Photo: Ryan Lash

Kibwe Tavares combines his training as an architect with his love of storytelling and animation to create futuristic 3D animated/live action films with social and political depth, creating incredibly detailed, vivid, and kinetic visual environments to entice audiences. His short film, Robots of Brixton, distributed on the internet, won a special jury prize at Sundance. And his film studio Factory Fifteen will soon release Jonah, about a giant jumping fish in Zanzibar (trailer shown, bottom).

Tell us about Robots of Brixton. 

It’s an event that happened at the start of my childhood. This event helped give the black community a voice, and helped put me in the position as the young black academic that I was when I made it. I thought it was an important story to retell, but I used tools I’d been working with, like character animation and visualization, to retell it so that it wouldn’t be such a stereotypically black project and more accessible to wider audiences.

How do you integrate architecture into your films? 

Normally the city – or whatever the environment the setting is in – becomes very important, because everything happens somewhere. The city almost becomes a secondary character, which I’ll build up or design or exaggerate through my storytelling. The city and the design of the project is really as important as the story for me – almost as much as the story.

Did the spark of inspiration come from the set design or the story idea?

It was the story to start with, and then it was how I would execute that using my skill set. But the style is intrinsic to the story: it’s the stamp that I put on it.

You clearly have a real science-fiction aesthetic.

I’ve got the aesthetic, and I used to be well into manga. As an architect, you’re always thinking about the future, too. You build in narratives that are in the future, because you’re always thinking, “When I design a building, I’m designing it for what happens 10, 15 years into the future.” And when you start looking at the future, it’s hard not to have that kind of science-fiction element.

Congratulations is in order for TED Fellow Jon Gosier. His mobile app, Abayima, has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the Knight News Challenge, which funds innovative projects designed to get information to all corners of the globe.

While smartphones may be the norm in the West, most mobile phone users in the world — about 4 billion of them, to be specific — use simpler phones, often called “feature phones,” that don’t have a lot of storage memory, and can’t be used when a phone signal isn’t available. Abayima is an open-source application that turns a SIM card into a storage device, using every inch of the limited memory available on a standard SIM.

This means that a cheap feature phone can be used as an e-reader, for instance. And that, in locations where communication networks have been compromised or are under surveillance, journalists can communicate with sources safely using good old “sneakernet,” sharing information hand-to-hand via a small SIM chip.

Gosier and the team at Hive Colab tested a pilot of the app during the 2011 elections in Uganda, when text messages were being monitored and blocked, and were encouraged by the results.

Sinema has served in the Arizona state legislature for seven years, while getting her Ph.D. in political science and working hard as a human rights activist and LGBT leader. In fact, Sinema’s election brings with it a first — she will be the first openly bisexual member of Congress.

“We’ve made history, and we’re proud of that,” Sinema told ABCNews.com today. “But what I am interested in is making history by making things better for the people of Arizona’s 9th Congressional District. I’m just humbled and excited to start working for the people of Arizona.”

Tonight, Sinema was recognized by Chelsea Clinton at the Glamour magazine Women of the Year Awards in New York City. In October, the magazine asked Sinema what she thought was the most important issue facing young women today. She answered, “Their right to make personal health care decisions. The Supreme Court is at tipping point and if a liberal jurist retires and a President Romney is in office to appoint a conservative, millions of American women could lose access to birth control and their right to make decisions on what’s best for their health and their family.”

In July, TED Fellow Jimmy Lin and his team discovered a gene mutation that might explain 4-year-old Maya Nieder’s rare developmental disease. After years of frustrating doctors and specialists’ visits, Maya’s family may be close to an answer, thanks to Lin’s brainchild — the Rare Genomics Institute.

Lin began RGI as place for patients with rare diseases to crowdsource funds for genetic testing.
But now, RGI is looking beyond identifying rare diseases and taking a step toward curing uncharted ailments.

RGI has teamed up with Assay Depot, a network of drug researchers attempting to connect pockets of knowledge, to hold the Rare Disease Challenge. This contest aims to further research into treatments, cures and even basic knowledge of unexplored illnesses. Applicants can be researchers, non-profits or advocacy groups and the winner will receive $400,000 from a slew of sponsors to underwrite their research.

“We are amazed by the generosity of so many companies offering their expertise, services, consulting and reagents to help advance rare disease research,” Lin tells PR Newswire, “We hope this gives a boost to rare diseases research and jump starts research in diseases that are otherwise not studied.”

The Rare Disease Challenge began accepting submissions on October 15, and will continue to until December 15. May treatment for Maya Nieder and others like her not be too far off.

TED2013’s tagline is: “The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered.” And this year’s class of TED Fellows will be representing all three. The TED Fellows program brings together young innovators from around the globe, all with insightful, bold ideas that have the potential to influence our world. In addition to attending TED2013, the Fellows will go to a preconference boot camp full of advice for spreading their ideas far and wide, and get mentoring from the larger TED community.

The TED Fellows program received more than 1200 applications this year, which made selecting this class no easy task. After the jump, meet the twenty 2013 TED Fellows and the twelve Senior Fellows, chosen from amongst last year’s incredible class.

TED2013 Fellows

 Alicia Eggert (USA) - Interdisciplinary artist
American interdisciplinary artist whose work primarily takes the form of kinetic, electronic and interactive sculpture. The piece above is made out of 30 clocks whose hands align to spell out the word “Eternity.”

Antonio Torres (Mexico) – Architect + naturalist
Mexican artist, architect and co-founder of The Bittertang Farm, a small design farm that explores expressions and sensations through media and architecture.

Baile Zhang (China | Singapore) – Electrical engineer
Chinese electrical engineer and physicist who has created the first macroscopic invisibility cloak.

Ben Burke (USA) – Writer, performer + designer
American interdisciplinary artist, puppeteer, junkyard tinkerer and co-founder of Apocalypse Puppet Theater and the Stars & Garters Theater Company.

Christine Sun Kim (USA) – Sound artist + composer
Korean-American artist and educator who uses the medium of sound through technology to investigate and rationalize her relationship with the auditory. Her work is all the more fascinating considering that she is deaf.

Cyrus Kaibru (Kenya) – Found object artist
Kenyan self-taught painter and sculptor who primarily uses junk materials to make his works, including the striking eyewear above.

David Lang (USA) – Maker + writer
American co-founder of OpenROV, a community of DIY ocean explorers and developers of low-cost, open-source underwater robots.

Edwyn “Eddie” Huang (USA | Taiwan) – Writer, host + chef
Taiwanese-American owner and head chef of Baohaus in NYC, a Taiwanese street-food restaurant inspired by youth culture and hip hop.

Jinha Lee (South Korea) – Inventor + interaction researcher
South Korean inventor and interaction researcher who explores new ways to leverage physical space and objects to interface with the digital world.

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Kibwe Tavares (UK) – Filmmaker + architect
British filmmaker and co-founder of Factory Fifteen, a film and animation studio exploring new methods of visual storytelling.

Kitra Cahana (Canada) – Photographer
Canadian photographer who has spent the past three years researching and documenting nomadic youth identities in the United States.

Louisa Preston (UK) – Astrobiologist
British astrobiologist and planetary geologist studying life in Earth’s most extreme environments, hoping to someday find life on Mars.

Miriah Meyer (USA) – Science visualization designer
American designer who creates interactive visualization systems that help scientists make sense of complex data.

Mohammad Herzallah (Palestine)- Neuroscientist
Founder of the Palestinian Neuroscience Initiative, working to create an infrastructure for neuroscience research and to train the next generation of neuroscientists in Palestine.

Negin Farsad (USA | Iran) – Comedian + filmmaker
Iranian-American stand-up comedian and filmmaker currently working on “The Muslims are Coming!”, a film that follows Muslim-American comedians on the road as they perform, meet locals and counter Islamophobia.

Paul Wicks (UK) – Medical architect
British medical entrepreneur and lead scientist for PatientsLikeMe, an online community allowing people living with medical conditions to track their illnesses, share their experiences and contribute to research.

Renee Hlozek (South Africa| | USA) – Cosmologist
South African cosmologist working to better understand the initial conditions of the universe – the tiny fluctuations that grew to be the large structures we see today, such as galaxies.

Ryan Holladay (USA) – Musical artist
American artist and co-founder of BLUEBRAIN, a music and technology duo creating site-specific sound installations, interactive concerts and GPS-based compositions for sites across the country

Safwat Saleem (Pakistan | USA) – Graphic designer + satirist
Pakistani graphic designer, filmmaker and artist who uses humor to tell stories of people (and creatures) who have the odds stacked against them.

Shivani Siroya (USA | India) – Mobile finance entrepreneur
Indian-American founder and CEO of InVenture, a mobile technology company creating a text-messaging platform that provides credit scores and accounting tools to anyone with a mobile phone.

Tunde Jegede (Nigeria | UK) – Composer
UK-based composer, producer, cellist and kora (African harp) player who fuses Western classical music with African traditions.

2013 TED Senior Fellows

Julie Freeman (UK) – Artist
UK based artist combining science, technology, and natural systems, in order to create work that questions how we translate nature.

Ayah Bdeir (Lebanon | US) – Engineer + artist
Lebanese artist, inventor and founder of littleBits, an open-source system of pre-assembled circuits that snap together with magnets — making learning about electronics fun, easy and creative.

Asha de Vos (Sri Lanka) – Blue whale scientist
Sri Lankan cetologist, oceanographer, and Ph.D candidate studying the unique and unusual population of non-migrating blue whales found only in the Northern Indian Ocean

Camille Seaman (US) – Polar photographer
Native American photographer whose work captures the harsh beauty of remote Arctic landscapes.

Genevieve von Petzinger (Canada) – Cave art researcher
Canadian doctoral candidate studying ancient geometric signs from the Ice Age.

Lucianne Walkowicz (US) – Stellar astronomer
Postdoctoral fellow studying the effects of stellar activity on exoplanets with the Kepler Mission.

Greg Gage (US) – DIY neuroscientist
DIY neuroscientist and co-founder of Backyard Brains, an organization teaching kids neuroscience through experiments with robotic control of ordinary cockroaches.

Kaustuv de Biswas (India | US) – Digital community builder
Indian design entrepreneur building Sunglass, a cloud-based 3D platform that enables artists and engineers to build things together, regardless of location or device.

Boniface Mwangi (Kenya) – Photo activist
Kenyan photojournalist and founder of Picha Mtaani, a youth-led national reconciliation initiative in Kenya, and Pawa254, a collaborative space for creatives in Nairobi.

Myshkin Ingawale (India) – Medical device innovator
Founder of Biosense Technologies, an Indian medical device company that has created a low-cost instrument that tests for anemia using light, without the need to draw blood.

Angelo Vermeulen (Belgium) – Artist + scientist
Visual artist, biologist, space researcher and community organiser who creates large-scale collaborative art installations. Currently crew commander of the NASA-funded HI-SEAS Mars simulation in Hawaii.

Lars Jan (US) – Director + media artist
Founder of Early Morning Opera, a genre-bending art lab creating works that chart constellations of ideas using technically innovative live performance, as well as through traditional and emerging media.

“This is my brain cancer. It isn’t nice,” says Salvatore Iaconesi, the engineer, artist and TED Fellow who recently opened up his medical files to the world, crowdsourcing cures of the medical type as well as those for the soul. In this just-released talk from TEDxTransmedia, Iaconesi explains why he made the decision to release his records via his website — to maintain his sense of humanity.

“Your life really does change. It becomes a procedure,” says Iaconesi in this powerful talk. “You cease to exist because you become a patient. In more than one way, you’re not a human being any more. You’re replaced by your clinical records. Yes, those records are talking about you, but they’re really not talking about you. They talk about some of your body parameters, but their language is different than the language of human beings.”

In this talk, Iaconesi outlines the staggering results of reaching out to the world for cures: 600 poems, 35 videos, 15,000 email conversations and counting. The New Scientist recently created a gallery of some of the artistic “cures” that Iaconesi has received, including a sculpture of his brain tumor created in Second Life by artist Patrick Lichty and a performance piece created by Francesca Fini inspired by the magnets used in brain scanning.

Iaconesi tells The New Scientist that the response from medical professionals has been exciting, too. “I have been able to become an expert in neurosurgery and neurology. Through this kind of complete openness, I could access thousands of people who have provided me with their knowledge, their skills, their testimonies, their life experiences,” he tells the magazine. “Roughly 60 neurologists, neurosurgeons and radiologists contacted me suggesting techniques for surgery and for treatment. They are even talking to each other.”

One of the medical professionals who has been most helpful is TED Fellow Jimmy Lin of the Rare Genomics Institute. As it turns out, Lin is the geneticist who did the first genome sequencing for the very type of brain cancer that Salvatore has, glioblastoma.

Iaconesi recently reached out to Lin with good news — that the latest magnetic resonance imaging shows that the tumor is not growing and that he might be a good candidate for radical surgery. Lin offered to give a second opinion, and has also volunteered to help Iaconesi sequence the genome of his tumor after surgery, in an open source platform.

Overall, Iaconesi says that all the input — artistic, personal and medical — has helped him created his plan for treatment. “It’s a strategy that goes around the world and across thousands of years of culture,” says Iaconesi in his TEDx talk. “No one commiserates with me — no one is sad, and everyone is doing something. And most important of all, everyone involved is really feeling part of the human society. This is a good use for technology.”

For more reading about Iaconesi and the open-sourcing of his cure:

• My open source cure for brain cancer, CNN
• Crowd-sourcing a cure for cancer through the internet, BBC News
• Italian Internet Users Want to Help Heal Cancer, Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paolo
• Thousands of Opinions Can Also Have Risks, Folha de Sao Paolo
• The Story of Salvatore Iaconesi Could Become Law, Wired Italy
• The Cures, written by a friend of Salvatore’s for Huffington Post Healthy Living
• Geeks and Dreamers in Rome Believe in the Future, Italy’s la Reppublica

You’ve accomplished a huge amount for one so young. It probably helped that you grew up surrounded by a family of artists and musicians.

My family were always inclined towards performing and creative arts. My great-grandfather was an ancient music scholar. He wrote many books on music theory. And he was a multi-instrumentalist. He played the violin and an Eastern instrument called the harmonium, and the sarangi. His daughter — my father’s mother — followed in his footsteps and became a performer of Eastern music. She was a stage performer, and also played many instruments. Her brother is a professional storyteller, spoken-word poet, and an actor as well. My father is also a musician and a stage performer. My mother’s an artist as well as a stage performer. My sister, who is three years younger than me, is also a musician, as are my cousins. So everybody does something or the other.

When I was young, it was really difficult to get people to pay attention to me. Whatever I would do, somebody else could do that too. But that really pushed me to try to get better; I always wanted to be on the same level as my cousins. But now I just do it for myself. When I was younger I was much more competitive. I’m very grateful to have had that sort of environment to grow up in because it really helped me develop my work, and work on being a perfectionist. I enjoyed it a lot.

Do you play music with your family?

Not too often anymore. But sometimes I sit down with my uncles, and they play a few things and I play with them, and it’s fun. Mostly I play on my own, because I grew up playing Western classical music. I started playing classical piano at the age of 6. I was always messing around with instruments. My grandmother told my parents that I should get classical music training, and so I starting taking classical piano. I’m still learning.

I picked up guitar when I was 16. It was really different from piano because classical music is very — I wouldn’t call it restrictive, but it has a lot of rules. So when I started playing electric guitar, that really opened up stuff for me. There were no rules: you could do whatever you wanted. That was fun. So now I don’t prefer either style. I love both. I love classical music and other forms of music. I love writing orchestra pieces. That’s my favorite thing to do.

How did you get your first recording contract?

I was 18. I was performing at one of the venues back home, and this person from EMI was there. They liked what I was doing. They said, “Would you like to come and record?” Nobody really does anything that is risky back home. Everybody’s so afraid because most of the musicians are pretty set in their ways. They don’t want to experiment. But EMI offered me a completely different way to work. They said, “We don’t really know what you’re doing and we don’t want to tell you what to do. Just go ahead and do whatever you want.” Which I loved. There was no manager. There was nobody. I was completely alone in the studio with a very, very good engineer, who would allow me to stand on his head and say, “I want it to sound like this, I want to change that.” There was no real producer either. I was in complete control, and I loved that. So for two years I was working on music, on and off — I wasn’t working every day. When I’d get an idea I would go to the studio and start on it. Or when I conceived of a particular sketch of a beat, I’d go to the studio and refine it. I had complete freedom, which I really enjoyed. And that helped me make all my orchestra pieces.

Before this happened, I was actually supposed to go to the Berklee College of Music. I even got an audition. I thought about it for a very long time and ultimately decided not to attend my audition, preferring to stay in Pakistan and record the music, get it out of my system. I’d been studying music for so long, and I had all these ideas that were building up inside, and I needed to get them out. While I was recording, I attended art school at the Indus Valley School of Arts and Architecture, studying illustration and fine art while working on recording my album, Circus in the Sky. I also took a minor in film and I learned how to manage everything for my films that I wanted to make. I didn’t want to waste time.

I’ve been doing art since I was small, so it wasn’t a problem for me to balance my painting and educational work with my music. I would finish everything in school and then go and work in the studio for seven or eight hours, recording my music, then go home and practice. It was a fun time.

Tell us about the different musical styles on Circus in the Sky.

There are 12 pieces on the album: guitar, piano and orchestra pieces. I love writing orchestra pieces, because it’s like a film. You can tell a story with it. With my guitar pieces, people get too wrapped up in the technique. They look at what I’m doing rather than what I’m playing. I’m okay with that, but I’d rather tell something with my music than have people say: “Wow, look at how he’s playing the guitar. That’s so different.” Honestly, it’s not very unique. I learned it from watching Preston Reed. Those who know the percussive style just see it as a variation of what others are doing. But people who are unfamiliar with that style of guitar playing are perhaps awed by it. I don’t really try to focus on technique or what I’m doing. I try to say something with the music.

That’s why I enjoy the orchestra pieces, because nobody sits there and goes, “Wow, look at how the violins are being played, and look at how the clarinets are being played.” They listen to it as a whole. So that’s what I want to do more of. Even my piano pieces, I start to do that. And the album actually tells a story from start to finish. Each piece borrows from the previous one and develops ideas from it — time signatures, rhythmic styles and everything — and it just builds up towards the end. I had quite a lot of fun working on that.

You were trained in classical piano, so how did you learn to write and arrange for orchestra?

Ever since I was small, my teacher always exposed me to orchestral music. Even when we’d talk about Mozart, he would say, “Yes, he was a brilliant piano player, but he wrote for orchestra.” And then we would listen to some of his orchestral pieces. We listened to Beethoven, Schubert. So I love that kind of music, and I love film scores. They amplify and accentuate so many things in film, all the emotions and the scenes.

Was the album well received by the critics in your country?

Oh, it really was well received actually. I’m very grateful that people are responding very well to it. I finished it just before I left for the TEDGlobal Conference — literally a week before. Everything was printed, the cover, the artwork, everything was ready. The final CD was done a week before I left. So it’s only been out for two months, and so far the reception has been very good.

And before that you also recorded a song called “Saeen.” From the video, it looks like you worked with a lot of musicians on it?

That piece was actually an adaptation of a song by a popular Pakistani music group called Junoon. They said, “We’d like you to do something with one of our pieces for our fifth anniversary album.” And I knew that song was really popular back home and in a few countries like Nepal and India. I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to live up to the original, so I just completely changed it and made it into a Middle Eastern orchestral piece. I replaced the vocals with a violin, creating a melody. I play almost every instrument, except for violin, on the recording, but I thought it would be pretty bland to have only me in the film. We decided to get a drum circle, and the violin player and I played in the middle of the drum circle. It was fun.

How many instruments do you play?

I’ve tried a lot of instruments. My main instruments are the piano and the guitar. But I can play the harmonica, the mandolin. I play the harmonium. I do percussion as well. I’m trained on a lot of things. It’s just fun to make sounds. I don’t really know how many instruments I play, but the ones I don’t, I really wish I could. I really, really wish I could play the violin because that’s my favorite instrument in the world. When I was younger I had a choice between the piano or the violin. I picked the piano, but I keep wondering what would have happened if I’d picked the violin.

Well, it’s not too late! You recently were in Florida, for the OneBeat fellowship, weren’t you?

Yes. OneBeat is a new initiative that was founded by the US State Department where they bring together musicians from all over the world for a bit over a month. The tagline for this tour was “32 musicians from 21 countries.” For a full month, we were together every day, and we had a two-week residency in Florida at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Daytona Beach before touring the East Coast for two and a half weeks. It was really cool because we were really cut off from everything else. It was just us and a few guards to keep watch — two weeks where we had to just make music and work on things.

I didn’t sleep much: all the time we’d be making music and working on different ideas and concepts and ideas and working on pieces for the shows that we’d be performing. Initially when we were all getting there, we didn’t know how all of us would gel, because there were musicians from all sorts of genres. There were Turkish musicians playing Turkish jazz and there were electronic musicians, country artists. I was the only classical musician probably.

We didn’t know how all of us would collaborate on something, because everybody was so different. But I remember, I was the first person who arrived, and the very next day I was sitting in one of the studios playing the grand piano. It was a really nice piano, and I was just practicing. And then slowly, one by one, all the musicians started coming in. We really didn’t talk much, we just all sat there. I was playing, then somebody joined me. And then another person walked in and they joined on their instrument. The percussionists walking by, they came in and started playing as well. It got to a point where all 32 of us were in that room, playing, and then the organizers also walked in, and it was a huge jam. It was a really magical moment. All of us were just playing. And we’d pause and let someone solo, and we’d pause again to let someone else solo. And that’s how we got to know each other.

Of all the fellows at TEDGlobal 2012, you seemed like the one the most affected by experience. And I was just wondering what was happening in your mind during that time, and how that’s unfolded in the last months since TEDGlobal.

TED was absolutely amazing. I think it’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had. I’d been watching the TED videos as well. I saw Kaki King’s videos, and I watched a lot of Andrew Bird performing too. It was the one-man orchestra that he did. I watched so much TED, but I didn’t know anything about the Fellows program. So when I got that email it was so surreal to me. I didn’t know something like that was there for people like me. And I didn’t even know I’d be eligible for it. I felt so grateful to be selected.

When I got to TED it was really a dream come true to be there. I love that sort of environment. OneBeat was great, but it was just music. TED is everything. And I love that, because I try to do bits of everything. I try to make my films as well, and music. So to be in that sort of environment was incredible. Everybody does everything, and there was so much to learn. And all the Fellows were amazing too. I don’t know how to describe it. I wish it hadn’t ended. I didn’t want to leave that environment because it fuels, I think, everybody’s creativity. And then, of course, I got to play with Preston Reed, which is something I’ll never forget. He has a particular way of standing — because he has long hair, he has to let the hair down his right side so it doesn’t get in the way of his eyes when he’s playing. And he always sticks his hair down his right shoulder and leans a bit towards his right side to play with his head tilted. It was such a thrill to be sitting onstage with him and watch him do that exact same move before he started playing. It was just amazing.

Has the experience settled into you, and has it informed the way that you have worked since then?

I still wish it hadn’t ended, but I have more time to reflect on it. It really has affected how I work. It’s made me a lot calmer. Before, I thought that my work wouldn’t lead to anything. And I think it’s given me a bit of a boost, because now I feel like I’m on my way to accomplishing something. And I got to be on that stage, which makes me really happy. I want to do more now, but it’s made me believe in myself a bit more.

What are you fantasizing about doing that you haven’t done yet?

What I really want to do is just keep on learning. And thanks to all the opportunities that have opened up with TED, I am in a position to do that — learn things that I normally wouldn’t have been able to. Not just in music; I’ve been in touch with all these people who, if everything works out, allow me to be in a position where I can do things that I thought weren’t possible before. I’ll be able to make more music, more experimental music, more experimental art, meet people who are doing things like that. And even opportunities for music schools — I know that.

You’re an artist and designer primarily concerned with how our bodies interact with the world.

I’m concerned with finding alternatives that challenge the disconnect we have between our bodies and the environment, and the fear that we have of our own bodies. I think ultimately it speaks to our denial of death, our fear of death. Our bodies are essentially our primary reminders that we are mortal –- that we are physical beings. We eat, we defecate, we decay.

Can you tell me the idea behind the Infinity Burial Project?

I became very interested in the relationship between death denial and the fact that death has become harmful to the environment. I think death could provide an opportunity to reconcile all of our energy and resource consumption and pollution. Instead, in the West, at least, we fear death –- a fear which leads us to embalm the body with toxic chemicals.

I wanted to create a project and set of tools that would challenge this by promoting the actual process of and acceptance of decomposition.

But if you’re dead, why does it matter?

By simply living, eating and breathing, our bodies become storehouses of toxins, energy, and resources that are accumulated over a lifetime. Contemporary funeral practices both return those toxins to the environment and, in the case of a “traditional” funeral, increase the toxin load. In the practice of embalming, the body is drained of fluids and replaced with a formaldehyde-based fluid, which preserves the body so that it looks “alive” for open-casket viewing. Meanwhile, the body itself becomes a toxic site, which causes respiratory problems and cancer in funeral personnel.

When a body is cremated, it releases all those toxins into the atmosphere, not to mention the additional energy used –- about 5 kilowatt hours, a tremendous amount. There’s no control over how the toxins then get reintegrated back into the environment -– all the mercury goes into the air, which falls back into the water, which goes into the plant life and the oceans and the fish, and then cycles back into our bodies. And many people think cremation is the most green option. It may be better than some funeral practices, but it’s not really green at all.

Have you found a species of mushrooms that already breaks down human tissue, are you developing one?

I am in the process of training edible mushroom species to break down human tissue –- cultivating them on my own discarded body tissue –- because they are known to remediate some of our environmental toxins. Of course, there’s no single mushroom or cluster of mushrooms that remediates all the toxins involved, but it’s a start. Paul Stamets has proven you can train some mushrooms to grow on any organic material. He has trained them to eat petrochemicals.

How does one train a mushroom?

Although the mushrooms I’m using prefer wood-based food sources, mushrooms will pretty much eat anything. The training process involves introducing different food sources to the mushrooms and then slowly depriving the mushrooms of wood-based substances. One mycologist has even trained mushrooms to eat plastics like Bakelite.

Your spore-embroidered ninja suit, which is in development, is a prototype. So tell us how this works: the corpse will be dressed and buried in the suit? What’s it made of?

The suit is made of a cotton base layer that is overlaid with a crocheted cotton netting. The netting is embedded with mushroom mycelia and spores. The pattern of this crocheted netting is a visual representation of how mushroom mycelia grow.

I’m also working on other delivery mechanisms. One is a second skin made of a nutrient gel, embedded with bacteria and spore-filled capsules.

Are people donating their bodies to you already?

Yes, a number of people have offered to do so. My TED Talk has allowed me to reach a broader audience, and as a result more folks have signed up to become decompinauts. But no formal agreements have been made. I’m exploring what language and legal instruments are needed to allow donations.

What else are you working on now?

I’m planning a workshop on the ins and outs of choosing, then declaring — both legally and socially — one’s desired postmortem corpse-disposal method. The workshop is meant to be educational and facilitate the selection of alternative postmortem options such as the Infinity Burial System.

Do your ideas spring from doing art? Or do they originate from life experience, then find expression in art?

The ideas often develop initially out of a lived experience such as a specific event, physical condition, etc. But then each project expands to become a platform for inquiry about larger issues. The design or product is not the end goal, but rather the beginning of an intentional dialogue.

For example, the MIT FEMA Trailer Project grew out of my work with the City of New Orleans and its soil remediation efforts. We received a single surplus FEMATrailer and converted it into a mobile composting site with a vertical garden, rainwater recycling apparatus, and Permaculture library. We used the trailer transformation as an opportunity to understand and create dialogue about the history of the trailers (via a timeline), their part in the longstanding and entrenched environmental justice issues in the Gulf Coast, and government waste.

In the case of the Infinity Burial Project, the Mushroom Death Suit, the Decompiculture Society, and the alternative postmortem gear are tools in themselves, but are also ways to investigate and create a dialogue around our funeral practices, death denial, and the relationship between our postmortem practices and the environment.

Tell me about the art program at MIT, and how you came to this very interesting intersection of science and art.

The visual arts program at MIT (now called the Program in Art, Culture and Technology) grew out of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies that was founded by Gyorgy Kepes in the 1960s, then later directed by Otto Piene in the spirit of facilitating greater integration of art, technology, and science.

Today, the program is based in the Department of Architecture and directed by curator Ute Meta Bauer. Many of the students and faculty are involved in research-based, transdisciplinary practices that don’t necessarily fit into a typical art or design structure.

I studied psychology and was pre-med as an undergrad, and just prior to entering the program I was involved in social work and social policy research. So when I started to look at art programs, I wanted to be in a place where aesthetic, social, and scientific inquiry could work together.

How has being a TED Fellow changed the way you approach your work?

I’ve been truly inspired by meeting the other Fellows and joining a community of discipline-agnostic game changers. What’s been really illuminating is learning that our methodologies are often interchangeable or transferable -– such as the strategies used to build a community around one’s work. This has imparted a feeling that I no longer operate in an art ghetto, that the definition and reach of my work, the processes, and dialogue are much broader than I realized.

There are many aspiring social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to take their passion and ideas to the next level. What one piece of advice would you give them, based on your own experience and successes?

A friend of mine came up with the phrase “Input thinking, output feeling” — in other words, don’t take things personally, and treat others with sensitivity and empathy. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes about Abraham Lincoln’s legendary empathy, which he exercised both in political strategizing and in his personal interactions with soldiers and young children, among others. He denounced criticism of Southern slave owners, and instead tried to understand their motivations, which allowed him later to mold and shift attitudes.

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.

I’m interested in social questions, and how all of these topics are interconnected. I report on the people living in the shadows of the world.

Tell us about your current project based in Central Asia.

I’m in the final stages of this project in Central Asia, which focuses mainly on the Afghani diaspora. Next month I’ll work in Pakistan, photographing people living in the Northwest part of the country, focusing especially on the symbolism light has in mysticism. I’m preparing two books: one about Afghanistan specifically, and one about the borders of monotheism, entitled Auras.

I just came back from Tibet, for a new project I will continue to work on over the next three years or so. This work will have the same kind of sensibility and the same interests as my other work — the relationship of people to sacred geography and spaces. It also looks at pre-Buddhist traditions and also some Tantric traditions, which are very sensitive and sensual. Instead of refusing the body, they exalt the body, and they exalt the space, materials, and ground around them.

You often photograph and interview people in conflict zones. Why do you choose to do your work in these places?

I use conflict zones not because of the conflict itself — I’m not interested in the wars. I hate war. I go because I want to learn about the people behind the scenes of war we see in the media. I want to share their life and to see with their eyes what is happening around them. I try to narrate it in my report and in books. I also go because we in the rest of the world are really victims of the stereotypes, of the propaganda we see in the news.

It’s very important to show the hope and the hopelessness of these people. After 10 years, there is a big prospect the Taliban will come back to Afghanistan. What will happen to women in this country? These women are very strong, but they are not free. It is very difficult for them.

I’m going to Pakistan for similar reasons. We forget about this country completely. We see them in the news sometimes during an emergency for a short period, but afterwards they disappear. For example, in Pakistan, during the 10 years of the Afghani war, 30,000 people died because of the violence. Yet this is a completely forgotten war. There are other countries like this, but I’m not able to cover them all in one lifetime.

When you travel in these countries, alone, as a woman, are you afraid?

I don’t know … sometimes, yes. But people fill me with hope, and they tend to be very helpful. Because I travel alone, and people see my fragility and my sincerity, they want to help.  The guest is sacred in Islam. When I arrive in an Islamic country, it is a strange situation, because I am both a stranger and a woman. I also am a married woman, and I have children.  So this situation generates a very great respect for me. It provides a protection. I live under this kind of sacred respect reserved for the guest. It’s the greatest in the world, I think.

Sometimes I meet people who believe that women should not travel alone. But I put these experiences out of my mind — it’s a very marginal experience.

Especially in Afghanistan, I’m humbled by the people’s generosity. Theirs is far greater than mine. For example, I once had an appointment there with someone I did not know very well. This person arrived to our appointment and brought his whole family — his own children — to protect me. I didn’t know what to do. I cried, I refused to accept it, but they obligated me to accept this kind of protection. This type of thing is sometimes too much for me. They are very fantastic people, so beautiful, so full of humor, full of vitality, and love for life. This country is so marred by war, yet there’s a sense of  life and generosity from the people that’s unparalleled.

What are your favorite ways to share the stories of people you meet?

I use what is a kind of photography and literary report. I have the privilege to narrate in two modes: both with photography and with writing. They help each other a lot. Because publishers are used to separating these two modes, it’s very difficult to publish a book with this kind of narration. But I love to mix them, and I think it is very important to do so. It can be very helpful to understand the reality of the situation.

During my photographic exhibitions, I also use a lot of text. An exhibition of mine is like a big book, exposed on the walls of the gallery. People come and see and also read.

I also collect a lot of audio recordings when I’m traveling. I have recorded many voices, music, songs, prayers, the sounds of the street, of insects, of children, of the night. I include the audio recordings in my exhibitions as well.

What first inspired you on this path of researching and reporting on underreported people?

Growing up in Poland, my family was Catholic, part of the majority religion. I learned at a young age that my country had held the worst genocide in history. When I was very young, 12 years old at most, I started to collect all kinds of information about it. I asked my grandmother, “Grandmother, what happened here? Who are the Jews?” She didn’t answer.  So I studied books and Jewish culture. I was a little obsessed with it. I wanted to learn as much as possible, but I shuddered to understand what had happened.

My work started this way, and after that I studied it at university. I started to explore the minority scene in Eastern Europe. I studied both ethnic and religious minorities — Jews, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and others. I wanted to cover stories of minorities that suffered not only during, but after World War II. Many were deported after the war in order to make them disappear. Their culture was completely destroyed by the Communist government.

I later moved to Italy. In the Polish literary tradition, it is very common for writers and poets to go out of the country to write about us. Though I moved to Italy for personal reasons, leaving Poland permitted me to see my country from a distance, and permitted me to write about my country, which might not have been so easy to do from my homeland.

For a time, you were an avid participant in a unique kind of street theater.

Yes, I love theater. I developed an experimental street performance, a mix of acrobatics and Oriental martial arts, where we danced on stilts. We performed in theaters, and festivals, and on the street. It was choreographed, but also improvisation, with dialogue and music to narrate a story.

It was theater but in big open spaces, using the very beautiful and very rich scenography of the cities: old houses, natural light, fountains, rivers …. It was wandering theater. We moved from one place to another, and the whole group of people followed us. Sometimes my three sons performed with us. I loved it so much, but I found I didn’t have time to do both theater and my other work.

There are many aspiring social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to take their passion and ideas to the next level. What one piece of advice would you give them, based on your own experience and successes? Learn more about how to become a great social entrepreneur from all of the TED Fellows on the Case Foundation’s Social Citizens blog.

Follow your passion with discipline, and without too much compromise. Study all the possible techniques to develop and grow. I was very fortunate to have the opportunities I did — maybe other people don’t have the same chances I had.

But I tell my children: the most important thing is to follow the small illuminations that we have sometimes in our lives, that give us a kind of security that we are sure what we really want to do. We sometimes forget about it, or we are afraid to realize it. But I think all human beings have a certain predisposition or special talent for certain things.

What was the TED Fellowship experience like for you?

It was a very interesting, amazing experience. It was completely new for me — I am much more used to living in the pastures in Central Asia than in the context TED provides. It was the first time I used the English language not with a Kabul taxi driver: I had only used English as a kind of international language before.

TED was excellent stimulation for the professional part of my work. I received valuable professional advice, particularly on how to develop outside of Italy. But for me the most important thing about the TED Fellowship was meeting with the Fellows and other people and hearing the talks. I loved it so much. It’s really a great global platform.

“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.