab. One minute I was filming scientists at microscopes, the next, a ceremony for the dead. A table, covered in offerings and incense had been placed in the corridor just outside the main lab. Adorned with flowers, duck, beer, chicken, I assumed this scrumptious platter was for lunch. Until a procession of people respectfully approached the table, gave what looked like a short prayer, then lit some incense.

Within moments, the air was thick with symbolic smoke. It turned out that this ceremony was to help feed the dead who may have become lost en route to wherever it is the dead go. As in Africa, it was hard not to be struck by the juxtaposition of science and cultural beliefs. Dressed in lab coats, within feet of state-of-the-art lab equipment, the dead were feasting on the love (and roast duck) of the living. This was something so uniquely personal to the location, so bewilderingly alien to my Scottish sensibilities, and one of my favourite moments from my time in Vietnam.

My second favourite moment was meeting OUCRU’s artist-in-residence, Lena Bui. Charming, enigmatic and infectiously happy, Lena absorbed science like an intellectual sponge. She clearly relished the scientists’ way of seeing the world, coming to terms with what they found interesting or perplexing. For the main interview, we’d decided to go to her studio. What I didn’t realise was the only way to complete the journey was on a bike. Lena rolled up, asking me to hop on at which point I had to make the humbling admission that motorbike riding was absent from my repertoire of skills.

Lena was amazed – how was it possible to get this far in life without riding a bike? Searching for an excuse to walk to her studio, I also pointed out that the tripod and camera bag were way too bulky and heavy. Having none of it, this waif lifted them both onto the bike like they were sticks, cast me a look over her shoulder and instructed me to get on. Suddenly I was in a movie, featuring a bike riding heroine as she drove her inept sidekick through the hot, chaotic streets of Vietnam.

Lena is deeply interested in the interrelationships between animals and humans, how we relate to, touch, use them and how, in turn, this relates to disease. A scientist would say she is interested in zoonosis but Lena had a way of making these relationships sound quite poetic and profound. After an excellent interview, she tried to take me to a special place she’d found a couple of hours drive (by car) and a ferry ride away, past all the new buildings and engineering work springing up around the city. This, I was told, is where a flock of swifts come to roost and, if you timed it right, you’d receive a spectacular display as they pulsed and swirled in harmony.  However, a storm had other ideas and we had to turn back in the midst of the darkest skies and heaviest rain I had ever seen.

My disappointment was tempered as my third favourite Vietnam moment soon arrived. Keen to capture footage that could help tell the story of Lena’s interest in our relationship with animals, Mary Chambers had offered to take me to one of the main food markets, early the next morning. My feeling was that a hefty EX1 camera would be too conspicuous in a public market, so I went instead for my SLR, the Canon 550D, a brilliant, ‘stealth cam’ allowing me to look like an average tourist.

Walking around one market, Mary treated me to a local speciality, something that felt like a collision of rice pudding and alfalfa. It was lovely to see Mary in her element, talking with locals, old friends. She’d moved out to Vietnam around 12 years ago, embracing the culture, the language and life. At one of the indoor stalls, Mary bought me a gift, a waving cat statue (it waves in the luck), which now sits in my house, mystifying my two, more organic, cats.

There followed a spectacular morning of filming. Fish being descaled and gutted, intestines and organs glistening in the morning light, fresh meat being carved, sliced and cut. Everywhere, people were immersed in the flesh of other animals; it was beautiful, relevant and incredibly visceral. From the worst day’s filming, to the best – this offered a brilliant example of the fabric of Ho Chi Minh City, chaotic and unpredictable it may be but it is also spectacularly vibrant and full of life. I was going to miss this place.

Barry Gibb

Barry Gibb is a Science Multimedia Producer at the Wellcome Trust.

Read Barry’s previous diary entries.

Find out more about Art in Global Health on the Wellcome Collection website. Find out more about the Vietnam Research Programme and Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU).

Professor Roger Kneebone

Our regular scamper through upcoming science and medicine themed events funded through the Wellcome Trust’s public engagement awards.

Imperial Festival, celebrating arts and science, takes place this week (3-4 May) in London. This includes a showcase from Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow Professor Roger Kneebone and Dr Zoltan Takats of a new surgical knife that gives instant feedback to surgeons about the tissue they are cutting into.

Surgery Meets Jazz is an innovative event at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 5 May 4-5pm. Through demonstrations and discussion, Professor Roger Kneebone and musician Liam Noble explore the parallels between surgery and music.

Arnos Vale Cemetary, Bristol, continues its Matters of Life & Death talks:

• From Madhouse to Asylum to ‘Care in the Community’: Three centuries of mental health care in Bristol – 2 May 7.30-8.30pm in the Anglican Chapel.
• The Innards and Outs of Medical Photography – 16 May 7.30-8.30pm in the Anglican Chapel.

‘Under My Skin’, a dance performance by Sadhana Dance Group explores how dance and surgery speak to each other. In this collaboration between choreographer Subathra Subramaniam and surgeon/educator Professor Roger Kneebone (Roger’s doing a lot this month!). The performance uses intricate detail, perfectly timed exchanges and analytical spatial patterns to explore the boundaries between clinical practice and dance. This takes place on 17 May at 7.30pm at the Pavilion Dance Theatre, Bournemouth.

Big Heritage’s Roman Medical Roadshow will feature at this year’s Light Night in Liverpool (Liverpool’s one-night arts & culture festival) on 17 May from 5-8pm at the Museum of Liverpool. This includes Gladiator fighting with fabulous ‘injuries’ courtesy of SoCocoRouge and archaeology workshops for adults with the University of Liverpool.

The Arts Catalyst is opening for a special day on 18 May 12-8pm, for visitors to see videos documenting past projects (such as Simon Faithfull’s Escape Vehicle No 6 and Tomas Saraceno’s Poetic Cosmos of the Breath). Patrick Stevenson-Keating will be demonstrating The Quantum Parallelograph, enabling visitors to explore their parallel identities in work that examines the scientific and philosophical ideas surrounding the theory of quantum physics and multiple universes.

The Southbank Centre is holding a series of events in association with Honeyscribe (an artistic investigation of the honeybee) as part of the London Literature Festival.

• Artist Amy Shelton has produced two works which will be displayed at the Saison Poetry Library from 21 May-14 July. Florilegium illuminates a collection of cultivated and wild plants which are essential to honeybee health and Melissographia is a collaboration with John Burnside, resulting in a limited edition artists’ book.
• A Future Without Bees is a panel discussion on the threat to bees’ survival and the implications for us – they are currently responsible for the pollination of one third of our shopping basket. Chaired by Bill Turnbull, presenter on BBC Breakfast and author of The Bad Beekeepers Club, the debate is at 7pm on 26 May in the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall.
• Contemplating the Honey Bee is a workshop for children led by artist Amy Shelton and beekeeper Steve Benbow about the link between bees and human health. Children will have the opportunity to make a beeswax-coated artwork celebrating the honeybee – 11am, 27 May, Saison Poetry Library at Royal Festival Hall.

On 22 May 7-8.30pm, ‘Teaching your fingers to see’ will take place at the Royal Institution, London. How does a surgeon master his craft or a GP diagnose through palpation? Join a team from Imperial College London led by Professor Roger Kneebone and Fernando Bello to explore the fascinating world of haptics in surgery, medicine and beyond.

Jordan Baseman’s Deadness exhibition will be showing at Matt’s Gallery from 29 May-21 July (Wednesday-Sunday 12-6pm). Deadness is an exhibition of three parts; multiple 35mm slide projections with sound, the film The Last Walk (2011) and a series of new photographic works, exploring the historical, cultural and sociological relationship between photographic portraiture and embalming.

Still on

Melanie Jackson’s The Urpflanze (Part 2) is showing at Flat Time House until 12 May (Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm). In a series of moving images and ceramic sculptures, the installation explores mutability and transformation.

The tour of The Pigeon Theatre’s new performance ’The Smell of Envy‘, a collaboration with Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Colin Lever, finishes on 17 May here at the Wellcome Trust buildings.

The next event of The False Memory Archive’s tour will be 24 May at the Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, showing artist Hopwood’s work in collaboration with psychologist Dr Kim Wade.

Advanced notice

Cheltenham Science Festival takes place from 4-9 June. Professor Roger Kneebone will be holding two events – Who Holds the Scalpel explores the ethics and challenges of training as a surgeon, and Ethics at the Cutting Edge looks at the decision of making new technology everyday practice. .

JULIUS, a multi-screen film produced by Elastic Theatre, will premiere at Spitalfields Music Festival from 7-14 June. The film explores the nature of obsessional thoughts and the superstitious beliefs associated with them. .

Jon Adams, an artist in residence at the Autism Research Centre, will be giving a performance and talk at the Arts Catalyst on 14 June.

The next presentation of Tales from Babel – Musical Adventures in the Science of Hearing from The Clerks music group will be at the Cheltenham Music Festival on 7 July.

If you are inspired to go along to any of the activities listed here, leave a comment below and let us know what you thought!

Thanks to our Engaging Science colleague Lois Browne for the info.

Over the course of four months, Barry Gibb visited our major overseas programmes in Africa and Asia to make a film about Wellcome Collection’s Art and Global Health project. In the latest of his diary entries, Barry finds himself in Thailand.

The distance between Vietnam and Thailand is more appropriately measured in time than kilometres. Arriving in Bangkok at night, it’s difficult to shake off images from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The city appears to have come from the future, reminiscent of London but bigger, brighter, shinier. Gone were the bikes and mopeds of Vietnam; here, we have cars – luxurious cars (albeit with a lack of seatbelts). The scale of everything in Bangkok was so much bigger than what I’d experienced a few hours earlier in Vietnam, including the ‘hotel’. The place was like a small city; hundreds of rooms, several bars and restaurants.

The next day I had to hit the ground running. Not only would I be meeting several of B-Floor theatre company – the artists who were working closely with the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) at Mahidol University on the Art and Global Health Project – but we would immediately be leaving by plane for Ubon Ratchathani in the far east of Thailand, home to one of MORU’s research units. Experiencing something close to travel fatigue, I was desperate not to carry all my luggage yet again and crammed the minimum luggage necessary into the camera bag.

Nana Dakin, part of the core team of B-Floor, escorted me to the airport to meet the other members who were joining us on the trip, Teerawat Mulvilai, a.k.a. Kage (pronounced a bit like kang-ye) and Jarunun Phantachat, known as Jaa. This was a feisty trio. Curious, lively and dynamic, they wanted to know everything about what I was about and why I was here. In a reversal of roles, Kage filmed most of our conversations on his new pride and joy, a DSLR camera, while we chatted over tea.

On the flight to Ubon Ratchathani, Nana gave a potted history of Thailand in fluent English (one of her many languages), explaining the origins of the Yellow Shirts, the Red Shirts and all about the recent political crisis before seamlessly moving onto melioidosis, a disease widespread in Thailand and the current interest for herself and the B-Floor team. Melioidosis is a nasty disease. Largely infecting barefoot farmers through wounds in their feet, it is caused by a soil-based bacterium and can either manifest itself within days or lie dormant in its host for decades. When it presents, the disease hits every facet of the body, from bones to internal organs and external abscesses. Even with access to good medical care, the mortality rate is around 50 per cent.

At 4pm we checked-in to our small hotel in Ubon Ratchathani and the team suggested this may be the best opportunity to grab my main interview with them. I was hesitant. The sun was going to set in 2 hours and we had no idea where we could do the interview. But we all agreed outdoors, in natural light, would be best. The hotelier said there was a river nearby and that was enough encouragement for us to dive in a taxi to the location.

What the hotelier didn’t mention was the fact that this river, as beautiful as it was, was right next to a main road. And a slew of karaoke bars. Diminishing light not being enough to contend with, audio was also going to be an issue. Thank goodness I wasn’t also shooting into the sun. In order to get the right composition with Nana and Kage seated on the riverbank we needed seats, which the nearest karaoke bar was kind enough to provide. Next, having travelled light, I had no tripod, so a chair joined us too, affording me some serious stability over the course of the next hour. Things were looking up…

…until I took the camera out of my bag. The sudden change in temperature caused a flood of condensation on the lens – it was literally dripping with water. Doing my best to maintain professional composure, the moisture was removed, my interviewees mic’d up and then we were, at last, ready to go. It was less than an hour until sunset. Pausing only to silence an enthusiastically early karaoke bar’s music system, we managed to capture a great interview, ending just as the sun started to dip and no amount of boosting the camera’s signal would be useful.

At last, we were able to relax and start to get to know each other over beer and real, authentic Thai food. Before ordering, Nana asked how spicy I liked my food. In the UK, I told them, I love all manner of Thai, Mexican and Indian food. Addressing the others, she noted that they’d better get me mild food. She was not wrong; Thai food is remarkably hot to a western palette, a fusion of aromatics and spices that burn and excite, raging inside the mouth.

Over dinner, Kage revealed that he often appears in movies as an actor who, despite his wide smile and gentle character, is often favoured as the ‘bad guy’. I also discovered Jaa’s incredible curiosity about proteins, resulting in my explaining how DNA is converted into proteins with a range of hand movements and small drawings.

Early next day, with the temperature still in the low 20s (degrees C), we set off for the Ubon Ratchathani research centre. This was a key opportunity for B-Floor to meet and question, first-hand, doctors, scientists and possibly even a patient about the perils of living and working in an area with melioidosis. The purpose of the day was research and over the course of an entire day they grilled a procession of people about the many facets of the condition. Like Miriam Syowia Kyambi and James Muriuki in Kenya, an integral part of B-Floor’s process is extensive research, to really get to grips with a subject, to know it so well that an artistic idea can begin to emerge.

The best moment of the day was when B-Floor were brought into a laboratory. As someone who’s spent more than a decade working in various labs, it’s easy to forget how odd they can look to a non-scientist, how alien the equipment and procedures are. The team were mesmerised. A scientist prepared a specimen of melioidosis bacteria for the group to look at down a microscope, triggering a sense of awe and the idea of representing this sense of scale in a theatrical endeavour.

With most of my ‘art’ filming achieved, it was time to get into ‘science’ mode. Arriving at Mahidol University, I immediately met MORU Director, Nick Day, and a group of his core team. The afternoon passed quickly in the company of enthusiastic scientists with fascinating stories; melioidosis and its impact on those affected, malaria and its frustrating capacity to adapt and resist… In one lab, yellow boxes sat neatly stacked from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, all full of slides coated with blood containing malaria; an uncomfortable visual reminder of the scale of the problem.

Leaving MORU, it was time to finally see B-Floor in action as they rehearsed for an upcoming show. It was exhausting just watching them – they’re a very physical theatre group, pushing their own bodies as much as artistic boundaries. After an evening of laughing, contorting and generally being taken through an emotional joy ride, it was time to switch the camera off and go home. Again, I was saying goodbye to thoroughly lovely people just as I was getting to know them. But any sense of being maudlin was rapidly ejected by the memory that I’d be going home in less than 24 hours. I had the luxury of an entire week at home to look forward to before heading off to the Berlin studio of Katie Paterson, the artist-in-residence of the UK based Sanger Institute. Prior to leaving for the airport next morning, I decided a treat was in order and did what any self-respecting tourist should do in Thailand – I had the best massage of my life.

Barry J Gibb

Barry J Gibb is a Science Multimedia Producer at the Wellcome Trust.

Read Barry’s previous diary entries.

Find out more about Art in Global Health on the Wellcome Collection website.

Zwelethu absorbs the sight of a massive shanty town

Over the course of four months, Barry Gibb visited our major overseas programmes in Africa and Asia to make a film about Wellcome Collection’s Art in Global Health project. In the last of his diary entries, Barry describes South Africa.

For a start, this was an incredibly compressed trip – around 36 hours from touchdown to take off and, on the day of the flight, I’d still not heard anything from the person who was my main interviewee, the artist Zwelethu Mthethwa. Reluctant to leave the house and travel more than 9500km without at least a hint of contact, I called Zwelethu, desperately hoping he would answer.

To my relief, the phone was picked up by a warm sounding man, full of good humour, and we discussed the next day’s plans. At the time, everything sounded so certain.

The 11 hour journey meant I arrived in Cape Town the next morning, with little sleep and just a couple of hours before the adventure with Zwelethu was due to begin. The trip from the airport to the hotel left no doubt I was in a new continent. Table Mountain loomed over us for the entire duration of the trip. Countryside gave way to shanty towns, urban spread and eventually to central Cape Town itself, a beautiful city with a distinct architectural feel.

Several bounced or missed calls later, Zwelethu and I eventually found each other in a frenetically cool café beside the hotel. Tucked away amidst the chic crowd, slurping espresso and sporting a Kangol cap plus long trench coat, Zwelethu felt like a mysterious, coiled spring of energy, intense and energetic. I was very much looking forward to asking him all sorts of questions about his work at the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies in South Africa’s eastern region of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Still standing, Zwelethu despatched his strong coffee with a practiced gulp before we exited the café like a stiff breeze, heading to his studio where I hoped we’d do the interview. The area of Cape Town we were in felt like a Parisian version of London’s Camden; hip, fashionable and full of people of every colour as they relaxed or shopped. It became clear this was Zwelethu’s domain, breaking off from our trip to briefly talk to friends, firm up arrangements, and so on. I was quickly building a picture of a man who is fully ‘on’.

In stark contrast to Katie Paterson’s pearl-esque studio in Berlin, Zwelethu briskly welcomed me into his frenetic studio; a living museum of his mind. Canvases were everywhere, piled up or mounted in various states of completion, the walls were covered in ‘notes’ and scribblings and more than anything there were pastels. Small pastels, big pastels, huge pastels like bricks; as if a rainbow had exploded in this room, shattering into these varied pieces of chalk and dust.

From a filmmaking perspective, this was a gift. As I set up the camera for our interview, Zwelethu took me by surprise, stating that he hadn’t been sure he was going to go through with the interview until he’d met me, to see if I was giving off the ‘right kind of energy’. Part of me was mystified – I’d travelled 9500km! However, even in those first few minutes together, I could see how tuned in this artist was to people – how easily he ‘got them’.

Relieved that I was, indeed, emanating the right vibe, we started the interview. Only now did I see how experienced Zwelethu was in front of a camera. There were no nerves, only long thoughtful pauses as he digested each question before unfalteringly providing a wonderfully articulate and insightful response. I should have known this would be the case in advance, after all, this man is one of the most prominent artists in South Africa.

Zwelethu allowed me to film various aspects of his studio. Naturally, a range of charcoal shots made it in but he also took great pleasure in showing me a very bizarre piece of furniture: a dresser filled with human hair. I was so struck by the oddness that I completely missed the intent of this particular piece of art, but there was something lyrical about this one specific component of a multitude of humans being hoarded into a drawer.

I’d explained to Zwelethu that during my other trips abroad it had been useful, if possible, to capture a sense of the place we were filming, largely to help create visually and culturally distinct locations for the film being made about the project. He thought for a long moment then smiled as he stormed away, ‘Let’s go, I have something special to show you.’

Even as we drove, Zwelethu wouldn’t tell me where we were going. His preferred weapon of choice is a beautiful, large format digital camera; at least when taking composed shots. But for general research whilst driving or walking around, he uses a cheap, plastic disposable camera. Riding along with Zwelethu amounts to lively conversation punctuated with the occasional ‘click and ratchet’ of his research tool as he captures another images to feed his imagination and wind on the film for the next shot.

At last I saw where he was taking me, the local township, or shanty town. As a London dweller, the sight of a full-scale township is so incompatible with my worldview, that it took a good while for it to sink in. A sea of thousands upon thousands of multi-coloured dwellings, none higher than one story tall, none larger than a decent sized shed. All of them made of a potpourri of basic materials, corrugated metal, wood, brick.

Just like Zwlelethu’s studio, the township was peppered with bright primary colours; attempts to add individuality, some vague uniqueness to the habitats in this monolayer of life so powerfully symbolic of the aftermath of years of oppression.

As we drove slowly through the streets, Zwelethu explained the history and meaning of the township (“click, ratchet”), that the people here are, by and large, content (“click, ratchet”), that he feels safe here and crime is low. He explained that, if someone from the township appears one day wearing designer trainers or underwear, they are not targeted for theft (“click, ratchet”). Instead, they are celebrated as a symbol of what is possible, that anyone can ‘make it’ in this new South Africa.

Spontaneously, Zwelethu decided he wanted to locate an illicit, unlicensed, bar he’d heard about from a friend, so off we drove. Past people, goats and dogs roaming the streets, savouring the smells of street markets and barbeques selling cooked meat. And everywhere, the ubiquitous sign for a brand of fizzy drink so popular I can’t bring myself to write it down.

When we did find the bar, it was not what I expected. Externally, it looked near identical to all the other loosely fabricated dwellings, if a little bigger. Inside however, the owner had taken pains to make this a decent, club-like environment. Sure, it was small, but there was a bar, soft seating, good lighting and a DJ. Expensive champagne, whiskey and a range of other spirits occupied the bar. Zwelethu, in a display of generosity bought an entire bottle of whisky for us and the owners to share. Clearly, he knew the team running this place and it was made abundantly clear to me that, even if I left my camera equipment sitting at the door of the bar, absolutely no one would take it – not whilst I was under the owner’s protection. Just one small insight into a layer of life I’d never have seen without Zwelethu’s guidance.

As I cautiously sipped away at my dram, we were brought some much needed nutrition on the house, a barbequed goat’s neck. Having eaten nothing all day, I attacked the neck with gusto, much to delight of my companions. In hindsight, my only faux pas was to avoid the fat – a lesson learnt a little too late as I watched them eat slabs of cooked adipose tissue with glee.

Turning a unique experience into a surreal one, a beautiful girl then glided into the bar who, it turned out, was a local music star. Carrying her album with her, she was going around the township, selling this album, symbolic of far more than musical creation. The owners insisted we have a photograph taken together, which is how I ended up with a photograph of myself looking baffled and confused, standing alongside this diminutive South African pop star.

As the night drew on and the bottle’s contents surrendered to good company, it was time for Zwelethu and myself to leave, waving goodbye to our new friends and one of the most special evenings of my life. Zwelethu wished to give me some of his actual photos for the film and insisted on driving me back to his apartment to burn them onto a DVD. Slightly confused, I asked him why he couldn’t just email them to me (they were digital, after all). His answer: “We started this journey together, we must finish this journey together”.

Barry J Gibb

Barry J Gibb is a Science Multimedia Producer at the Wellcome Trust.

Read Barry’s previous diary entries.

Find out more about Art in Global Health on the Wellcome Collection website.

Carla MacKinnon is a London-based filmmaker and interdisciplinary producer. Her personal experience of sleep paralysis inspired her set up the Sleep Paralysis Project with support from the Wellcome Trust. MacKinnon’s short film, ‘Devil In The Room’ aims to communicate both experiences of, and the scientific background to, sleep paralysis. Here she explains how sleep paralysis affected her and how she hopes her film will help others who have experienced it.

I have always been a very active dreamer. Terrifying nightmares were regular occurrences for me throughout childhood and adolescence. But there was another kind of dream I’d get – one I could not make sense of because it did not feel like a dream at all. I would wake up feeling alert. My body was tingling and had the sensation of being under pressure, as if it was wrapped in a solid sheet of static electricity. When I tried to move, I found myself immobile. Worse still, I had the strong sense of being watched. Sometimes the watcher was visible as a human or monstrous form beside my bed, sometimes an invisible sensed presence. One this was certain – it was malevolent. These episodes lasted anything from seconds to minutes and left me feeling vulnerable and confused, as if I had been touched by something evil and otherworldly.

It was not until I was in my mid-twenties that I heard the term ‘sleep paralysis’, and realised that my experiences were not only explicable, but relatively common. When entering the REM phase of sleep (most commonly associated with dreaming) the brain induces muscular paralysis, a precautionary measure to stop a person physically acting out the actions of their dreams. Normally this paralysis ceases before the dreamer wakes. Sometimes though this process is disordered – the paralysis might occur before the sleeper is fully asleep or continue into wakefulness. The result of this is that a person will find themselves seemingly awake and aware in their bedroom, unable to move.

In some cases, the combination of waking and dream mental activity can cause hallucinations. People may hear noises or see shadowy figures around them. Hallucinations can also be olfactory, and some people report feelings of being moved, or even out-of-body experiences. Shortness of breath and a pressure on the chest are also common.

It is thought that at least a quarter of people experience some form of sleep paralysis in their lives, with around 5% suffering associated hallucinations and unusual bodily experiences. The chances of an attack increase with disruption of sleep patterns, stress and drug use. In many parts of the world mythologies have arisen which relate to the sleep paralysis experience. The best known of these are ‘The Old Hag of Newfoundland’, believed to sit astride the sleeper crushing the breath from their bodies and the ‘Kanashibari’, a Japanese demon whose name translates roughly as ‘bound in fastened metal’. It has been suggested that many alien abduction experiences and religious visitations may also be rooted in sleep paralysis.

I decided to initiate a project exploring and raising awareness for the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. The Sleep Paralysis Project would consist of a short film, a series of events and a web resource. The project was launched at the Dana Centre in January 2013 as part of the London Short Film Festival, and continued throughout the year. I interviewed dozens of sleep paralysis sufferers from all over the world, many of whom experience extremely frequent and severe episodes. I spoke to people who had been misdiagnosed as epileptic or schizophrenic, and people who believed themselves to be under attack from demons, or the devil itself.

In creating Devil In The Room, the short film at the heart of the project, it was important to me to balance the scientific voice with a more subjective, internal voice. This comes in the form of two narrators, presenting different angles over the top of a visual representation of a sleep paralysis experience. The film combines live action and animation techniques to create a reality that is insecure, in a constant state of transformation. I’ve tried to combine scientific and cultural information with an unsettling, frightening atmosphere and the odd dash of humour.

Throughout the project I have worked in consultation with Christopher French, Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths University; Dan Denis, a Psychology MA student specialising in sleep paralysis and Paul Broks, a neuropsychologist and writer whose work explores the science and mysteries of human experience.

Professor French explained his interest in the project in a cultural and historical context: “It is easy to see why this phenomenon has attracted interest from artists of all kinds through the ages, from Henri Fuseli’s classic painting The Nightmare, through literary works by writers such as Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, to modern filmmakers like Carla. It is also easy to see why the experience should so often have been interpreted as supernatural in nature. The Sleep Paralysis Project provides the perfect means to educate both sufferers themselves and the public in general about the true nature of the phenomenon. In the process, we hope we can reassure sufferers that sleep paralysis is, although often terrifying, essentially harmless.”

I hope that people who are subject to sleep paralysis will be able to recognise some of their experience in this film, but will also be able to use it as a way into finding out more about the scientific background of the phenomenon. The research I have done on the project has greatly altered my relationship to sleep paralysis. I still occasionally experience attacks, but am now able to stay calm and examine them from an informed, analytical perspective. I have found that by focusing on details of the experience and cross-referencing them against my research I can distract my mind from the sense of fear and threat, robbing the experience of the overwhelmingly dark power it used to possess.

Devil in the Room is screening at the Royal College of Art Graduate Exhibition, ending June 30 2012 and you can find out more on the Sleep Paralysis Project website.

The Sleep Paralysis Project was funding by a Wellcome Trust Small Arts Award. Find out more about the funding we offer and how to apply on the Wellcome Trust website.

Continuing our series sharing what we learnt from our Engaging Science grantholders day, Georgia Bladon explores the role of the curator in public engagement projects.  For our Arts and People Awards holders, the ‘Third man’ aka, the producer or curator, can play a major part in the process.

Poised by Dryden Goodwin.
Part of Everything Flows

In this session, our grantholders shared their experiences of finding and working with. Almost half of our public engagement grantholders are artists and as such, the conversation was steered towards the artistic producer/curator.  Even within the context of art, the role of both curator and producer varies hugely. With such breadth, many of the tips will be relevant, regardless of your field.

Tip 1: Establish from the offset what part the curator/producer will play in the project.

An artistic producer can be anything from the fundraiser and advisor akin to the film producer, to the creative collaborator offered by a music producer.  This variation makes finding a dynamic that works for your project very important.

As a producer coming into an established project having a practical, advisory role can be all that is needed but for speaker Steven Bode’s recent project Everything Flows he offered more than this. He and his team at Film and Video Umbrella instigated the project, bringing together partnerships between scientists and artists to form a group show about the phenomenon of sports men and women ‘getting in the zone’.

This was a project with which he had a sense of ownership, he did not just gloss and spin it, and when explaining his part in the project the analogy of the music producer seemed to suit Steven best. The project was a ‘concept album’, with sci-art as its concept, which he formed by bringing together contributors to establish a larger and more complex arrangement than would have been possible without a producer. Similarly, the speaker Christina Elliott started and nurtured partnerships between artists and scientists for the project Body Pods. The process was documented on film and in the second of the series, The Heart, poet, Francesca Beard, and cardiologist, Dave Hildick-Smith, talk about their collaboration and the science behind the project. The film also highlights the role of the producer.

As an artist this could well be a project you could find yourself working within but may be completely different to what you would expect from a producer producing your work.

Tip 2: Identify the added value that you are expecting from a producer 

Consider the benefits that a producer or curator can bring to your project.

• A producer/curator is an outside pair of eyes.

This means an ability to ask the obvious questions and the questions that when you are immersed in the project, may not think to ask.

• A producer/curator takes pressure off the artist so you can concentrate on the art.

They can organise fundraising, find appropriate venues and audiences and help to upscale and get the most out of a project. This can all be done as the project’s content is created saving time.

• A producer/curator facilitates and generates relationships.

This is particularly apt in the science-art collaborations we fund as the producer will often bring in new people when the project changes direction. They can help the collaborations run smoothly and act as a translator between individuals who may approach a subject very differently.

• A producer/curator captures the direction of a project.

To find collaborators, venues and audiences the producer or curator needs to be able to see what direction the project is going in, something that can be challenging from the inside.

Tip 3: Look out for differences in meaning early on and allow time to learn how others work.

Collaboration of all kinds can be very enriching to a project, but the more stakeholders there are involved, the more complicated a project becomes. And of course, different disciplines may have their own vocabularies and methodologies. Even the words ‘producer’ and ‘curator’ mean different things to different people and settling in to common understanding can take time.

Tip 4: Trust and respect your collaborator.

In order for a project to work you often have to relinquish some creative control and trust the producer/curator with your work. If the project was your conception, trust the producer or curator to know when to step back but don’t be afraid to let them know if they are going too far.

Tip 5: The best person to talk about the art work is the artist.

A piece of advice from our artists at the session was that though producers/curators are pivotal the best person to sell the art to a venue is the artist.

It is all well and good discussing the merits of working with a producer/curator, but where do you find one?

Tip 6: Identify work you like and see who produced or curated it. Have coffee before inviting them to view your work.

Another option is to try contacting people who run higher education programs and see if they have any students looking for work experience. Goldsmiths run a masters course in curating and the Central School of Speech and Drama Creative offer an MA in producing.

These tips provide a brief snap-shot into the relationship between an artist and a producer or curator.  We would love to hear about your experiences.

Georgia Bladon, Engaging Science Team

If you walk past the Wellcome Trust headquarters during the next year, your eyes will be drawn to ‘View’, an art installation created by Phoebe Argent, who has just finished a BA in Graphic Design at Camberwell College of Arts. The Wellcome Trust windows are a prominent feature of our headquarters on Euston Road and we like to use their vast space to show off some of the work that the Trust supports. This week sees the completion of the latest window display and we caught up with the artist to find out more about the work.

The Wellcome Trust Windows have a tradition of containing striking art installations to grab the attention of the hurrying passers-by. They are not just decorative, but they encourage a wide variety of people to engage in the Wellcome Trust by displaying art inspired by the science that the Trust funds.

It is not easy to create a brilliant window display, as Kate Forde, the senior curator in charge of the windows display explains. “The space is challenging to work with and was not specifically designed to host artwork. A good installation will be spectacular enough to grab the attention of the fleeting audience and portray something scientifically relevant.”

Phoebe Argent’s design does just this. Based on the theme ‘The changing perception of images’, ‘View’ is the winning design from a competition open to University of the Arts London students. The installation consists of a large folded concertina depicting two figures moving through an abstract space.

According to Argent, “I thought it was important to create an installation which responded to an audience who are in motion. The images themselves reflect the fact that we are creatures on the move.”  She is interested in the tension between two and three dimensions, captured in the folded paper feel of ‘View’ saying “the folded concertina construction is meant to increase the viewer’s perception of the images through distortion and fragmentation, engaging them in a active viewing experience where they can mirror and interact with the figures, drawing them into the narrative”.

Phoebe is keen to emphasise the scientific nature of her inspiration: “The piece was inspired by ideas about the perception of the self and other. The images of the figures allude to the individual and universal experience of how, as kinetic, sensory human beings, we are in constant communication with our environment and with one another. It shows that we are systems, continuously receiving and sending signals.”

The Wellcome Trust has supported a lot of work on image perception in recent years and advances in neuroscience are giving us a better understanding of how the brain processes images. Meanwhile technology finds news ways to manipulate our perception with things like 3D films. The window display gives us an opportunity to represent this work in a new way. As Argent says, “Artists and designers can communicate ideas about science, health and wellbeing in new and exciting ways, drawing people in and striking their curiosity in the subjects.”

Forde believes that Argent’s installation has all the ingredients for success, “it is very simple, yet striking, sparking the curiosity of passers-by”. It also adds a friendlier side to one of London’s busiest thoroughfares, “in such an impersonal surrounding, making eye contact with the figures in the display feels very human.”

Phoebe’s window display will be in place until July 2014 at which point ‘Eye-contact’ will be installed, designed by Philip Hudson, another Camberwell student who also won the competition. 

Image credit: University of the Arts London, Wellcome images

‘Peabrain’ is a representation of the brain created by Sarah Grice. This is part of a series of several brain artworks by Sarah, depicting the brain in different fun ways, from ‘Wired‘ to ‘Woolly Thinking‘.

‘Peabrain’ was created using modelling clay to create the three ‘peas’, painted and varnished. The pod was made from several different materials, and the whole thing was photographed and put through Photoshop to create the finished item.

These images are part of a personal project of Sarah’s about the brain, particularly brain injury. Sarah had personal experience of the subject after her father suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage due to an aneurysm, and was left with a brain injury. Sarah realised there was a lack of images to publicise and create awareness about brain injuries and the associated conditions.  “My aim was to create an image that was aesthetically pleasing whilst also making the subject seem more approachable, by taking something that can be quite frightening for those involved to try and lighten by adding a touch of humour”.

The Wellcome Trust supports research into the brain as part of its research challenge two: understanding the brain. The brain is still a mystery to us, but we are gradually unravelling its secrets. Last month, a study showed that brain disorders cost the UK around £113 billion each year, highlighting the need for more research and effective treatments.

Image credit: Sarah Grice, Wellcome Images

You can submit your images to be part of the Wellcome Images collection. Any image submitted before 30th September will be eligible for the 2014 Wellcome Image awards. There is more information on the Wellcome Trust Website. 

Summer may be coming to a close but never fear, our Engaging Science grantholders have a wide variety of activities to keep your spirits up. 

Metta Theatre’s aerial circus production, Well
Credit: Richard Davenport

Fusing classical Indian dance and contemporary aerial circus set against a rich soundscape of Bengali music, Well is based on the accidental large scale arsenic poisoning of villagers in Bangladesh by well-meaning international aid agencies. Performing at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds 27-28 September, Metta Theatre’s newest production examines the personal and global impacts of international interventions that go wrong.

“Closing Down Sale: 50% off old people! Get them before they expire! Feel free to window shop! Warning: May contain surprises.” Inspired by research into how our bodies and minds age Bradford theatre company Freedom Studios challenge common perceptions about what it means to be an older member of society in Britain. Performances of The Pensioner Warehouse will take place at Forster’s Bistro and Deli, Bradford on 28 September, 1 October and 19 October.

Small Wonders, a new 3D film exploring the beauty and danger of the microorganisms, premiers at  ArtLacuna, London between 18-21 September. Artist-filmmaker Kate Goodwin has collaborated with microbiologist Terence M Preston to give the viewer an insight into the hidden world of the microscopic organisms found at the surface of lakes and ponds all over the world. A panel Q&A will be held 21 September at 3pm.

Professor Hallux has been building a body but something has gone wrong. Join the Professor and his indispensable assistant Nurse Nanobot as they check their creation – brain to toes, and all the bits in between – to work out what’s gone wrong. In this immersive production for 7-11 year olds the audience will meet medical characters past and present while learning how our bodies work. Professor Hallux Alive! will be at the Chickenshed Theatre, London, 28 September and 5 October.

For one night only

In 2011, James Piercy suffered a traumatic injury. Lively, entertaining and at times highly emotional, What’s going on his head? follows James’ journey from car crash to recovery, exploring the science behind MRIs, brain structure and trauma along the way. Join him at the annual British Science Festival, Newcastle, 10 September at 3.30pm. The talk will be followed by a panel discussion with leading experts in neurology and surgery. Other festival highlights include Daredevil labs’ Xtreme Everest 2, 8 September at 1.30pm and on 10 September at 12pm, our very own head of Communications, Mark Henderson , will be chairing a panel discussion Three parent babies: myth or reality?

Wellcome Trust public engagement fellow, Erinma Ochu, will be giving her first TED talk at TED^xCity2.0 at Greenhouse, Leeds, 20 September. Erinma will be talking about her latest project, Everyday Growing Cultures, a six month pilot study connecting allotment growers and the open data community that ran over the spring and summer. The project explored the potential of digital engagement and open data to help allotment holders build stronger communities, address food security and increase environmental sustainability all while aiming to benefit the local economy.

Guerilla Science continue to indulge their fondness for taking science to unusual locations this time popping up on a canal. Mixing science, art and music, Everyday Science Part 2 will be at the Limehouse Basin, London, 29 September as part of The Floating Cinema experience.

Enjoy at your leisure

ThinkOutreach, based in Cambridge, host a range of events aiming to bring critical thinking to new audiences. Live events include Skeptics in the Pub, separating the fact and fiction of everyday life and contentious or interesting topics over a pint and Bright Club, the comedy night that puts academics behind the mic. The team have collated the talks and conversations from past events and made the freely available as a series of podcasts for you to enjoy at your leisure.

Last chance to see

Mark Neville’s latest exhibition Deeds Not Words continues at the Photographers’ Gallery, London until 29 September.  The exhibition follows on from the book of the same name documenting the fight of the Corby 16 to claim compensation for young people with birth defects caused by improper removal of toxic waste in the town. Never commercially distributed, the book was sent to local authorities and environmental agencies to raise awareness of the issues around handling toxic waste. Displaying photographs and films from the project, this is Neville’s first public display of the work.

If you are inspired to go along to any of the events above, please come back to leave a comment and let us know what you thought!

Thanks to our Engaging Science colleague Lois Browne for the info.

“Art has contributed zero to science, historically,” said developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert on Radio 4 some time ago.

This sounds like a sweeping generalisation – particularly considering he was in discussion with neuroscientist Mark Lythgoe, who has done more than his fair share of collaborating with artists – but is it fair? The influence of science on art is easy to see – just look at the paintings of da Vinci or Rembrandt to see how far back this influence stretches – but what does art offer science?

The Wellcome Trust has been funding collaborations between artists and scientists for over fifteen years. So it would seem sensible that we should ask what scientists have gained from working with artists.

Measuring scientific outcomes from artist-scientist collaborations is not straightforward: progress in science is judged by peer-reviewed publications, and joint scientist-artist publications are rare. But does this mean collaborations are of no value? Yes, they can be time consuming and one’s peers don’t always see the point, but scientists also tell us they can be richly rewarding for them personally and for their science. Even beyond the obvious benefits from improving their communication skills, raising their profile and enhancing public engagement, collaborations can offer some very interesting and unexpected side effects.

For starters, work with artists can open up new lines of enquiry.  Take the work of microbiologist Simon Park working with artist Anne Brodie in Exploring the Invisible.  Playing with the natural bioluminescence from bacteria led to novel observations of the patterns formed as the bacteria exhausted their oxygen supply opening up a new avenue of research for Park, who is now working with a mathematician to model this phenomenon.

Art also allows new ways to visualise data. Artist Susan Morris spent three years wearing a monitor that measured activity patterns and exposure to light (imagine trying to rely on a volunteer for such a long period!) and then created tapestries illustrating her own sleep and wakefulness patterns. As well as being beautiful artworks in their own right, these pieces presented data in a manner that scientists would consider unorthodox, but which opened collaborating scientist Katharina Wulff’s eyes to a whole new way of interpreting the information.

And what of the relationship between a scientist and their subject? Neuroscientist Patrick Haggard and Catherine Long, a disabled artist, worked together to explore the phenomenon of phantom limbs. Long was both collaborator and subject and was a named author in the resulting peer-reviewed paper. Haggard says their close working relationship has made him rethink the way he views the volunteer ‘subjects’ who help with his research, including changing the terms he uses.

‘Geek’ culture is definitely on the rise, but not all scientists are comfortable with this increasing ‘boffinisation’ and the identity that it gives them. These are the scientists that seek out interesting collaborations not just beyond their field, but beyond their culture, and reap the rewards.

There may have been an element of truth in Lewis Wolpert’s boldly dismissive statement. Historically, the exchange of ideas between scientists and artists may have tended to be one way, but it needn’t be so and it is changing. It takes immense focus to become a scientist and spend one’s entire career studying one particular ion channel, for example; the idea of working with an artist, whose work is more conceptual, may seem at odds with their own approach. But sometimes, we learn more not from peers who challenge our findings, but from outsiders who challenge our entire world. Art, it seems, has a great deal to contribute to science.

Clare Matterson, Director of Medical Humanities and Engagement, Wellcome Trust

As a new art installation by Mark Boulos, Echo, explores the nature of self-recognition and representation, his collaborator, Cognitive Neuroscientist Professor Olaf Blanke, explains a little more about the subject: how and when we are able to recognise ourselves, our artistic representation and experience of self portraits, and what happens when something goes wrong.

An early morning just-before-work shave seems to be a trivial activity, yet how can you be sure it is yourself that you are shaving?

Although there’s an intuitive response to this daft question, the mechanisms underlying self-recognition are complex and elaborate. Children’s understanding of mirrors comes fairly late in development (between months 15 and 24) and can show striking disparities. A child can recognise herself, passing the mark test (reaching to a trace of paint that is only noticeable when looking in a mirror), and then suddenly ask why ‘she’ is wearing the same jacket as hers. Passing the mark test might certainly be a good index of self-recognition, but failing the mark test is no evidence to the contrary.

Interestingly, the ability to recognise oneself in a mirror can be lost after brain damage and is called mirrored self misidentification (a delusion in which patients perceive and conceive their reflection – usually in a mirror, but it has also been observed in ponds or windows – as an embodied stranger). In addition, healthy adults have all kinds of misconceptions about mirrors, so it is fair to say that the human brain is not really fine-tuned for this strange piece of optical-technology (remember the tale of Narcissus?). Recognising oneself in a mirror probably requires the convergence of several cognitive skills. There is no ‘self-recognition’ module. These abilities, for example: visuospatial coordination; visuo-kinesthetic integration; theory of mind, can develop in parallel, sequentially and/or hierarchically (i.e. one might be needed for another to appear). For instance, experimental evidence shows that tactile stimuli that are seen on another hand/body/face but at the same time felt on one’s own body induce an experience of ownership (this rubber hand is mine) or identification (this is my body/face). The same goes for motion: something moving in synchrony with our own movements can be learned to be self-attributed.

What else happens when something goes awry in the brain? An interesting group of patients can have complex bodily hallucinations, where one can see one’s own body in front of oneself (like a sort of a hologram); perceive the environment from a perspective external to one’s physical body, usually elevated, and see one’s body back in, for example, one’s bed; or even switch perspectives between one’s physical body and a hallucinated body. Sometimes, multiple bodies are perceived, with the patient not necessarily considering them as ‘self’, but still feeling a strong attraction and relation to them. In addition, other patients can feel as though somebody is standing right behind them, moving in the same way, although no one is there. These manifestations seem to reflect a deficient mechanism by which the brain mis-localises or duplicates different components of the representations of our bodies.

The act of depicting oneself/others visually or verbally is even more complex. It is not only visual features and bodily information that should be taken into account here, but also emotional aspects (memories, feelings, beliefs). Perceiving, imagining one’s body and depicting it are not necessarily based on the same mechanisms. Patients with eating disorders perceive their bodies and draw themselves differently from how they are seen by others. Curiously, if asked to point to the tips of your fingers, knuckles and the wrist while keeping your hand under the table you will get quite a distorted picture of your hand (e.g. underestimation of finger length, overestimation of hand width). You will, however be very accurate in judging whether an image of a hand is wider or narrower than your own. Such observations show a difference between the consciously perceived and implicitly stored body image. Also, subtle differences in the image of one-self modulate self-perception and self-representation. A mirror-reversed image of one’s face is more familiar than a non-reversed view. Both artists and non-artists seem to prefer self-portraits showing their left side. In the general population the detail of self-portraits seems to change with age. And finally, when encountering yourself in a dream, no visual resemblance at all is needed for you to never doubt that the character was you until waking up (to yet another early-morning shave).

Mark Boulos’ Echo is exhibited at FACT from Thursday 3rd October – Thursday 21st November and Professor Olaf Blanke will be speaking at a symposium on Friday 4th November, 10:00-12:30

For more information, please visit http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/mark-boulos/

What links air traffic controllers and music? (Apart from Major Tom, of course, but more on that later*). Not much at first glance, but in exploring the science behind misheard lyrics and the ‘cocktail party problem’, vocal ensemble The Clerks began with an auditory streaming test developed for Airforce pilots and air traffic controllers.

The test was devised by Douglas Brungart, originally to help the American Airforce, and focusses on the intelligibility of words in amongst a lot of other words and noise. It uses phrases in the form <NAME> go to <COLOUR> <NUMBER>, which is why The Clerks’ first performance experiment piece is called: ‘Roger go to Yellow Three’.

Their project, Tales from Babel: Musical Adventures in the Science of Hearing, is a performance-based exploration of why we are able to follow some lyrics and texts in music, and why we mishear others. It began life when The Clerks’ director, Edward Wickham looked a bit deeper into the ‘jumble of texts’ in medieval music and thinking about what audiences are supposed to make of them.

With the support of an Arts Award from the Wellcome Trust, the Clerks have been working with composer Christopher Fox and speech scientists Sarah Hawkins and Antje Heinrich to develop specially commissioned music, scientific demonstrations and live listening tests, and they go on tour this month.

The technical term for misheard lyrics is “mondegreen”, after a famous mishearing of the words “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen”, in a Scottish ballad. While The Clerks are busy looking at the science behind these mishearings we asked you for examples of lyrics that you’d misheard. Here are some of our favourites (with each song title listed in case you don’t recognise it from the jumbled lyric!):

“Last night I dreamt of some petrol” – La Isla Bonita, Madonna

“The girl with colitis walks by” – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, The Beatles

“I miss you like gravy” – Miss you like Crazy, Natalie Cole

“Don’t go Jason Waterfall” – Waterfalls, TLC

“Jesus, Whoa-oh” – Feed the World, Band Aid

“Sellotape, Sellotape, Sellotape” – Sail Away, Enya

“My love has got no money, he’s got his dungarees” – Freed from Desire, Gala

“The cross-eyed bear that you gave to me” – You oughta know, Alanis Morrissette

“Your voice is soft like submarine” – Jolene, Dolly Parton

“Messing in the bathroom” – Message in a bottle, The Police

“Making love with a seagull” – Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie

“I elongated my left thumb” – Cornerstone, Arctic Monkeys

“God loves Alan Turing” – Same Love, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

“Dance then, wherever you may be; I am The Lord of the dance settee” – Lord of the Dance, Sydney Carter

“Cherry pie, cherry pie, poker face” – Poker Face, Lady Gaga

“You’re gonna be the one at Sainsbury’s” – Wonderwall, Oasis

*And of course - “Grant control to Megatron” or “Clown control to Mao Tse Tung” – Space Oddity, David Bowie

If this list leaves you worrying about your own listening skills then you can visit The Clerks’ website  and try out a series of tests.

You can catch Tales from Babel: Musical Adventures in the Science of Hearing across the UK from October 8^th 2013.

This week the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to a trio of researchers whose work unravelled the mystery of how cells transport molecules. Randy Schekman, James Rothman and Thomas Südhof worked on vesicles, the membrane-bound sacks that act as parcels for delivery of molecules such as insulin and neurotransmitters.

The above image is a computer graphic showing vesicle transport at the Golgi apparatus of a eukaryotic cell. The images was produced by Dr Mhairi Towler and Janice Aitken of the University of Dundee, as part of a joint project to look at the use of animation in lectures on cell biology, and as an interactive online teaching aid.

Different vesicles have different functions depending on the molecules they contain. The Golgi apparatus (or Golgi body) is an organelle that is responsible for sorting proteins and lipids by packaging them into vesicles and ensuring they are delivered to the correct place in the cell. 

Dr Towler met Aitken while studying on the Learning, Teaching & Assessing Module, part of the Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education at University of Dundee. During discussions about how to make large group lectures more engaging for students, they identified the potential for collaboration.

Dr Towler was interested in the partnership as a way of bringing her lectures to life. One of her goals was to use computer graphics to help show the 3D nature of the interactions of different parts of cellular machinery that can be hard using 2D static images.

Aitken comes from a background of digital art and design and was looking at how those skills could be used to enhance learning and engagement. She involved a small group of animation students in the project to give them the experience of working with a scientific visualisation.

“Having carried out a PhD and postdoctoral research position in the area of membrane traffic, I was delighted to hear about this years Nobel prize winners” says Dr Towler, whose career took a change of course after the collaboration with Aitken.  ”Seeing a gap in the market for scientific communication I have gone on to re-train in animation and launched my own company Vivomotion in 2012″. The company specialises in creating animations for scientific communication.

This vibrant image wouldn’t look out of place on the wall of a modern art gallery, but the true nature of it might surprise you.

Far from being the result of a vivid paint palette, or an energetic collage, this image is actually a polarised light micrograph of crystals of urea, taken by Spike Walker.

If you’re not familiar with urea, it’s the waste product produced in the liver to remove toxic ammonia from the body. Urea travels in the blood to the kidneys where it is excreted via the bladder in the urine. In fact it’s the major organic component of human urine.

This image is a reminder that sometimes taking a looking at things from a different angle can help you find beauty in the most unexpected places!

It is clearly not an elephant, but it turns out not to be a shrew either. This happy chap presumably got its name because somebody thought it amusing that a small (a few centimetres long at most), rodent-like creature shared its characteristic long nose with a very much larger animal. But what type of creature is it?

Scientifically classifying the elephant shrew has been difficult: Wikipedia has a long list of the species it has been grouped with over the years, including shrews and hedgehogs, hoofed animals, and hares and rabbits (admittedly, the elephant shrew’s relatively long legs do mean that it hops about like a bunny). But it turns out that that nose is indeed rather like an elephant’s trunk and can be moved around to help the animal feed. In fact, elephant shrews are today considered to be much more closely related to elephants (and some other mammals including aardvarks and sea cows) than those other species.

Peter Mazell was an Irish artist working in London in the late 18th century. Working from paintings by other artists, he made engravings of landscapes and flowers to illustrate natural history books, and did several exotic animals too, many of which can be seen on Wellcome Images. As well as this elephant shrew, he engraved a camel, a rhinoceros, a baboon, a flying squirrel and a number of African birds. His is not the only engraving of an elephant shrew on Wellcome Images, however: there’s also this specimen, with a shorter snout but no less charm….

Image credits: Wellcome Library, London

Wellcome Images is one of the world’s richest and most unusual collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. All our images are available in digital form and many are free to use non-commercially under the terms of a Creative Commons licence.

This week’s image of the week is a guest post by Dr Matthieu Chavent, a post-doctoral researcher funded by the Wellcome Trust. His image shows a model of lipid motion in a cell membrane – and it recently won the Biophysical Society Art of Science Image Contest 2014. Here he explains how his work membrane systems resulted in this stunning image that wouldn’t look out of place in an art gallery…

The cell membrane plays a central role in maintaining the integrity of the cell. It defines the interior of the cell and it is also the medium by which molecules need pass between the external environment and the interior of the cell.

The cell membrane is a complex and crowded environment with different types of molecules such as lipids and proteins, which are in a dynamic equilibrium. It is therefore important to understand how these molecules interact in order to comprehend key biological phenomena such as virus entry into a cell or drug permeation through cell membranes.

Cell membranes also play a key role in signalling between and within cells. An improved molecular understanding of the dynamic organization of cell membranes will help to develop new strategies to fight against important diseases such as viral infections or cancers.

In order to try to better understand the membrane behaviour, it is possible to develop simplified theoretical models mimicking a small part of this membrane.

Using computer simulations, we can then ‘animate’ these models to see how the constituents of the membrane interact. Analysing these dynamic models can be very challenging, so it is also important to develop new ways of examining such systems.

Inspired by approaches in physics to model wind or ocean currents, we have developed a new way to display collective movements of lipids molecules constituting the membrane.

The visualization above shows how we can display the flow-like movements of lipids as nano-vortices. We hope that this visualization will help people better understand the dynamics of the membrane and give new ideas to other researchers.

Image credit: Dr Matthieu Chavent

Dr Matthieu Chavent works in Mark Sansom’s group in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Oxford, and his main research focus is on large membrane systems analysis and protein-membrane interaction to study cell signalling. You can find out more information about this work here.

This unusual image is part of the Parasite Project by final year London College of Fashion student, Katie May Boyd. Katie May is the artist in residence at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology at the University of Glasgow and has designed a series of costumes inspired by research at the centre into the life cycle of the malaria parasite.

This costume, Rupture of the Liver Cell, represents the rupture of parasite-filled liver cells, an event which takes the body from the ‘silent stage’ of malaria infection to the start of feverish flu-like symptoms. During the performance, the dress starts as a ball shape and ruptures merozoites (the parasites), which are represented by the smaller red balls.

Other features include the rag-rug surface of the costume which represents a liver cell, where after 1 week each parasite has replicated itself up to 40,000 times. The spiralling red fabric and movement of the stretch suit depicts the multiplying merozoites travelling around the blood stream.

“The costumes were developed with teaching in mind, being able to visually echo on a huge scale the beautiful but terrible processes that go on microscopically inside our bodies,” says Katie May. Many different fabrics and techniques were used to achieve wearable representations of these moments, creating a visual and tactile method of learning.”

The Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology (WTCMP) is a research Centre aiming to make a large impact on parasitic diseases by gaining understanding of basic processes in parasites and exploiting them to develop new approaches to disease control.

Katie May is exhibiting her work on Science Sunday at the Glasgow Science Festival on Sunday 15th June.

This week’s image is an illustration showing white magnolia blossom and its seed pod, taken from a book by Mark Catesby. The title of this beautiful book is proportionate to the length of time and labour involved in its making – consisting of no less than 79 words!

Here it is in full:

“The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects and plants: particularly the forest-trees, shrubs, and other plants, not hitherto described, or very incorrectly figured by authors. Together with their descriptions in English and French. To which are added observations on the air, soil, and waters: with remarks upon agriculture, grain, pulse, roots, &c. To the whole, is prefixed a new and correct map of the countries treated of.”

Mark Catesby was an English naturalist with an insatiable curiosity about nature. This book documents the flora and fauna that he saw on a four-year trip to the south-eastern United States and the Caribbean. It took him seventeen years to prepare and its exquisite folio-sized colour plates were the first to be used in natural history books.

Visitors to Wellcome Collection can see the book in a newly opened exhibition entitled An Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition. The show offers an eclectic alphabet mediated through strange and wonderful objects drawn from Henry Wellcome’s collection and contemporary artworks, from A for Acts of Faith to Z for Zoonoses.

Whist offering intriguing medical artefacts, paintings, photographs and sculptures for consideration, the exhibition also calls for contributions from visitors. Each letter has both objects and an activity associated with it. Catesby’s book represents N for Natural Curiosity and it is accompanied by an invitation for visitors to discover their inner naturalist by sharing weird and delightful things they’ve seen in nature.

Tagging your contributions “#HumanNature” and sharing them via Instagram or Twitter will allow us to find them and display them in the gallery to foster natural curiosity in others.

The free exhibition, Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition, is now open to visitors at the Wellcome Collection. Find out about more objects for consideration and opportunities for contribution and see what others are sharing by following the hashtag “#HumanCondition” on social media.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London

Wellcome Images is one of the world’s richest and most unusual collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. Over 100,000 high resolution images from our historical collections are now free to use under the Creative Commons-Attribution only (CC-BY) licence.

Filed under: Science Art, Wellcome Collection, Wellcome Featured Image, Wellcome Images Tagged: image of the week

As the summer sunshine tempts us outdoors, have a look at this varied selection of Wellcome-supported events (both indoors and out!) and take your pick for July. We’ve got everything from theatre in the back of a moving ambulance, to talks about how the immune system can fight against cancer. Let your eyes peruse our listings and then get out and experience the events themselves. 

Films and performances

The Man Whose Mind Exploded – Picture House cinemas – out 1st July
Robbed by anterograde amnesia of his capacity to create new memories, Drako Zarharzar lives almost entirely in the present. Adorning every surface in his flat are countless mementos and scribbled-on pieces of paper, from which he pieces together his daily existence. The film, funded by a People Award, will be screened in Picture House cinemas across the UK on 1st July, including Stratford London, Norwich, and Edinburgh.

The Kindness of Strangers – Southwark Playhouse – 1st-12th July
Every 15 seconds in the UK, someone dials 999. Elite teams of professionals are trained to deal with a huge spectrum of human trauma. Paramedics provide a 24-hour service as a first point of contact for the NHS. The Kindness of Strangers is a celebration of their stories. In a unique theatrical experience, The Kindness of Strangers puts audience members in the position of paramedics on their first day on the job. They will travel in the back of a moving ambulance around the city, making decisions about routes, methods of care and ultimately taking responsibility for a service that in these austere times is under immense pressure.

Talks

Breast Cancer Risk: Facts, Fictions, and the Future – UCL – 3rd July
From abortion to aerosols, and breastfeeding to broccoli, there are a bewildering number of claims about what can increase or decrease a person’s risk of breast cancer. A panel of experts will separate the fact and the fiction, and discuss how epigenetics might change the future of breast cancer. The event is organised by the Progress Education Trust. To reserve your free place, RSVP to sstarr@progress.org.uk.

AMD Day – Westminster – 5th July
This one-day event brings together charities, researchers, healthcare professionals and people with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) to interact and hear first-hand the progress being made in world-leading research into gene and stem cell therapies to treat different forms of macular degeneration and be able to discuss the future of research.

Packed Lunch: Immune to Cancer – Wellcome Collection, London – 23^rd July, 1-2pm (speech to text)
Cancer and cancer treatment can weaken the immune system, but the immune system might also be a powerful tool in treating cancer. Immunobiologist Adrian Hayday will be in conversation about his latest research on a novel form of immune response in this new era of cancer therapies.

Exhibitions

Live Science – Science Museum – until 4th July
Can you find your way out of a virtual maze? You’ll be shown the route once, but then it’s up to you to make it out on your own! Help researchers from Sheffield University and the Institute of Education to find out how we navigate new spaces and retrace unfamiliar routes in a project where real scientists come into the Science Museum to carry out their research using Museum visitors as volunteers.

Dead Mother – Danielle Arnaud, Kennington – until 6th July
This exhibition, supported by a Small Arts Award, looks at the nature of the long-term effects of a mother’s death in adolescence. A series of film and photographic outcomes have been created based upon interviews with women at different stages in their lives who have a shared experience of their own mother’s death.
6th July 4pm – Anne Brodie will be in conversation with her sister GP Dr Catriona Brodie and Curator Dr Caterina Albano.

The Heart & Lung Repair Shop – Kings Mall, Hammersmith – 7th-20th July

This summer an empty retail unit in Hammersmith’s Kings Mall will be temporarily transformed into The Heart & Lung Repair Shop. Researchers from Imperial College London have collaborated with designers and artists, to create a visually captivating space with interactive multi-sensory experiences which showcase bioengineered organs, broken hearts that can heal themselves and amazing ways to stop cells from ageing.
Lunchtime Science Sessions – 7th-18th July, 1-2pm: short talks and demos from top scientists.
Singing for Breathing Workshops – 8th & 15th July, 11am-12pm: Improve your lung health with relaxation techniques and vocal exercises.
The Future of Heart and Lung Repair Debates – 10th & 17th July, 6-7.30pm:Some of the top scientists from the National Heart and Lung Institute discuss cutting edge treatments such as stem cell therapies and bioengineered organs.

An Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition – Wellcome Collection, London – until 12^th October
From Acts of Faith to Zoonoses, we present An Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition. Using Henry Wellcome’s strange and wonderful collection of objects (from medical artefacts and paintings to photography and sculpture), we invite you to consider: what is the human condition?
Free exhibition that warmly invites visitor interaction – leave your own human traces in the gallery itself or in the virtual world: On Twitter or Instagram by tagging with #HumanCondition

Making Colour – National Gallery – until 7th September
From lapis lazuli and cobalt blue, to dazzling gold and silver – travel through the story of colour with the first exhibition of its kind in the UK. Learn about the surprising materials used to create pigments and the incredible journeys made by artists in their pursuit of new hues. The exhibition is supported by a People Award and is complemented by an interactive display that demonstrates how we perceive and register colour.

Festivals

Latitude Festival – Suffolk – 17th-20th July
A series of debates will look at this year’s festival theme of Secrets & Lies through the lens of science and the human body and mind, discussing everything from smart drugs to the pathology of lying, guilty feelings and false memory.
Are You Who You Think You Are? – 18th July, 2-3pm: Professor Paul Dolan will lead an interactive session allowing you to focus in on your mistaken projections, desires and beliefs and understand what they are really about.
Giving the Right Signals – Just what is it you are trying to say? – 18th July, 4.30-6.30pm: What is the ‘truth’ about lying? Professor Sophie Scott, Forensic Psychologist Kerry Daynes and Tom Ziessen explore how we can differentiate truth from lies. There will also be a video booth in the Faraway Forest where you can answer a difficult question with a truth or a lie.
How Fit is Your Brain? – 19th July 11am-12pm: Professor Barbara Sahakian and Dr Robin Carhatt-Harris will discuss the effects of MDMA and psychotropic drugs on brain function.
Guilty? (Got No Rhythm) – 19th July 12.30-1.30pm: We all strive towards positive feelings, but negative feelings are far more inevitable and much less explored. Dr Roland Zahn, Dr Geoff Warburton and Professor Robin Choudhury present a cutting-edge picture of how such feelings and responses affect the brain.
Being Human: Exploring your sense of self – 19th July 2-3pm: travel deep in to your sense of self and gain a deeper understanding of the limits of being human with a panel presenting work on memory and hallucinations, how we change to suit our surroundings, and how to persuade the mind to accept an artificial limb.
Are You Putting Yourself At Risk or Taking an Interesting Chance? Putting numbers on uncertainty – 19th July 5-6pm: Riding without a helmet. Eating red meat. Recreational base-jumping.Professor David Spiegelhalter OBE shows us how to weigh up the amount of risk you’re prepared to take in each case, and gives you the facts and stats to make your own decisions.
Should You Follow Your Gut? – 20th July 12.30-1.30pm: Could there a second brain in your gut, a centre as important as the brain for influencing mood and behaviour? Dr Sandrine Thuret and Dr Morgaine Gaye discuss the truth about the effects that food has on your brain and body.
False Memory Archive – 20th July 1.45-3.15pm: Drawing upon fascinating research demonstrating our susceptibility to false memories, theFalse Memory Archive features contemporary artworks and a unique collection of vivid personal accounts of things that never really happened.
Guerrilla Science – 18th July 5-6pm: Zoe Cormier talks about taking science to the places you least expect, including building mazes in the Hell Field of Glastonbury, turning 14-storey office blocks into theatrical installations, and hosting life drawing classes in the bowels of Battersea Power Station.
Secrets & Freedom: Can we have both? – 19th July 12-1pm: Should we advocate for medical data sharing to improve care? Elizabeth Pisani joins Shami Chakrabarti, Rob Evans and Emma Carr in a panel discussion.
A Journey Round My Skull – 19th July 12.20-1.20pm: A tale of a passionate and painful love affair told by a neurosurgeon. Using wireless headphones, this show operates on the ears as well as the heart to dissect our most intimate relationships.
The Secret Life of Me and You – 19th July 3-4pm: part live performance, part art installation, this is a stunning scrapbook of storytelling inspired by Lowri Evans’experience of working with people with dementia, conversations with strangers and a long distance relationship that spanned the UK and Brazil.
Richard Wiseman – 18th July 10.20-11.20pm: Explore the truth about sleeping and dreaming and learn about Richard’s mass-participation experiments and the world’s largest archive of dream reports.

Coming up – Edinburgh International Book Festival – 9th-25th August
The Festival is hosting a series of events exploring the experience of inner voices from our own inner monologues, to the voices that a novelist creates, from those who believe the voice they hear is an epiphany, to those whose lives are dominated by multiple voices inside their consciousness.

Online

#Hooked on music
The #hookedonmusic game, exploring musical memory, has now launched. By playing, you will be exploring the science of songs and helping scientists unlock what makes music catchy. Armed with this knowledge, scientists can devise ‘smarter musical thumbnails’ to help people remember it and to form new memories for those listening to the song for the first time. Erinma Ochu, involved in the game’s development, is a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow.

Colliding Worlds
Hear about the extraordinary research of Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, in the thought-provoking context of a conversation with curator and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Still on…

False Memory Archive – The Freud Museum, London – 11th June-3rd August
The exhibition based around personal accounts of things that never happened features new site-specific works made at the museum.
Carroll/Fletcher Space – 6th June-12th July: A parallel exhibition featuring a series of works developed by Hopwood in collaboration with experimental psychologists, members of the public and a cast of fictional characters.

Phytology exhibition – Bethnal Green Nature Reserve
Phytology is part physic garden, part natural laboratory and part pharmacy, and is a year-long collaboration with artists and botanists, exploring the medicinal properties of wild plants and weeds common to derelict urban environments.

Uluzuzulalia: The interactive children’s theatre performance continues:
20th July – ArtsDepot, London

There are over 100,000 different species of wasp on Earth and the majority of these are parasitic. Indeed for almost every pest insect, there is at least one wasp species that preys on it or acts as a parasite to it. This helps naturally control the numbers of pests.

Most of us will be familiar with the yellow and black stripes of the common wasp, but perhaps the most striking species is that of the ruby-tailed wasp, as pictured above. Its distinctive colours make it a truly remarkable sight with the head and thorax having a metallic blue-green, almost turquoise appearance whilst the rear half is a breathtakingly rich red. It is this colour that gives this wasp its name.

The image above was taken using a microscope while the wasp was in its distinguishing defensive position – their concave body shape allows them to roll up (much like hedgehogs do) when threatened. The photographer, Spike Walker, used two electronic flashes to highlight the vibrant colours of the wasp.

Ruby-tailed wasps are also known as “cuckoo wasps” because they lay their eggs in the nests of other wasps and bees. When hatched, their larvae then feast on the newborn larvae of their hosts.

Some species of ruby-tail are now very rare in Britain and are listed as ‘nationally scarce’.

Image credit: Spike Walker, Wellcome Images

Wellcome Images is one of the world’s richest and most unusual collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. Over 100,000 high resolution images from our historical collections are now free to use under the Creative Commons-Attribution only (CC-BY) licence.