March for England will not ‘surrender to student scum’
March for England campaign down Queens Road surrounded by police last Sunday 22 April 2012 Photo: Morten Watkins
The March for England (MfE), an annual event with strong ties to the far-right English Defence League, took place on Sunday in Brighton. The march, campaigning for a national bank holiday on St George’s day, was met by counter-protesters who outnumbered those in the initial march.
According to the MfE website the organisers claim it is a “family event” that welcomes all “regardless of colour, culture or religion or non religion”, but the demographic of the march appeared to contradict that statement featuring exclusively white and adult male marchers.
One MfE participant said she was there to defend “our heritage” and spoke specifically about how she felt that “no more mosques should be built. We wouldn’t be allowed to build a church in their country”.
Another MfE participant felt they were wrongly labelled as “fascists”, and attacked anti-fascist organisation Unite Against Fascism as “the real fascists”.
The chants from the MfE were noticeably tamer than those of last year, which reportedly included graphic homophobic language.
One counter-protester put that down to “PR – those feelings are still very much a part of this event”.
Joker
Audio is the perfect venue for dubstep. There is something about being in a smoky underground club with like minded individuals raving to heavy bass. Previous producers and DJs to grace its decks have included the likes of Scratch Perverts, SBTRKT and none other than Rusko. Ever since I attended Audio’s Supercharged night to see Drumsound and Bassline Smith I have been hooked. After seeing the excellent line-up for 2012 I didn’t hesitate to head on down to see Joker drop some beats.
With tracks from his new album, The Vision, along with his own remixes, and some mainstream dubstep for good measure, the gig was absolutely buzzing. Being right at the front, next to the massive speakers, you could really appreciate the seriously heavy bass (it made the hairs on my arms vibrate) and examine Joker’s mad skills close up. This Bristol-based producer emerged on the scene during the purple (post-) dubstep movement. Joker (Liam McLean) infuses dubstep with grime, garage and R&B to create a fresh take on the genre. Dr Dre, G-Funk and Benga are among his influences, as well as video game chiptune music.
Joker started making music at 14, was DJing regularly a year later, and was dubstep’s greatest hope by 18, being named ‘2009 King of Bass Music’ by XLR8R Magazine. Since then he has churned out a stream of successful singles each one better and quirkier than the last. Now at just 22 he also has a debut album under his belt: The Vision. His album has arrived after years of delays and false starts. It is definitely more pop-orientated than his previous work, with its countless featured artists and electro tones. Perhaps he is trying to follow the blue print set out by artists like Deadmau5, Daft Punk and David Guetta who have amplified their success by becoming part of pop-culture.
The first single on the album, Tron, with its synthetic wobble and thumping bass pulses, is the most heavily dubstep focused, and a classic Joker track. His next single, and my personal favourite, The Vision (Let Me Breath) featuring Jessie Ware, is excellent in so many ways; the jagged edge synth lines, the sonic twists, and the fattened up arcade game timbers. The final and most recent single On My Mind featuring William Cartwritght has a staccato synth beat reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s My Love, further emphasising an attempt to mainstream. However the lyrics, “Rumour has it that you want a man with a big di-di- (wait for it) digital following” seems slightly out of place as it is presented without a hint of humour.
There is no denying that Joker works wonders on the dancefloor with these more upbeat tracks but the rest of the album rewards chilled out, funky tracks like Milky Way, My Trance Girl and Electric Sea. Slaughter House offers a crunchy synth melody, while Level 6 as the name rightly suggests, is an example of Joker’s obsession with video game loops, bringing with it a sense of nostalgia. The Vision is definitely worth a listen, and if you’re a dub fan eager for more talent like this, live and up close, a trip to Brighton’s number one bass night is a must. This week it’s Emalkay and coming soon are Feed Me, Dub Phizix and the legendary Rusko will be returning on 21 March.
It’s Make Your Mind Up Time: how much of our world is a figment of our imagination?
'Pencil Vs Camera - 30' by artist Ben Haine
“It’s make your mind up time” was one of the main events in the recent Brighton Science Festival. In a tour de force of consciousness, the day saw a series of 15-minute lectures detailing how we experience the world, or rather how the world we experience is a figment of our imagination. Speakers consisted of experts from Sussex’s own Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, as well as other notable brain researchers.
Dr. Sam Hutton kicked off proceedings with an insightful presentation showing the anatomical limitations of our visual system, and the immense ability of our brain to construct our visual scenes based on internal and external goals.
Steve Mould highlighted this point more saliently. The resident science expert for Blue Peter performed an energetic presentation of how we see, or rather construct colour. In illustrating our ‘invention’ of magenta (it does not actually exist in the electromagnetic spectrum!), Mould provided a clear tangible example of exactly how the formation of our visual world is entirely dependent on the machinery we possess to process it.
Next up was the protagonist of the flash-lag effect, Dr. Romi Nijhawan, whose demonstrative talk revealed the predictive nature of our visual system. Indeed, he described how visual processing delays are accounted for by extrapolating the trajectory of a moving stimulus into the future: feeding new concerns for any football lover with respect to the offside rule.
After a short break, Dr. Andy Field conducted a comedic lecture exposing the illusory nature of fear. He blindfolded two volunteers and asked them to place their hands into a mystery box, hinting that it housed a large spider. In reality there existed only a harmless flower; Dr. Field explained that fear is merely a product of our minds, built from our interpretation of cues in the world around us.
Following on from Dr. Field’s practical lecture, was a simple yet enthralling talk by Dr. Zoltan Dienes, uncovering the myth of absolute hypnosis. Far from being a state of consciousness in which individuals completely lose control, hypnosis is a powerful suggestive state created by our imagination and maintained closely within our own personal moral code.
Dr. Andrew Dilley next revealed that pain is a figment, determined by our current state of consciousness. This was comically demonstrated by member of the audience who was able to keep a hand in a bath of ice for a minute longer while crudely swearing, as opposed to repeating the mundane word table. It seems that swearing counteracts the experience of pain by switching on brain regions that release opiate-like chemicals and adrenaline.
The co-director of the Sackler Centre, Dr. Anil Seth, continued after lunch by deconstructing the illusion of body ownership. He used diverse examples ranging from phantom limbs and alien hand syndrome to experimentally induced out-of-body experiences to show that our brains make sense of the world by altering our bodily perceptions as necessary.
Barrister David Osborne provided an interesting talk, comparing the worlds of science and law to conclude that although science can pursue the truth, law can only aim for justice.
Subsequently Dr. Robert Stovold and Greg Marshall performed a scripted debate discussing whether God is fashioned by our minds; but clearly science and religion do not always exist harmoniously side-by-side.
The audience learned from Dr. Dennis Chan that memories truly shape who we are, and how we live our lives, but they should not be completely trusted. Over time our interpretations transform via numerous sins of distortion that essentially alter the consciousness of us: the past is thus as much a figment as the future.
Dr. Patrick Haggard closed the event with an exploration of the implications from an influential experiment, originally conducted by Dr. Libert in 1985. The study showed that free will might be a delusion: our actions are preceded by brain activity 206 milliseconds before we are consciously aware of the decision. Volition is therefore a consequence of unconscious brain activity, fuelling a philosophical debate on moral responsibility: should our society abide by laws based on the notion of conscious free will?
All in all the event was both diverse and fascinating, thoroughly guiding the audience around “the mind’s forest of preconceptions and instincts”.