Miss TEDxSkidmoreCollege? It's now on YouTube

Full-length videos of the three Skidmore faculty members who presented last semester at the College’s first TEDxSkidmore College event, “Crossing Boundaries: Why Creative Thought Matters,” are now available on YouTube.

The program, which filled the Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall in the Arthur Zankel Music Center, was organized by students Jake Mitchell ’14 and Sarah Green ’16. The videos were produced by a SkidTV team that included Rafie Karen ‘14, Jonathan Ogunleye ‘17, Cody Webber ‘16, Madison Plummer ‘17, Andrew Fine ‘15, and Brandon Dyer ‘15.

 “Shattering Cancer with Resonant Frequencies”: Anthony Holland, associate professor of music, director of the College’s electronic music facilities, and conductor of the Skidmore orchestra. Setting the stage for a discussion of his own research, Holland describes the potential to kill cancer cells with sound tuned to various ‘resonant frequencies.’  He starts by showing how such frequencies have long been known to shatter wine glasses and even bring down bridges, and then shows the non-toxic destruction of cancer cells in his lab. He envisions a day when cancer treatment rooms might be characterized by “blue and pinkish plasma lights, emanating healing, pulsing electric fields that kill cancer painlessly and non-toxicly one cell at a time.”

“And I'm Still Not an Architect”: Flip Phillips, professor of psychology and a specialist in the modeling of brain function and three-dimensional shape perception. Phillips has been at various times in his life a professional musician, a marching band instructor, a computer programmer, a medical imaging researcher, and an animation scientist at Pixar Animation Studios. In this engaging talk, he brings that eclectic background fully into play in explaining his life-long fascination with images, beginning as a child with a simple four-stroke Picasso drawing. He leaves his audience thinking about images in a different way.

“Painting with Mittens and Bananas”: Heather Hurst ‘97, assistant professor of anthropology and 2004 recipient of a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award, made in recognition of her vivid reconstructions of Maya murals. “Collaboration is energizing, but it also means to let go,” she advises students in the story she tells about going deep into Maya ruins. “Put your work out there, untethered ... Let it inspire and provoke others.”

Mitchell and Green are organizing another TEDxSkidmoreCollege event this semester. Students will be invited to audition.

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California almost 30 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The two annual TED Conferences invite the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes on a diverse mix of topics. Many of these talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The TED2014 Conference will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, along with the TEDActive simulcast in neighboring Whistler. TEDGlobal 2014 will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events designed to spark discussion and give attendees a TED-like sense of connection. (The “x” indicates that it’s locally sponsored.)