Art, Architecture and the Future: Cambridge's New Clock

In his book The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton explains our eternal fascination with shaping our surroundings. He says, "The very principle of... architecture has its origins in the notion that where we are critically determines what we are able to believe in." Houses, buildings, cathedrals, parks--as well as the objects that we use to decorate them--carry values and meanings about what we believe (or should believe) to be true, he asserts.

Corpus Christi Chapel

In my Cambridge house, Corpus Christi College, the key values that I take away are truth, order, and knowledge. With its towering spires and signature symmetry, Corpus' Gothic architecture invokes awe and admiration. And, walking around the New Court, built in the 1500s and completed in 1827, I don't find it difficult to get into geek mode. Quite simply, the regime of perfection imposed by the castle motif and stained glass images of the divine inspire one to summon the spirits of Cambridge scholars past--from Darwin to Newton, from Milton to Wittgenstein. Their alphanumerical formulae, philophical treatise, and imaginative prose all speak of their communion with truth after all, and the unforgiving perfection of these surroundings invite, if not demand, me to discover my own truths.

Corpus Christi New Court

At the same time, I do acknowledge that perfection possesses a dual economy of hope and despair. As much as perfect creations can illuminate and inspire, they can also expose human finitude, indeed our fragility, dependence, and transience in the world.

Corpus Christi Great Hall

That's why I got excited about the news that Corpus Christi has installed a brand new clock outside our library. Just this week, A Brief History of Time's Stephen Hawking came to Corpus to unveil the "chronophage" (literally, time eater), a sinister representation of time that is meant to remind students that we are always one second closer to our death.

Stephen Hawking Unveiling the Corpus Clock

The clock's inventor John Taylor explains: ""It is terrifying, it is meant to be... Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next. It's not a bad thing to remind students of. I never felt like this until I woke up on my 70th birthday, and was stricken at the thought of how much I still wanted to do, and how little time remained."

The clock, priced at $1.8 million, is made iconic with the image of a demonic grasshopper. See the hypnotic clock in motion HERE. And the news article from The Guardian HERE.

It's morbid and profound. And makes you feel inadequate. Very, very Cambridge, I must say.

Save Media Studies, Save the World!

Sign up for Com 106: Media and Society [Media and Morality]! (Schedule Wednesdays 930-1230NN)

Traditional discussion of media ethics is usually confined with legal case studies, codes of ethics, and stiff admonitions of sex and violence in the media. This course then is not about these little ethics but about morality—that is, the consequences of media consumption and production to the very meaning of our humanity. Media & Morality asserts that our everyday choices with the media—from poking, friending, and flaming online to taking photos of tourist destinations to watching foreign-language films—reflect how we see, hear, and touch distant others and how we ultimately regard ourselves.

Some of the questions we ask include: How social are social networking sites? Are Facebook users narcissistic poseurs or can they also be self-aware beings-with-others? What is emo-journalism and how can it contribute to identifying with distant others? How well did The Guidon report on the Ateneo suicides? In using the words “suicide incident” over “tragedy”, what moral claim did they make about the living and the dead? When is a joke only a joke? What can we learn about Teri Hatcher’s and Malu Fernandez’s “jokes” about OFWs and their fiery aftermath? What charity ads encourage donation—those that invoke happy thoughts or those that invoke shame and guilt?

As a brand new elective, M&M is ideal for pop culture aficionados and aspiring media producers. It encourages creative work, as students will participate in a) designing humanitarian campaigns and presenting them to advertising professionals, b) pitching other-oriented documentary and telenovela story concepts to GMA executives, and c) organizing a media studies conference headlined by a Cambridge professor. This course is taught by Jonathan C. Ong, creator of the MediaTalk@admu series, former advertising and broadcasting executive, and firm believer that the media is at the heart of our moral future.

Cambridge Uni on TV Soaps?

Orientals Arrive

Below is a thoroughly fascinating article about my dear 800-year-old Cambridge Uni and its wish to repackage itself in the media. In line with its efforts to be more inclusive of students from different social classes, ethnicities, etc., Cambridge spoke with British soap opera producers about possibly showing a different side to the school. Traditionally known for its stiff upper lip and its "elite" "white" image, Cambridge is revamping its representations--both the WHO and the WHAT--in the media and in its own admissions policy.

Spot the Asians

Check out the article below!

In light of this, I had an idea for a soap called "Maid in Magdalene" about a Filipina maid named Magdalena who falls for a bloke in Magdalene (pronounced maud-lin) College Cambridge. I think it's gloriously mass-market but Ayee thinks it's depressingly stereotypical.

Magdalena's Token Gay Sidekick

What I'd want to pitch though is a reality show that's like an academic Amazing Race. It would be supervisor/supervisee (Mirca and I would be the most photogenic team), and the challenges would be: a) go around the cemetery in North London and spot as many tombstones of dead theorists, b) a roadblock head-to-head battle of on-the-spot lit review writing, and c) a PUNT-IT or SHELF-IT detour.

My Fave Punter Adam

I can already hear Phil: "In Punt-it, the supervisor has to punt a boat back and forth in the River Cam without hiring the resident hunky punter. In the slim chance that the supervisor is physically fit, this task can be accomplished in around 50 minutes. In Shelf-it, the supervisee has to rearrange 100 books according to their accession numbers. The twist: the accession label stickers have been removed from the books so it is up to the student's knowledge of the library's ancient system of classification that will get them through the challenge."

Bookworm Forever

Now won't that be fun?

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Cambridge University wants to be on TV soaps
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 2, 4:49 PM ET

LONDON - Britain's soap operas offer a steady diet of sex, scandal — and if Cambridge University has its way, scholarship.

Trying to shed its elitist image, Cambridge has approached the producers of Britain's three leading TV soaps about including it in their story lines.

Spokesman Greg Hayman said the idea was part of a bid to correct the perception that Cambridge was "not for young people from ordinary backgrounds."

"We're very keen to attract the brightest and best students regardless of their background," Hayman said Tuesday. "One of the better ways of communicating directly with potential students is to talk to them through the soaps and other programs they watch."

Like almost all British universities, Cambridge and its rival Oxford are government-funded, and under pressure to become more inclusive. The government wants half of all young people to attend college by 2010, which means universities need to target all economic backgrounds.

What better way than through the travails of characters on "EastEnders," "Coronation Street" and "Emmerdale" — set respectively, in a gritty London neighborhood, a scruffy Manchester district and a farming village.

In some ways Oxford and Cambridge — elegant, affluent universities known collectively as "Oxbridge" — resemble U.S. Ivy League schools, which have long tried to attract minority and less well-off students through scholarships and outreach programs. Several elite U.S. colleges, including Harvard and Yale, have set family income thresholds below which students pay no tuition — $45,000 at Yale and $60,000 at Harvard for students entering this fall.

"Yale is eager to have as much diversity as possible, and that includes socio-economic diversity," said spokeswoman Gila Reinstein. More than 40 percent of Yale's students now get financial aid and the number is steadily rising — evidence of more students from less well-off backgrounds.

But Harvard and Yale don't occupy quite the same central social perch as Oxbridge, whose graduates account for 78 percent of Britain's High Court judges, 42 percent of its top politicians and 56 percent of its senior journalists, according to education charity the Sutton Trust.

And while 90 percent of British students attend state high schools, Oxford and a Cambridge draw only about half their student body from there.

Many in Britain's poorer neighborhoods still view attending Oxford or Cambridge as an impossible dream.

"The money definitely puts me off," said Matt Ryan, a 16-year-old who attends a state high school in Hampshire in southern England and hopes to study engineering at Cambridge. "I think a lot of people are put off because Oxford and Cambridge are the best of the best. But if any old person could get in, there'd be no point."

The elitist image is unfair, according to university officials.

University administrators point out that Oxford and Cambridge are not more expensive than less-esteemed universities, because tuition fees are capped by law at about $5,350 per year. Ethnic minority students are not underrepresented — they make up 16 percent of the student body at Cambridge, and 13 percent at Oxford, a slightly larger proportion than in society as a whole.

"There's a perception gap between reality and how we've been perceived previously and that takes time to change," Hayman said.

The stone buildings and elegant spires of Oxbridge have provided the backdrop for many films and TV shows, from historical drama "Chariots of Fire," set in Cambridge, to Oxford-based detective series "Inspector Morse."

Cambridge is hoping for something a little more contemporary from its latest initiative.

Hayman said so far there have been no firm commitments from TV producers, although one crew was planning an exploratory visit to Cambridge.

But he is pleased by a current story line in "EastEnders" that has working-class teenagers Tamwar Masood and Libby Fox considering applying to Cambridge and Oxford, to the delight of their ambitious mothers.

"It's a very happy coincidence," Hayman said.

Oxford University said it had no plans to write to TV producers — but it, too, has been watching the soaps.

"I did speak to somebody at 'EastEnders' about our bursary scheme in case the story line was going to continue," said a spokeswoman on condition of anonymity in line with university policy. "We wanted to make sure they knew what kind of assistance might be available to someone like Libby."

"EastEnders" said the characters of Tamwar and Libby had another year of high school to complete and it was too early to say whether the Oxford-Cambridge plot would continue.

Cambridge, which celebrates its 800th birthday next year, has also approached sci-fi series "Doctor Who" about filming in the university's ancient colleges, and suggested the automotive show "Top Gear" recreate a 1958 stunt in which undergraduates hoisted a vintage Austin Seven van atop the university's Senate House.