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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Fifth TEDx Middlebury Event Shares Ideas

Sunday, Nov. 9 marked the fifth annual TEDx event at Middlebury College. TED is a non-profit organization that seeks to spark dialogue and spread ideas through talks, touching on anything from science to society to art. Since its inception in 1984, the organization has garnered massive global attention and now hosts an average of nine conferences per day around the world. Time and time again, TED talks have thrilled, captivated and startled audiences by uprooting pre-conceived notions and exposing innovative ideas and creations. With eight dynamic live speakers, two video presentations and an eclectic range of topics, the Middlebury conference proved to be no exception.

Each speaker took a different approach to the theme “Living in the Question: The Ongoing Process of Curiosity.” Will Nash, a Middlebury professor of American Studies, unraveled the importance of curiosity. As he explained, the greatest value lies not in an answer but rather in the continual exploration of a question – “the path around the circuit.”

“Access the path as many ways as possible,” Nash said. “You’ll be richer for it.”

Middlebury alumni Shane Scranton ’12.5 and Nate Beatty ’13.5 demonstrated the power of curiosity through technological experimentation. They showed the audience a prototype of the oculus rift, a lens that allows wearers to access a virtual reality – an image projected onto the lens to encompass the user’s entire field of vision. This type of technology was originally used to create immersive gaming experiences. Scranton and Beatty took it to the next level by developing technology that could transfer 3-D models of real buildings and landscapes to the oculus rift.

“Virtual reality takes away the need for architectural metaphors,” Scranton explained.
Renderings, 2-D images that Scranton referred to as “extrapolations of space,” require the brain to fill in the surroundings, whereas virtual reality allows architects to inhabit their own designs.

While Scranton and Beatty’s presentation dealt with innovative ways of using space, a talk delivered by Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, a curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of National History in New York, addressed physical reality on a much grander scale: the expanding universe. In his fascinating narrative, he explained that visible light has been traveling and stretching through the universe since the Big Bang. Scientists attribute the accelerating rate of expansion to a mysterious, hypothetical force known as dark energy, perfectly exemplifying that even within the realm of physics, uncertainty can still reign supreme.

Other talks from the conference challenged societal norms by addressing issues of sexuality and gender. Lourdes Ashley Hunter captivated the audience with her riveting stage presence and powerful rhetoric on the transgender community, particularly transgender women of color. A healer, orator and academic, she expressed the hope for a reconstruction of the gender binary that would eradicate oppression against transgender individuals.

“From birth, kids are indoctrinated to prescribed gender norms,” Hunter said. “[But] gender is an explosion of expression,” existing on a spectrum rather than in black-and-white terms.

Her riveting oratory resonated strongly with the audience, and provided an empowering voice to the trans-color movement.

Similarly, Rachel Liddell ’15 received an enthusiastic reception from her peers during her talk on sex, politics and power. Beginning with the story of a “dickish doodler” who vandalized one of her campaign posters, Liddell went on to challenge society’s tendency to sexualize women in power. From naked depictions of Cleopatra’s death to the media’s fixation on Hillary Clinton’s appearance, Liddell pointed out that we subject women to treatment that undermines female authority and disregards their pluri-potentiality as individuals.

Liddell’s grace, humor and charisma shined through in her speech, particularly during her analysis of the public’s obsession with Clinton’s pantsuits. Furthermore, her words provoked deep introspection within the room, as she challenged her peers to not fall into the same patterns of judgment that have long disadvantaged women and hindered societal progress.

Meanwhile, author Jack Hitt offered an insightful commentary on the changing societal attitudes toward legalizing marijuana in the United States. Engaging the audience with his easygoing but magnetic speaking style, he noted a dichotomy between “information you say you believe” and “information you’ll act on.” The latter, which leads to more widespread acceptance, is gained through everyday conversations.

“Revolutions don’t happen on election day,” Hitt said. “[Instead,] local cohorts show us the reality of lived life.”
In other words, interactions with normal people who happen to smoke pot subvert the negative stereotype of “loser stoners,” thus increasing societal acceptance of pot legalization.

By far the most visually enthralling presentation was choreographer and Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown’s beautifully improvised dance, which exhibited movement as a powerful medium of expression. For the first part, a screen behind Brown channeled her inner monologue. “Dance is my truest form of communication,” the opening line read. “Which is ironic because you have no idea what I’m trying to say, lol.” However, the audience soon came to understand her fluid movements as physical manifestations of her subconscious impulses.

“I speak volumes without saying anything,” Brown said after she had finished dancing.

Brown encouraged the audience to engage in new forms of expression, leaving them with the advice, “Before you think, respond with anything you have at your disposal.”

The TEDx Middlebury conference showcased a fascinating range of ideas that stretched the audience’s minds from the Big Bang to the Roman Empire, from virgin lovers to dark energy and from inside the clunky lens of an oculus rift to the far-reaching ends of the galaxy. Each talk was delivered in a uniquely resounding manner, creating a diverse panel of voices from which to draw inspiration and insight. Above all, however, the TEDx talks served to unite the Middlebury community through a tremendously significant idea – that it is not about having the right answer, but rather about asking the right questions.


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