TEDxAlbertopolis
Tuesday 5 November 2013
| Queenswood Academic Scholars were lucky enough to get tickets to the TEDx event at the Royal Albert Hall in September, where we were able to listen to a variety of of interesting talks from many different people, ranging from a one handed pianist, to Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England. |
Each talk was inspiring and thought-provoking, while exploring how
science, medicine and technology harmonise with the arts in society
today.
For example, Julia Lohmann, known for her wonderful art and fascination
with seaweed, decided to use kelp as materials for fashion accessories
and art, as opposed to what the seaweed is usually used for – food.
One of my favourite speakers was an inspiring woman with Tourette’s
syndrome. Jessica Thom has lived with Tourette’s since she was six years old, saying
the word ‘biscuit’ almost 16 times each minute. However, Jessica decided
to embrace her disorder. She co-founded an organisation
that celebrates the humour and creativity of Tourette’s syndrome. She
decided that Tourette’s was a ‘crazy language-generating machine’ and
that not to do something creative with her tics would be wasteful.
Jessica shared her vocal tics on her website and encouraged
people to make art with them. Soon, a music technologist used extracts
from her tics to create a piece of music, which was played to us at the
end of her talk.
It was a great day of fascinating talks and an extremely enjoyable experience for all of us.