Wordlende

In our final episode of the first season of Wordlende, we speak to Simon Kirby: an artist and professor of 'language evolution' at the University of Edinburgh. His work parallels scientific and artistic investigations of cultural evolution and the origins of human uniqueness, particularly the evolution of language. We talk about his numerous artistic projects such as Cybraphon, which won a BAFTA in 2009, and investigate deeply into the thought behind the album artwork Simon kindly created for us. Its a super-long-jam-packed-multidisciplinary-season-finale of an episode with many interesting points of inquiry throughout.

make sure to check our double album, almanac for a sanguine solstice I & II on bandcamp now! thanks to all our listeners that have tuned in every week, we hope to see you soon.

Today we’re joined by the Mexican-Scottish poet and vocalist Patrick Romero. His poems have appeared recently in magazines in Scotland and the UK such as Poetry Scotland, Bella Caledonia, and Gutter. He writes about hitchhiking, outdoorsiness, and his bicultural upbringing between Edinburgh and Central Mexico. He also founded and now edits the poetry journal Wet Grain.

Dr. Jackie Gulland is a lecturer in political and social science at the University of Edinburgh, she is a  well established researcher of social welfare laws and policies and their effect on people in relation to gender, disability, age and other inequalities. Her book 'Gender, Work and Social Control: a century of disability benefits' was published in 2019 and won the Social Policy Association Richard Titmuss Book Award (2020). The main focus of this episode is Jackie's passion for gardening and her blog entitled “Reclaiming Paradise” in which she documents her gardening adventures as well as occasionally veering off to other topics of interest. find the blog here: https://reclaimingparadise.wordpress.com/ and follow Jackie on twitter here: @GreenBeanJackie

Today we were thrilled to chat to Judith Lamb - an expert forager and founder of Edinburgh Forage and Eat. We discuss the virtues of foraging, wild swimming and the dangers of self medication - its a jam packed fruit roll up of an episode with tips in this seasons foragables!

From beginnings in the black forest region of south west Germany, Judith has always connected to her surroundings through food. This is probably not surprising for someone growing up surrounded by so much natural beauty and so many delicious wild foods amid an ancient and continuous foraging tradition. Her parents, an environmentalist and zoology professor and a cooking teacher with an amazing palate and facility in the kitchen, both forage, as did their parents and grandparents before them, so, naturally, from the time she were born, Judith and her siblings became part of this long line of woodland foragers.

MICHAELBRAILEY is an electronic musician, composer and curator based between Manchester (UK) and Hamburg (DE). His current work - often foregrounding text, screens and voices - is focused somewhere between themes of data transfer, ekphrasis, body tension, anxiety, ecology and Love.

In this episode we discuss James Lovelocks Gaia and Novacene hypotheses, Michael's AI composition for Bastard Assignments, amongst other works, and the sprawling intersections between taxonomy, scientific racism, colonialism, algorithms, mathematics and the act of describing. 

In this episode of Wordlende we speak to Isla Ratcliff, a Scottish fiddle player, singer and composer, with a background in classical violin and piano. Isla’s work is underpinned by her interests in cultural politics, the environment, spoken word, theatre, and music’s positive impact on our wellbeing. Aged 16, she won the lyrics category of Amnesty International’s Power Of Our Voices protest songwriting competition with her song ‘Death Row’. In 2019 she devised a musical-theatrical production A Reawakened Monument of Antiquity, inspired by the music and cultural-political context of A Collection of Highland Vocal Airs (Patrick McDonald 1784).

We cover folk music, tradition, and politics as well as identity and personal connection to these elements. check out Isla's work here: https://islaratcliff.com/

Dr. Ross Piper who is a zoologist, author, presenter and on-screen expert. He has been fascinated by animals for as long as he can remember, an interest that led to a first class degree in zoology at Bangor University and a PhD in insect ecology at the University of Leeds. Currently a visiting fellow at the University of Essex and a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. Ross’ future projects include a new book exploring insects as a source of novel pharmaceuticals and biomaterials as well as devising new techniques for sampling terrestrial arthropods and planning further expeditions.

In this episode we discuss biodiversity, the necessity of loving our fellow parasites and parasitoids and how tiny wasps could be the inspiration for a new wave of artificial intelligence.

Rosalind Ridout is an adventurous and versatile flute player whose work is informed by movement, space, and music’s relationship to the body. Her performance interests lie in ‘conventional’ baroque and contemporary repertories as well as experimental, cross-discipline theatre. She is currently opening up research avenues into Dalcroze Eurhythmics and is able to apply her performance-based research in her role as Director of Music at the Jack & Jill Family of Schools in Hampton.

In this episode we cover meditation and how a deeper and further understand of our own bodies affects our empathy to other creatures and ecological thought. We discuss Ros and Callum's explorations into connecting with mycorrhizal networks, trees and the birds nest orchid through various somatic practices. 

Bennett Hogg is a composer, sound artist, improviser and academic writer based in the North East of England. Since 2003 he has taught composition, sound art, and musicology at Newcastle University. We are delighted to speak to him in our first episode.