Sonification of Dark Matter: Challenges and Opportunities

(Abstract to follow

Real-time hallucination simulation and sonification through user-led development of an iPad augmented reality performance

The simulation of visual hallucinations has multiple applications. The authors present a new approach to hallucination simulation, initially developed for a performance, that proved to have uses for individuals suffering from certain types of hallucinations. The system, originally developed with a focus on the visual symptoms of palinopsia experienced by the lead author, allows real-time visual expression using augmented reality via an iPad. It also allows the hallucinations to be converted into sound through visuals sonification. Although no formal experimentation was conducted, the authors report on a number of unsolicited informal responses to the simulator from palinopsia sufferers and the Palinopsia Foundation

Education in Interwar Rural England: Community, Schooling and Voluntarism

Rural education was heavily contested in the interwar years, rooted in diverging ideas about the countryside and rural community. Adopting a broad definition of education, this thesis examines educational initiatives within voluntary organisations, rural schools and progressive schools established in the countryside. Through an examination of these diverse forms of educational activity, this research redresses the marginalisation of the rural in the history of education and enhances historical understanding of the countryside as an educative space. Drawing on archival and documentary sources which have not been used before, it argues that conceptions of ‘rurality’ and ‘rural community’ shaped the structure and content of education in the countryside during the interwar years. It contends that a critical understanding of ‘rural education’ is needed within the history of education, one that acknowledges the changing representational and physical significance of the countryside. This has importance for a fuller understanding of dominant themes in the field, including progressivism, the expansion of the national education system following the First World War and informal education. This research also contributes to rural history by exposing the different ways in which the rural community was conceptualised among various individuals and groups, in relation to changing ideas about voluntarism, citizenship and gender

Cloud Chamber: A Performance with Real Time Two-Way Interaction between Subatomic Particles and Violinist

‘Cloud Chamber’ - a composition by Alexis Kirke, Antonino Chiaramonte, and Anna Troisi - is a live performance in which the invisible quantum world becomes visible as a violinist and subatomic particle tracks interact together. An electronic instrument was developed which can be “played” live by radioactive atomic particles. Electronic circuitry was developed enabling a violin to create a physical force field that directly affects the ions generated by cosmic radiation particles. This enabled the violinist and the ions to influence each other musically in real time. A glass cloud chamber was used onstage to make radioactivity visible in bright white tracks moving within, with the tracks projected onto a large screen