Event 1: Linda Weintraub's Hands-On Experiment

Recently, I attended Linda Weintraub's hands-on workshop, which was quite the interesting experience. Upon arriving, Linda had all of us stay outside the room, discarding all belongings as well as shoes and socks. She asked us, what percent of our daily interactions with material objects are with objects that are not mass-produced and highly manufactured? Most of us could barely come up with 2% of interactions, and more said 0%.

The interior of the room was dimly lit, and Linda, a native of upstate New York, had gathered a bunch of materials from her woods. We had an hour to peruse all of the items within the room, with the sole goal of reconnecting our bodies and our minds. Linda generally argued that technology has made us lose our connection to the world around us, somewhat by numbing our lesser-used senses. For example, one of the hands-on activities included walking on a mat that had pine needles, small red seeds, various leaves, and wood chips in order to reconnect with the sensory abilities of our feet. Other activities included sorting various objects (like deer ribs, pine cones, and acorns) by size without looking at them or sorting them by weight using our best judgment. 

I really enjoyed Linda's presentation because it kind of backtracked some of the ideas in this class. In a world with so much technology and focus on industrialization, it was interesting to see someone put so much emphasis on reconnecting with nature and ourselves. It reminded me that even though this class' focus is on how art and science, technology, and computers connect, art is still a human experience. While we may use technology to more easily create things, or even create things that we may only be able to otherwise imagine mentally, these things come from a place of human experience and how each part of our body, mentally, physically, or otherwise, interacts with the world around us.

While I would recommend this event to a friend, I'm not sure it's being presented on any longer. However, much of this experiment can be replicated by simply leaving all belongings at home, going into a secluded outdoor area, and allowing yourself to slowly interact with the nature around you via every sense you possess.