Richard Barnes
Images from the ‘Murmur’ series, 2005
Flocks of european starlings flying above Rome and its suburbs.
Interviewer: I don’t want to burst your bubble, but you do know about Santa. You know the secret about Santa?
I don’t get many deja vu moments, but this morning was kind of creepy.
So I was sat there, with Bertie to my 12 o’clock (in front of me), Jonny to my 9 and Ryan to my 11. We were doing the 2012 Organic past paper, on question 1 (d). It was to do with synthesis of anisole from benzene.
Ryan did the question, and the four of us chatted briefly about what Dr Cox said in his revision lecture, and thinking of possible steps for the synthesis. Listed down a few steps, the usual.
From benzene, nitrate it with sulfuric acid and nitric acid, then reduce the nitro group to a -NH2 group with tin and HCl. Then up to that stage, I went “and then you just make a diazonium species. I think at this point, Ryan asked, “so how do you do that?”
I looked briefly at my notes and said, “NaNO2, HCl in 0 to 5 degrees Celsius”. At this point, what went on in my head was, “Whoaaa, I’ve said this before. At this exact situation”. And I knew what they were going to do and say after that: they would look up and say “Do you know everything?” (in an amazed-ish fashion).
AND THEY DID.
I swear, if I wasn’t too taken aback by the situation, I would’ve said it with them. At the same time. It was really freaky at the time.
Deja vu does happen, I guess. Now I know.
Symmetrium by Niko Luoma
Luoma on his work:
My material is light. The work focuses on energy rather than matter. My work is about the process as much as about the result.
My process combines systems of calculation and change. I find my inspiration in mathematics and geometry; symmetry and chaos, both imagined and found in nature…
In my recent “symmetrium” series, time reveals the process through thousands of exposures on a single negative.
High-schoolers complaining about teachers doing their job
