- Hello, and welcome to the Physics World Stories
- podcast. I'm Andre Glesser. And in this episode,
- we're gonna be exploring the creative ways that
- people are looking at the climate emergency.
- It's a little bit of a departure for
- us on the podcast, but I hope you'll
- stay with us because we are, after all,
- all parts of this planet, which is changing
- as a result of the climate. Of course,
- there's a lot of physics involved in that,
- but what we're looking at in this episode
- is the human reaction to it.
- We'll hear later in the podcast
- from a composer,
- who's created a video game along with music
- like this, which enables people
- to spend ten minutes in a narrative exploring
- a very particular story, which began with the
- composer's child sitting in the car and exclaiming
- their despair
- at the climate emergency.
- That's to come later in the podcast. But
- first, we'll hear from a man who's just
- returned from a 600
- kilometer performance tour in the Arctic borderlands,
- sometimes
- dressed as a reindeer.
- Hello. My name is Tom Bailey, and I'm
- a Bristol based,
- theater maker and director.
- And I make work through a company called
- Mechanical.
- And for several years now, the company's been
- focused on creating work about,
- and with the natural world,
- exploring what it means to live on a
- changing planet and
- exploring kind
- of creative questions about engaging with the more
- than human,
- on the planet.
- So asking a a question, I suppose, is
- theater for or with just humans, or can
- it be made
- with and in and about,
- more than humans as well? And so so
- really
- trying
- to, I guess, respond to questions about climate
- change, but try not
- to continue the kind of, like, I suppose
- or explore apocalypse scenario
- or data heavy
- kind of questions about climate change that tend
- to put audiences off. So what are the
- kind of what's the kind of more exciting,
- fresh,
- and
- relevant way to explore what it is to
- live on a changing planet? So I've just
- come back from
- I'm still finding the right word to to
- term it. A long,
- slow,
- landscape
- focused performance tour or green tour from one
- festival to another festival
- in Northern Arctic Norway. And
- this is, I guess, one strand of what
- the company does,
- exploring
- the effects,
- or or the impact of climate change on,
- the way that
- we, humans, or whatever, conventionally
- tour
- artworks. So I guess in the theater, you
- could say, well, there's
- if we're looking at international touring, there's quite
- a big sort of helicopter touring model. So
- you get an invitation to go to a
- festival. Great. Fly out there, do a gig
- for a couple nights, come back.
- And that's okay, but, obviously, it's quite carbon
- intensive.
- You know, there's there's one way of looking
- at green touring, which is about,
- k, perhaps we could use kind of green
- means of transport. We could reduce our carbon,
- try and reach net zero, go by train
- rather than plane, things like that.
- And I guess I found
- when when looking at those questions with, you
- know, larger companies that that maybe have a
- bigger carbon footprint, You know, Mechanical is just
- a small scale company. So I figured that,
- okay. Well, the the carbon footprint isn't necessarily
- a massive
- thing for me because I'm you know, I
- I often work with just two or three
- creatives in creating shows.
- There seems to be a really exciting question
- artistically
- for me or conceptually.
- What if we explore this question of green
- touring from an artistic point of view? What
- if
- rather than just being about, k, getting to
- net zero, doing business as usual, but just
- just doing it in green means,
- perhaps
- climate change
- kind of makes us really think and question
- about the the the models that we have
- for touring arts, and do they need to
- change, and what, I suppose,
- what right now kind of radical
- solutions or different ways of doing things are
- there. So I I kind of followed this
- kind of question a couple years ago
- about, okay, what if we
- are inspired
- to tour or travel with work by the
- way that nature moves? So can we look
- at examples of movement in nature
- that that, you know, could could help us
- think about touring models? So
- couple years back, I
- took a show to Denmark from Scotland
- following
- kind of well, based on looking at old
- maps,
- of kind of tree lines across millennia,
- following a kind of poetic tree line from
- place to place. And I got from yeah.
- Took me across Northern Scotland, Norway,
- and and then I traveled by foot and
- boat, and eventually got to to Denmark. So
- I I did that exploration in 2024,
- the first kind of green touring exploration.
- And,
- I just I wasn't sure what to
- make of it. I was just, like, obviously
- wanted, you know, really enjoy walking, and I
- just thought I'd take photos on the way.
- And,
- I was quite surprised at the
- response to it. People seem really interested in
- this and,
- kind of supportive of it, and there seemed
- to be industry appetite for what was, I
- guess, quite a sort of
- perhaps more of a left field approach,
- to to a big question. If I'm somebody,
- not you, but somebody else experiencing it, what
- do I see? What do you see? Well,
- I guess so, obviously, I I I did
- that journey in
- that originally,
- in 2024 in a couple of couple of
- months it took me. And I took a
- lot of documentation,
- photos mainly.
- And
- the show that I took then was about
- species extinction and the IUCN red list. And
- so the the show that I was taking
- involved me embodying as a kind of clown
- or trying to embody lots of extinct species
- in the space of an hour.
- So I kind of started the theme of
- sort of documenting
- myself doing these kind of, like, outdoor performance
- and
- taking on,
- the shapes of animals.
- And so it exists now as a kind
- of,
- yeah, as a kind of photo gallery that
- is being translated into
- a performance,
- as we speak.
- So I'm in rehearsal for that. So I
- felt, okay. Well, there's obviously a tour in
- nature that is happens remotely,
- and
- I do that. And it's it's it's about
- research and experience and doing that journey. But
- then I can
- translate that to share it with people
- into
- online galleries
- and also,
- live performance. So I guess people were really
- seemed really interested in witnessing material from those
- journeys actually in live performance.
- So that brings me to the journey that
- I've just done.
- So, I guess,
- following on from kind of connections I had
- in Norway, there came a new opportunity to
- do a journey from
- one festival to another festival in far Northern
- Norway. So it's kind of like perhaps a
- 100 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.
- You get, you know, this bit, which is,
- you know, essentially Norway, Finland, Sweden,
- all are kind of slightly in the,
- the Arctic Circle there.
- And,
- in a nutshell,
- basically,
- Donald Trump's,
- you know, saying we we're gonna, you know,
- take Greenland, la di da. You know, that
- was in the news a a few few
- months ago.
- And that's just the kind of tip of
- the iceberg in in terms of, you know,
- an international
- awareness and focus on the Arctic region as
- a fast changing region
- with a huge amount of,
- sea and land based resources
- and minerals and things,
- but also, you know, questions about ownership and
- international
- access to slash sharing of those resources.
- My understanding is that the Arctic Ocean,
- where the ice cap currently exists, which who
- who knows how long that is gonna be
- there for, but that's that's not actually
- owned by anyone. So there's there's this kind
- of open there's this question about governance and
- access resources and,
- you know, extraction and so forth that is
- very much at the forefront
- of,
- I guess I guess well,
- now and looking at the, the the future
- of the Arctic region, And it's very much
- in the minds of people who live in
- the region, but, obviously, it's gonna affect
- so many people beyond the region in terms
- of, you know, who gets access to Greenland's
- resources or
- undersea minerals and
- this, that, and the other shipping routes access
- to to to,
- to waters.
- And
- so
- it's kind of, you know, a a question,
- you know, in a perhaps a broader
- artistic sense. I was interested. Well, you know,
- in a in a changing planet where,
- you know,
- landscapes
- change over time,
- and there's questions about,
- you know,
- as the Earth changes,
- who has access to space,
- place,
- and
- what do we do with that, and how
- do we potentially share that seems to be
- quite an important question.
- And, obviously,
- as a passionate environmentalist, I'm like, well, is
- it all just about extraction of those resources?
- Like, is is that the only thing that
- we're really
- arguing about? And
- from a very wide lens,
- you know, I suppose the overarching question is,
- well, how what's a way to,
- share or have governance
- of
- place and resources
- and dot dot dot from a a more
- than human perspective as as weird and wacky
- as it might seem at the moment, in
- ten years' time, it might be quite logical
- to
- have nature
- on the board or in
- some kind of counsel
- for as as you know, nature having representation
- in decision making. You know, we've seen examples
- of, you know,
- mountains or rivers have,
- be granted legal rights and representation.
- And so
- I guess I found myself asking, well, what
- if
- what if the aspects of the Arctic were
- to have
- representation
- on what's called the Arctic Council,
- which is a a an intergovernmental
- decision making
- panel or body that decides of what goes
- on in the Arctic.
- So
- that's a kind of bit of a kind
- of conceptual overview. So I thought,
- you know, there's a chance to,
- I think, well, do a theater tour that
- is taking
- a kind of workshop
- from,
- you know, trying to engage people in these
- questions from from one festival to another.
- But on that tour, actually engage physically with
- the landscape and the nature there
- rather than read articles about it or look
- at YouTube videos.
- Actually go there, explore what's there, speak to
- the people,
- run interviews,
- I guess, try and do
- creative work en route that kind of takes
- in or responds to the landscape
- as part of this research,
- and develop a whole body of material that
- I can eventually translate into a show to
- engage people with these things.
- And yeah. So that's that's kinda what I
- did.
- Okay. So sorry. Well, just so I'm clear.
- In the two festivals, what show were you
- performing? Is it not this show? So the
- yeah. So here here's the here's the rub.
- So, like,
- the idea was that I was like, okay.
- For green touring,
- is it perhaps
- more interesting if rather than I set travel
- simply with a premade show from a to
- b,
- what if the show was born out of
- the journey that I did?
- So the journey is kind of the show
- and the artwork itself. So I guess from
- a bit of a kind of conceptual angle,
- the journey was a a two month long
- show,
- with nature as its audience.
- And,
- like so, you know, from that, I presented
- the first,
- you know, at the finishing festival,
- I presented a kind of hybrid performance
- lecture as it were or performance presentation, obviously,
- showing some of the document documentation of what
- I'd done, but also starting to translate that
- into a performance for audiences already.
- So so, yeah, it's as if, you know,
- touring without a show as it were or
- the show coming from the tour itself.
- Yeah. I mean, that's interesting in itself. And
- I think the other thing that's kind of
- just screaming out at me there from what
- you're talking about is that, you know, we
- we think I think most of the time,
- our representations of the Arctic from documentaries, from
- from artworks are about
- the beauty of it, about the kind of
- sublime nature that's there, about the climate that's
- changing.
- And then there's this kind of political angle.
- And it's just this I had this horrible
- thought that if you are
- a world leader you've mentioned one already. But
- if if you are a world leader who
- doesn't care about climate change, then you might
- think, do you know what? I'm gonna accelerate
- our use of fossil fuels because it's gonna
- open up shipping lanes, and it's gonna
- create a world that I can Yeah. Yeah.
- And I that's very true. And it could
- be said that
- some countries in the North, I. E, potentially,
- Russia, are not averse to climate change happening
- because it opens up access to resources and,
- as you say, shipping shipping routes, things like
- that,
- stuff hidden under the perm permafrost.
- As much as, you know, there's loads of
- methane, there's also, you know, access to resources
- that have sinned, you know, sinned or
- hitherto remained
- under ice.
- So
- it's,
- yeah, it's it's complicated.
- And I and I think,
- you know, right now, in terms of the
- the
- parts of the Arctic that I've seen,
- there's
- there's a mix of feelings. So so I
- wanted to journey through
- a season of melt. I wanted to try
- and understand
- rather than go in deep, deep winter.
- I wanted to get a sense of a
- travel over a changing season,
- see how,
- you know, in particular spring, the climate change
- is affecting,
- that particular area. And what I found was,
- at the moment, it varies really year to
- year whatever temperature you're gonna get. That was
- the one of those the most challenging things
- to deal with is to say, okay. So
- I've got a a temperature band of roughly
- about 40 degrees to to cater for. I
- I on any given day, it can be
- from my about minus 30 to plus 10
- and just depending on what the weather does
- that week or that particular year,
- and where I am. So
- that meant I just had to carry a
- lot of kit to
- cater for different scenarios.
- And it so happened that this year,
- that region had an exceptionally cold, sustained cold
- winter, which was unusual.
- You know, I got there and people are
- like, god, it's been mad. It it was,
- like, minus 30 for, like, successive weeks.
- And then around the March 10, and I
- started my journey soon after that. Around the
- March 10, it kind of flipped
- to a stable,
- warm spring
- of of almost consistently
- plus degrees,
- which was extremely unusual for that region to
- have that sort of lack of variation across
- spring.
- So what I found essentially was that meant
- that I was traveling through a very warm
- spring. So, okay, I didn't have to, like,
- worry about getting frostbite so much on my
- my hands,
- but I was constantly battling rotten snow,
- constantly battling melt, slushy snow,
- poor conditions for skiing. And when you're trying
- to drag a sled,
- about,
- you know, for the first half of it,
- about 400 kilometers across Finland,
- It's it's blooming tough work.
- So,
- you know, in place in terms of places
- that I encountered, that's obviously
- some people are like, great. You know, we
- prefer a warmer bit of spring, but other
- people are like, well, that's massively affecting tourism.
- And the people who are coming to the
- region is in you know, if you're not
- a hunter or you work in nature, then
- you know that that's affecting, you know, fish
- migration and what comes into the region. It's
- affecting
- other forms of animal migration,
- and what plants grow. So,
- yeah, I guess I guess not everyone is
- totally averse to climate change happening up there.
- But,
- yeah, people are sort
- of concerned about it, but,
- I guess, living with it and just living
- you know, learning to adapt.
- That major difference is a bit in temperature
- from day to day, week to week. Has
- that been like that for a while, or
- is that what the climate change has been
- bringing about? Climate change is bringing that, but
- but that's not, you know next year, it
- will guarantee to be something completely different.
- So you get this complete unpredictability
- of weather patterns. I guess kind of what
- you know now is that, generally,
- the temperature across spring and summer will be
- warmer.
- But as I say, like, in in winter,
- like, this year, they were plunged into deep
- sustained cold like they've never had before
- or in a long time. It's it's this
- breaking of a traditional pattern. In some areas,
- perhaps more
- coastal,
- they're saying that they're kind of, in the
- last fifty, sixty years, lost two months of
- winter,
- you know,
- such as the spring change.
- But I found that as soon as you
- get altitude,
- you can generally trust that
- you'll still get your cold and your snow.
- So as soon as I hit border mountains
- around Finland and Norway,
- you know, in late April, it was like
- plunging back into
- winter.
- So, you know, just an example, I had
- a a friend who
- visited,
- I think, a couple years ago
- or even last year was in a sim
- in a similar area,
- in April,
- where I traveled around the kind of Finland,
- Sweden, Norway border region,
- on what's called the the, you know, the
- finger Of Of Finland that kinda pokes up
- into Norway. And
- she said when I when she got there
- in April, it was she got minus 30
- temperatures.
- I was thinking, alright. Better better plan for
- that. Better, you know, make sure I've got
- my Arctic tent. But,
- you know, when I got there,
- I, you know, I'd had successive days of
- sunlight. The only sort of stable conditions I
- could travel on were,
- lakes and rivers, which still remain frozen.
- But when I actually got to the border
- river,
- even the river was open. So I ended
- up having to shift from skis
- to skis and sleds to hiking,
- but I couldn't hike up the river because
- it was kind of, you know, breaking open.
- So I had to go on this horrendously
- busy road,
- basically, a main highway up to
- up to up to the Norwegian border. So
- and then found at that border in mountain
- areas,
- oh, it's it's actually you know, I get
- elevation, and then suddenly it's winter conditions again.
- So I had to rehire some skis and
- a sled,
- to travel travel there. So it was a
- bit bit mad. So I I when you're
- as an artist, you're traveling through this this
- kind of changing landscape and you're talking to
- the people
- whose lives have been affected by it.
- Can you just tell me what what what
- you're thinking in terms of how you're going
- to represent that? And and to a certain
- extent, my my own interest particularly
- because my job is, you know, documentaries and
- things, the TV documentaries is
- it it it's often represented by melting snow.
- Right? Melting ice. That's how we see climate
- change in the Arctic. But what you're talking
- about is is much more complex than that.
- So how how do
- you represent that to people? Yeah.
- I guess, first off, I like,
- it feels like the theme of the theme
- of borders, which was the main theme of
- threshold,
- was, I guess, the thought about of of
- of breaking it down into four different areas
- of focus.
- Because, you know, we look at a map,
- and, of course, we just see
- geopolitical borders that have been drawn on there.
- But, of course,
- you know, we expand the lens. We've got,
- you know, the indigenous Sami community up there
- who
- whose notions of territory and geography don't conform
- to those international borders, which is still a
- big bone of contention up there. So you
- have Sami geographies that have been based around
- migration and and travel.
- And you've also got
- animals
- living in the region, animals and plants
- who, again, you know, have different kinds of
- geographies, sense of borders,
- and
- migration patterns. And one of those was one
- that inspired the route that I took. So
- I,
- you know, I'll get onto it, but as
- part of the more than human question, I
- was traveling
- with the kind of kind of conceit or
- the guise
- of a reindeer that's taken on human form,
- on my way to the Arctic Council.
- And so
- I I was journeying
- along,
- the roots of of traditional reindeer herding from
- the inland
- area to the coastal area, which is, you
- know, a a kind of spring to summer
- migration route.
- And there's also,
- lastly, the perspective of of kind of, like,
- geological borders, you know, the the
- the rivers, the the the sea, the mountains.
- So
- your question, how does this get represented?
- I guess, what questions was I asking to
- people? Well, I was obviously gathering audio
- audio information about, you know, asking people about
- their experience of borders, what they think about,
- you know, how what do they think about
- what Donald Trump said and thoughts about Arctic
- ownership.
- But I felt like for me,
- I wanted the
- input to be more about
- imagination.
- What if we you know? Because this is
- a creative con creative project
- and not just a kind of documentary or
- evidence gathering thing.
- So people always seem to become slightly more
- alive and interested when I ask, well, if
- you were to represent
- or or be able to
- take on the form of nature and represent
- something in nature that mattered to you at
- the Arctic Council, something in the Arctic region,
- what would it be, and what would it
- look like?
- And,
- you know, if there was space and time,
- like, how would that thing move and inviting
- people to embody what this this thing would
- be. So that that kind of collective imagination
- will
- in some way, inform the bedrock of of
- the performance that I'm trying to make. Why
- reindeer? What what was the thinking there? Because
- there was there was other fauna up there,
- so why reindeer? Is it because they can't
- fly? Is that the way?
- Well, I guess I guess I don't know
- if you've been to the region. Have have
- you? No. I haven't. No. So so reindeer
- for us are these, obviously, you know, Rudolph
- comes across in the,
- in the myths and the legends and the
- the kids' stories and all of that. But
- if, like, in the region,
- there's almost like nothing but reindeer in terms
- of farming. They're so prevalent. They're they're they
- are
- this you know, the Sami have based their
- kind of lives around reindeer herding for centuries.
- And reindeer
- stuff is actually very common, like reindeer skins
- and and then clothes made out of reindeer.
- And,
- there's almost not you know, you you won't
- see a cow for miles,
- you know, and traditional forms of agriculture. All
- of the agriculture is actually based around reindeer,
- which are beautiful, incredible, amazing beings.
- And
- I guess,
- I was partly trying to follow that question
- of, you know,
- can I be inspired by a way that
- that nature moves and found this particular reindeer
- migration pattern and thought that could be good
- match for the route that I might take?
- And something that that would migrate across borders
- and your human borders.
- But I think there's a it's fair to
- say that there's a fair amount of mythology
- about reindeer
- and and legends and folk tales that seem
- to excite me and be quite inspiring,
- not necessarily the kind of Rudolph, red nose
- reindeer, but
- but certainly in Sami mythology,
- there's a huge amount of, you know, spirituality
- and and a myth connected to the reindeer,
- fascinating pictorial representations
- going back hundreds of years.
- And I just found an yeah. Around reindeer,
- this kind of, like, cultural storehouse
- of
- very exciting and beautiful stuff that I I
- kinda really wanted to respond to. But, of
- course, as you say, there's, you know, there's
- salmon migrating salmon there. Bears go across the
- border.
- All sorts to do with plants. But I
- guess, you know,
- how it ended up was, you know, the
- the
- reindeer became my particular kind of, like,
- persona or character to travel with. But
- one of the questions that we ended up
- exploring was, and when I say we,
- me and a kind of artistic
- partner, Natasha,
- who's a designer and a maker,
- we asked this question, well, what if the
- reindeer were to meet other embodiments of nature
- on the way that were kind of on
- their way as a kind of chorus to
- the Arctic Council.
- So
- we ended up
- designing and making and photography if photographing, sorry,
- these various kind of,
- characters who
- might be on their way to the Arctic
- Council. And so it's a kind of imaginative
- exercise built out of research into kind of
- myth and legend in the area and also
- the landscape itself.
- And so we we did,
- depictions of ice,
- of lingonberries,
- of arctic night, of the aurora, of the
- forest.
- And so we we we sort of ended
- up creating sort of gallery of video and
- photo of these
- characters with an with an eye to that
- forming
- what the performance is is gonna be based
- around. Cool. Did you when you were doing
- it, did you experience
- the any of that kind of big
- fauna when you were traveling around?
- No bears. The bears are very secretive there.
- People who live there barely see them at
- oh, sorry. Bad pun. They hardly see it.
- We saw,
- well, tons of reindeer.
- I actually saw orcas.
- Oh, wow. Saw
- An arctic hare and a fox in a
- chase.
- That was pretty amazing.
- Lots of returning migrating birds as the spring
- went on.
- And,
- a sea otter. You know? So saw saw
- some pretty cool, cool things. But,
- yeah. Yeah. Cool. So I wanna get into
- just a little bit of your own, kind
- of personal journey on this. So you're
- embodying a reindeer or you're imagining your reindeer
- or reindeer, however you Mhmm.
- Phrase that. Are you are you listening to
- particular things? Have you got particular music that
- you're listening to? Are you listening to the
- Physics World Stories podcast? Is it moving around?
- What are you doing? Yeah. I guess I
- guess I'm trying to,
- well,
- I mean, first off, like,
- I didn't wanna get the the the this
- when I say I was traveling as a
- reindeer, it doesn't mean I was just going
- on on all fours,
- pretending I was a reindeer for the entire
- way.
- I had this, almost like a magic reindeer
- costume. So I traveled,
- and took with me
- a a reindeer pelt.
- And this was my kind of costume
- along with some antlers that I would put
- on mostly in kind of nighttime rituals when
- no one else was about, and I could
- go and go and almost use this this
- mask and this costume to as a way
- of experiencing the world.
- What I wanted to do was
- not come to the region
- with loads of ideas beforehand and say, well,
- I'm gonna helicopter in. I'm gonna do this,
- this, and this, and then get out. And
- I just kinda wanted to go there and
- witness.
- And because reindeer has such
- quiet, attentive,
- ready qualities
- or any kind of deer.
- I kind of felt
- that the deer was a brilliant way to
- just simply
- really observe
- what's around me, really listen,
- and really
- look at the small things, the care, the
- detail.
- So I spent quite a lot of time
- just trying to observe in detail
- and make sound recordings,
- take a lot of photographs,
- take lots of voice recordings,
- kind of soak it all in as it
- were. I I feel like I was trying
- to be a bit of a sponge during
- this time.
- So that's what I do in my kind
- of reindeer guys. And then, obviously, from day
- to day, you've got, you know, eight to
- ten hours of journeying where you got
- stuff to listen to,
- stuff to look at. Although Finland,
- as much as I love it, becomes quite
- monotonous after a while of, you know, lakes,
- rivers, pine trees, birch trees, snow.
- You know, eat, sleep, repeat, basically.
- Yeah. I guess I found myself
- listening
- not so much to kind of voice work
- and podcast,
- listening to, like, slow drone music
- because I felt that
- one of the unexpected things that I just
- maybe it's stupid in hindsight that I hadn't
- thought about it. But it's almost like
- light was the main relationship
- across the whole thing.
- Like, it was way brighter
- at that time of starting than I thought
- it would be. I kind of felt it
- would be like full night until about the
- end of February and then start to get
- lighter and lighter, But we were already in
- reasonable day brightness
- in March.
- And, essentially,
- I was journeying
- to, you know, mid late May and finishing
- just about the time of the midnight sun,
- the full midnight sun.
- And
- because it was exceptionally warm,
- spring
- and the sun was out quite a lot,
- I just, you know, was able to get
- the best of
- seeing
- how the sun would change,
- and the light would change
- day to day
- and
- experiencing this, like, yeah, I mean, Arctic light
- just just feels different. It feels quite incredible
- and makes me feel, like, really
- yeah. Just makes me feel a bit different
- to say how I experienced this some some
- here in Bristol.
- So
- I kind of really became attuned to
- the the kind of minutiae of changes to
- light across
- the journey.
- And
- and as much as it's a kind this
- is a kind of physics podcast, I have
- to say, as and as much as I
- love engaging with scientific research, I
- as a creative, sometimes it's it's
- I feel it's, like, it's okay to say,
- I you know, I wanna explore reindeer, but
- it doesn't mean I have to read all
- about the biology of reindeer or how trees
- respond to Arctic light. I just wanna experience
- it with my body and maybe at some
- point later look at the science behind it.
- You know? So I was kind of doing
- kind of kind of Luddite anti science
- approach first,
- empirical
- experience, and then,
- you know, maybe refer to some research afterwards.
- Yeah. That's interesting. I'm sure there will be
- people listening who are shouting at their phone
- right now. But, but there also have been
- lots and lots of people who understand that,
- you know,
- any kind
- of even if it's science communication that you're
- doing with your
- art,
- you've got to let go
- of
- the research because otherwise, people will read a
- scientific paper, and the art that you're creating
- has got to
- be something that people engage with because they're
- not going to go and read the scientific
- paper because that's not what people do. Right?
- It's not. And I you know, certainly is
- you know, when I'm making work in the
- theater where, obviously, obviously, my primary
- audience is not necessarily the research community,
- I would say that, generally, my feeling is
- that climate change has become a thing that
- is dominated by
- scenarios,
- and data
- and
- slightly sort of depressive outlooks.
- And it's like, how do we get away
- from that to make it
- either
- a a slightly more emotive or exciting subject
- or something that is not depressing and heavy
- for you? But it's it's still depressing. Right?
- I mean, it's not a good thing that's
- happening. Well, it depends, I guess, how you
- look at it.
- You know?
- Take extinction, for example. It's desperately sad that
- this is happening, and I and I don't
- I don't want the sixth mass extinction to
- happen.
- But it's the sixth mass extinction because there
- have been five more, five previous ones. It's
- a natural phenomenon that happens on Earth. It
- just happens to be accelerated by us.
- I'm sure, you know, from the perspective of
- rocks,
- all of this that's happening now is just
- a tiny little blip in the history of
- the Earth that
- kind of doesn't really give a shit what
- we do. Like,
- something in the future will happen with or
- without us. So
- it's like
- yeah.
- It is desperately sad,
- but
- it's sad
- mainly for the reason that
- I feel that we the science and everything
- is so clear, and we we could mitigate
- it like that if we had collective governance
- and power to do that.
- But
- such are the systems that we've set up.
- Obviously, we can't,
- And it feels like this this slow decline
- into something very tragic that's gonna happen.
- But
- at the same time,
- we are nature. We are nature doing that
- to nature,
- and there's there's no division between us and
- nature. So I'm I'm a bit like
- I don't know. It's not a deterministic view
- that we are we are screwing the planet
- up because that's what that should happen, but
- but
- I yeah. A a mix of conflicting thoughts.
- But Earlier on, you said that people were
- more interested when you started to get into
- the imagination side of things. But can you
- tell me a bit about what people's reaction
- is to you talking about those geopolitical things?
- Talking about the Donald Trump.
- Talking about being on the, you know, on
- on
- the political map between Russia and America? Do
- is it something that's part of their day
- to day thinking?
- It is very much so.
- Certainly in that region,
- people
- really respond passionately to that and with heart.
- But
- for for, you know, perhaps for UK audiences,
- it was kind of a surprise that Donald
- Trump was going after Greenland.
- And,
- you know, the the
- the notion of Arctic geopolitics
- being important
- was kind of maybe news to us, basically.
- But for people in that region,
- it's kind of been going on for years.
- You know? Trump just saying this again
- or or saying this thing about Greenland. It's
- kinda like, well,
- big questions about Arctic ownership and politics have
- been on the cards for a long time.
- And
- I think
- people people are very much aware of it,
- and no one
- well, I I I guess you've got a
- culture, you know, in all of those countries
- where people are very connected to nature, and
- nature is essentially the industry,
- you know, whether
- it's fishing, whether it's hunting, whether it's oil
- or whatever.
- It's based around nature.
- And
- I guess
- I think I think
- people seem to be,
- I I I guess, looking for some sort
- of, you know,
- fair fair governance. No one's saying, oh, we
- need to claim and own this for ourselves.
- But I think
- concern
- for what happens
- with essentially
- big players who are much bigger than those
- countries
- getting a slice of the pie. So for
- instance, on the Arctic Council,
- you can also get
- sort of secondary observer status.
- So you've got, you know, Arctic nations, which
- are based in the Arctic region, but you've
- also got,
- you know, secondary
- sub status or whatever
- countries like India, China,
- The US,
- although, you know, they've got Alaska. So I
- think Alaska is in the Arctic Circle.
- And, of course, Russia, which are much more
- kind of powerful players and
- are of concern to, say, the smaller Scandinavian
- Arctic nations.
- And,
- I mean, Greenland's a completely different cattle of
- fish, and I think there's obviously
- a huge amount of
- concern there amongst Danes.
- But I I think it's this,
- shall we say,
- threat to the shakeup of,
- I guess,
- traditional relationships to the landscape and traditional notions
- of identity and about Arcticness and what it
- means to be in the Arctic region and,
- who has a right to be there. That
- I think that that concerns people. Did you
- see the the northern lights, the aurora borealis?
- I did. You know what? You got people
- flying in from all over and paying thousands
- of pounds
- to get a northern lights experience.
- And I was just
- there on my skis in a little hut
- in,
- literally the first night that I went out
- in the,
- next to the border river between Russian and
- Russia and nor
- Norway where I started.
- It's very kinda small,
- incredible natural forest called the Pasvik Forest in
- Norway. There was a little free nature hut
- there
- and went outside at the end of the
- day at about seven or 08:00 and just
- got the most incredible
- display of northern lights, like,
- for free. You know?
- Mhmm.
- It it it was quite
- quite astonishing. You know, often, I think
- smartphone cameras kind of,
- I don't know,
- jazz jazz the northern lights up, but I've
- never seen them
- when they're actually that jazzy, but to the
- eye. Yeah. They were so green and wild
- and dancing. Amazing. And that was that was
- really special, but they didn't appear for me
- again or at least I wasn't outside a
- particular time. Yeah.
- You know, by even by, what, early April,
- you're getting, like,
- 11:11
- ten or 11PM
- darkness. So it's it's really you know, you
- have to stay up to see see the
- northern lights.
- Okay. So I I don't think I can
- keep you for too much longer or indeed
- the or indeed the listeners. But,
- I'm sort of I'm I'm aware of the
- fact that quite a lot of our listeners
- are physicists, and maybe they don't engage with
- art a lot. Maybe they do, but some
- of them won't do. And I'm I'm wondering,
- if there's a question in their head, which
- might be,
- you know, what what's the point of doing
- this art? Is it actually gonna make any
- difference? Is it is it just for people
- to enjoy something, or is it gonna have
- an impact?
- Good question,
- to which there's no one clear response.
- I mean,
- you know, I work in the theater,
- in the left field theater.
- And,
- you know, in a world of Netflix
- and all of that,
- you know, my audience
- is tiny.
- And
- I'm for quite a bit of a realist
- about, you know, obviously, in funding applications and
- things, you have to sort of give quite
- a utilitarian
- argument as to, you know, doing this because
- you're going to change minds, and you're gonna
- have an effect on, you know, the
- geopolitics, climate change, or whatever. You know? As
- a theater maker, I'm not. And I, my
- audience is going to be small. And
- so the effects that I'm looking to make
- is not,
- quantitative.
- It's qualitative.
- So
- my feeling is it's like, okay. Well, actually,
- in this small space of live performance, which
- is increasingly
- disappearing or under threat with, you know,
- either commercial TV or commercial theater or whatever,
- is the quality of what we're able to
- do in the live space actually a really
- unique
- experience for people that is able to change
- hearts and minds and perhaps just a small
- group of people,
- in a completely different way, in a way
- that is not replicated in any other form
- of culture.
- Is that going to lead people to take
- up pitchforks and fight against climate change?
- Probably not.
- So
- it's it's more about, okay. Well, we're looking
- at
- trying to create an artwork. This is about
- trying to offer a beautiful gift
- and quality of life to the people
- or nature
- in the room with you or outdoors with
- you at that particular time.
- I suppose
- the way of seeing that is just like
- yeah. A way of seeing this kind of
- theater is just a really a gift of
- a qualitative
- and beautiful experience
- that you won't find anywhere else.
- So shall we say, you know, niche theater
- is about
- boutique,
- special,
- once in a lifetime experience
- rather than
- a bums on seats,
- you know, can we make people laugh approach.
- If people would like to
- experience your theater, and I know I would,
- how would we do that? I guess, first
- up is that I'm going to put a
- lot of the documentation video
- and,
- stills and audio onto an online platform over
- the next few months, and that'll be, you
- know, where I can share at least first
- up since the journey.
- The show will probably take about one or
- two years to develop,
- so I devised work, and we'll iteratively develop
- it in rehearsals
- and start presenting it in
- stages and festivals,
- as or next year. So,
- watch this space.
- You know, theater's a slow burner, but, I
- need, you know,
- fundraising.
- And,
- yeah,
- to to to to get the show over
- the line, need to need to get some
- luck from the arts council.
- We wish Tom all the luck with the
- arts council for the funding for that and
- hopefully some of you will be able to
- experience that theater. But we turn now to
- a video game which is all born out
- of the experience a composer had talking to
- their child in the car about the climate
- emergency.
- So I'm Naomi Hart, and I am a
- composer.
- And,
- a few years ago, about five four or
- five years ago, I did a master's in
- sound and music for interactive
- games.
- And
- from there, I've been kind of weaving my
- compositions
- into,
- interactive environments,
- either as personal personal projects or
- recently as as little commissions.
- Tell us about the game that you've created.
- Where did it come from, and can you
- sort of explain what it is? I mean,
- people will be able to find the link
- on Physics World website, physicsworld.com.
- But if you could sort of tell us
- what people should expect when they go to
- that link, that would be great. So I've
- made a small game in an engine called
- Bitsy,
- which is,
- it's like a very simple kind of game
- engine,
- using, like, pixel art and it's like a
- two d game.
- When you go to the link, you will
- have a ten minute
- story
- experience where you can move around
- and chat to people
- and think about
- the subjects
- that
- are brought up within that experience.
- And while you do that, you'll hopefully have
- your headphones on and you'll listen to music
- that will
- hopefully make you feel
- like it's okay.
- We're all in this together. And, yeah, this
- is difficult, but
- we can talk to each other about it.
- So it's a lovely, lovely thing. I have
- played the game
- several times.
- And that that not because
- of what I'm about to say,
- but because it's absolutely beautiful. But what is
- that's sorry. That is the reason. But this
- next thing is the reason, which is that
- I feature in the game, which is which
- is a delightful thing. I never thought I'd
- feature in a is it a computer game,
- a video game? What is it? How do
- you describe it? Oh, we can call it
- a video game. Yeah. It's a it's it's
- a little video game. Amazing. Yeah. You're in
- video game on Tuesday. Right? Yes. So Yeah.
- But I wanna get onto the music. But
- could you tell me a bit about the
- the the process of creating this? Because it
- it's sort of it it's come out of
- explorations of our,
- our reactions to climate change.
- Yes. It has. So I think so when
- I started,
- thinking about the concept of the game and
- making the game, I knew that I wanted
- the music to feel as beautiful
- as
- it could be because that was that was
- in a way gonna be the contrast between
- the very, very simple game,
- look and the style
- and the sort of functionality of the game.
- And but I wanted the music to just
- feel really kind of rich and lovely.
- So I just started kind of,
- improvising
- little bits
- of music on my synthesizer and cello and
- stuff.
- And until I came to a point where
- I just thought, oh, that's that's the right
- feeling for that part of the game. That's
- exactly what I want to feel as I
- start this. And then I also had some,
- like, placeholder music. So while I was developing
- the game, I just had sort of ideas,
- sort of like something like synthesized love, Edgios
- are gonna be okay here.
- But I knew that wasn't gonna be the
- final project, so I had to kinda, like,
- go back into the music side of things
- after the game was pretty much finished and
- be like, right now I'm gonna make
- the music that I really kind of wanna
- hear and would delight my ears as a
- listener. So then I kind of reworked some
- of those placeholder
- tunes and,
- and yeah. And I just sort of happened
- across some
- little melodies that I just thought, oh, wow.
- That's that's really satisfying to me. Like, I
- really like that. And the nice thing about
- the brief was so I should mention that
- this was commissioned by the Yorkshire Sound Women
- Network,
- who are a really good organization in Yorkshire.
- And
- it was a completely open musical brief, so
- you could just create whatever you wanted. So
- that was as a composer, that was just
- amazing. You've got a a a game that
- you're creating,
- and then you're putting music to to it.
- I'd never composed anything
- properly.
- So when
- so so you're sitting, what, at a at
- a piano? Are you is that how you
- compose it? And you're just sort of noodling?
- How does it work? I do noodle. That
- is my process. Yeah. Lots of people don't.
- Lots of people kind of they have a
- plan, they can hear it in their heads,
- and then they start, you know, mapping all
- that. I definitely just start by,
- playing on whatever instrument I decide I'm gonna
- use.
- Synthesizer mainly, so I had that set up
- beside me, and
- and I am. I'm just kind of I
- just let myself go completely free
- free form and just,
- just make some sounds.
- Then what tends to happen then is that
- I'll find something that I'm just like, oh,
- that's interesting, oh, that's a bit unexpected, so
- I've been recording something going along and then
- I'll then create more music in response to
- those things
- and
- piece it together a bit like that. So
- it's a bit like a kind of collage
- sometimes.
- Things that I'm really happy with musically and
- then,
- and then I might just start playing along
- and improvising over those and I just tend
- to then
- find things organically that I'm like, oh, yeah.
- That sounds great there.
- Or that bit didn't work. I'm gonna do
- a retake. But I think I I think
- I sort of know what I need to
- do to fix that to make that nicer.
- Yeah. So do you do you involve anybody
- else in the process? Like, were you there
- is there anybody that you would trust to
- go, I've is this is this right? Is
- this does this feel do you feel what
- I'm supposed to you're supposed to oh, I
- don't know what it is, but do you
- ask questions of other people in the processes?
- I do. I do. I mean, both me
- and my husband work from home. So if
- I think I've got something good, I'm like,
- oh, can you just listen to this? Do
- you think that's nice?
- And, you know,
- more often than not, he'll be like, yeah.
- Or sometimes he's a little bit like, yeah.
- It's okay.
- But at the end of the day, I
- think I tend to know personally if it's
- something I really like because I'll start to
- kinda want to listen to it over and
- over again. Like, if I've made something that
- really delights my own ears,
- I'll be like, oh, yeah. That's that's gold,
- and I'll be like that.
- Yes. Well, I can tell you it delighted
- my ears when I was playing the game.
- And the other thing about the game is
- that there is this story in it. So
- there's this
- mixture
- of music and storytelling, which are helping people
- who are playing their game to explore their
- own feelings
- and reactions to the climate crisis.
- Yes. Is it a crisis now or disaster?
- I don't know quite what what stage we're
- at at this particular moment. I don't know.
- Well, the wording in the brief that we
- had from the commission said that if you
- wanted to explore themes about the climate emergency,
- so that was Okay. That was the the
- wording there. You you can't. We didn't have
- to, but I did. Yes. Okay. That's good.
- So how how did that how did that
- feel for you then? What was your first
- reaction? Did you go through a few different
- ideas before landing on this one? I did
- actually. My first
- idea was to
- think about how do you feel about it
- today? Like in this moment. And I thought
- I could create a game where you could
- choose whether you're feeling grief,
- despair,
- neutral.
- You know, you might be thinking of other
- things that day. And then there might be
- like little offshoot games that you could go
- and explore, but that just didn't really come
- to anything. And then when I when I
- decided I was gonna make it in Bitsy,
- which is, it's got really tight constraints on
- how you can
- create a game in that. So you can't
- necessarily point and click and do that sort
- of thing anymore walking around.
- So,
- I then realized like, no, that's, that's just
- not gonna work. So then I,
- I think that I just,
- I watched a lot of Bitsy games
- and
- the kind of, the theme that runs through
- these is that they can be just really
- quiet, intimate
- storytelling
- from a very kind of personal viewpoint. And
- that's what's, that's what a lot of people
- really like about them is that you're just
- getting these like snapshots of someone else's life
- or something that's happened. And I just thought,
- oh, that's quite an interesting angle. Let's maybe
- just start with that thing that my kids
- said to me about the climate emergency
- eight years ago, which absolutely broke my heart.
- And
- maybe
- then I could, oh, well, I should, you
- know, I've got friends that
- are, you know, involved in science or climate
- and maybe I can chat to them about
- how they manage their feelings in the face
- of,
- you know, how we're all trying to deal
- with it these days, you know, because we're
- sort of,
- we're like a number of years into
- this being the norm now. And it's, I
- think it is an interesting point to say,
- like, how, how have we all kind of,
- coped this far and how do we all
- get on with our day to day lives
- when this is going on in the background?
- And,
- so, yeah, it just just just felt like,
- oh, yeah. That just felt right. And then
- I could see that there was a narrative
- knitting together. I could go and talk to
- my child at the end as well of
- the game and kind of bring it all
- bring it all in a neat narrative.
- Yeah. Absolutely.
- I don't I don't want to say too
- much about what happens in the story because
- I want people to go and play the
- game. It want to take them what did
- you say about ten minutes to play the
- game? It's about ten minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So
- I think let's not let's not do many
- spoilers on the game because I want people
- to go and play the ten minutes of
- your life if you're listening to this podcast.
- Just
- find at the end of it a computer
- and some headphones ideally to enjoy that and,
- we'll do that. But I just I want
- I wanted to just explore that a little
- bit with you because
- we're both parents of
- similar age children. Right? Yes. It's a,
- I think that
- it adds another aspect. I think most people
- will know people in their lives where they've
- got children or not who are younger than
- them and who for whom this climate
- emergency is going to be,
- more a part of their lives as they
- as they grow older. And if we love
- and care for those people, then that it
- adds to our own
- feelings about it, really. And and and it
- it seems
- it it seems really strange to me that
- there would be people who are being so
- incredibly selfish about their lives that they would
- just forget
- that and do all of the things anyway
- that they were going to do because
- they only live once and it's their life
- and the next generation can sort it. It
- seems an odd way of doing it. And
- and I think it's really
- lovely that you've made a game here, the
- music associated with it, which enables parents
- in a world of,
- you know, fast paced social media and
- Netflix
- edited documentaries where they change the scene every
- three seconds. To have that kind of
- slow paced
- Yeah. Experience to to actually
- take time out and think about it is
- a is a really valuable thing for me
- as a parent. I'm sure it is for
- lots of other people.
- Mhmm. It it's
- in the game, there's there's a moment which
- is kind of you you've you've explored the
- the shock, the,
- well, the emotion that you had when your
- child said what they said. Yes.
- Was that the moment where it kind of
- hit home or you already be with with
- their kind of experience of it before then?
- Did you know that they were thinking about
- it?
- Not really. I just knew in that week
- that they were discussing the climate at school.
- And so I think we'd had some conversations
- after school, which were a bit like,
- just really
- shocked, you know? Like, they were just sort
- of, yeah, just talking about it like, oh
- my, wow. This is this is real and
- it's happening and it's terrible.
- And so it was just, yeah, it was
- just so sad to have to kind of
- just talk about it all at once and
- be like, yeah, yeah. It's, yeah, it's quite
- bad, but,
- we try to think about it like this.
- I think I felt a bit on the
- back foot in a way because I didn't,
- it's not like you get a heads up,
- you know, from school. Because you do sometimes
- from schools, don't you? Sometimes you get letters
- saying, oh, by the way, we're gonna be
- talking about this. This.
- Oh
- no.
- Okay, okay, but you know we we don't
- get a heads up right, so this is
- just one of, this is just another subject
- and so
- yeah it was just, oh, it was just
- so sad. It is really, really sad. And,
- but I suppose that it makes you quite
- active in, like, well, it's not just me
- that I have to worry about. Like, I
- need to kind of, you know, create some
- sort of conversation or some kind of space
- where we can
- chat about this openly and,
- you know,
- try, try to sort of find
- aspects that we can hook onto
- because you can't just be like, yes, you
- should feel despair. It's terrible. It is. You
- know, you need to, you need to find
- a balance and,
- yeah, a way to kind of move forward.
- So the the game has been it it's
- online now, so people can play online, but
- the it's it's first kind of outing was
- at an event.
- So you were Yeah.
- Were you there at the event?
- I was. Yes. So it was, it was
- a kind of evening performance,
- as part of a conference that was going
- on in Huddersfield
- called the Amplification Project,
- which was a fantastic conference. I can highly
- recommend.
- And
- so, yeah, we were all the musicians were
- there in the evening. And so I kind
- of got to see the conference people, the
- delegates, and other guests who would come to
- see the show,
- go in and play the game, which was
- lovely.
- I had a couple of,
- well, I had, like, a former and present
- student who came to play as well, which
- was very nice because they're from the video
- game audio world. So I was really keen
- to sort of see how they,
- responded.
- And, yeah, and I got to chat to
- people about
- how they how they found it at the
- end. It was really nice. Yeah. Because that
- that's what I was interested in really was
- that sort of, what what I wanted to
- ask about was that, you know, what were
- those conversations like when people were had played
- the game?
- Did people sort of
- explore their feelings with climate science with you,
- or were they more saying that was just
- so bloody lovely?
- It was it was a mixture. It was
- a really nice mixture. So, yeah, a couple
- of people
- did just kind of, you know, stop and
- have a chat about how they were feeling
- about it. There was one lady who was
- in tears and she gave me a hug
- and, and that was because
- for her family, it was a very, a
- very present,
- thing, a very present topic. They made lots
- of choices about not flying, for instance. And
- so
- I I just really felt that it was
- just very it was a very big subject
- for her personally. And,
- but it was really nice as well. She
- was she was lovely. And then
- one of my,
- ex students
- would have just had a big smile on
- his face and just said, that was, oh,
- it was just so heartfelt.
- And I was like, that is really nice
- feedback because that's what I was going for.
- Yeah.
- It was literally, I think one of my
- intentions of making the music was I just
- want this to feel
- really, really heartfelt, really open and,
- yeah, just,
- just nice. Mhmm. Just lovely. Even though it's
- difficult. Yeah. So that's a good that that's
- a thought. Right. So when when you're composing,
- is it
- it it is that thought thought process makes
- you go, okay. I'm gonna feel it here
- rather than gonna think about what I'm playing.
- I'm gonna feel it. Yeah. It absolutely is.
- And I think it's yeah. And I've only
- sort of come to know that, I suppose,
- in the last,
- I don't know, five or so years.
- I didn't I didn't sort of have that
- awareness when I was composing in my twenties.
- I definitely thought about it more in my
- head. And, but now recently I do, I,
- I will literally just sit like, how do
- I actually want to feel? Like, and I
- just keep noodling and
- improvising until I, until I hit that kind
- of spot. And I've done it a number
- of times and it really,
- really actually works. It's quite cool.
- Yeah. No. It's awesome. Just a specific word,
- a specific feeling, and then
- just really go for it
- with everything. And then I, yeah, I tend
- to find something that's just like, oh, yeah.
- Good. Yeah.
- That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, I hope is
- there a particular piece of music that's in
- the in the game that you feel,
- particularly
- pleased with?
- Yes. There is. My favorite little bit is
- called disco friend theme.
- And that is when
- we all find ourselves
- in a party situation.
- And and,
- yeah, I just made this music that I
- I really like it so much.
- It kind of like, to me, it definitely
- reminds me a bit of Brian Eno. Like,
- it's got that kind of slightly underwater,
- you know, that kind of scene from Trainspotting
- esque. I mean, I've really lent on the
- weaver.
- But I really like it a lot. And
- then I kind of put in this slightly
- wonky,
- very long kind of melody over the top.
- And that was one of the ones that
- I reworked and I was so pleased with
- because it kind of has this little twinkly
- aspect that's got kind of,
- a slight slight,
- odd wobble. And then this kind of long
- melody that to me sounds a bit like
- horns in the distance,
- kind of, something
- I don't know. Just some something quite interesting
- and unexpected for my own ears.
- You may have picked up that Naomi and
- I do know each other already. You'll have
- to play the game to find out how
- we met.
- Do you have you got a sense of
- this taking you to a different place with
- with your feelings on the climate? Oh,
- do you know it's it's
- I guess the main takeaway for me
- was that, our communities are really important, and
- and why not talk to your friends about
- stuff like this? Because every conversation that I
- had
- was
- you know, it'll just probably stay with me
- forever, like, because I sort of dedicated this,
- like, you know, I interviewed you all for
- about half an hour.
- And those conversations were
- really, really nice
- and
- felt really important to me, and I sort
- of carried them with me. And
- so I think
- however it's gonna all pan out,
- and I hope it pans out in a
- in a good way, I hope we kind
- of continue to make
- strides towards the places we need to go
- to actually not just keep going the wrong
- way.
- I I'll just I'll just take that with
- me that, you know, really hard things can
- be made better by
- talking to friends directly about them. And, obviously,
- it's a bit
- left field to say, hey. How are you
- feeling about this?
- Can we talk about that for half an
- hour? But maybe we will. You know, maybe
- maybe people that play the game will be
- like, oh, okay. I can. I I've been
- sending it to people,
- and,
- yeah, the the the reaction is
- uniformly
- delight. I think that's what it is. I
- there have been tears. I've see I've sat
- with people while they played it, and they
- have cried while they played it, which is
- I think I think it's That's amazing.
- I think it's it's it's it's in part
- of your story,
- and it's in part their own reaction to
- their own
- feelings about the climate framework, which is a
- lovely thing. Oh, that's so nice. Thank you.
- Thank you, Chase. Yeah. What
- what are you gonna do this sort of
- thing again? This is the first time you've
- made a game. I've I've dabbled in making
- games before. I had to do one for
- my projects when I was doing my masters,
- and that was in a different game kind
- kinda game engine. I would love to do
- this again, Andrew, and I really I really
- hope that somebody asks me,
- you know, employs me to to make another
- little Bitsy game narrative.
- Honestly, it is so much fun, and I
- could just
- if anyone's, like, wanting to dabble in
- making short form games,
- you just go to bitsy.org,
- have a little go. It is amazing. There
- are a lot there are lots of little,
- engines you can start dabbling with. But if
- you like a kind of creativity
- systems,
- whimsy,
- you will have a really good time
- doing it. So, yeah, I would I would
- love to,
- do this again.
- I can't So if people would want to
- commission you to do that, how would they
- find you? They would they could go to
- my website, which is Naomi Composers
- dot com.
- And,
- and on that website, there is a, it's
- actually an interactive business card
- that they can play. So I have made
- I actually have have made another little another
- little game there. I I did I did
- have a lot of help, but it's, it's
- it's a pretty cool
- pretty cool game, aren't you?
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll have a go
- at that. I'll have a go at that.
- And, thank you so much for talking to
- me and also for making this beautiful game,
- which is called It's called Save Progress.
- I don't know why I called it that.
- It's quite fun, though, isn't it? Because when
- you start playing it, you think you need
- to save the progress in your game. I
- know. I know. And I did get feedback
- around that,
- and
- and then I was like, it's a bit
- too late to change it because it's gone
- in the program. So it's it's called safe
- progress. You can just interpret that however you
- like, but,
- yes, you don't actually need to, save your
- progress
- unless you're wanting it Okay. At the end.
- Okay. I'm not gonna say how I interpret
- it. But what I will say is people
- should play the game. Okay. And when it
- says safe progress, that's the name. You don't
- need to do anything. Just carry on clicking
- through.
- And, yeah, thank you so much.
- You can play the game now by finding
- the link on physicsworld.com,
- or indeed play the other game, which is
- Nomi's interactive
- business card. And if you're a fan of
- the old Atari games, well, I'll leave it
- at that. I'd like to thank Nomi and
- Tom for talking to me for this episode
- of the Physics World Stories podcast. We'll be
- back next month with something else from this
- wonderful world of physics, and thank you very
- much for listening.