Time to emerge

Emerging from lockdown like a Mayfly from the river, Surface Tensions can be seen for the 1st time on the last weekend in May – three days only! So if […]

Helmholtz 2.0

Hermann von Helmholtz, (1821–1894) is often considered to be one of the last polymaths in science: the final incarnation of a time when the whole of science could be grasped […]

Ichor

The word ‘petrichor’ refers to the wonderful scent given off by dry earth when rain falls upon it. It comes from the Greek: ‘petra’ for rock, and ‘ichor’, which was […]

Tamp ‘Em Up Solid

It’s a new word to me: tamp. It’s when you pack something down firmly, avoiding too much pressure that it becomes squashed: in the world of earth building that would […]

Splat!

I spent yesterday in the CobBauge workshop at Plymouth Uni, finding out more about this material. The day was spent fluctuating between two poles: one, earthed, that what we are […]

E is for ’embodied’

We are such a visual culture. It seems that new buildings are often designed to look good in a photo: a quick glance on Instagram reveals feed after feed of […]

CobBauge

So where to start tackling the climate emergency? How about over a cup of tea? Well, not quite, but the cup did come up in my first meeting as Creative […]

New for 2021

I’m glad to say that New Forest Imaginarium will be going ahead in the new year: the initial funding has come through thanks to Mark at spudWORKS. Really looking forward […]

what4words

gut.place.belief.interact [Thought experiment for Creative Fellowship in the form of a Venn diagram, following a conversation with Steve, using a portait of John Venn. Don’t know what to make of […]

It

Things are moving on with the Creative Fellowship at University of Exeter. Here is a working drawing, entitled ‘It’, in the form of a mini-manifesto to the AMR network. I’m […]

God, azoles and rethinking the self

I wanted to find out what a philosopher could possibly be doing in the AMR network. Well, now I know. It is intriguing: turns out he is part of the […]

The gas man cometh

Amongst my parents’ small collection of LPs was this one. Aside from ‘Hippo Encore’ [Mud, mud, glorious mud] and ‘First and Second Law’ [of Thermodynamics], it was the song ‘The […]

Feeling the network

I love harmonographs. Place the tip of the pen on the paper and set the pendula in motion. Then watch in wonder as the drawing slowly reveals itself: a unique […]

Smash and grab

I’ve been trying to get my head around next-generation genome sequencing. How it has revolutionised our understanding of microbiomes. From what I can work out, somewhat similar to the arrival […]

One for every occassion

You might have an old wooden-handled hammer and offer it to three people: to the first, it is a useful tool for a spot of weekend DIY; to the second […]

Up close and personal

I really didn’t expect this. I always thought of bacteria as a crowd, a mass of cells that fermented or infected, never as individuals. But that is just what is […]