So Beautiful It Can Bring You To Tears

I have just watched a video that landed on my virtual desk from the TED Talks. TED ("Technology, Entertainment, Design") is an extraordinarily exciting group of thinkers/visioners/doers. They are artists, scientists, musicians, activists. It's hard to say what they are, actually. What I know is that they create this magic space where they get together and talk about ideas.

But they don't just talk. They also try to effect change. That makes them especially wonderful.

The Bad News
I had an invitation to attend a Ted Conference last year. But at $3500 or so it's a steep price tag for a girl with an head full of ideas, tons of passion but an empty portfolio and emptier pockets.  Besides, I wonder, How can I contribute meaningfully to these discussions? What do I bring to the table that is unique to me?  So while I wrestle with my demons, I squirrel my pennies away and work on my portfolio, ...

The Good News
The good news is that Ted means business. They want their ideas to be out there so they put videos of their talks online for the world to see. Free.  See for yourself.

So, back to the reason for this post. in my inbox today was the Allosphere. Well really, it was announcement about TED tweets but really, do the mechanics of how I found it matter?  The idea of an allosphere in my inbox is so much more romantic.

So what is the Allosphere.  Well, at first glance it appears to be 1/3 Cerebro (X-Men), 1/3 Holodeck (Star Trek) and the rest is a whole lot of other magic thrown in. A less star-struck person might tell you, as Ted does, that the Allosphere is "an entirely new way to see and interpret scientific data, in full color and surround sound inside a massive metal sphere."*

I still assert that it is pure, wonderful, unadulterated, magic.

But, I'll let clearer heads prevail.  From her speaker bio on Ted: "Composer JoAnn Kuchera-Morin works on the Allosphere, one of the largest scientific and artistic instruments in the world. Based at UCSB, the Allosphere and its 3D immersive theater maps complex data in time and space. Kuchera-Morin founded the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) and has been the director since its birth in 1986. In 2000 she began work on a Digital Media Center within the California NanoSystems Institute at Santa Barbara. Her fascinations include gestural interfaces for performance and the expression of complex data in nontraditional forms."

Check it out: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joann_kuchera_morin_tours_the_allosphere.html

If you need incentive to follow that link, consider this: researchers stand on a bridge in the center of a large spherical room/device and watch data.  Imagine flying through the brain of one of the researchers and hearing blood density levels sung by computer agents.  Higher density means higher pitch and more brain activity.

* From "About this Talk" on Ted found at the check it out link above.