I've finally finished writing my performance. I was really worried yesterday, I felt like it wasn't hanging together at all. Today it feels different - maybe because I read it out loud. The reason I enjoy the lecture format is because, when spoken aloud, ideas are more easily related. When you are speak with someone, the conversation naturally jumps around; trains of thought are allowed to run on, and intimations of meaning or association - inflexion, physical gestures - are just as important as the words you say.

Although a lecture isn't a conversation, it allows for the same thing to happen. Ideas hang in the air, waiting for something relevant to give them meaning. I'll have images (my incredibly bad powerpoint slide show) that give space to the words spoken over them, a pictorial space that both pins down what I'm saying, and yet adds more context that frees up possible associations.

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All I have for you today is some pretty bleak Wikipedia links.

The Behavioural Despair Test. A really unlikely way of testing anti-depressants - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced-swim_test

and

The Pit of Despair, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. A sure fire way to create psychosis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair

I don't want to get in to a debate on the ethics of animal testing (because it is a complex debate and I don't have time, not because I'm not interested in it), but I find it fascinating that these tests were/are deemed to adequately replicate human psychological conditions, and in the case of the Behavioural Despair Test, to prove the worth of drugs

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And just as an afterthought, here is the youtube video of the paragliding donkey that was in the papers a few weeks ago. The image of the gliding donkey inspired a work that will be in the show on Monday, so I've been following the story with some interest.

I was going to post the original footage, but I prefer this version, because it has bad metal and pointless extra editing.