the v&a london, home to 145 galleries of works from across the globe, spanning 5,000 years of art. museums like this are always looking at new ways to engage audiences. one idea here — to see how our brains react to what we're seeing. we often talk about how art makes us feel or what it gets us thinking about. well, today it's time for a way of quantifying that. so we're just going to put this on your head here. 0k. just goes behind your ears. this muse headset, which would more commonly be used as a meditation device, has been repurposed to translate brain activity into a real time 3d visualisation. and this has four eeg sensors. that's right, four sensors that are on your forehead and picking up the electromagnetic activity off your brain. 0k. and what does that mean its going to learn from me? it's going to take this raw data right off your headset. 0ur set—up processes it in lots of different ways, which kind of indicate sort of what your brain's doing when you're looking at the art. when the brain recognises - something in the visual input, for example, a face - or an object, like a tool or anything like that, - there are certain signatures in the signal that we can pick up, and what art fund - and the mill have done is use these signals or recognise - these signals in a dynamic way when the person is wearing. the headset, to display them in that visualisation, - in 3d form, dynamically, while the person - is engaging with art. i've onlyjust identified that there's women dancing there. it aims to show that art isn't a passive experience. what we wanted to show people was that when you go to a gallery or a museum and you see things that you recognise or that are challenging or inspiring or create joy in you, that, actually, it absolutely has an effect on your brain. interesting. i know what i'm looking at now, but how do i feel? do i like it? does it make me feel happy? sad? i'm not sure that i feel that much apart from satisfaction that i've finally recognised that they're dancers! i guess i'll find out. let's move on to something livelier. how about this one? there's a lot of green. there's a lot to think about here. a lot of detail. looking at the painting of the hands. hands are definitely hard to do. it feels kind of more upbeat. in reality, when you look at the picture, you try and think of all the sensible things, but then you get distracted. her nails look like they were painted, but they couldn't have been. how does that affect what this is reading? well, let's find out what it did discover. well, this all looks very pretty, but what does it actually represent? what you can see here is what we call corkscrewing. and you can see the ribbons are starting to kind of twist over each other and twist and bend. and that's due to sort of problem solving. you're trying to make sense of what you're seeing. this was when i was looking at the degas. things seem to have got a little bit more excitable at this point. what does that mean? yeah, these golden highlights that are coming in are something that we've put into the system, and they're triggered by recognition, when you see something that you recognise. 0h, that'll be the point that i saw the ladies for the first time that looked like a blur initially. exactly. and then some other things are happening, like we've isolated the beta range in your brainwave spectrum, and that's what's making the ribbons get fatter. and then we've got two... and what does that mean? it probably means you're concentrating. it's sort of, the beta range in your, in the brainwave spectrum is conscious thought. what have you learned so far from people using this? the biggest variation is from one person to another. huge differences between the way one person takes in a piece of art and another, particularly people, neurodiverse people. people with things like adhd have a very different reaction to art. they spend a lot more time kind of reassessing the image and that stuff. we learned that as we were doing our tests. i suppose, as somebody who's not hugely into art, i was pleasantly surprised by how much i seemingly did feel. we know that all types - of visual art, for example, will engage the brain in a very similar way, and that's - to engage the visual - sensory part of the brain. these are signals that. the brain is experiencing pretty much the entire time when we're experiencing. the world around us. but in the context of art - experience, i would say it goes a little further in the sense that we're also interested i in this context in things| like the emotional state of the person and maybe inducing some positive . experience in the person. although it's early days, maybe this research could ultimately prove that art is actually good for you. photography — the art of freezing moments in time. the history of photography is the history of the technology that made it possible, and the evolution of the camera is, for the very first time, focusing its gaze backwards, not forwards. so, let's get into it. we started with black and white portraits that required people to channel their inner statue, holding a pose for an eternity. now, don't anybody move! is that gun loaded, by the way? as time marched forward, so did the evolution of photography and pictures. enter the flashbulb era, where taking a photo sounded like a small, sharp pop. and it was flashy. just like this outfit. flip forward to a smaller, faster camera. cameras that could capture for all time a short moment, a memory. enter the vibrant era of the polaroid. leading the way with instant photography, a limited number of chances to capture the moments as they went by. then came the digital age, where we all became photographers. no longer for the few who could afford expensive kit and had the patience to wait. 0ur pocket—sized phone studios meet demands instantaneously, and with the advent of digital manipulation and filters, you can get close to perfection every time. suddenly, everyone became a selfie connoisseur. this looks quite nice. quite a strong neg. yeah. but what about waiting? what about those magical minutes of anticipation? 0k... it's the first time i take a picture of a dog. is it? oh, well, let's hope it's a good one. when the promise of what may have been captured was more satisfying than mindlessly tapping a phone screen. a new era in photography begins. polaroid was the 06 of instant photography. it was wildly successful at its peak in the 1970s with millions of sales. it was simple. it was all plastic. it was fab. you'd snap a photo, wait for the magic to happen, and hard copies of memories. you know how i got this coat? it knocked over your garbage can. - they've just made a new addition to their line. this is the polaroid i—2 instant camera. what they are pitching is a blend of nostalgia with the cutting edge tech of today. analogue charm with digital finesse, a sleek new design houses features like improved optics, autofocus and bluetooth connectivity. well, that's enough about what it can do. let's go see how it actually performs. and to help out, i've invited along my colleague liv. we're going to have a bit of an instant vs digital comparison, where i'll be papping on the polaroid and she'll be snapping on her phone. 0k, 0k. let's square up. a few minutes later, not a bad result from my instant pic, but i did waste two other pictures just getting there. i've been able to take that many photos in a few seconds, and you can just do that with a smartphone. you can't necessarily do that with that. it takes a bit of time to develop, to get it set up, and then even then, you don't really know what you're going to get. whilst liv�*s phone pics were quick, budget—friendly and a breeze to edit, the polaroid camera never crashed the photoshoot with unexpected interruptions. phone buzzes. 0h, who's calling you. sorry, let me put that away. well, at least i would never get a call on this thing! feeling something in your hands gives it a weight, the promise of a premium product and it's one of a kind. but in a world where photography is now so cheap, printing has become a luxury. that is the challenge now facing polaroid. it may well mean that they cannot replay the dizzying success of their �*70s heyday. it's remarkable what you can do. and obviously you enjoy doing this, do you? oh, yeah. yeah. but they're choosing to believe in the promise of anticipation and hope their customers do likewise. a company can't survive on charm alone so will the picture that emerges be a happy one? for a concrete answer, like the polaroid's customers, we'll have to wait. time for a look at it this week's tech news. a new study suggests only a people are between the ages of 18 and 2a with the most eager to use the new technology. northumbria university researchers say they now have a better understanding of technology giant has installed a unique coffee service in casa buonarroti displays the art collections of the buonarroti family, including the works of its most famous member, michelangelo. it's also home to allegory of inclination, painted by the pioneering 17th century female artist artemisia gentileschi. and there's more to her than meets the eye. she wasn't always covered by a veil. this is the first frontal nude ever painted by a woman artist, so she was a groundbreaker. however, michelangelo the younger�*s nephew, who inherited the home about 50 years later, felt that the painting was too naughty to be seen. and so he called in a famous baroque artist, and he covered up the naughty bits with the drapery. last year, the portrait came down from its position in the ceiling so that it could be restored. but this is no ordinary restoration project. now, centuries after the painting was censored, technology can reveal how the artist always intended it to be seen. to remove these layers could pose a risk to the original that no—one is willing to take. the challenge was to unveil the work, not physically removing the veils, but digitally. a range of photography and scanning techniques were used to read underneath the layers of paint. images from the most significant scans were then collated in modus explorer, a tool created specifically for the project. we did 32 different reflectographs that went deeper and deeper into the structure of the painting. since we were studying what lies beneath the veils, we were interested in seeing if any of the cracks actually follow the original paint of artemisia and we found this crack here goes along the edge of her right arm. what we're seeing in outlined in white is what we can see through the reflectograph image. so we could see the arms very well. it did penetrate through this lighter veil on the upper part of the body, but they couldn't read the very, very thick applications of oil paint, which the veils consist of. to go and see what is underneath the veils, we had to use x—ray. everything is very cloudy looking, but you can definitely see the anatomy of her legs. yeah. you can also see her belly button that, at the start of our project, was not visible. the team also used the generative fill a! tool in photoshop beta to help reconstruct textures and colours on some of the areas covered by veils. it was able to take the information from all of the diagnostics and apply paint where it needed to be applied and create the image, but you have to use it wisely. you wouldn't want it to get too creative. revealing the original nude image wasn't the only aim of the restoration. two tiny micro samples were taken from the painting so that the restorers could find out what pigments artemisia used and where exactly they�* re located. this enabled the restorers to choose the right materials and methods to use in the restoration. the samples were analysed under a powerful microscope, using a technique called ftir spectroscopy. this is one of the samples that the restorer had taken from the painting. it's less than half a millimetre. it's very, very tiny. the microscope reads the sample by firing radiation through it. some is absorbed by the material, and the rest, which passes through or reflects back, is recorded. this produces what's known as a spectrum. different molecules produce different spectra, which researchers can use to identify what the samples are made of. the technology has produced cutting edge instruments that are able to collect more than 1,000 spectra in a single shot, in one second. what is very important is to try to take as small samples as we can, because, you know, we have to preserve the work of art as much as possible. i'm finally about to see a version of the image as artemisia painted it in the 17th century. this is not quite finalised yet, because we still, you see, we still have some veil. i'm really curious to know what was your reaction when you first saw this image? oh, i was very happy. people will be able to access this through a qr code that will be here at casa buonarroti, and it will also be online. how do you feel artemisia would feel about this project? i think she would be very happy to know that people are interested in seeing what her original work looked like, and that we're doing our best to reveal that without damaging any of her precious paint. she would not have been happy with the censorship. i think she would feel a bit vindicated. performs vocal exercises. places for performance. places, please. places. 0k, they're ready for you. good luck. thank you. your heart is racing. the adrenaline is flowing. this is your moment. it's time to conquer your nerves, face the crowd and let all that practice pay off. opera singing. some say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. and forjosephine shaw, this performance is part of that journey as she blows our socks off with a rendition of sweeter than roses to a very unusual audience. talk to me about nerves. do you get them and how do you get over them? yeah, i get nervous all the time. getting over them, it's always a tricky balance. sometimes the adrenaline helps you, but also you don't want the nerves to affect your singing or your technique if you're getting all tense. researchers here at the royal college of music in london say that practising and then performing is very different to practising performing. and so, while it's difficult to get regular access to the real theatres and venues, they can simulate the experience here in their performance laboratory. and that simulation begins before they step out into the lights. one of the things we've learned from our research is that our body's stress—responsed performance can be as, if not more powerful backstage than it is onstage. it's that anticipation of performance where anxiety can really hit, and this helps us tailor our training to make sure we're not only preparing them for what happens onstage, under the lights, in front of the audience's eyes, but also how they're coping backstage. how do they manage that anxiety? how do they get themselves physically and mentally into a place where they're ready to walk out onstage and give their best performance? the parallel to that _ in the surgical world would be allowing surgical students to go through the processj of gowning up, washing up, i doing a preoperative briefing with their team and making sure that they're _ all on the same page. and once the students are onstage, george waddell can control everything. he can change the venue. he can change the reaction to make the night go as well or as badly as he wants. the performance laboratory is running in unreal engine, the video game software. each member of the audience is an individual video games character. they all behave independently. and they don't all always show up. i got lucky tonight. and what's really interesting about this space as well is there are 64 speakers hidden in the walls and ceilings, so if you change the venue... his voice echoes. ..that changes the acoustics, which forces you to change your performance. getting that sense of the acoustic makes it not so huge a jump when you're then performing onstage, compared to in all the practice rooms we have, which tend to be a much drier sound. so when it's suddenly a much bigger space that you have to fill, it's great to get a little bit of an experience of what it might sound like ahead of time. so there's the prep, there's the lights, there's the sound. but let's talk about that audience. it's a weird crowd in tonight, i can tell you. we want to test our performers' focus. we want to make sure they can hold it together. so that might be very subtle. a little cough, perhaps. mild coughing. and it might be more dramatic. shhh! phone rings. the performer is expected to ignore this, i guess. that's right. and even if there's a momentary lapse, it's about then continuing after that. i mean, performers make mistakes. it's how they react after that mistake that sets apart the professional. for many of our performers, it's not actually this full house that is the most intimidating to them. it's perhaps when the marketing hasn't gone so well... spencer chuckles. ..and there are just a rare few in the audience. this can be quite intimidating, trying to bring that energy to a sparse crowd. i've been there! well, i think we all have, unfortunately! but this new multimillion pound performance lab is just part of the work the college has been undertaking to help prepare students for the real thing. heart rate and breathing monitors measure activity and stress levels, and special glasses can even track the musician's eye movements to find out if they're being distracted mid—performance. he plays the xylophone. they also measure how dilated your pupils are, which can be another indicator of anxiety. now, it is possible to practise more thanjust musical performances here. public speaking, business presentations, the venue and the audience are ready for any type of rehearsal. and then, there's this lot. yes, you can even simulate an audition panel. george can make each of thejudges purr like sharon osbourne or sneer like simon cowell. so, what are we going to make of this little stand up routine i knocked up with the help of chatgpt? good evening. how's everyone doing tonight? i mean, have you seen those vocal processors? they can turn a voice that sounds like a dying cat into something that could rival freddie mercury! how did it do that?! thank you. i think we've heard enough. yeah. yeah, i think i'll leave it to the experts. # love to me.# cheering and applause. and that's it from us in the performance lab at the royal college of music in london. hope you've enjoyed the show. we're about to find out whether this lot have. thanks for watching and we will see you soon. cheering. oh! oh, thank you! thank you, thank you. hello. in weather and climate terms, the beginning ofjune marks the start of summer, and the weather is going to feel fairly summer—like this weekend. it will be dry for most of us, warm in the sunshine, but the nights will still be quite chilly. and saturday getting off to a rather chilly start. these are the temperatures in the towns and cities. out in the countryside, some spots a little bit colder than that. but after that chilly start, most places will see some spells of sunshine. any early mist will clear. this area of cloud, across east anglia and the south—east, that should tend to break up to give some spells of sunshine. but then we've got this zone of cloud pushing out of southern scotland, into northern england, affecting parts of northern ireland, north wales, the north midlands. maybe producing the odd shower. temperatures for some northern and eastern coasts, around 1a, 15, 16 degrees. in shelter, southern and western parts, highs of 20 or 21 degrees. now, through saturday night into sunday, a few mist patches, but largely clear skies overhead. that will allow temperatures to drop down into single digits for many. high pressure in charge of the weather this weekend, centred to the west of us. but as we get into sunday, the orientation of that high will allow this clump of clouds to roll its way into the northern half of the uk. so, clouding over, i think, across parts of northern ireland, certainly northern and western parts of scotland. a little bit of patchy rain, perhaps some more persistent rain, into the north—west later. eastern scotland should see some brightness, and for england and wales, we'll hold on to some spells of sunshine and it is going to feel warm out there — highs of 22 or maybe 23 degrees. always a bit cooler towards the north and the west of the uk, where this frontal system will be bringing some outbreaks of mostly light and patchy rain. that front sinking a little bit further southwards into monday. not much rain left on it by this stage, but certainly a band of cloud pushing southwards. that cloud likely to affect parts of wales, southern england by monday afternoon, with the odd shower. further north, some spells of sunshine, temperatures down a little bit but still getting to 20 or 21 degrees. but those temperatures do have further to fall. the summer—like warmth not lasting all that long for some of us, with this cooler air sinking its way southwards. so temperatures will be dropping, actually, towards the middle and the end of the week, and particularly in the northern half of the uk, we will see some showers. this is bbc news from washington. us president biden calls for an end to the war in geyser as he lays out an israeli ceasefire proposal. donald trump said he will appeal his historic conviction which has stunned the us presidential race. —— the war in gaza. washington gives key have permission to strike inside russia using its own weapons. israel and hamas has responded positively to a new israeli peace proposal unveiled byjoe biden on friday. he urged both sides to accept the deal, saying it's time for the war to end. the proposal has three parts, it would begin with a six week ceasefire, leading to a permanent truce, the withdrawal of israeli troops from gaza, the return of hostages held by hamas and the rebuilding of gaza. the us has