It’s soon time for Valletta to transform itself once more into a massive science hub bringing together knowledge, arts and – most importantly – fun. This year’s Science in the City Festival, now in its sixth edition, promises to take things a notch higher with a new layout and a host of innovative activities.
With a programme featuring an array of highly interactive activities, the theme of this year’s festival is the future: ‘Today’s Research; Tomorrow’s Society’. On the list of things to try, visitors will find the usual favourites – such as health and dental checks, child-friendly experiments, shows and games – as well as completely new activities that find their inspiration in ongoing research projects here in Malta.
One of the main attractions on this year’s calendar will certainly be Light Pushes Stuff, an interactive, moving light sculpture that is set to be a first for Malta. The premise behind the project is simple: scientists have found that light is actually capable of moving stuff, a discovery that can lead to endless new applications with the potential to change the way we communicate and travel. This exciting discovery has now been turned into a unique light installation based on new and cutting-edge research being locally led by André Xuereb from the Department of Physics at the University of Malta, together with other colleagues around the world as part of the €10 million EU project Hybrid Optomechanical technologies. This installation is being put together by Late Interactive, who have pioneered light-based exhibits locally. Passers-by will be able to witness, interact with and manipulate the installation, which will be located just off Freedom Square.
Get Your Act Together, a two-year project spearheaded by More or Less Theatre, with the support of the Malta Arts Fund, the Valletta 2018 Foundation and Science in the city, is another main attraction.
A first of its kind for Malta, the project aims to give two playwrights mentorship and funds to create a theatrical script in both English and Maltese. This year, Gianni Selvaggi is writing a monologue dealing with cancer in men, addiction and mental health and Lizzie Eldridge is focusing on a script about community spaces and conflict between island communities and urbanisation, suicide and sexual abuse.
Hologram – Mcast is another intriguing event that will be working with the holographic card and space arrangements. The theme is the future of healthcare in the information age and, with the help of Prof. Mario Valentino, students will be portraying images of the professor’s work related to strokes, including a journey through the neurons.
The theme of this year’s festival is the future: Today’s Research; Tomorrow’s Society
Dance will be given the scientific treatment through Science of Dance, a collaboration between dancers and scientists in the University of Malta working in the area of brain diseases and disorders through optogenetics. The latter involves shining light in a part of the brain to stimulate it to treat different diseases. A brain ‘made of dancers’ will be created to let the audience illustrate the functioning of our most powerful muscle by making or breaking connections, by shining a light on a part of the brain and by observing which parts of a dancer’s body – the ‘owner’ of this gigantic brain – (mal)function following their interaction. The stage of Piazza Teatru Rjal will then be transformed into a brain-model, and audience members will be able to interact with something that is actually happening inside of them.
The environment features in Plastic Planet, an installation with fishing nets and plastic bottles and tablets hanging with facts about plastic and oceans. The tablets will be housed in bird boxes and will be hanging from trees in great siege square and each tablet will deliver a message on plastic waste. This project is being done in collaboration with Wasteserv.
Those who are fond of whodunnits will enjoy Crime Hunter, which will see six scenes of staged performances across Valletta. Crimes will include littering, theft, vandalism and physical attacks on people. Dublin-based artist and biologist Maria Corcoran will be conducting an interactive physical/theatrical performance to elicit the importance of the waggle dance observed in bee communities in Bees 4 Food – the project also includes a Bee Sculpture designed by Matthew Pandolfino, while the Walking Tour will involve a puppet show designed by Christine Tong.
Artificial Intelligence is also present thanks to the Department of Artificial Intelligence, which has collaborated with the Department of Digital Arts, at the University of Malta to design and develop three Virtual Reality experiences. Two of them aim to encourage empathy, while the scope of the third is to bring the classical music closer to an audience who wishes to visualise music in 3D video.
The two pilot projects working on empathy have been designed with a target audience of teachers, learning support assistants and educators working with children diagnosed with autism. Adults walk in children’s shoes for a brief time, using audiovisual stimuli to simulate the perceptions of children with autism as they go through the daily routine of a classroom.
Science in the City takes place on September 29 in various locations around Valletta. There are many more activities and events planned around Valletta for the festival. A full programme is available online.
http://scienceinthecity.org.mt