TEDBlog November, 2011 Archive
19 November 2011
Today: Watch TEDYouth live online!
Today, Nov. 19, 1-5pm Eastern: TEDYouth’s speaker lineup includes a MythBuster, an oceanographer turned viral video star, the “Science Babe,” and a roboticist who studies flying geckos — plus poets, musicmakers, geeks and writers — all giving short TED-style talks for young people.
And you can watch it live for free online — in English and Spanish!
The theme for TEDYouth is “Play, Learn, Build and Share.” Watch and be inspired and challenged by these passionate speakers, who’ll inspire creativity, share mind-shifting stories, and engage the in-person and virtual audience in ways that every student deserves.
Watch the TEDYouth livestream in English >>
Ver TEDYouth en español en linea >>
Speaker lineup:
Adam Savage is a maker of things, building everything from spaceships to buddhas, from puppets to rifles, from sculptures to toys. He’s best known for his role as co-host of the TV show MythBusters on the Discovery Channel. (Watch his talk on TED.com)
(more…)
18 November 2011
This weekend! Top 6 things to know about TEDxYouthDay
Crossposted from the TEDx Tumblr:
An extraordinary online event for youth (and adults) — is happening around the world and on the web this weekend:
TEDxYouthDay — a collection of nearly 100 different TEDx events for young people around the world — kicks off tomorrow, November 19, and runs through Monday, November 21.
Live events will happen in 42 countries, with 47 different livestreams to watch in many languages.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. The TEDxYouthDay website will be hosting 47 livestreaming events starting from 8:30 AM GMT from Jordan, Germany, Tunisia, the United States and more.
2. Over 70 communities around the world will be watching TEDxYouthDay streams at a local viewing party.
3. Young people around the world will answer the question “What can you share with the world?” in a short video, or through Twitter using the #TEDxYouthShare hashtag.
4. As part of this weekend, TED is hosting our own event for youth: TEDYouth at the TimesCenter in NYC with the theme “Play, Learn, Build & Share.” On Saturday, more than 400 young people will convene for talks from Adam Savage, David Gallo, Lemon Anderson, Steve Stoute and more. Spaces are sold out, but you can watch the event live, with a Spanish-language stream available.
5. Over 70 young people around the world have been designated as TEDxYouthDay Reporters. They will report on their experiences via Twitter, Facebook and, later, on the TEDx blog.
6. Each event will show a special TEDxYouthDay video, created with crowd-sourced submissions of young people around the world. Through the Open Translation Project, subtitles for this video have been translated into five languages and counting.
Follow the #TEDxYouth hashtag on Twitter, and tune in to all the TEDxYouthDay livestreams, starting live Saturday, November 19, at 8:30am GMT, on the TEDxYouthDay website »
18 November 2011
Science versus wonder? Robin Ince on TED.com
Does science ruin the magic of life? In this grumpy but charming monologue, Robin Ince makes the argument against. The more we learn about the astonishing behavior of the universe — the more we stand in awe. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Duration: 8:38.)
Watch Robin Ince’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.
18 November 2011
Fellows Friday with Monika Bulaj
In your photography and writing, one of your main themes is to explore the “borders of monotheism.” What does that mean?
I often focus on Judaism, Christianity (mainly Eastern Christianity) and Islam, to explore areas where the sacred crosses borders. I show the similarities between different religions and dogmas. This exploration naturally transfers into mysticism, where the borders are less definite. I like to show, for example, the common threads between Sufism (a Muslim sect) and Hasidism (a Jewish sect). They have the same concentration of energy, the same passion to explore meditation and prayer.
I also like to show the places where people of different religions — for example Egypt — frequent the same holy places. We are much more accustomed to seeing the conflicts, the violence, the extremism — and we don’t see the common ground that exists. For me, it’s important to explore these places and to show them to the world.
But my interest is really in the human beings themselves, in exploring human relationships, and in covering underreported topics. I also work a lot on nomadism, or rather the end of nomadism, and the problems nomads face. I work with the Gypsies in Europe, publishing a lot about the problems they are having in Eastern Europe and Italy. I also cover nomads in Afghanistan and Tibet.
18 November 2011
TEDYouth livestreaming in Spanish!
Tomorrow TEDYouth, as part of the global TEDxYouthDay, will be live-streamed from New York. As part of the event all the talks will be interpreted into Spanish in real time. To view the event in Spanish, go to the TEDxYouthDay website from 1-5pm Eastern time and click on the “TEDYouth (Español)” stream, which will be on the right side of the page.
Or go direct to livestream.com/tedyouthespanol >>
17 November 2011
Experiments that hint of longer lives: Cynthia Kenyon on TED.com
What controls aging? Biochemist Cynthia Kenyon has found a simple genetic mutation that can double the lifespan of a simple worm, C. Elegans. The lessons from that discovery, and others, are pointing to how we might one day significantly extend youthful human life. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburg, Scotland. Duration: 16:24)
PLUS: Tonight, watch an ABC News segment that explores Cynthia Kenyon’s work! On ABC World News tonight >>
Watch Cynthia Kenyon’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.
14 November 2011
Travels in Space, Time & Imagination at the TEDSalon in London
“Travels in Space, Time & Imagination” was the theme of the fifth TEDSalon in London, which took place on Thursday 10 November and played to a packed house.
“Journeys can be of many sorts,” TED European director, and the evening’s host, Bruno Giussani said, opening the Salon. And indeed the program was eclectic, featuring nine speakers, two performers, a fireside chat and the unveiling of the new issue of design mind magazine — published by partner frog and fully devoted to TEDGlobal 2011. The audience was also very diverse: 250 attendees gathered at the Unicorn Theatre from all over the UK and from several European countries.
The latest work of the opening speaker, Taryn Simon, is on show (until the end of the year) at the Tate Modern in London and at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Titled “A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters,” it is a remarkably insightful investigation into the nature of genealogy and the way our lives are shaped by the interplay of many different forces. Simon spoke at TEDGlobal (see her TEDTalk) three years ago, and has been described by the Observer as “the most important photographer of her generation.” Through powerful and surprising storytelling, she took the audience on a narrated tour of her new work, from India (where we met Chandraban, the man who gives the title to the work, who walked one day into an Indian land registry office to find that he had been declared dead, at the instigation of members of his family who wanted to appropriate his land) to Kenyan healers, modern China, a Ukranian orphanage, occupied Poland, and more.
Mark Rock was next. The founder of Audioboo and creator of a technology that makes it seriously easy to “capture the spoken word,” he believes that the explosion of technology and of online innovation in the last few years has left oral history behind. From the treble of a child’s sadness, to water washing on the shore, an earthquake, or a mother’s voice forever silenced by death, the audience was reminded of the fundamental power of voice, and shown ways to make oral storytelling more permanent.
British soul singer Alice Russell took then the stage, accompanied by guitarist Alex Cowan, for an encore of her TEDGlobal 2011 performance, singing her unique take on “Crazy.”
“There is that other singer, or rather that intriguing pop phenomenon,” said Giussani introducing the next speaker, “a young woman who has gone in four years from absolute anonymity to first-name global recognition.” He was referring to Lady Gaga of course — the topic of Jörg Reckhenrich‘s talk. A German management thinker and artist, Reckhenrich tracked and analized Gaga’s rise and the rules of “Gaganomics.” (Some hints: You gotta have talent, work hard, create a narrative and an emotional impact, and need the ability to orchestrate human relationships.)
Giussani then unveiled the latest issue of design mind magazine, published by frog. The magazine, printed in big format, is rich in articles about TEDGlobal 2011 (of which frog is a partner) and in further explorations of its theme, “The Stuff of Life.” Its cover image is a photo of one of the hundreds of actions around the world prompted by the InsideOut project by JR, the winner of this year’s TED Prize. One of those actions took place in Bastrop, Texas, which was devastated by wildfires — and whose population gathered nonetheless around this artistic project, led by the magazine’s editor Sam Martin, showing strength, resilience and hope. The story is told in this video.
The closing speaker of the first session, Catherine Mayer, Time magazine’s London Bureau Chief, offered in an insightful and witty way her “anatomy of a (new) species” composed of the growing number of people who seem to be living agelessly, as if “the ages of man” had disappeared under the conjunction of higher life expectancy and better socio-economic circumstances. Mayer calls this group — of which she acknowledges she’s part — “amortals.“
The second sessions was opened by neuroscientist Neil Burgess, who tackled the very basic question: “Where did I park my car?” by discussing in details how the brain navigates space and develops virtual “maps” of the locations we have been to. Sensory information from the environment, especially distance and direction to boundaries, captured by place cells and grid cells play a key role in letting us know where we are — or in allowing us to remember where our car is parked, and to find it.
Erik Johansson, a young übertalented Swedish photographer and retoucher, discussed some of his work, which involves the creation of photos that show impossible scenes, but manage to maintain a sense of realism. This “impossible realism” plays on the moment’s hesitation, when seeing his photos, before realizing that while they feel familiar, they have unexpected twists and do not make sense. Photos like this one:
The TEDSalon audience was presented with a copy of The Wiki Man, the just-off-the-presses book by ad guru and TED star Rory Sutherland (see his TEDTalks here and here). Giussani sat down with Sutherland for a conversation about the book — a brilliant pastiche of insight, irreverence and debunking. The often-amusing discussion ranged from behavioral economics (Rory looks forward to the time when Daniel Kahneman’s bus tour will be “overturned by screaming, admiring Japanese school girls”) to the nefarious impact of spreadsheets and from technological innovation to the appropriate age for reading Brave New World.
A glimpse into the future was then provided by Lisa Harouni, the CEO of Digital Forming, which brought along a series of complex 3D-printed objects to make a convincing argument that 3D printing will disrupt the landscape of manufacturing, and will do so soon. As “additive manufacturing” (the technical name) becomes more available and ubiquitous, Harouni said, we will be offered the possibility to download product data from the web, customize it and print locally, instead of shipping the product itself.
Next, Somali archeologist Sada Mire took the audience to the land that she had to flee as a child and where she now heads the Department of Antiquities (when she’s not lecturing in London). Discussing some of her discoveries — cave paintings, ancient writings — she made an impassioned plea for us to start considering cultural heritage as a human right, and culture as an essential building block for reconciliation and healing in countries torn by droughts, wars and ethnic conflicts.
Preston Reed then erupted on stage, and rocked the house with his mindblowing, unique way of playing the acoustic guitar, mixing chord-based grooves and wild polyrhythms with percussive uses of the instrument.
The closing speaker was author and Member of the British Parliament Kwasi Kwarteng, who revisited the hundreds of years and tens of thousands of miles of the British empire, the theme of his recent book Ghosts of Empire. Analyzing how we became the societies that we are today, Kwarteng posited whether the empire was really “nothing more than a series of improvisations conducted by men who had very different ideas about government and administration.”
(Reported by Caitlin Kraft-Buchman. Photos by Robert Leslie. More photos of the event: TED’s Flickr stream. Also, TEDster Nesta Morgan was in the audience and has been drawing the speakers: her sketches are also on Flickr.)
14 November 2011
Different ways of experiencing: Q&A with Aparna Rao
“The Uncle Phone” by Pors & Rao. Photo by Jorge Martín Muñoz.
At TEDGlobal 2011, Aparna Rao showed a glimpse of the high-tech, often humorous art she creates with collaborator Søren Pors. We followed up with the TED Fellow to talk about her artistic approach and projects in progress.
You use some pretty sophisticated technology to bring your creations to life. What’s the most challenging thing you’ve learned, technologically, for a project?
The first thing I should mention is neither Søren nor I have any engineering background, neither is the technology we have used so far very cutting-edge. Most of it existed at least 50 years ago, but that does not make it less challenging to work with. The most important thing for us has been finding the right mentor and collaborators. A very experienced hands-on robotics scientist is mentoring us, and this helps us foresee technical challenges at the outset of a project.
Even though the technologies we use are simple, combining them together with the added constraints of time, budget, customized requirements, etc. usually adds several layers of complexity. We have learned most technical challenges can be overcome, but not without perseverance and belief that it is somehow possible — that we will somehow unearth the resources or find a new perspective to help us unravel the solution. It is always a struggle on some level, but so far we have never given up, even if it means years and years of trying. When we finally crack it, of course, the challenge seems fully worthwhile.
While your artwork is tech-rich, it invites (and often requires) human interaction. What interests you about the interplay between art, people and technology?
We are really curious to see how other people respond to the work — what behavioral mechanisms and thoughts they trigger. It is quite satisfying if other people connect to something we also feel deeply connected to, but of course our personal investment in creating these objects has more selfish motives. Our interest lies mostly in the discovery of the thing or “being” that is inside our head and in creating it as accurately as possible. That is what we obsess about. Technology or ideas of responsiveness are never starting points for us. On the contrary, we often try to limit the use of technology and interaction, and to simplify it as much as possible. We find technology quite tricky to work with; without firm or nuanced control, it can easily distract from the essence of the artwork.
Why do you use humor in your art, and for a given project, how do you decide where to add humor?
Many of the things we do have some kind of humorous side, and we really enjoy that. But again, humor is not a deliberate ingredient in our work. We think of it as one of many facets we hope our works can encapsulate. We like to think different ways of experiencing can co-exist in the same object, and one of them is humor. We want the objects we make to somehow posses the same kind of complexity we experience in the world, but in a very simple form.
What are you working on right now?
We have received a commission from the Metamatic Research Initiative, a nonprofit art foundation in Amsterdam, to do a project we have been wanting to do for a long time. It explores the idea of a small mischievous creature having invaded a TV set, and how that affects the broadcast and the viewer. It is a kind of audiovisual trick-or-treat. We also just completed putting together material for our website (porsandrao.com); it is currently up.
14 November 2011
All about INK 2011: Innovation and knowledge in India
The InK Conference (which stands for Innovation and Knowledge) is run by longtime TEDster Lakshmi Pratury, who co-hosted TEDIndia in 2009. TED’s content partnership agreement with INK allow us to bring great talks to TED.com — like today’s talk from Alexander Tsiaras — and we’re thrilled that the conference is back for a second year.
The 2011 INK Conference is hosted by Lakshmi in beautiful Jaipur, India, on December 8-11, and she’s pulled together an astonishing speaker lineup spanning business, science, technology, nonprofit organizations and the arts.
The theme is “Power of the Journey,” and confirmed speakers include the first woman private space traveler, Anousheh Ansari; oceanographer David Gallo; music conductor Itay Talgam; headmaster Babar Ali; water activist Anupam Mishra; and the chair of UIDAI and co-founder of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani. INK is modeled on TED, and the talks will fit the familiar TED 18-minute format.
Follow speaker news from InK via Twitter >>
Like the InK Conference on Facebook >>
If you want to attend a live TED-like event in India, do consider registering for INK and joining up with thinkers and doers from a wide variety of industries, organizations and countries. There’s more information at www.theinkconference.com. It promises to be a wonderful experience. Stand by for some exciting new talks from a part of the world bursting with innovation, optimism and wisdom.
14 November 2011
Conception to birth — visualized! Alexander Tsiaras on TED.com
Image-maker Alexander Tsiaras shares a powerful medical visualization, showing human development from conception to birth and beyond. (Some graphic images.) (Recorded at the INK Conference, December 2010, in Lavasa, India. Duration: 9:37)
Watch Alexander Tsiaras’ talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.
Find out more about the upcoming INK Conference 2011 >>
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