Former CBC host’s new festival sets Calgary abuzz
Jay Ingram is more than excited to talk about his latest project. The man who was the voice and brains behind CBC Radio’s popular program Quirks and Quarks and then became the co-host host of Discovery Channel’s science show, Daily Planet, has lived in Calgary for the past four years. But he is definitely not into retirement. He and his partner, Mary Ann Moser, who is also fascinated by the wonders of science, have co-founded a festival of the arts and sciences called Beaker-head that in two weeks will hit Calgary’s streets and parks for the third year.
For Ingram, it’s all about bringing together the ingenuity of science, engineering and the arts to create magical experiences, wondrous inventions, engineering competitions and what he calls “unexpected crazy stuff.”
“I think it is a shame that we steer kids into either technical or artistic streams so early in their lives. They really lose out because there is creativity and ingenuity involved in both. Together they can produce amazing results,” he said during an interview.
Opening night will be an extravaganza at Fort Calgary where the audience will lounge in a 6,400metre sand box to watch an aerial display about the universe. An astronaut will also be on hand as will rapper GZA from New York’s Wu-Tang Clan. Drummers and dancing will round out the evening.
On another night, Ingram and his band — the Cosmonauts — will be performing at the Rock and Roll History of Space Exploration.
“In the first half of the 20th century there was such an interest in Mars. A lot of the information we had about Mars then turned out to be incorrect. But there was such a fascination with it. We want to show how that influenced future space exploration,” Ingram said.
In the streets and parks of the city centre there will be plenty of attractions for people of all ages to explore and even play with.
“Last year we had a 25-foot flaming mechanical octopus. When the show was finished we took it apart so we could show the kids how it was built from ordinary things like muffin tins and knives and forks,” says Ingram.
The giant octopus was imported from the hugely popular and eclectic Burning Man Festival, which started in San Francisco in 1986 and is now held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada.
“We want Beaker-head to become like Burning Man Festival,” says Ingram. “That’s our goal.”
There’s no doubt Calgary is a great place to “smashup” art, science and engineering. The oil and gas industry is replete with engineers of all sorts, geologists and geophysicists. And then there are all those computer whizzes and graphics experts.
There’s no shortage either of artists looking to expand their reach. The Bee Kingdom glass-blowers will be constructing a 35-foot artificially intelligent robot “designed for interplanetary exploration.” Australian artist Amanda Parer will be installing giant, illuminated rabbits in a downtown park.
Festo, a German company that specializes in biomimicry, will be exhibiting an airborne robot that looks like and flies exactly like a dragon fly.
“Calgary is a great place to have this kind of festival because it is so open to new ideas,” says Ingram.
The former radio and TV host is also excited about another project that will soon get underway at the Banff Centre. It’s called the Big Bang Residency and will involve a team of five people — an engineer, an artist and experts in three other disciplines. Together, they will have a year to “create something,” which will then be displayed at Beaker-head 2016. Applications are now being accepted.
“It’s the first residency to put together an artist and an engineer,” says Ingram.
It all fits in with Ingram’s and Moser’s desire to create an environment that allows people to display their ingenuity and enthusiasm for both science and the arts and then produce something amazing.
If ever Ingram had thoughts about retiring after an active career as a science communicator, he soon found out that Calgary was far too interesting a place to just live the quiet life.