CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Are you interested in finding out more about the way we use memory to navigate the city?

If you are between 18-35 years of age; in good health and with no history of mental illness; not visually impaired; a fluent English speaker; right-handed; and conservatively coiffed, the read on…

If you fit all of the above criteria, and also consider yourself to possess good navigation abilities, have little knowledge of Soho, London, and pockets of free time between late January and early March read on…

We are looking for participants for an exciting experimental study on navigation in London. The Memory Network has previously conducted successful experiments in this area of London with author Will Self.

The study involves learning an area of London from maps and through a guided tour and then completing a series of navigation tasks in Soho whilst wearing a mobile EEG device. Before testing we take a number of steps in a selection process. First we will ask you to fill out a several questionnaires to determine your navigation and wayfinding abilitites. On the basis of these results you may then be invited to participate and asked to fill in other questionnaires about your prior knowledge of the area and learn a number of features from maps, images, and a guided tour. During the testing, you will be asked to navigate through the learned environment, to carry a backpack and use a smartphone device and your brain activity will be recorded using EEG.

We would need around 5 hours of your time, split over 3 sessions over the course of a week, and you will be paid £7.50/hour for this.

For further information or to register interest in participating in this study, please e-mail memorynetwork@roehampton.ac.uk. N.B.: places are limited, and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

http://vimeo.com/67153571

A short video on the Memory Network’s previous experiment on navigation in Soho with Will Self

Interrupted Memory

Documentarist Michael Chanan’s new film, Interrupted Memory, will receive its world premiere at the Havana International Film Festival, 5-15 December 2013, where Chanan will also be participating in a panel discussion on contemporary documentary. There will be a preview screening at Roehampton on Wednesday 4th December (Duchesne Lecture Theatre, 4.30pm)

Interrupted Memory is a documentary about memory and politics in Argentina and Chile, shot in Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Santiago in the southern autumn of 2013, which follows the course of people of different generations in the act of remembering in front of the camera. Asked about their earliest political memories, people recollect incidents and experiences from childhood and youth which frequently figure demonstrations, popular militancy, rebellion, and military coups. Then, recalling salient episodes in their political experience, their memories also testify to histories of state terrorism and repression.

The remembered experiences shape a collective narration of history in the two countries from a range of different angles, whose traces are also found in clips from the archives which play off against the spoken word. In short, the film constructs a possible version of lived political experience, of collective living memory, in which, to borrow a phrase from Gilles Deleuze, people tell stories that are never fictional. It concludes with reflections on the politics of memory, and the lacunae of today’s official discourses of human rights in the two countries, either because trauma, both social and individual, always leaves traces that remain ineffable, beyond expression—or because some things are put aside as politically inconvenient and incorrect.

http://www.mchanan.com/interrupted-memory/