THE HUM: To find without looking

This second event in THE HUM series – titled To Find Without Looking – explores the activity of wandering: both as a mode of being in a city, and as an experience of internally focused thought. 

Contributors

• Manu Bazzano (Writer and Psychotherapist)
• Felicity Callard (Academic in geography and medical humanities at Durham University
• Michael J. Harding (Musician and Theatre Director)

What if the fidgets, tics and blinks our bodies exhibit during daydream or mind-wandering are not just by-products of our inattention to the external world but an embodiment of where our wandering minds are travelling?

This alternative interpretation is suggested in an experiment write-up by Paul Seli, setting in motion a sequence of emails, meetings and conversation that brought together this next ‘Hum’ constellation of Felicity Callard, Manu Bazzano and Michael J. Harding.

Our attention floats across specific yet ephemeral points: perhaps it is between the breath, the weight of one’s own body, the pattern, smell and din of people moving at a rush-hour interchange, and inner ruminations on the possibilities of a future faux pas.

How may we map and draw lines between such wavering flickers of stimulus? What can we learn from reading between the traces of subjectivity left by histories of daydream research? And how may these aimless, unproductive and meandering activities of mind and body be considered subversive acts?

In an approach which draws on politics, histories, psychologies and physicalities of wandering, The Hum will look to unearth a vocabulary that describes what the embodied phenomenology of a wandering mind and body might be.

'The Hum: To Find Without Looking' will take place in two halves:

The first will be an intimate workshop of reflective yet physical exercises led by Michael J. Harding. This will be for a small group: for further details, please email thehum@amycroft.co.uk

The second half is an open discussion held at The Bartlett, UCL, with contributions from Felicity Callard, Manu Bazzano and Michael J. Harding.

• For more details and to book a free place, please go to eventbrite.com
• Twitter: @thehumlondon

About the Hum

THE HUM is a series of events produced by Amy Croft, artist-in-residence at the Interactive Architecture Lab, with support from The Leverhulme Trust. THE HUM provides moments when the background hum of Croft’s research at UCL comes to the fore, exploring internal states of being, with invited experts who have informed her ongoing work.

• See details of the previous event in the series, THE HUM: Inventing Sensations | Neuroscience x Materialisation

About Amy Croft, Leverhulme Artist-in-residence

Amy Croft works across sculpture, video, photography, writing, installation and curation. During her ten-month residency, Croft will develop a body of new artworks with neuroscientists and interaction designers at UCL. Her project will explore ways that our phenomenological experience of environments interfaces with mind-wandering or daydream, both at present and through future applications of brain knowledge in design. Amy will speculate on ways technologies could be used to harness and amplify mind-wandering, or negate it altogether.

This first HUM event is hosted in partnership with the Performance Interactions Lecture Series (PIxLS) held by the Bartlett’s new master programme: MArch Design for Performance and Interaction.

This event is organised by the Interactive Architecture Lab at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

The Interactive Architecture Lab is group of artists, architects and engineers engaged in academic research activities, public art commissions and industry collaborations. At the heart of the Lab is the 15 month Masters programme MArch Design for Performance & Interaction, which gives students an opportunity to exploit the potential of new sensing, computation, networked and responsive technologies to imagine, build and test new spaces of performance & interaction.

For more information on our educational programmes check out our portfolio of research, a selection of graduate work published in press, a full list of staff and students, and find out more about applying to study.

The Interactive Architecture Lab is sponsored by The Leverhulme Trust

Download the poster (PDF)