Category: Mind Labs

The way we treat our dead tells as much about our attitude towards this life as it does about our belief in the afterlife. In ancient times, people were buried with objects befitting their rank; as if they were ordained to continue that role after death. Today, several hundred people have had their bodies frozen having placed such faith in science, in that they hope to be preserved until a cure for death is discovered. In this programme we’ll be looking at the treatment of Sheffield’s dead at the beginning of the 19th century and asking what this can tell us about the birth of our modern city.

In this episode of ‘Mind Labs’, we take a listen to the early days of sound recording. Highlighting some of the very first recordings made. Featuring pioneering work by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. It’s a fascinating journey into the beginning of a technology which these days, we take for granted. The fact that you can hear us via a computer on your desktop is because of experiments that first began in 1860…

Experiments that began with; ‘The First Days of Noise’…

‘The Long Journey’ is a story about a man who sets out across a blizzard of snow in a vain attempt to reach a destination which he has no hope of ever reaching, but still he tries. Written by Ziemowit Holda (the story was originally called ‘Sisyphus’) and performed by Felix Orion, this work is a powerful examination of ‘singular dedication’

My name is Helen Blejerman; I was born in Mexico City and have lived in Sheffield for four years. At this point of my stay I still feel that I haven’t found or grabbed in my hands the tangible essence of the ever changing city of Sheffield. I wonder if a metropolis is at all something one could decipher. If it is, how to discover its real substance, the centre of its real essence? I wonder if the truth of a city is based on its history or does it lie in its own present. Perhaps it becomes projected onto what others perceive or it is reflected in what it inspires in others.

It had been a while. You’d spent time travelling the world as I’d occupied myself with mundanity. Since your return, it would be a lie to say we hadn’t made the effort to meet up on one or two occasions, but we’d conceded to the need for a proper catch up, a weekend of quality time together was in order.

My name is Maureen Atkin and I am a widowed Mother of five wonderful sons and will celebrate my 73rd birthday on New Years Eve. For over six and a quarter years I have been happily living in the Kirkhill Residential Care Home on Lowedges Road in Sheffield. I’m regarded as a prime example of how someone who has suffered so many severe bouts of the deepest depression, can, with encouragement, praise, and support, become, through sustained effort and sheer determination, a person who has had pride fully restored and become strong enough to succeed and has found happiness in a positive new beginning. This is my creative journey…

This week’s first program in our occasional ‘Mind Labs’ series is a new original music and comedy sketch show from Boona Wallace and Anxious Andrews. It’s called the “Steam Powered Radio Show” and if you press play; you can have a listen! (ain’t modern technology wonderful?)