Edinburgh Photographic Society, 157th international exhibition of photography 2019. The doorkeeper took pains to explain to me that the only criterion for inclusion was that there had to have been a photograph somewhere in the history of each finished image. When I saw the exhibition, I understood why he had given me the warning: most of the images were obviously processed to a greater or lesser degree: some to create surreal effects, such as a man riding a mechanical fish through the sky, and a surprising number to make the image look as though it had been produced by pen and ink drawing. But my favourites were classic photographic pieces, especially the Movement Series of Fiona Spence.
Scottish national portrait gallery. Lovely building, family-sized rather than cathedral-sized gothic, including a beautiful library with an upper gallery. I wasn’t so struck by the paintings and busts, but perhaps I’d have been more impressed if I were Scottish.
Scottish national gallery. I shouldn’t have been surprised, this being a national collection, but as I walked around I kept on thinking: hey, this place is full of really famous paintings! My favourites were the Velázquez ‘Old woman cooking eggs’, notable for its elegant depiction of just-congealing egg whites, and a Botticelli Madonna and child, unusual in the Madonna not being face-on but in full eye-contact with her baby, the very image of empathic mirroring (as the therapists say). A really good café / restaurant too.
Philip Glass: Minimalism at the Organ. Concert by Mark Spalding at St Andrew’s and St George’s West, Edinburgh, as part of the Fringe Festival. Two pieces having their 50th anniversary (Two Pages, Music in Fifths) and one having its 40th (Fourth Series, Part 4, aka Mad Rush). A video camera in the organ loft gave us visual contact with the performer, and as a consequence, we were able to see him doing stretches in the pauses between pieces: it never occurred to me before that performing minimalist music could run the risk of repetitive strain injury. A great hour of immersive minimalism.
Star Trek: Beyond. perhaps the best of the three films since the reboot, being less dependent on stories or tropes from the “prime” cast. Still a huge emphasis on visual spectacle, which I guess is what the movie-going public now expects, though it was never part of the original series. (They didn’t have the budget, so had to rely on damn-fine storytelling.)
What three words (app). BBC news featured this great idea, to map the entire world in 3x3 metre squares, each bearing a three word name; useful for emergency services location finding, for example. But it depends on lots of people using it. And someone will probably think of an anti-social application.
Rise of the Nazis. Really informative documentary, the three parts following how Hitler successively became Chancellor, suspended parliamentary democracy, and finally usurped the power of the President. Quite scary to watch in a month when Boris Johnson suspended Parliament for five weeks because he didn’t want it to get in his way; had the Supreme Court not ruled it illegal, there would have been the precedent for a Prime Minister to suspend Parliament for however long he wanted, for any reason at all.
Raiders of the Lost Past – nice three-part series with Janina Ramirez cheerfully and enthusiastically illuminating three massively significant archaeological discoveries in the months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.
We has tribbles and also troubles. Very funny rendering of a classic original series Star Trek episode in “kitty pidgen”: the distinctive grammar in which captions are added to LOLcats photos. Sample: Captain Kirk frowning, with the caption “OMG THIS SUX”.
J.U.L.I.A. Among the Stars. Well-reviewed intriguing puzzle-adventure game, in which you play the sole survivor of a deep space expedition, revived from hibernation, trying to find out what happened to the rest of the crew, with the assistance of the ship’s computer J.U.L.I.A. and the remote exploration Mobot who does the actually travelling and action in the game. Creative use of a simple interface – basically it’s static scene pictures with hotspots, plus the occasional animation or cut-scene – and some decent mini-games. Didn’t really grab me emotionally, despite the increasingly sinister storyline, but an enjoyable game nonetheless.
Cathy Moore's scenario-based training headquarters. Cathy Moore is one of the best bloggers around for incisive and insightful thinking on learning design for training, and recently she’s been sharing her ideas and experience around branching scenarios or simulations. This page collects together her various writing, including this page of links to example scenarios by herself and others, with comments reflecting on the design.
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