Just called on Russia and Turkey to act urgently to avert a bloodbath in the Syrian province of Idlib the region is in the hands of rebels but Syrian government forces have been massing ahead of what may be a major offensive Alan Johnston reports this call for swift action has come from the UN's envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura President Putin and the Turkish counterpart at a time early one to talk on the phone and find a way to head off a looming battle for. Russia backs the Syrian government forces that may soon try to recapture the densely populated province turkey on the other hand has supported elements of the opposition in it live. When you'd air raids in the region reportedly killed at least 9 civilians including children Syrian state television says Israeli warplanes have targeted military sites in a reader in the northwest of the country it quoted an official as saying the aircraft had come in at low altitude and headed for the Hama on tar $23.00 gins Israel hasn't commented. President Trump's nominee for the u.s. Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh has stressed his belief in impartiality at a chaotic confirmation hearing before a Senate committee responding to suggestions he will make the supreme court more conservative he said it should never be viewed as a partisan institution before Judge Kavanagh spoke protesters had to be removed and Democrat senators repeatedly demanded that the hearing be postponed Here's our North America reporter Antony's or Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed or move the court decidedly to the right on issues like abortion and gay rights and democratic senators feel like they have to do everything they can they're getting immense pressure from their base to try to throw as many bits of sand as the years here and slow things down as they can and Brett Kavanaugh worked in the Bush White House as staffer secretary he touched a lot of papers Democrats want access to all of those papers Britain's main opposition Labor Party has adopted in food an international definition of anti Semitism following months of disputes confidence in the leadership of the veteran left winger Jeremy Corbin the Party's National Executive Committee backed all 11 examples of Semitic behavior put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance but the any c. Says its declaration will not undermine the party's freedom to express views on Israeli policy or the rights of Palestinians the labor m.p. D.m. Louise Ellman says she's worried on the one hand the party's saying that set the international definition other than now opening up the possibility of undermining it and I'm concerned and I think it's a great shame that the definition wasn't accepted as it is in full without any kind of Cathy at attached to that b.b.c. News. Investigators in the international chemical weapons watchdog of say that the toxic chemical that killed a British woman near Solsbury in June was the same nerve agent used to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter the u.p.c. W. Said it confirmed the findings of the u.k. Which concluded that the substance was not a chalk their own Sturgis died in July days after she and her partner Charlie Rowley fell ill the u.n. Says the rival militia factions that have been fighting in the Libyan capital Tripoli have agreed a cease fire dozens of people were killed in the clashes which went on for more than a week nearly 2000 families were forced from their homes and hundreds of African migrants had to flee their detention center when it was caught in crossfire they had of the Catalan regional government in spin Torah as a challenge the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez to hold a referendum on independence for Catalonia addressing a conference in Barcelona he asked why Madrid was afraid to do so suggesting it was because the separatists would win he appealed to Mr Sanchez to start a dialogue but said he would never give up on self-determination appear of ruby slippers worn by the American actress Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz have been found 13 years after they were stolen and has more details the sequence shoes were on loan to museum in Grand Rapids Minnesota Judy Garland's birthplace when they were stolen in 2005 it wasn't a sophisticated operation the thief broke into the building in the middle of the night smashed the display case and took the shoes away the security camera wasn't working the f.b.i. Says the ruby slippers one of 4 pairs that featured in the 1939 blockbuster were recovered in a sting operation but gave no details they say the investigation is still active and asking anyone who knows where the shoes have been to come forward b.b.c. News. Knock knock who's there up that my name is do you majority and I'm a comedian and actress from Northern Ireland. That's my producer and former comedy partner Jordan Dunbar You're listening to the World Service this is conflict comedy . Here's the loses a watch so. Why would you say just really don't know what's up the UK. And together we're going to find out why you Northern Ireland has such a unique sense of humor and what it tells us about did it in with a legacy of violence using comedy I just happen to be talking about this it seems to 2nd City we're starting to say more more people are are living on one side of the border and working in the other and so statistically speaking you get stopped more and here we do argue with statistics but it's just a sort of protocol you know the sort of thing that the put you were trying to tell the truth and that's is what it is all Norman we love no man yeah I mean and he loves us you put me over 54 times this year so far 4 to 6 my tank for illegal diesel Well we just have to check these things you know so if it's going to travel between within the site they're going to go to so if you actually come. Visit us well yeah it's going to be questionnaire for a questionnaire it's Mr Krone Norman can I get your 1st name. Norman So right there you. Northern Ireland has had a violent past and a very very complicated one it goes back hundreds of years but I'll try to explain it quickly because I'm a busy woman and I don't have 3 hours to spend on asked. Him all the Island of Ireland there are 2 countries the Republic of Ireland in the south and Northern Ireland and surprisingly in the north and it is part of the United Kingdom along with Scotland England and Wales. From the mid 1960 s. Onwards there was violence between Catholics who wanted to break away from the United Kingdom to join Ireland and Protestants who wanted to remain a part of the u.k. The toll of deaths following last night's bombing of a country pub in Northern Ireland stones at 16 nearly 70 people were injured in the worst incident for 3 years this resulted in nearly 4000 people being killed by terrorist violence on both sides and became known as The Troubles. The Irish northern and southern are known for their great sense of humor as well as the in the bottom of many jokes but here in the north the humor is unique darker than both the southern Irish and nearby Scottish It stands apart. I want to know how you comedy has dealt with the past and what it tells us about the present. Our 1st stop is in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter in Belfast city center. So now you we are at the black box and Belfast which is right in the center Belfast but it's a big trembled and it's been going tonight to be a I Black Box Theatre. Where I think I have my 1st proper taste of an audience laugh and when you do something that they've paid to see you and it's just the most amazing feeling let's move to the 100 you'll appreciate the Titanic title is one of Bill possibilities tourism is on the Bill Maher says pretty good shipbuilding legacy so we just have decided to stay with the whole ship sinking sort of story. Line just because we're going to write not just to keep the story about the ship itself but through writing crime to be one of the most famous you know I'm proud of its association with the magnificent and well. I'm sorry but. I thought it went. Well that's what. We as a group made a point of not doing anything to Politico of didn't anything political at all and we wanted to make sure. Absolute everyone and also within our group that there was such a mixture of backgrounds both political and religious so in order to cater for that we just kept everything quite neutral and that really worked for us because our audiences where young and I felt not really I'm transcendent anything too political . Let's get up on the stage Ok. What does it feel like being back on the stage my instant memories of my stand on the stage is of are really after is of comedy and all is sharing the stage show you with friends and colleagues a loss or start unlike the sort of comedy journey together the black box to me represents a new wave of comedy and Belfast and I think you know a lot of the comedy festivals have lots of events here all the new comedians would agree with me that this is really a great starting point. Is the reason I once Thank you we have a day in the road to the headquarters of the b.b.c. In Belfast this is where I've been creating comedy for t.v. And radio for the last few years I never wanted to cover politics or terrorism in my comedy but maybe it's a way of dealing with the past Jackie made as head of b.b.c. Auster here in Belfast and has been workin in comedy for over 30 years what part does she think comedy has played in the country I don't know we laugh we look at the troubles I think at your house because of all the friends that we don't we don't look back and laugh the trouble with her we look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation of the personalities and the absurd some of the arguments are on things were here but do you think in years gone by that comedians and the t.v. Shows are being broadcast and also the general public have you heard to date with the past as a form of even therapy Yes definitely that's you know part of our makeup Oxley is that we like you know it's a bit of a release and yet we have the science of it like comedy used to be the thing in universities and used to be the place where you could be sort of subversive and say the stuff that everybody else want was ever to scouts that history for you partly that's what the court jesters role was. A court jester was a claw and employed by the king to. Entertain him in his palace but sometimes he'd be the only person able to tell the king what was really happening. Just so it was even below the contempt of the king or queen All right so they were there to poke fun and say all this stuff that everyone else wants and. Got away with it I think I mean my group of friends that may everyone's rowing me to say the thing that nobody wants to saying because they get in trouble they're doing right consistent on the side of well I've had a few texts after nights I've gone maybe not that I'm going for going to. Continue are you I think so I think there isn't but that comedians have been out release and you know if you go to the shows of some of the guys in the sort of who've been Iran and doing this in a long time they really have to go with on a people. One man he played the part of court jester juror in the troubles was to my gallery he was part of the pioneering hall in the Wall Gang sketch group that started in the 1980 s. . Let's call it be over more balls break here on the Ari rock publican or Me to You were there room caught cock years. And were all year. About warmest dark you did do that your back yard you did yesterday it's prime to go all. When that kept me. Going. On Ok well you know and you can change I got in this morning what has it done more to be an arms check same day now all of normal. Chocolat moments I'm telling jokes about terrorists and politicians was a brave thing to do you join so much violence I asked him how much comedy there was the tying the highly put us a society as a society. Very fractious you know very segregated very divided so there was what's called the husband Cody in Northern Ireland and from that 60 to the early seventy's the likes of Jimmy Young he was very famous to me played a lot of sectarian stereotypes and was hugely popular had a couple t.v. Shows so people were not like him of spying that was balanced experience stereotypes were there in the sixty's before the troubles even broke out you know because we were very heavily divided society and people you don't think a branding team that I hear. I hear you David. Get up to me something and now it's so wonderful. And then the fact I'm sure that being that was never said one room weren't. But when the violence broke out because it got kind of very serious around you know people we've been becoming to pick up off in the middle of Bowman's as you can see those are things that Jimi just about got away with and he died the early seventies but there was a gap between the 74 to the late eighty's there would loft the troubles numbers nobody there was no outlet for t.v. Stayed away from it really was stayed away for what they were very few theatres on the go anyway to me that was one theory of the lyrics there was no way to perform you know there were dark horrible black jokes about it in the pubs and stuff but the mean there was no public forums you know on stage nobody was doing it on stage until sort of the mid to late eighty's when we started we were quite nervous a political we find that there was a. Huge sense of relief that finally people were talking but everybody in Northern Ireland was talking and making fun of it which hadn't been done before just wait for the thing to be right I think that was the world so by the mid eighty's in terms of the troubles there was a war weariness looked like it was never going to end it wasn't going anywhere there was political stagnation that with the with Sandy there was no peace talks you don't often people just been ordered to be 9 again we had only one rude one very simple right which was you can't make a joke about a specific incident where somebody's been killed or hurt everything was for you so you couldn't make a deal to me the day before you could make a joke of the ira making a statement apologizing for the whatever you say what you know but very kind of just what I need is an apology from you I'm bloody or you know what's the what's the ideology behind this or what's going to happen next week until they go from our perspective when the. People took themselves very very serious is merely a father said the problem it's called his people have no sense of the ridiculousness that other people have brace set views that you know you would like to criticize how they went on to be in radio and you know their cable and their point of view and thought but with a day's work yet. As best as subversive undermines people said you need to learn to mind governments and demands in parallel if worst thing you do to promote the. One place where the dark humor of the north and it's even darker past combines as on the popular taxi. This features taxi drivers historians and sometimes even ex paramilitaries taken turn on terms of Belfast's trouble spots. The political murals are especially popular the political painted on the sides of buildings across the city feature and facings of tourists photos hundreds of thousands of visitors come here every year and take one of the Turners we tracked down a man with a reputation of Haven't. One of the darkest senses of humor in the city. Hello there how you do I'm pretty and I work for West Belfast tax Association being working there for the last 4 years previous to that I was a bar manager in various pubs right but I fussed so the reason why a taxi is I love driving I like to hear people from every part of the word and get a bit of crack with them. Crack is an Irish word for fun or you can run and there's good crack and there's pot crack I would be described as good crack and Jordan as bad crack no one likes crack so we're going to go to church we're going to have a look at the Merle's around Belfast we're going to look at both sides of the church from the Protestant side the conflicts side hopefully we'll have a crack as we go rind and that's the whole point of the 2 Merced is to tell the truth and enjoy it Ok. So we're just driving around the corner here to words there used to be a mural of a thing called the Belfast Mona Lisa. And this was a mural of a gun so openly standing there and come the flood jacket was a fun pointed with a hood over its head you just saw the eggs and the mater what angle you looked at you still the gun seemed to be fall of you all ran the piss so it was and is not a popular part of the turkey part of them all yes they all would still ask but the Mona Lisa. The people in north are cracks different there are forms different from anybody else and that's why I think we go more so it do you feel like our sense of humor is so unique because we use it to deal with grief like other places in the world do that as well I don't think all of this is the word to do that you know I don't like people I find it quite crazy that they say we have to they come over here and say can even talk about this yeah this happened here like it's only 20 odd years ago or could you. Have killed that what are you doing while you still here and all the rest and I said here to do tours as part of our peace process. Today Was there might be Pace the country has not had a government for nearly 2 years as a player sharing agreement between the Protestant politicians and the Catholic politicians collapsed young people are fed up with the lack of progress being a politician here is pretty easy sure you never have to go to work. Back at the black box they had or I'm at one of the top new comedians in the north handsome strong not great a clean in the rushes my husband Sean Haggerty Please give a monster one who plans to prison for sure her thank you. Lisa. You're all right you know what you. Do you work at the minute John your vet while I'm actually reading a book at the minute John about a sick dog I can't put a time. As short as my husband Jordan the producer decided I couldn't be impartial in my questions why Finally do you think it is opt I wake up to make of doing the groceries have gotten the last I got to really follow he do it all the. I've got the state of my life no where there for the one of the I'm just not going to do so he decided to interview him go easy go with him oh why are people going to get a call so I think young people aren't really doing political humorist much anymore is because of social media and I think comedians have a grip platform on social media and have an opportunity to provide a lot of content and in order to appeal to as many people as possible and there are huge financial benefits from social media content or come up with sort of media content I feel like more comedians are going to not read my where they want to be international that this see the potential look at come from just being more mainstream and doing things that are appealing to a normal society or you know that just things were I think Northern Ireland would be so Naish talking about it even politics and social media would be a millionth of that so the chances of anybody getting out I'd say this country would be very very slim and I just feel like the financial gains from mainstream comedy on a pin and an international audience are just huge they can completely like change and there we go as well as being a comedian guys I'm also an actor and recently for a movie about almost dawn I got the lead. You know I had loads of jobs in my time I got fired recently from my job in the golf course literally have no idea what for. I used to work as a painter and decorator my 1st day on the job I went to this beautiful big mansion and then the boss says to me Sean what I want you to do you want to book to the back wall and put on 2 counts he said on one of the mountain 20 minutes it was soon or do you think young people are interested in public so do you think the audience is even interested will fix a lot of people just don't get it you know like the The middle age plus generations they grew up through the troubles whereas the likes of myself got the tail and the but I think the owner may be maybe got the tail end of it to you but I mean one younger than us didn't really live through it so feel like there's this whole new wave of people coming through word the troubles or in Catholicism Protestantism religion in general just as in the thing anymore people don't care about that people care more a bite just Levon and I sadi you know being nice to each other and I think again it comes down to social media where a lot of bad publicity can be brought through social media and can ruin lives so people just maybe don't want to be involved in that sort of thing so. Describe the city ignore them on them tell us what sort of material or what's popular. I think from just watch and friends and comedians performing on stage people are more just amulet in their comedy I don't mean on a lot of younger people NY their idols are American or their anguish and a lot of the material they're din is maybe University humor appealing to the audience stutter been brought into the new generation of comedy I feel like a lot of the comedy clubs like a lot of his comedy clubs like the Empire comedy club both in Belfast that don't have a middle age audience but the hole in the Wall Gang would have cut so people need to make the audience that are pan in Los and the audiences and I are just getting younger and younger so I think that the style of comedy in the this genre of comedy has completely changed due to the fact that we don't have the government we have because younger people are just getting home also. Yeah I think so but the way I look at it is what can you do that will physically change anything what can you do that will bring about a government or get all these Pamela as our politicians to come back into work and I feel like there's nothing I could do so I just completely moved on from that I took very little notice beforehand but I think now it's just like whether there's a government there or not what does it actually do and you know do I feel like when it is there all it is is just glorifying religion and bringing up by things really strong opinions that don't really a paleo people anymore and don't really share their views so I almost feel like if a new generation of politicians will be brought through what eradicate it all the better Nice sort of poisonous atmosphere that has been generated from the older politicians to the troubles. The younger generation seems to be creeping in comedy that's not going to do with the troubles just as much as the alder generation needed it during the violence Jackie made Thanks it's the every day things that audiences want I mean I always think whatever comedians are or a rolling at the time on an emerging reflects completely this the society you know they are they're always the tip of the iceberg of our sort of outspoken society in a way and I do think that that they're not really cases whole and we can fill some floor or Queens or someone out there you don't know politics talked about all night because it's not they're not engaging that people are young with our vote although I think the tide is turning slightly again but there was a window there a while where there was you know people weren't holding their nephew very any barriers in the audience and they're not they're not going to respond they played it for him or know and you know it's just going to fall flat but you know there's been a drive through elections and everything on all the parties and everything to get young people engaged again so whether that changes maybe another sort of half a generation of comedians that might change again. All this is quite dull the man I mean north around that doesn't think this is near so it's hard even for the the big guys writing stuff that's hard to get your teeth into something so I would those guys but when they can talk about they doing 1st leaving. Parents you know stuff that is universally relatable and telling stories you know against themselves. The violence and turbulent politics faired our sense of humor here comedians were a vital way for people to release tension and point out the ridiculousness of the situation like the court jesters in the past but hey you need to court jester journey pace has globalization change comedy here just like it has with food and culture of around the globe the online world offers the chance of recognition and mommy why make look all jokes for just a few 1000 people when you can have an audience of millions one day we may just have a northern Irish comedians making jokes signed like everybody else but then maybe that's a sign of a place a place. You've been listening to conflict comedy on the b.b.c. World Service presented by do produced by me Jordan Dunbar. This is the b.b.c. World Service with the music and words of the composer clothes Debussy. Renders the aspect of the sky understandable so emotional the clouds. Coming towards 1900. Prints gives us the vibrancy Dancing with the atmosphere of someone fresh as a. Seaman depicts the seat and its countless meetings and then an ongoing civil. Suit was concerts featuring music from to the sea and his contemporary. Was the b.b.c. Promise at b.b.c. World Service dot com. Volumetric scans $360.00 degree cameras and augmented reality just some of the technologies that the Emmy award winning Australian artist and director Lynette well worth uses for her films we follow the net as she creates an interactive section for her latest work a lot of Anna which tells the story of the hour now a community of the Amazon and their 1st female shaman join me Laura Hubbard for an immersive journey on in the studio after the news b.b.c. News if you own a McDonald's The United Nations is called on Russia and Turkey to act urgently to avert a bloodbath in the rebel held Syrian province of a globe it comes amid signs that President Bashar al Assad's forces are preparing an offensive in the densely populated region. President Trump's nominee for the u.s. Supreme Court praying governor has stressed his belief in impartiality at a chaotic confirmation hearing before a Senate committee responding to suggestions that he will make the supreme court more conservative he said it should never be viewed as a partisan institution before Judge Kavanagh spoke protesters shouting their opposition to his appointment were removed. The veteran u.s. Journalist Bob Woodward has published a damning assessment of the presidency of Donald Trump in his new book Mr Woodward whose reporting did much to bring down President Nixon over the Watergate scandal portrays a trumpet ministration in chaos Mr Woodward depicts a nervous breakdown at the modern day White House with senior aides hiding important information from the president. Investigators and the international chemical weapons watchdog has said that the toxic chemical that killed a British woman near Solsbury in June was the same nerve agent used to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter the watchdog said it confirmed British conclusions the substance was Novacek the head of the Catalan regional government Keim Tara as challenge the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez to hold a referendum on independence for Catalonia addressing a conference in Barcelona he asked why Madrid was afraid to do so suggesting it was because the separatist would win appear of ruby slippers worn by the American actress Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz have been found 13 years after they were stolen the shoes said to be among the most valuable props in movie history were taken from a museum b.b.c. News. We are connected like branches through story so I have come to share my story we see. Of the year when our. Hello and welcome to in the studio from the b.b.c. World Service the program that meet some of the world's most creative people following them as they work and think I'm Laura Harbor and today we're in the company of the Emmy award winning Australian artist and director Lynette Walworth as she pushes the boundaries of mixed reality filmmaking it's a new form that's what I love about wiki in piece field is you really can push and say what you can to. Win that film but the Allen our community and the Amazon forests in Brazil close to the border of Peru and her film tells their story and that of their 1st female shaman who shot. Even though women were not allowed to be shamans or drink during ceremonies Shah who had imagined it was her destiny and the old Shaaban ta ta trained her when they gave me a movie. It is so better that my throat closed up. I had to go into the water with only my face out gasping. And I felt like I was dying. Who shot who is voiced by the Brazilian actress Alice Braga there appeared a pretty fiery. Very beautiful. She came in mind beside me spread her wings and. I received. The 1st of many visions. That show man that wise old man had enough knowledge to say. Well the spirits can't be wrong so we were the ones who were wrong. And that changed everything in yeah in our society and at that point the yellow now opened up gradually every leadership role to women. And that's how they transformed their society and that's what these stories amount Randy Couture transformation that had gone to the Amazon on the invitation of the chief of the alan out Tosh he had watched Lynette's virtual reality film collisions about an elder from the Marty people of Western Australia for which he won an Emmy for outstanding new approaches the documentary. Saw a connection with the r. And the ya now is visioning money. It opens a Poto carries you without your body to a place you've never been colors and sounds are intensified you meet the elders you were given a message and then you return we can work with that you're going to have to come to the Amazon so was with absolute sort of clarity of the way this technology could mesh with that visioning experience the 18 minute film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival and at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year but it's only now that she's able to realize her dream of creating a 2nd part to the work in interactive section using a virtual and augmented reality in order to create an immersive and safe way to game the inside of a ceremony. We filmed the ritual of preparing and then taking I were. In this super moon anyway and through seeing people whose experience of just that seated vision I came to realize that there was still a missing pace and that was your ability and mine to walk around freely inside of these world. Lynette loves to push the limits of technology and work with mixed reality developers inventing new ways of experiencing art. So it's not surprising that I meet her at the Technicolor Experience Center. In Los Angeles where she's visiting artist in residence here she is working with the team on the new immersive section of the work that will be shown at the Venice Film Festival in less than a month's time hello American overrun I said me. So now we're building the walk through experience because we can imagine this 2 spaces in the 1st place which is 11 a space will be more built something that feels more like but when you're in the 2nd experience which is the one that Maz and I working on interesting you want to see it at all because you put a headset on in a backpack and then all you see is the world I've created for you don't the one that you're actually physically moving around in so then it doesn't matter what that's basics like as space will be a lot like these curtains dividing the experiences how big of a space will it be if it's 5 meters by 3. And then we're going to get to but. Unlike the original film that viewers will see 1st this 2nd section isn't a narrative experience but a walk around virtual reality discovery one Sola net is looking for ways to guide people through the work and almost as importantly to guide their way out of it people constrain there forever. If I have to do that I have to stop that when I say Ok you have to leave now. Come back Lynette has had the idea to use the image of the grandmother tree the biggest tree in the forest and central to the spiritual world of the as a portal between chairman who shall whose world and our reality she is discussing her idea with digital artist James Alice like a mini field of butterflies in front of you and you using your hand controllers to move them away and then I think when you move them away it should reveal this. Physically it's got to operate that you feel like you have to move through it's telling you this is the end of the experience of sort of beyond it there's a reality there could be just maybe a simple organic walking frame in the middle of a light that will compel you to go into it then you have the butterflies in the center. To that effect Ok here's a thought is there a way of combining what you're doing something like a huge tree on the outside or even the shape of a tree with this doorway in it you know so it's referencing the tree you can just have a model of just saying how much work is a model to do this a couple best for me or do I mean that would be the ideal it's very important to me to be working with Indigenous communities. These people have a knowledge and a connection that I can only hope to draw close to but I think at this moment possibly more than maybe at any other time that the knowledge and perspective that we need so if they wanted to use these technology in order to call out to us the truth is I'm honored to facilitate taking is an important part of ya in our life it's seen as a medicine and its use in their only ceremonies is sanction in Brazil but it can be very dangerous and is banned in many countries around the world for being an agenda drug I want to feel and that had any hesitation about making an experience about no I was in his it and it. Making it work that I was going because it was being made within the community. And because they're young now it's traditional practice and today kind of cultural rights they have the right to enact this ceremony and when you went down there did they want to give you their experience in their way yeah oh yeah it was essential once we'd done all the filming then most of us were able to participate in a ceremony just in a small way so that we could join them in drinking that I was going and actually dance with him and have that sort of celebrate with him because the making of this is very important to the community but not invites me to put on the chunky but surprisingly comfortable headset strap on a high tech backpack and take the experience it's helpful for me for you to see it and see your responses to me some of these same the team has come up with some inventive ideas to make it work as Mars was the extended reality developer explains is what's going to help us a lot actually is a h.p. Back back computer this fixes the issue of how mobile virtual reality right now you don't really get the same processing power is one where you're seated or you're in a little space except we're able to walk around with the computer and it's not that cumbersome so you don't have any wires attached to it at all we have a backpack with a computer on it and we have to make if you. Like hey yeah. There you go and then I'm going to try some I'm looking at a grid now there's a face that is morphing into a butterfly. And going into it looks like a universe I see a path and I see what looks like a river underneath so can I cross the river Australian Cross try cross the bridge Ok I don't see a bridge but I see a river boat beneath me and if you talk and blow you should see the responsiveness in that forest now. I see the light moving with my breath Yeah voice everything's responsive to you or as they would say everything's aware of you and you want separate from this forest. It's a sensation that the Yellin our talk about in the uni experience but it's so wonderful and I getting to do is to kind of use these technologies to create this sensation which the young men now have always known but they have not been able to share you can't control it. You can touch and change things so that feeds everything up. As I look up I see who shot who watching. So now there's a beautiful image of her it's 3 dimensional and now she's given a blessing and it's kind of turned into this amazing solar system of lights. And now this kind of layers of reality perhaps. Am I in a tree you're back in the forest land Bakken and then you can see that's what I was talking to James about where we need the portal at the end. That's very interesting you didn't see the bridge I saw a little bridge in my view but I still felt inclined to go because I wanted to cross but I didn't see any way there is a way to get across. Here and those lights those colors very in with. I was cake spirits. RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK That communicates with who shot who the shaman on a regular basis but today it's her presence in the work that's exciting and that they've recently received a full body scan of who shot and it's a crucial part of the film so hands working on this volumetric video. Which we've been working on today my name is I'm a game developer I've come in to this project to help with the augmented reality portion so can you explain what you're doing here sure we've taken videos with depth data with an infrared camera as well as a regular color camera and with the depth and the color data combined we can get something called a volumetric video which just means video. That plays in 3 d. That creates somewhat of a hologram effect so this is a dish kit skin and that we had done in Amsterdam last week to show who was in the lens during the ceremony and this was like a missing piece of the work I always had this dream that at the end of the experience of who would travel back with you to this reality it's a wave bringing some of the experience back into this Reality Check it defies just rotate the camera around even though this is a preliminary phase of it you can see that we have a 3 d. Hologram So when you're watching it in virtual reality or augmented reality any of these immersive mediums you will feel a sense of presence with the subject in front of you as I move through the portal the Yadavas forest disappears and I find myself back in my own reality but who shot who the showman has come with me she is here yeah actually watch her see mice your eyes blinked which is just. Because it's experience company like the Sony happens in the Amazon it's about the sharing of the experience for the young and I was so it needed to make connection with our reality not just with is this is a way of using mixed reality the materiality and this is a way for who shot who to virtually travel and that's what these scandals and for a layperson who may not know the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality v r And they are what what are the differences virtual reality you're completely enclosed in a virtual space it's computer generated a c.g. Space and the viewer is totally immersed in that space they are in a sense disconnected from the physical reality that we live in augmented reality you're still getting a visual of your environment surrounding you whether it's with a mobile device or a heads up display however you're still able to render virtual objects onto the real world canvas as well you're listening to in the studio. From the b.b.c. World Service with the Australian artist and director Lynette Walworth as she works on the interactive immersive element to accompany her film. Which tells the story of the alan our community of the Amazon and their 1st female shaman it's a few days since I last saw Annette and the team at the Technicolor Experience Center in Los Angeles where she's making the work she does a good day 2 days ago was a really tough day with new technologies you always had these moments where it's extraordinarily difficult because things go wrong you don't know if they're fixable how they going to be fixed when I was here before I couldn't see the bridge but did everybody else see the Brillo So I think it's my language actually I talked to a few people but it was a pretty I say bridge I mean when you there it's a little tiny ridges like a plank so this week a few people have been walking through it and I have taken to asking anything can see the plank and they can although you know it could have been way you standing in the experience it's good to know I haven't said the piece back to the drawing board or should that be computer screen and another piece of good news a key ingredient has arrived and is causing quite a stir and you smell it smell it. What from it is a scent that comes from the Risen of one of the I know it trees since the young when I use for ceremony so I was thinking about how you made the memory of an experience very strongly is with a distinct scent I'm going to going in the shower to see if the Spice will smell of this resin you know it's going. I love these new tech companies that they have a shower in their offices. So you can smell the culture it's so wonderful it's kind of almost like cedar but not yeah I think these animals is a good they talk about it and he said they collect this race and in every form. Another important person in this process is the chief of the Tosca who had that consults with on all aspects of the work he also conveys limits conceptual ideas to who shot who who doesn't speak English today Lynette wants to fill him in on the success of the Sat they're really great on what's up the high touch got you around because if you are in and have a chat let me know it's really a partnership so I'll be happy when they see it we really. That's probably. It is I love this technology though so he's just he's with us you can you know you're on call you know he's not. In the villages but he's a real. Hi how you got. Any me yeah. I've got Laura here she's from b b c I was just giving her the scent to smell you haven't been able to try it but I was telling her about how you collected the resin that's now song strong you know you should see the end of this experience because you know they had to picture of a tree in one of the day I had with a tree covered in the blue butterflies so Mars has my portal where you can walk through basically a doorway full of butterflies. It looks like the grandmother tree of the ceremony and we created an archway in the middle of it so that that's how you exit the experience. Yeah I. Really have something there and changed the perspective of the life because I always want to do something beyond the. Regular. Like are you asking. Us to dream or stomach to garden. Thing that. Yes of thing connect us they make this. It's interesting that Tasha feels a connection with. Something she didn't tell him at the start was that she too has had experience of a different reality and yet intuitively he considers her a shaman from her own culture. And history was a series of out of body experiences through illness but completely unable to express what that meant so I don't find it an accident that all these years later. People who are very adept at say Ok you have a job to do you can help translate this for us and can you talk a little bit about what happened to you as a child why you had those experiences I had an illness it wasn't able to be diagnosed actually but it caused me to have seizures which would mean I would become unconscious and have to be resuscitated. I had this kind of classic out of body and then a very distinct need if experience that the time all of that I knew was that. I had to travel very far. I had seen a reality that seemed to me more real than the one I woke back up to you know I woke up to my dad resuscitating me and my fil was oh this is a dream it feels more real than real and it's certainly set me on the path of being an artist because it was difficult for me to imagine another kind of existence for myself but it's set me on a path of a series of works all of which kind of Hava in the space between life and death so it's not like we've had conversations and we've talked about all of these is more like someone seeing you and and seeing that that particular small kind of opening is there. And it's getting ready for the for the walk through. You know intervention. So we've attached a touchscreen monitor to the back to computer so right now I'm actually a remote viewing into the computer will basically be able to start and stop and monitor the whole experience just by looking at the backpack I haven't made those controls yet these innovations are one of the reasons why people at the Technicolor experience utter are keen to have an artist in their midst My name's Brian Frager I'm the lead experience producer this place was founded to push technological boundaries so we try to do it every day that brings to the table though is challenging us to think about how it can elevate new forms of art which is really exciting you know the technology is at a point right now where whatever heads our platform you choose to go with your almost closing doors and limiting yourself creatively for what can be accomplished because there's just no perfect headset there's no perfect solution and so when it's great about understanding that in a way that a lot of creatives don't quite understand and when you're in the weeds really worrying about the technical implementation you almost lose sight of the story but never does it she's very good at preserving that core vision of what she wants people to feel when they see the piece technology is unstable everything new is unstable you know part of working on these cutting edge is it's tremendously exciting everyone is experiencing something new and so you get that moment of sort of. Someone seeing something they've never seen before. But you're also sort of standing on a cliff face of possibilities of things that might work or we could fall off that technological age and so all of these things are trying to build in fail safes for the experience this is no wrecking technology to delete their. Tracking it maybe but it's now only a few days before the team leaves to show both parts of a at the Venice Film Festival the work is down to around 6 minutes and today land that is trying out new trackers that attach to the wrist so rather than holding the controls you'll be able to seamlessly interact with the ja and our world Gemini look at the controls that's just doing to see if that's exists and the errors be changed one little thing and stop working one of the truckers is working so I think it just has to do with whatever's causing the leg then we get is that. A you ready Ok. 'd there a formula. Ok I got one tracking on both heads My job is to make every decision so that when you're in that space your instinct guides you you feel like you know what you should do I'm going to get close to the butterflies as a way of creating the motion to come they come towards. Trying to I mean I know it's was. Quite a bit of ice came to with you it depends on where the butterflies or so if they're on the very edge of the space or you can do is push them away but if they're closer than when you put your hands in it they'll get pushed around by the spheres in all different directions I think even then we need it close up because that's the beautiful sensation another part of the experience that Lynette is still working on and changing is the tree portal and how people will leave the piece to James finishes model and time it's time to catch up with him this is about expected I finished it about today's. Unfortunately they're only using the base model that I made I did a whole complex texture and sculpture with a normal map for all the intricate detail that they ended up as using as particles such as the way of the creative process the poet told underwent several transformations Sosina had this idea that it needed to be the one thing that was very realistic and then that of course didn't work because everything else in this world is porous and moving and today it just changed it where I want them to fly around us now that's what they do and I remembered that who shot who had said to me about the I was that it's a true mirror so I had the ending there that the butterflied 0 cascading at the portal. You moves through it and there's a beam of light so it's very close to the kind of the need if you know the light coming toward you it's just a moment of being held in that white light and then on the other side of that door I'm going to put in Mira so that when you emerge from that space the 1st thing you see is yourself and he's just trying to show you parts of you so if you don't know yet so you're leaving for Venice in a couple days well like in a day the greatest difficulty at the moment is packing all of this gear in who is carrying water on to planes What are you seeing the real nitty gritty he's going to I'm going to and then we have a day and a half to set up. Ok as I travel as Brian see there. Chief Tosca has decided to give his place on the plane to 2 young Alan our But who shot the shopman will be at the Venice Film Festival to see the piece for the 1st time when the work sits with the younger now in the holding it in their hands and they show it to the world then that for me is when I offer the greatest happiness. You've been listening to in the studio from the b.b.c. World Service with the artist and director Lynette Walworth I'm Laura Hubbard and the producer is Andrea kit and don't forget you can hear lots more creative people on our website just go to b.b.c. World Service dot com slash in the studio. This is the b.b.c. World Service and the arts our is an Edinburgh. Everything for us to form is from all over the world come together and Scotland's capital for a giant extravaganza. Del be on stage with some of the most radical artists entertainment the defenders of the age join Ikey Beatty Oh sorry at the Edinburgh Festival at b.b.c. World Service dot com slash arts hour. And in an hour the forum with Bajan data we're looking at the American writer and thinker James Baldwin he was one of the great American S's of the 20th century and a writer of novels plays poetry and famous for his work on segregation in the USA He delivered the range of sharp observations on the human condition that in an hour on the b.b.c. World Service the world's media station. Disruption of the confirmation hearing for president trumps nominee for the u.s. Supreme Court ordering Reg now the pages of documents that we have not had an opportunity to review or read or analyze your your out of order see we cannot possibly move forward this is Andrew peach in London also in the news room the u.n. Calls on Russia and Turkey to avert a bloodbath in Syria after months of disputes Britain's opposition Labor Party adopts the international definition of anti Semitism this is a bit of face saving this doesn't solve the problem it's the beginning of solving the problem and a new book about the Trump White House in order to look at the World and Europe is in the spirit in you. The right to I assume I mean just going to be a negative book but you know I'm some sort of 50 percent used to that Ok All right some are good and say I've got to be those stories on the way to 22 hours g.m.t. Hello this is one of my dog with the b.b.c. News president trumps nominee for the u.s. Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh has stressed his belief in impartiality at a chaotic confirmation hearing before a Senate committee respond.