Transcript for the video embedded on the Centre for Immersive Technologies education research theme page.
(Music)
(Text says: We shape and are shaped by our city).
(Four small, colourful glowing eyes appear one at a time against a black background and each time a different child’s voice speaks)
The voices say: hello this is me, my meme.
(Text saying ‘meme’ appears with an arrow pointing to one of the eyes.)
Child’s voice says: I'm one of the thirteen thousand eight hundred and eighteen children in the Born in Bradford project; one of the largest studies in the world, looking at the many influences that shape our lives.
A different child’s voice says: To do this tens of thousands of bits of information about me my friends and our lives in Bradford I've been collected since before I was
Born.
(Tiny glowing dots appear around one of the eyes with arrows pointing to them and text next to one, which says ‘bits of information’. Above it, text appears that says: between March 2007 and December 2010.)
Another child’s voice says: scientists have gathered information about my body.
(A new arrow appears pointing to one of the glowing dots around the eye and text that says ‘physiological data.’)
(Music)
The children speak in turn, saying: how are you growing, how healthy I am and
my genetic makeup. Also information about how my brain is developing and how my
brain deals with different situations.
(Two more arrows appear pointing to the glowing dots, one says ‘genetic data’ and the other says ‘psychological data’.)
They've collected data about my parents, their work and location within the community and about the environment around me.
(Two more arrows appear pointing to the glowing dots, one says ‘social data’, the other says ‘environmental data).
The children speak in turn. As they do so, lots of colourful dots of different sizes and colours appear one by one, building up a dense cluster.
The children say: in this virtual world you'll see a cloud of thirty thousand eight hundred and eighty memes position in space, based on how similar or different all our bits of information are. It is a data science technique called TSNE or as we like to call it, a meme cloud.
(an arrow appears pointing to the cluster, text says: ‘TSNE’. Another arrow appears and text says: ‘meme cloud’.)
A child says: for example if we created a meme cloud using just our DNA information, the memes closest to me would be my sister, my brother and my cousins.
(Arrows appear pointing to the cluster of dots with text for each arrow that says: DNA Meme cloud genetic data, me, sister, brother, cousins).
(The arrows and text disappear. Four dots with different colours appear with text to indicate that they show ‘how close do we live to green space?’ from ‘far’ to ‘close’, with two somewhere in the middle).
A child says: colours can be used to compare specific bits of information like how close each of the memes live to green space and the quality of the air they breathe.
(The four dots change colour and the text indicates they show ‘is the air polluted or clear?’ from ‘polluted’ to ‘clear’ with two somewhere in the middle. The colours of the dots in the cluster changes accordingly.)
A child says: we can then search for patterns by flying along the meme cloud.
(Everything on the screen shrinks away to nothing leaving a blank black screen).
Children say in unison: Welcome to Bradford!
(Music)
(The bottom half of the screen is filled with hundreds of dots of different colours. They form many different patterns, contours and shapes in and give the effect of an abstract 3D landscape against a black background. The view pans across).
A child says something inaudible about Bradford and a meme cloud.
(The dots start to move apart and appear to fly away ion multiple directions, leaving behind a starry night sky with the Milky Way visible).
(Music)
Look for the patterns of colours that form in clusters and discover what makes
a similar the colours now tell us about the quality of the air we breathe.
The colours now tell us about how much green space we have around our homes.
(Many coloured dots start to appear in the top left of the screen as the shot pans across the sky.)
The colours now tell us the socio-economic position of our parents.
Soon you will see us morph into new meme clusters as we grow and become more similar and different to each other.
The new meme cluster is called built-in Bradford. The next stage of the Born in Bradford project.
Over 30,000 families and children will take part.
(The coloured dots glow with white light and start to move around before settling into another image that looks like a 3D landscape.)