Category: Ideas
IMPACT!
I had a really great time at IMPACT. Always a sucker for new technology, I was excited about the organ printer, laser paper cutting and burning, and tagging artworks in an exhibition so that viewers can add their comments and memories to be read by others. Lots of potential!
I met the team from Dundee, who will be hosting the next IMPACT. Very impressed with the facilities at Dundee Contemporary Art, which has just installed a large format digital router and laser cutter, amongst other things. They are combining the analogue printing techniques with digital, and encouraging the use of technology as just another tool in the making of effective images. They were among the many very nice people I met.
My only regret is that I didn’t really have time to get out to galleries and enjoy Melbourne. And the weather was dreadful!
IMPACT conference

I’m off to the Impact conference next week. Impact stands for International Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference – and its to be held at Monash University’s Caulfield Campus. It gives me an opportunity to explore Melbourne, see lots of exhibitions, and have a lot of fun with other printmakers.
Another interesting radio talk…..
This conversation between Maria Zijlstra and Rolf Zwaan, professor of Biological and Cognitive Psychology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was broadcast on Lingua Franca, Radio National. Professor Zwaan proposes that words and language aren’t just mental ideas; we perceive them in physical ways. “……..people who have undergone a Botox treatment, where they can’t use their facial muscles, have more difficulty understanding sentences about emotions than people who haven’t undergone that treatment. So, that suggests that there is a feedback from the muscles in your face to the brain….”
Read/Listen to more here.
The Philosophical Baby
To be a baby, I think it’s like being in love in Paris for the first time after you’ve had four double espressos and a pack of Gauloises, which is a fantastic way to be but it does mean that you tend to wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning, crying.
Alison Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby – What Childrens Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love and the Meaning of Life Read/Listen here

