Thursday, March 8, 2012

"Aphasia"


Aphasia: A Stanford music professor's work, with hand gestures and odd sounds, about obsessive attention to ridiculous things

Mangled vocal samples, random icons and precise hand gestures come together in a mesmerizing performance by Stanford music scholar Mark Applebaum.

Mark Applebaum's 'Aphasia'

BY CAMILLE BROWN

The performer in the video steps onto the stage and sits down in a nondescript chair, his face blank of expression and hands placed squarely on his knees.

Suddenly, a metallic-sounding "THWUNK!" electrifies the space and with a sharp left-arm gesture the performer strikes his chest, beginning the performance of Aphasia, a composition by Mark Applebaum, associate professor of music at Stanford.

Comedy community comes together to help comedian who suffered stroke

Friends of Washington D.C. comedian Joe Deeley recently received word that he had suffered a stroke that left him with paralysis in his left side, and hospitalized for the foreseeable future. Like many working comedians, Joe does not have health insurance, and is sure to incur some very large hospital bills. A PayPal account has been set up to make donations in order to assist Joe in his recovery, and ease his financial burden. Donations towards Joe’s medical bills can be made to money4deeley@gmail.com (organized and monitored by comedian Rory Scovel), and we encourage anyone who can spare a few dollars to please do so.
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Monday, January 16, 2012

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

The premise of Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, may strike some readers as laughably unpromising, and others as breathtakingly rich. A sixty-ish Milanese antiquarian bookseller nicknamed Yambo suffers a stroke and loses his memory of everything but the words he has read: poems, scenes from novels, miscellaneous quotations. His wife Paola fills in the bare essentials of his family history, but in order to trigger original memories, Yambo retreats alone to his ancestral home at Solara, a large country house with an improbably intact collection of family papers, books, gramophone records, and photographs. The house is a museum of Yambo's childhood, conventiently empty of people, except of course for one old family servant with a long memory--an apt metaphor for the mind. Yambo submerges himself in these artifacts, rereading almost everything he read as a school boy, blazing a meandering, sometimes misguided, often enchanting trail of words. Flares of recognition do come, like "mysterious flames," but these only signal that Yambo remembers something; they do not return that memory to him. It is like being handed a wrapped package, the contents of which he can only guess.... Next

Friday, January 13, 2012

Brainwave: it could change your mind

Tickets are now on sale!

 

About the Karma Chain
As a prelude to the staged program, we are planning to stage a simple game of 'telephone' prior to the session to demonstrate the fallibility of oral transmission and the nature of short-term memory. Each ticket holder will stand on one of the steps of the 108-stepped spiral staircase of the Museum. The guest speaker stands at the base, whispers a short phrase they have prepared to the visitor on the first step, and the phrase would spiral up through the line until it reaches the ear of the scientist. The conversationalists will only reveal the original phrase and the result phrase when on stage in the theater, thus starting the conversation about memory.

About the Mnemonic Art Tour
Take advantage of a short tour of some paintings in the collection that function as mnemonic devices. The iconography in these paintings serve to reference specific passages in the sutras. That is why most of these works were not meant to be revealed to those who were not already initiates. The tour will include two types of paintings: narratives such as the life of the Buddha, and mandalas which are complex two-dimensional diagrams of one's multi-dimensional state of mind......Next
 


Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Stroke victim John wins national art acclaim


Stroke victim John Trower is exhibiting his artwork in Bluebells Florist and Tea Room in Downham Market. Pictured with John is Stroke support volunteer Tracie Gotheridge. Stroke victim John Trower is exhibiting his artwork in Bluebells Florist and Tea Room in Downham Market. Pictured with John is Stroke support volunteer Tracie Gotheridge.
AMATEUR dramatics enthusiast John Trower was left without speech and with no use in his right arm following a stroke which thrust him into a world of frustration.
His successful business as a driving instructor came to an immediate end, his driving licence was withdrawn and, unable to speak for the next two years, his outlook seemed bleak.
Determined to pick up the pieces, John began using his left arm, making doodles and drawings before venturing into water colours – and now his efforts have won him a national award and an exhibition.
There was a huge cheer for John as he stepped forward to receive the Susie Hulks Memorial Award at a Stroke Association awards evening at Claridges Hotel, in London.
He said: “I used to be so mobile. I had my own business as a driving instructor and I’d also teach people drama and we’d put on plays.
“You would not believe it to see me now, although there have been improvements.
“My speech, although very stilted, has gradually come back – but it takes so long to get the words the right way round in my head before I can even think about saying them,” said John, who now lives at Southfields, Downham, and is a regular member of the No 13 art group which meets at the Conservative Club....... http://bit.ly/pHrGkz

Community hub helps make growing old an art


Retired teacher, Libby Creber, dedicated her MA in counselling dissertation to her late mother's desire to make growing old an art. From this has come a unique, social life-line for carers and those they care for at Wymondham's Cup of Caring. Sandie Shirley reports.
Libby knows the heartache and hard-won understanding that comes while caring for two elderly family members. One suffered from senility and a lack of mobility and the other from a loss of coherent language, caused by a stroke. Her empathy and understanding of others was also enlarged during her six case-studies of carers for the http://bit.ly/o0Qjeh elderly during her recent UEA degree. ......

 

Monday, September 19, 2011

A journey through the brain: Artist uses neuroscience in her work

SALT LAKE CITY — When artist Amy Caron enters a room, you can't help but have your attention drawn to her. She's been wearing the same wedding dress every day for the past year as an art project.
What began as a steel white, satin, wedding dress has degraded over time, becoming dark and torn.
"I feel like I'm making a textile sculpture where the main ingredient is time," she said, adding it is a project making a statement about commitment and perseverance.
"As an artist, I really like to push boundaries," she said, shifting in her tattered dress.
Caron describes herself as an artist who thrives on taking on new challenges. After coming to Utah to be an aerial ski jumper for the U.S. Freestyle Ski team, she enrolled at the University of Utah to earn a bachelor's degree in dance. She then discovered art.
Eager to join a New York art program that encouraged artists to team up with professionals in other areas, Caron entered an ambitious proposal: doing an art exhibit exploring the human brain. She said the idea came to her while watching a BBC program about neuroscientist Dr. V.S. Ramachandran and his work on mirror neurons.
"I kind of just went crazy and cooked up this grand idea. I thought neuroscience sounded impressive, but I knew nothing about it," Caron said.
It took her a year of research, working with some of the world's top researchers in neuroscience from Harvard, University of California at San Diego and researchers in Italy. It took two more years to create the exhibit and write the roles performers play for each part of the brain......
http://bit.ly/q7q9vt

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The short film “Aphasia,” which tells the true story of a North Carolina

Film screening
The short film “Aphasia,” which tells the true story of a North Carolina man who had a massive stroke at age 44, will be screened at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the East Carolina Heart Institute at East Carolina University, 115 Heart Drive. The movie stars Carl McIntyre of Laurinburg, an actor who had a stroke in 2005. As a result, McIntyre lives with aphasia, an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person's ability to process language but does not affect intelligence. Free. Visit www.aphasiathemovie.com. Contact Sherri Winslow at 744-6142 or email winslowsh@ecu.edu.

Brain-injured artists show life's reflections

BRAIN-INJURED ARTISTS SHOW LIFE'S REFLECTIONS

Picture
Sandra Madden of Douglas shows her color photo “Native Child.” She took the picture on a visit to Plimoth Plantation. (T&G Staff Photos/CHRISTINE PETERSON)


Picture
"Winter Calm" by Sandra Madden shows a field in the Blackstone Valley.
Enlarge photo
It's a simple scene: a baby nestled inside a pouch around his mother's belly, sleeping.

His eyes are softly closed, his head leaning against his mother.

It's a scene of calm, of tranquility, captured through Sandra Madden's camera lens. That feeling of peace is what Ms. Madden loves about the photo. That feeling of peace is something she was missing for a while after a bicycle accident nearly five years ago changed her life.

She was riding her bicycle near her home in Douglas when she lost control for a second. She fell off the bike and onto her back. more read...

Sunday, February 13, 2011

National Aphasia Association: A Night At The Theater To See “Wings”

A few weeks ago in our Perspectives series we interviewed the Program Director of the Snyder Center for Aphasia Life Enhancement (SCALE) in Baltimore, Denise McCall, and the Technology Coordinator, Jes Porro. That story grew so rich that we set up an interview with Ellayne Ganzfried, Executive Director of the National Aphasia Association, which will appear in our next installment of Perspectives. In that interview, Ellayne was especially proud of her association’s work with Second Stage Theater in New York City, which has reprised the 1978 play “Wings,” written by Arthur Kopit. On Tuesday, November 2nd, Second Stage Theater and the NAA have teamed up for an evening of outreach and fundraising through the playNext.....

Thursday, August 19, 2010

National Gallery Innovative Art Project For Stroke Suvivors to Restore Creativity | Art Knowledge News

National Gallery Innovative Art Project For Stroke Suvivors to Restore Creativity | Art Knowledge News
LONDON.- An innovative art project developed by the National Gallery is giving a group of stroke survivors the chance to get their creative juices flowing. Ageing Creatively is an outreach programme that aims to make it possible for people who may be isolated, vulnerable or unable to visit the Gallery independently, to access and enjoy the collection. During November, members of the Greenhill Aphasia Group took part in four outreach workshops at the Greenhill Centre in Newham. Aphasia is a difficulty speaking or understanding speech, reading or writing. It occurs following damage to the brain and is most common after a stroke.


Participants worked with artist Viyki Turnbull to create still-life drawings and paintings.


For this project – titled “The Real and Unreal” – the group looked at images of still-life paintings in the National Gallery’s permanent collection and compared and contrasted the different approaches that artists have taken....next

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Hannah Mumblings

Today I helped hang an exhibition at Newcastle University Ex Libris Gallery, which shows work produced by people with Aphasia. 


Aphasia is a communication and language impairment which is most commonly caused when a person's brain is damaged by a stroke. Aphasia often makes it difficult to process words, especially in sentences, whether they be written, read or spoken.



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Monday, August 16, 2010

Aphasia chosen as Official Selection of Big Bear Lake International Film Festival in California



For Immediate Release


For more information or for interviews please contact
Donna Scott, donnascott@hotmail.com


Aphasia chosen as Official Selection of Big Bear Lake International Film Festival in California


Aphasia will screen September 2010


CHARLOTTE, N.C. July 30, 2010 … The short film Aphasia has been chosen as an Official Selection of the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival and will be shown in Big Bear, CA in September 2010.

Magic Words

Spellbound = Aphasic?
Is to be spellbound to experience aphasia?

"She stood silent, motionless, spellbound. Words had lost all meaning."
—Mary Stewart, Unspotted from the World (1897)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Saul Bellow Writes a Love Letter, and Considers Heaven

I’ve become forgetful, too. Nothing like your father’s nominal aphasia. I find I can’t remember the names of people I don’t care for—in some ways a pleasant disability. I further discover that I would remember people’s names because it relieved me from any need to think about them. Their names were enough. Like telling heads. NEXT....

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Ottawa artist recognized for work with aphasia sufferers

Until he started volunteering at the Aphasia Centre of Ottawa two years ago, Jeffrey Burns had no idea how much he had in common with people suffering from aphasia, a disturbance in processing or understanding language due to brain damage, often from a stroke.

But the Ottawa artist quickly discovered that, like him, people with aphasia often rely on a visual language to express themselves. Instead of speaking, reading or writing, they count on pictures to do the talking for them. “I value images very much, as well as the written word and the poetics of language, so I really understand how frustrating it must be to have difficulty with those things,” said Burns.

Fluent Aphasia (Wernicke Aphasia) Symptoms


This form of aphasia is caused due to damage to the middle left region of the brain, where the language network exists. It is called fluent aphasia because people suffering from this form of speech disorder have the ability to speak long, complex sentences fluently, however, these sentences often make no logical sense and are strings of inappropriately used or unrecognizable words. They cannot understand what others are saying properly and fail to see that others cannot understand what they are trying to say.Next...

Sunday, December 6, 2009

maybe Aphasia ?



Tuesday, October 27, 2009

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sokollatos/


Saturday, September 26, 2009

As amnesia strikes, ‘Fuddy’ equals funny By Nancy Van Valkenburg



By Nancy Van Valkenburg (Standard-Examiner staff)

Last Edit: 1 day 10 hours ago (Sep 24 2009 - 10:10pm)

Imagine waking up refreshed and carefree.

Plagued by no wistful regrets, no bad decisions. Free of haunting childhood memories and thoughts of relationships turned sour.

Unable to recall your own name, or fathom where you might be or the identity of the man sitting on your bed.

And wondering if you should trust the stranger’s explanation.

It happens to Claire, the amnesiac in “Fuddy Meers,” David Lindsay-Abaire’s dark farce/mystery opening next Friday at Weber State University.

“In a way, her amnesia is kind of a blessing to her,” said Stephanie Purcell, 21, an Ogden resident who plays the upbeat heroine. “It takes away any doubts she has about herself. She is the most honest character, with herself and others. She’s not hiding anything, at least consciously. She is open to everything that comes to her.”

Besides the man on the bed, who turns out to be husband Richard, people who come into Claire’s world include:
# A foul-mouthed young man, Kenny, who may be her son. next................