Derren Brown's Blog, page 61
November 20, 2010
Patrick Hughes and the painting swap
Patrick is a remarkable and deeply fun artist: his works are hard to describe but I shall do my best. In fact, watch this wonderful three-minute film here and you'll get the idea. They play with our eyes and minds and make us actively participate in the works. His pieces lunge out of the wall at you but you cannot tell as the perspective is painted in reverse… so that a bookcase or a line of Venice houses appears to recede into the distance but is in fact painted upon a trapezium that narrows as it approaches a vanishing point that is in fact struck right out in front of the picture. The effect is an image that appears to physically shift with you: when you pass it, it follows you. I have a few Hughes pieces in my flat: visitors can be seen stopping in their tracks before the first they encounter, swaying from side to side, bobbing up and down. Without exception they cannot tell how it works: they think they're watching a clever projection until they step around to view the side of it and its three-dimensionality pops into apparentness and they all but drop their drink in disbelief.
Patrick is also a dear friend: his charisma and generosity strike everyone who has the delightful experience of meeting him. He's seventy, handsome, impressively tall, dresses impeccably in bold, colourful suits and long scarves, and wraps his deep intelligence within a joyous playfulness that is reflected in the range of optical toys and jokes that fill his eccentric flat. He's a lovely, lovely man, and a radiant example of how I and anyone should hope to be at his age.
I heard Patrick was applying his 'reverspective' approach to portraits. Some of you may be aware of the 'reverse mask' illusion where we look into the back of a mask and still think we are looking at a face pointing out at us. I have the Einstein head (as mentioned in The God Delusion) and other pieces that work on the same principle. Here's a delightful old video of Richard Dawkins demonstrating the illusion:
The face variants of this sort of perspective trick work especially well on me. Whereas most people cannot see the 'true' nature of Patrick's pieces and can flip back and forth with hollow faces, I am the exact opposite. So I was excited to hear that Patrick had cast his own face to make a 'reverspective' portrait of himself, and we spoke about making one of me. Patrick suggested a portrait swap: one of his of me for one of mine of him. This was hugely flattering and exciting.
It was my turn first: I headed over to Patrick's studio in east London to be photographed and cast. The pictures tell the story:
Patrick's studio – you can see his portrait between us in the background.
His colleagues cut a sheet of cardboard to accommodate my unusually chiselled features:
And I don a swimming cap which will stop my hair from getting plaster in it. I think this was the only expression I could make with the cap on:
Vaseline applied. At this point I'm starting to get aroused.
And I'm just going to presume those are drips from the plaster process.
I actually found this quite relaxing. Same way i quite enjoy the dentist: something about not being able to move or do anything, I switch off well and go to my happy place.
Patrick thought this would be funny. Had no idea he had done this until I looked back at the photos:
The removal begins. I gesture for a pen and paper and write the following plaintiff note:
It fucking did.
Gin and Tonic, I think. A look inside the cast, and the illusion is already working:
Time then passes. I photograph Patrick to do my own portrait. After a couple of weeks I receive news that the portrait is complete. I head over to see it, but first Patrick's partner, the writer and equally gorgeous specimen of humanity Diane Atkinson, prepares an excellent supper. Patrick shows me some of his new toys, including a 'true mirror' which shows you as you actually, genuinely look (instead of in normal mirror-image as you can only ever see yourself). It's a disturbing experience. I order one for myself that night: you can buy them here.
The finished, painted portrait is astonishing. Ironically, it does show me in mirror image: it's a logical result of the casting-and-reversing process that the finished piece offers a flipped version of the subject.
It now sits in my library – it needs flat, soft light to work at its best. Whenever I walk past it, I see it pay close attention and watch my every move.
Video doesn't quite capture the real-life effect. The movement is bigger, clearer, and so inextricably linked to one's own movements that it's a very eerie experience. But here's a look at it:
And in a separate post – most likely tomorrow – I'll set out how I painted my own portrait of Patrick. Ta-ta for now.
November 19, 2010
If I were PM – Derren Brown Interview
What campaign stunt would you pull in an election?
The few proper 'stunts' I've done have been pretty gruelling and I have done them more out of obligation than any desire for mass attention. So I'd want to do something that drew no attention to myself, which is one reason why I'd be a useless politician and would hate every second of it.
Would you take part in a TV leaders debate?
Happily. I'd quite enjoy it. Though I've never managed to pull off the politicians' trick of thinking that my view is the single, correct one, so I'd be pretty hopeless.
Who would write your speeches?
I'd have to write them myself. That would be one small personal pleasure I'd get from the job.
How would you redecorate No 10?
I'm thinking something like the Addams Family mansion. And I'd swap the policeman at the door for a guy with a hunchback.
Who would be your Alastair Campbell?
Don't know. I'd have to have Stephen Fry in there somewhere.
Who would be your George Osborne?
Gordon Brown. I might as well have someone who knows what he's doing. I'm hopeless with money. I'd spend it all on presents and dinners.
Who would be in your cabinet?
All of the X-Men.
Where would you hold cabinet meetings?
Patrick Stewart's place – convenient.
How would you respond to being booed in public?
I'd respond by sobbing and getting very defensive.
How would you deal with a sex scandal in the cabinet?
With a huge party. It sounds very exciting.
What would you have as a new national anthem?
I think something instrumental. Or John Cage's 4'33″.
How would you greet the Queen?
By grinning inanely and talking bollocks, which is generally what I do when meeting people of great authority.
Would you make Scotland independent?
It would be rude not to if that was what Scotland wanted.
What would keep you awake at night?
Half the country hating me.
What would you miss most while in No 10?
That level of fame would be miserable. So I'd miss the D-list status I currently enjoy.
Which pets would you get for No 10?
Lions and tigers. It would be amazing.
How would you see off a younger, better-looking political rival?
I'd make his head explode. Or if he was a lot younger and a lot better-looking, I might consistently flirt with him until he was forced to give up politics.
How would you increase participation in politics?
Nude dancing.
Who would succeed you as PM?
Someone who was the polar opposite of me. That seems to be the usual pattern – a swing from charismatic to boring and back again.
What legacy would you like to leave?
I think it would be best for everyone to forget about it as soon as possible.
From TotalPolitics
November 18, 2010
UK gov't promises to allow telcos to hold Brits hostage on "two-speed" Internet
Boing Boing reports:
"So much for any hope that a Conservative-LibDem coalition would signal a beginning to sane network/information policy in Britain. Ed Vaizey, the new Minister of Culture, has given the go-ahead for a "two-speed," non-neutral Internet, in which your capacity to access a website or service would depend on whether that service had bribed your ISP.
In this model, ISPs could slow down traffic from the sites you love if they don't pay for "premium access" to you — essentially turning you into a hostage that gets traded around like a prisoner being swapped for a couple packs of cigarettes.
So, Vaizey, what next? I can call any takeaway restaurant I want, but unless they've given a backhander to my phone company, I'll have to wait an extra 30 seconds to be connected, while an announcement offers to put me through to a competitor who's paid the "premium" danegeld?"
Full article at Boing Boing
November 17, 2010
Girls severed arm grafted to her leg then reattached
Surgeons in China saved a little girl's hand – by grafting it on to her leg for three months. Nine-year-old Ming Li lost her hand when she was run over by a tractor on her way to school in July.
But her arm was too badly damaged to reattach it to her wrist so doctors temporarily attached it to her right calf instead. Dr Hou Jianxi, spokesman for the hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, said the hand had now been transplanted back on to her arm.
"When she came in, her left hand was completely severed from her body. It was very scary," he told the Zhoukou Evening Post. "But Ming Li can now move her wrist again and her left hand is a healthy pink colour proving that the blood is circulating well."
Li will need two more operations over the next year. One to improve her hand functions and some plastic surgery to remove her scars. But Dr Hou said: "After surgery, and with plenty of physiotherapy, we are confident her left hand will be capable of doing most things.
"We can't give a precise percentage of how much movement she will get back but she should be able to look after herself and even drive a car."
Thanks Chris
UNESCO world heritage list: The weirdest of the weird from the new list
From Luxembourg's hopping procession to Peruvian scissor dancing and Croatian ginger bread making, we examine the more bizarre entries on the UNESCO list. Here's a few on the list:
Wrestlers covered in cooking oil grapple with each other at the annual Kirkpinar oil-wrestling festival, which dates back to the 14th century. Scissor-dancing in the Chanka region dates from the 16th century, when locals supposedly possessed by deities performed frenetic dances to express their resistance to Spanish conquest.
Full list with images at Telegraph.
Did giant pterosaurs vault aloft like vampire bats?
If giant pterosaurs – the dinosaur-era, giraffe-sized winged reptiles – tried to fly like birds, they could not have got off the ground. Yet why would flightless pterosaurs retain giant wings instead of evolving vestigial ones like the ostrich?
The answer, according to Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth, UK, is that pterosaurs didn't fly like birds. "We need to appreciate that pterosaurs had their own unique mechanisms of achieving flight," he says.
Full Story at New Stories
November 16, 2010
Scientists propose one-way trips to Mars
It's usually cheaper to fly one way, even to Mars. Two scientists are suggesting that colonization of the red planet could happen faster and more economically if astronauts behaved like the first settlers to come to North America — not expecting to go home.
"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor who co-authored an article that seriously proposes what sounds like a preposterous idea.
At least one moon-walking astronaut was not impressed. "This is premature," Ed Mitchell of Apollo 14 wrote in an e-mail. "We aren't ready for this yet." Also cool to the idea was NASA. President Barack Obama has already outlined a plan to go to Mars by the mid-2030s, but he never suggested these space travelers wouldn't come home.
Full story at Yahoo
Twist our words
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Channel 4 have put together a rather random little website. Featuring some of the well known stars like Gordon Ramsey, Alan Carr, Jamie Oliver and of course Derren this little tool helps you construct twisted sentences with their words. The best ones will be shown on TV, so give it a go and see if you can put words in to the mouths of celebs – or just do what we do and try to make rude innuendoes.
Primates have hidden ability to repair their own damaged spines
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that primates, including humans, have an innate ability to repair some spinal damage, including recovering from paralysis. The next step is to enhance this ability, so that we can regrow injured spinal nerves.
It's been known for a long time that people with moderate injuries to the nerves in their spinal cords can sometimes spontaneously recover – regaining the ability to move and walk over time. Now a group of researchers have published a paper inNature Neuroscience that suggests this may be a trait shared by all primates. Many spinal injuries are followed by fresh nerve growth in monkey spinal cords.
November 15, 2010
How your brain is the same as a fruit fly's.
Despite rumors to the contrary, there are many ways in which the human brain isn't all that fancy. Let's compare it to the nervous system of a fruit fly. Both are made up of cells, of course, with neurons playing particularly important roles. Now one might expect that a neuron from a human will differ dramatically from one from a fly. Maybe the human's will have especially ornate ways of communicating with other neurons, making use of unique "neurotransmitter" messengers. Maybe compared to the lowly fly neuron, human neurons are bigger, more complex, in some way can run faster and jump higher.
But no. Look at neurons from the two species under a microscope and they look the same. They have the same electrical properties, many of the same neurotransmitters, the same protein channels that allow ions to flow in and out, as well as a remarkably high number of genes in common. Neurons are the same basic building blocks in both species.
So where's the difference? It's numbers — humans have roughly one million neurons for each one in a fly. And out of a human's 100 billion neurons emerge some pretty remarkable things. With enough quantity, you generate quality.
Read the full article at Opinionator
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