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The Wadham Experience - an immersive intellectual experience for leaders and thinkers at Wadham College, Oxford. @wadham_experience

Always an honour to capture - where every footstep leads to a surprise including seeing historical treasures in the flesh, lectures from incredible experts (particularly enjoyed Eric Clarkes lecture on music!) and tours into areas of Oxford usually kept under lock and key. While I’m a fly on the wall photographer of this experience I come away with so many thoughts and the programme sparks so much in my brain so it’s a joy to chat to the participants about this transformative experience throughout the week!

As well as this documentary coverage I also capture portraits throughout the weeks ❤️

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September is always high season for us photographers - so here’s a recap post from last week! Another amazing few days with the incredible @wadham_experience before shooting some promo images with @neptunemarketharborough and @theharboroughhome for our upcoming content and phone photography workshop (you won’t want to miss this one!) and then back home for our Root & Real Co mini retreat at @shiningcliff

So abundant!

Can I just say what a joy it is to design carousels in the Edits app?! Love love love this new feature!

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Just completed a mini-sabbatical at Wadham College, Oxford. I was half-expecting to LARP (live-action role play) as an Oxford co-ed, and LARP I did! I hit the local pubs, scrawled away in my Moleskin, and wielded my very own Bodleian library card.

But something else happened. I was given a dedicated time and space to learn and reflect.

In the Ante-Chapel, I listened to the otherworldly “Doctor Who” theme realized by Delia Derbyshire. In the early 1960s, she pioneered a new era of music by splicing and layering magnetic tape.

I considered the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch who called for a compassionate and clear-sighted method of paying attention to others by viewing them in a “just and loving way.”

And in the Ashmolean, I held a Song dynasty bell that was inscribed with the words “天下太平” or “the whole world at peace.”

The theme was “Thinking Clearly: Attention and meaning in a cacophonous world.” After a week, I am walking away from the Wadham Experience with a renewed perspective about attention, perception and sifting through the relentless noise of modern life.

We are in the throes of the Attention Economy, where we are bombarded with endless forms of input. As a journalist, I believe this is something not to resist but to embrace. It is our duty to sift through a multitude of data threads to gain a clear and vivid understanding of our world, and present to our audiences in a compelling way.

But to be a journalist today requires both sense and sensibility. I must have both the faculty and tools to perceive the world in its entirety. Thanks to a lecture by German Literature professor Carolin Duttlinger on attention and distraction, I’ve learned how that means being open to ALL possibilities with all senses, including serendipitous moments that exist off the page of a structured agenda.

And if you, dear social reader and friend, have made it this far into my indulgent post, may I ask:

What is compelling to you?

I know it’s risky to ask this on a social forum, but I do hope to receive a few thoughtful responses.

I don’t want to contribute to the cacophony. Please help me make sense of it all for all of us.

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Professor Carolin Duttlinger of Wadham College Oxford, discusses a history of attention, and its supposed opposite distraction.

In the 20th century, to thinkers like Adorno, mass culture was a way of giving people what they wanted so they didn’t ask difficult questions. Does a healthy democracy rely on people being able to express themselves culturally?

How do we cultivate deeper attention so our faculties don’t atrophy? These startlingly modern questions have deep historic roots.

The longer conversation is available now on YouTube.

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Professor Christopher Summerfield — Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, fellow at Wadham College, founding researcher at DeepMind, and Research Director at the UK AI Safety Institute — on what AI advances mean for us.

As AI advances, now more than ever is the time to foreground the humanities. Technological advance turns the mirror back on what is human. Part of that is thinking deeply about challenging issues at times of great change.

One thing AI can do is code. One thing it can’t do is be the arbiter of human meaning. Human judgment and the humanities are vital - that’s the manifesto of the @wadham_experience

What do you think? Join the discussion at the Wadham Experience.

Full conversation with Christopher Summerfield and Robin Clyfan at @nedsclubs — link in bio.

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The first episode of Thinking Deeply with the @wadham_experience is now live on Linktree in my bio.

It was a great conversation at @nedsclubs London, with 250 on the waiting list, on what AI takes from us, what it returns, and why these questions reach back through centuries of thinking about the mind and human agency.

It sparked questions in the room that will be posted later - on environmental impact, whether machine learning is actually driving growth, and why good AI should be like your grandmother.

Can AI systems think? Can they deceive us? Whose interests do they serve and how should we use them?

The Ned partners with the University of Oxford’s Wadham College to present Thinking Deeply, a new conversation series examining how we navigate change and make sense of the defining ideas of our time.

Join Professor Christopher Summerfield — Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, founding researcher at DeepMind, and Research Director at the UK AI Safety Institute - in conversation with Robin Clyfan, as they explore how to understand these strange new minds and think clearly about one of the most consequential developments of our age.

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A glimpse into our new 'Thinking Deeply' series in partnership with Oxford University's Wadham College - a series exploring how we navigate change and make sense of the defining ideas of our time.

Starting with Robin Clyfan discussing the age of AI with Professor Christopher Summerfield, the series continues on Monday 27 April with Carolin Duttlinger focusing on the relationship between attention and distraction.

@wadham_experience
@robin_clyfan

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Introducing Thinking Deeply a new conversation series examining how we navigate change and make sense of the defining ideas of our time, in collaboration with Oxford University’s Wadham College, @wadham_experience, @nedsclubs and me.

Our first live recording is in a couple of weeks @nedsclubs at @thenedlondon

Can AI systems think? Can they deceive us? Whose interests do they serve - and how should we use them?

Join Professor Christopher Summerfield - Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, founding researcher at DeepMind, and Research Director at the UK AI Safety Institute - in conversation with Robin Clyfan, as they explore how to understand these strange new minds and think clearly about one of the most consequential
developments of our age.

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In September I headed to Oxford to capture a special coming together of people from all over the world for @wadham_experience - it was truly an honour to be there and getting to be part of a completely different world for a few weeks.

A highlight was definitely seeing everyone get stuck in at the Ruskin School of Art. Using sense and intuition everyone was encouraged to express themselves ended up with blindfolds and being led by a beautiful violin session. Goosebumps just thinking about it!

#oxford #ruskincollegeoxford

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