For a while now, we have had the pleasure of working with MRes student Avouleance (Dennis Cook, they/them) who has been conducting a social science project with us.
Here, we take a few moments to ask them our Top Three questions.
1. What is your most interesting science fact?
I think the most amazing thing about science is that it works.
That reality can be mathematically modelled and hypothesised about and that we can test those hypotheses with the scientific method. Even more amazing is that those models are self-correcting, a classic example would be in the transition between Newtonian gravity and general relativity.
Honourable mention going by most of the children I’ve interviewed – If you put acid and alkali together it explodes.
Newtonian gravity made predictions that were good enough to land humans on the moon, but observations of the movement of mercury that was closer to the sun, demonstrated the model was incomplete providing evidence for a theory that now lets us have GPS.
2. What is your favourite piece of art at the moment, and why?
Title and artist: La Casa Lobo (The Wolf House) Directed by Cristóbal León and Joaquin Cociña
I love great artists pretending to be bad artists. La Casa Lobo presents itself as a film made by a cult. The juxtaposition between the perspectives of the ‘in universe’ film makers and León and Cociña creates an incredible sense of irony and horror. I always love the feeling that a piece of art is made by someone who makes intentional decisions and having that work on two levels, with the real directors making choices on behalf of the in-universe directors works so well here.
It helps that this is achieved by viscerally gorgeous stop motion animation bending and warping the entire set and characters. It’s got a sense the whole house is a living predatory thing that fits so well, and the way characters change mediums throughout the story is wonderful.
3. What is your favourite piece of written word at the moment, and why?
Title and author: John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme, series 9 (Radio Show).
For the 9th series of this show, instead of just doing more hilarious sketches, the team decided to use their sketches to tell the story of a single family over about 100 years backwards. The use of small moments without explicit narration to tell such a complex tale is astounding and it hits so hard emotionally, while still being some of the cleverest moment to moment comedy I’ve ever heard.
Honourable mention to the work of too many people on the London poetry scene, (Kayla Martell Feldman, Tyrone Lewis, Kid Anansi, Poet the Jules, The Poet Andie, Isolde and Trist, and Geniveve Ray). For the sheer diversity of their work and how well they express social and political messages.
