The language of photography: Q&A with Sebastião SalgadoI’ll never forget the first images of Sebastião Salgado’s that I ever saw. At the time, I was just getting into photography, and his images of the mines of Serra Pelada struck me as otherworldly, possessing a power that I had never seen in a photo before (or, if I’m honest, since). In the twenty […]
The future unfolding: Fellows Friday with Skylar TibbitsSkylar Tibbits makes things that assemble themselves, with potential large-scale applications from self-adjusting water pipes to self-assembling structures in space. At his recently founded Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, he’s pioneering 4D printing — using smart materials to make objects that change shape and evolve. Here, he explains how 4D printing works, and describes his journey from architect […]
No art, no life: Fellows Friday with Cyrus KabiruCyrus Kabiru crafts striking, whimsical, colourful pieces — most famously his one-of-a-kind spectacles, C-STUNNERS — from recycled waste and objects he finds on the streets of Nairobi. In a candid conversation at TED2013, the Kenyan sculptor and painter told us about his journey to becoming an artist … and how he’s struggled to forge a […]
The tragedy of land mines: A Q&A with TED ebook author Brett Van OrtHow would it feel to walk across a sunny meadow, through a quiet forest, or up a beautiful ridge, knowing all the while there might be active land mines just beneath your feet? In Minescape: Waging War Against Land Mines, Brett Van Ort—artist and photojournalist—shares photographs that document just this experience. Through his pastoral, haunting […]
Happy birthday John Snow, father of modern epidemiology: A Q&A with Steven JohnsonShanghai. New York. Tehran. Tokyo. Today, dozens of cities worldwide are each home to many millions of people. But those masses of humanity might not exist in such tight quarters if not for John Snow. (No, not that Jon Snow. This John Snow.) Snow was a 19th-century English doctor who’s credited with proving that cholera, […]
Can limitations make you more creative? A Q&A with artist Phil HansenPhil Hansen has tattooed bananas, drawn a portrait on stacked Starbucks cups and created a Jimi Hendrix portrait out of matches, which he then burned. In other words, he isn’t the kind of artist who feels bound to paint on canvas. So how did Hansen happen upon such fascinating methods? By embracing a major limitation […]
Cities without highways: A Q&A with TED Books essayist Diana LindIn the 1950s, 3 out of every 10 people on the planet lived in a city. Today, that ratio has nearly doubled — and the United Nations projects that by 2050, nearly 7 in 10 people will live in urban settings. Our population is gravitating towards cities, and this shift is creating amazing opportunities as […]
Before the Hole in the Wall: A Q&A with 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata MitraLast week, education researcher Sugata Mitra won the first-ever $1 million TED Prize to build his School in the Cloud. Prior to his TED Prize win, Mitra was known for his “Hole in the Wall” experiment. In 1999, Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall near an urban slum in New Delhi, […]
Soul to sole: Eye surgeon Anthony Vipin Das has developed shoes that see for the blindA haunting black-and-white video screened during the TED Fellows talks depicted people speaking into a device and then walking — at first taking halting steps, then more confident strides. As the video unfolds, the camera zooms in on the faces of the walkers — revealing that they are blind. With his team, TED Senior Fellow […]
Infographic: It’s Rare Disease DayWhat do JFK, Venus Williams and Dan Ackroyd all have in common? All have been diagnosed with a rare disease. Today is Rare Disease Day, and here at TED2013, TED2012 Fellow C Jimmy Lin is marking the occasion by awarding $500,000 worth of research to help 26 different rare diseases, and launching a striking infographic […]
Pardon Me, but WTF?: TED Fellow Safwat Saleem calls out for stories of bsOn Monday on the TED Fellows stage, Safwat Saleem made the crowd roar and squirm with his art – satirical and profane posters and animated shorts skewering racism, the absurdity of politics, petty dishonesty and general stupidity. In a word, bullshit. Here at TED2013, he’s launching a new project, called “Pardon Me, but WTF?” – […]
Soundscaping TED Talks: A Q&A with Guy Raz, the new host of TED Radio HourWhen TED Radio Hour premieres on Friday, March 1st, a new — but familiar — voice will be manning the mic. Guy Raz, the former host of Weekend All Things Considered and the creator of Three-Minute Fiction, is the new host of the show, which is returning for its second season after being named Best New Audio Podcast […]
Revolution in The Square: Q&A with Jehane NoujaimEgyptian filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize in 2006 with a wish to bring the world together for one day using the power of film. Her most recent work, The Square, saw her heading back to Cairo to track events in Tahrir Square as the Hosni Mubarak regime fell. While there, she filmed a group […]
The year of the introvert: A Q&A with Susan Cain on the release of her paperbackAt TED2012, Susan Cain asked us to stop the madness. That is: the group work madness. At offices and schools around the globe, the desire for collaboration has led to an onslaught of open floor plans and group projects where individuals aren’t given much space to think on their own. And this is a big […]
The butterfly effect: Fellows Friday with Julie FreemanArtist Julie Freeman uses data as a source material to make biologically inspired artworks — giving musicality to the movement of fish and expressing city lights in the quiver of moths’ wings. Now she’s finding ways to translate data so that we may gain new perspectives on what it’s trying to tell us. What do […]
