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| Personal background |
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Resident in Edinburgh, I am a working artist with a strong interest in astronomy and space exploration; an interest sparked at an early age by my Father, an electronics engineer who, at that time, worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh and UKIRT on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i.
Much of my work stems from these interests, indeed it is quite difficult to steer me away from them as I get a lot of pleasure from producing stuff. I wanted to become an astronomer or a physicist but my mathematical skills at school weren't up to much, so I decided to become an artist so I could explore the Universe in my own way. I have quite a library at home and try and keep up to speed on the latest advances and discoveries in astronomy, physics and related fields not so much to inform my work, but as much for pleasure! The same goes as much for science fiction: the first story I remember reading is Arthur C. Clarke's short story "A Meeting with Medusa", and some of my earliest memories ar of watching 'Star Trek', so when 'Star Wars' came out here in 1978 that was it, the path became clear!
I studied painting and printmaking at Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design in London, gaining a BA(Hons)in fine art from DeMontfort University in Leicester in 1995. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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When I first heard about SETI@home I thought that it was a bloody good idea, your PC becoming your own personal 'ear' into the Universe. It gives me a small measure of personal satisfaction to be part of a bold experiment to search for evidence of civilisations elsewhere in the galaxy.
It was not long after I had graduated from university when the first extrasolar planets were found, and although there were false alarms about planets around Barnard's Star and Van Biesbroek 8 when I was growing up, I can find 51 Pegasi - even in the city - and that still gives me pause when I walk home on an evening and look up. Now that my nephews and friend's children are at school, they can learn about 300+ known worlds where I once learned about nine, so the any SETI program is a necessary collary to the search for New Earths - not only for us now, but the generations to come for I think that what we learn from up there will benefit us so much down here. |
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