Dark Places, Autonomous Infrastructures, Deviant Toads

08/03/2010

Bike Power at the Energy Cafe

Muddy green wellies  have a place in all our recent activities. They were mandatory on our Dark places Bus tour of secret sites on Southern England. The New Scientist came along for the ride: 'The sun has barely risen and every seat on the overheated bus is taken. I look around at the other passengers. Together we're a motley crew - historians, academics, a few artists and a couple of hungover students, people united by curiosity and the promise of being shown the secret side of England. None of us are sure what to expect. The promotional blurb was deliberately vague: "...a fascinating bus tour of critical sites of advanced technological development...sites that emerged during the tensions and paranoias of the Cold War". Hopefully worth getting out of bed for'. Read more here.

The Energy Cafe, pictured above, is one of the 30 or so artists, technologists, utopians and thinkers meeting at the Baltic in Newcastle/Gateshead this week as part of Autonomous Infrastructures and the public event Planetary Breakdown organised by us, Intersections at Newcastle University and the AV festival. AV10 is already underway and generating an impressive number of tweets at #AV10. You can still sign up for Planetary Breakdown on the Intersections website here. You can sign up for the Autonomous Infrastructures group if you are on Facebook and follow on #aut_in if you tweet.

Brandon Ballengee spends most of his time splashing around in ponds in wellies investigating amphibians for deformity and trying to understand why this occurs. The Case of the Deviant Toad starts on March 15 at the Royal Institution''s impressively refurbished premises with a Cafe Scientifique. Sign up here. You can leave your wellies at the door.