I maintain a keen interest in science-inspired art and collaborations between science and art in all its forms. Most of my own efforts at the science/art interface have been developing and performing science inspired theatre, but occasionally there is the opportunity to delve into another medium. This Friday night 'Market of the Mind’ (MoM) is back in Melbourne’s City Square. MoM includes circus performers, magicians and burlesque artists, and I will be doing some wonderfully odd performance with my friend Marty Lubran. I have also been working with my colleague Carly Siebentritt on the ‘Suburban Brain Garden’, an installation featuring a rainbow of coloured brains.

Brains on their way to 'Market of the Mind'. Photo by Chris KPWhat is the collective noun for brains – a “concept” perhaps? Anyway it’s been lots of fun and I will try to post or tweet a photo of the final piece, but in the meantime, here are some of the brains roaming outside, enjoying the sun.

I know, I know it's been ages between posts. Sorry, I've just been really busy. I have, however, managed to scrounge enough moments here and there to indulge myself in a few haiku. Here's some of them (I've posted some of these on Twitter too). Puns intended.

Oh my troubled heart

Lipid emersion cooking

In good taste, poor health

(a fry-ku)

Chains and bars and bells

Another revolution

Arrive somewhere new

(a bike-u)

Packaged grassy meal

Blamed and named for allergies

Hider of needles

(a hay-ku)

It's a piercing need

A symbiotic stabbing

Hatpin and the hat

(a hat-ku)

Irrational joy

Infinite, unrepeating

Circle secrets seen

(a pi-ku)

". . . a faintly tinted glass sphere with a tongue of twisting multi-coloured glass in the middle". Image by Photoblogster.Shrill calls echo through suburban streets. Follow your ears, and your eyes will find a Dickensian moonscape buzzing with half-sized humanity. An expanse of bare, dusty earth crowded with children with dirty hands and knees, huddled in feverish conversation or shuffling aimlessly through the throng. This was the marble pit at my primary school. It emerged every morning before school, at recess and at lunchtime. It was a place where plans were made, deals were done and innocence was weakened.   More . . .

It dawned on me the other day that more than 15% of 2012 had already passed. This year seems to be racing away with all the grace and predicatbiity of a round of double Gloucester cheese careering down a hill. Of course this sensation reflects the volume of activity, most of it loads of fun and the next couple of months are no exception. I've just attended the Australian Science Communcators national conference, a very successful event attended by a bevy of terribly talented colleagues from a wide range of disciplines.

Next is the Adelaide Fringe. This is my third consecutive Fringe, but this time I return not as a performer, but as the director of 'Faraday's Candle', produced by re-science and performed at the Science Exchange.

After that it's 'Pre-Coital' at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. We're pretty excited to be sharing the Kelvin Club with 'The Peer Revue', with special preview shows on 28 March and a short season after that. If history if any guide, audiences, performers and I are in for a couple of very entertaining months - join us! 

A gull's butt. Photo by Eliya.Perhaps the grass is always greener on the other side of the evolutionary tree. How often do we wish we could fly, or breathe underwater, or run faster, or change our skin colour to match the décor? We seem to spend comparatively less time recognising the joys of opposable thumbs, self-awareness and bipedalism. Well if that’s the way it is, so be it. Here’s another impressive feature – in this case an organ – shared by many vertebrates, but not us. I give you the cloaca.

Actually I think the phrase “I give you the cloaca” has great potential, either as a compliment (keep reading) or an insult (keep reading). More . . .