From DJ to videographer: Ruby on Science

Lily Agius, the artistic curator of Science in the City met up with DJ Ruby to talk about science and art. Ruby created a video for Science in the City that will be available in 2013 on scienceinthecity.org.mt

– Recently, you progressed from DJ to VJ (video jockey). Was it a hard transition?

No, not really, because it has taken quite a few years to get it in motion. For the past 5 years I have been working with videography on an amateur basis, but all of a sudden at the beginning of this year I decided to take it on professionally, and in a matter of few weeks I learned all that I needed to.

– Which was the art installation or event that you enjoyed the most? 

Certainly the live music session by Andrew Alamango and Mario Sammut a.k.a Cynga. It was electronically based, which is my cup of tea.

– One of the exhibits in the exhibition at St James presented fruit flies within their own eco system in bulbs. These organisms are used to investigate muscle-wasting diseases, obesity, cancer, diabetes, and more. Did you ever imagine that humans could be related enough to a fruit fly to use them to learn more about human disease?

I never knew about it before. I was mesmerised to find out at the exhibition at St. James. That was very interesting!

– How did you feel when interacting with the art: climbing the DNA staircase, or entering the echo-proofed room in Strait Street?

It was an amazing experience, not just as a regular person attending the event but also as film maker while on the job.

– Have you ever been to a festival of its kind in Malta or abroad before?

It was a first for me, and was very impressed about how professional the event was.

– Did you expect to see something more from the festival? Is there anything you would like to see at the festival next year?

Well, from my point of view it may be no surprise to hear me say: more music.

– How would you describe the audience of the Science in the City Festival?

People of all ages and from all walks of life were there — it was certainly an event for everyone!

– Do you think that art can be used to explain science?

Yes it can, Science in the City proved that.

– How does science play its part in your own life?

I am very into IT, computers, software, gadgets and electronic music/visual. Technology is all around me and with me everyday, and forever evolving and improving. 

Part of Science in the City, Malta’s Science and Arts Festival

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For more information on DJ Ruby: www.pureruby.com or www.facebook.com/djruby. For Ruby’s videography and visual work: www.facebook.com/puremediamalta

Online chatting and spelling ability: myth, speculation and reality

The Gutenberg printing press revolutionised the world in 1455. It brought the written word to the masses, though in its day critics thought it would corrupt language. Today, text and instant messages are the new technologies that critics are accusing of degrading writing. 

Research from Coventry University shows that online chatting can improve spelling, questioning the popular mythology spread by the media. Building on this foundation, Lara Vella (supervised by Professor Sandro Caruana) studied online chatting extracts by Maltese secondary school students. She found some evidence which shows that students who chatted online for several hours had a lower spelling ability.

To measure chatting behaviour, she distributed a questionnaire to 205 Maltese secondary school students (95 males and 110 females, who were about 14 years and 5 months old). These students were assessed on their spelling by two different tests and an analysis on extracts of online conversations. In Malta, it seems that chatting might be linked to a lower spelling score in both Maltese and English. Chatting and instant messaging is normally assumed to be dotted with spelling errors and abbreviated words, like: u, lol, abt, c, msg, tks, rofl and others. Her study showed that only 16.21% of the words used included such alternative spelling. Stereotypical beliefs did not hold true and were clearly outweighed by normal spelling.

Taken together, the study clearly shows that the relationship between spelling and online chatting is not clear-cut. Vella cautions that other factors affecting spelling need consideration. Speculation about the effect of online chatting needs to be replaced by research aimed at separating fact from fiction. Research will allow strategies to be developed that help improve literacy for Maltese students in the online world.

This research was performed as part of a Masters in Education at the Faculty of Education.