Monday 12 May 2014

The science and art of recreating extinct life, the talk



Last week I gave a talk on the significance and methodologies of palaeoart to attendees of the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. The presentation was filmed with the intention of being posted online but, sadly, was not quite of sufficient quality to present elsewhere. With this in mind, I've had a go at re-recording my narration over the slides, which is now clearer (though not perfect - see below) and available to check out above. There's quite a lot of stuff covered in here: the early history of palaeoart; discussions of why palaeoart is important; soft-tissue and colour restoration, All Yesterdays, and a lot more. This means that the topics are, by necessity, covered fairly briefly, but further reading is suggested at the end if you'd like to know more. Be sure to whack the quality up to 720p to see the slides in their best quality.

If videos of this sort are of interest, there's potential for several more. Like a lot of folks who do outreach and conference circuits, I've accumulated a number of talks over the years which are delivered once or twice to limited audiences and then never see the light of day again. Popping them online seems like an obvious way to maximise their potential so, if you'd like to see more of this kind of thing, do let me know in the comments below. If they prove to be popular, I'll look into investing into more substantial recording equipment to improve audio quality.

That's all for now but, if the combination of videos and palaeoart tickles your fancy, be sure to check out the rolling gallery from my last post.

4 comments:

  1. I think this is the best work concerning paleo-art in all of its complexity. You've done an outstanding job presenting what is (and should be) this artistic discipline, explaining in an exhaustive way the work, the effort and the research behind it. In a few words: your talk is an absolute masterpiece.

    You should definitely post more of these videos. Do it without any sort of doubt.

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    1. So... and reading between the lines a bit... I'll take this as cautious enthusiasm, then.

      (silliness aside, thanks!)

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  2. Really enjoyed listening to it! I vote for more. It was great to learn about the history and beginning of palaeoart.

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  3. A very interesting and thoroughly explained presentation here; I'd expect nothing less! Well done, Mark. It's in-depth while at the same time just scratching the surface on a surprisingly broad discipline.

    You've got another vote to carry on.

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