mishasomerville.com

Imitation & Innovation

redlightray — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:23:45 +0000

The two fundamental behaviors are imitation and innovation. Imitation allows subsistence with minimal effort. Innovation normally fails, though when it doesn’t it will be imitated many times.

Bothy Culture // Scotland

redlightray — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:50:43 +0000

Excerpt From Interview with Magdi Yacoub

redlightray — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 22:23:37 +0000

I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview the world’s leading Heart Surgeon Magdi Yacoub in 2012. He pioneered several medical procedures – most notably ‘the Ross Procedure’ – which he pursued through a period in medical history when it looked like artificial heart valves would surpass procedures like the Ross procedure, which used natural tissue/grafts to make repairs to the heart. It wasn’t until decades later (once the patients have lived with the repairs for years/decades) that it became obvious that Yacoub’s intuition and served him well and results showed the Ross Procedure was in fact more successful than the use of artificial values. Both still maintain their place and continue to be used and developed.

This question I asked in reference to his development of the Ross Procedure:

Misha Somerville: Ehhh, I mean this field is obviously lead by science, but looking back at seminal figures in history it almost seems like the great scientists are explorers, the great exporers are athletes and the great athletes are mathematicians. This might be science, how often do you work with your instinct waiting for the science to catch up?

Magdy Yacoub: I think that is an excellent question ..ehhh… in science you have to be guided by instinct as well, because the progress in science, which is defined as the search for the truth, starts as a leap of imagination …and these leaps of imagination, called theories or conjectures, and that’s, that’s where things start – it’s like a leap – and then the reasoning starts to either prove it or refute it, and if you can’t refute it then you are are nearer to the truth and science advances … what does science do? it is in service of humanity, and the difference between science and humanity is ill defined if you like – science and humanity are intermingled.

Time to Absorb

redlightray — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:50:14 +0000

I’m taking a little break and not working quite so many hours each day. Here’s an excellent animation by Steve Cutts I found while looking through a backlog of vimeo films. Highly recommended:

MAN from Steve Cutts on Vimeo.

Fanfare for the Makers

redlightray — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:58:13 +0000

A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?
To the small fire that never leaves the sky.
To the great fire that boils the daily pot.
To all the things we are not remembered by,
Which we remember and bless. To all the things
That will not notice when we die,
Yet lend the passing moment words and wings.
*
So fanfare for the Makers: who compose
A book of words or deeds who runs may write
As many who do run, as a family grows
At times like sunflowers turning towards the light.
As sometimes in the blackout and the raids
One joke composed an island in the night.
As sometimes one man’s kindness pervades
A room or house or village, as sometimes
Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades
Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes
At midnight means to share them, as one man
In old age plants an avenue of limes
And before they bloom can smell them, before they span
The road can walk beneath the perfected arch,
The merest greenprint when the lives began
Of those who walk there with him, as in default
Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite
Of all assaults conscripts counter assault,
As mothers sit up late night after night
Moulding a life, as miners day by day
Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite
In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play
Their fish, as workers work and can take pride
In spending sweat before they draw their pay.
As horsemen fashion horses while they ride,
As climbers climb a peak because it is there,
As life can be confirmed even in suicide:
To make is such. Let us make. And set the weather fair.

By Louis MacNeice

Anenon

redlightray — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 17:56:55 +0000

Another incredibly inspiring mix posted on the Xlr8r blog. I’ve listened to this a million times.

Yosi Horikawa

redlightray — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 16:23:21 +0000

Several months on and I’m still finding this track hugely inspiring. I especially like the woodpecker samples. The use of ambient noise and field-recorded samples in electronic music is of course not new, but it seems there is so much space in this genre that the artists exploring it are working in uncharted territory. It was these components that drew me to document Barry Reid‘s recent work with the project Meall a’ Bhuiridh.

Click the image to link through to an Xlr8r post and Yosi Horikawa‘s ‘Wandering’ >

Snow. In Africa?

redlightray — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:59:17 +0000

SNOW. In AFRICA? from Misha somerville on Vimeo.

Audio Visual Project from Scottish Mountain Culture

redlightray — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:57:55 +0000

With the arrival of Winter here is a short film I made earlier this year.

In 2010 photographer Jennifer Wilcox started documenting Glencoe Ski Centre in the Scottish Highlands. Using sounds recorded on the Hill and around the ski centre Barry Reid then added a compelling soundtrack to the images. This is a short film documenting the results from a fascinating project within Scottish mountain culture, one with it’s roots right back at the beginning of the British ski industry.

Featuring the talents of Jennifer Wilcox, Barry Reid, Feargus Hetherington, John Somerville, Adam Sutherland and Sean Purser.

Meall a’ Bhuiridh (Hill of the bellowing) from Misha somerville on Vimeo.

Winter Arrives

redlightray — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:19:45 +0000

Loch Avon / Cairngorms – Nov 12