Engineering Culture

文化与材料的关系最明显的表现在以材料命名文明时代，如石器时代、青铜时代和铁器时代。维多利亚时代的决定性材料，钢铁，使工程师能够充分发挥他们的梦想，创造吊桥，铁路，蒸汽机和客轮。在这样做的过程中，工程师们将钢铁作为一种材料宣言，以改变景观并播下现代主义的种子。世纪通常被称为硅时代，指的是材料的突破，导致了硅芯片和数字计算。但这是忽略了新材料的万花筒，革命性的二十世纪的生活。建筑师们采用了新的大规模生产的平板玻璃，并将其与结构钢结合起来，建造了摩天大楼，创造了一种新型的城市生活。产品设计师和时装设计师采用了新的塑料，改变了家居和时尚。聚合物被用来生产赛璐珞，并在这样做迎来了最大的变化，在视觉文化的一千年，电影。铝合金和镍超合金的发展使我们能够廉价地飞行，并改变了文化碰撞的速度。医疗和牙科陶瓷让我们能够重建自己，改变残疾和年龄的社会背景。正如术语整形手术本身所暗示的那样，材料通常是用于修复患者官能（髋关节置换术）或增强其特征（乳房修改的硅胶植入物）的新治疗方法的关键。Gunter von哈根的Bodyworlds展览和Stelarc的整形手术实验也证明了新生物材料的文化影响，并说明材料不受学科界限的限制。因此，世纪见证了一场材料革命，新材料在改变建筑、产品设计、城市设计、时尚、交通技术、医学和视觉艺术方面发挥了核心作用。我可以为科学和工程的许多其他分支描述一幅类似的画面，因此很明显，将音乐的发展与科学和工程分开是不可能的，也不可能将艺术、设计、建筑、电影或时尚分开，然而，不知何故，令人难以置信的是，我们作为一个社会已经设法做到了这一点。我在所有公众和媒体参与活动中的议程很简单，为了加强科学和工程是文化的一部分，而不是与文化分离的信息。我将为国家报纸撰稿，并与感兴趣的制作公司一起开发探索这一主题的电视和广播节目创意，并将其推销给广播公司。我将为工程师争取更多的知识，特别是他们在赢得诸如斯特林建筑奖等高调奖项的项目中的作用，特纳当代艺术奖。我将继续回应媒体对突破性材料科学和工程故事的电视和广播采访请求，但也会积极主动地提醒记者注意新的研究成果。

The relationship between culture and materials is most obviously demonstrated in the naming of ages of civilizations after materials, such as the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. The defining material of the Victorian era, steel, allowed engineers to give full rein to their dreams of creating suspension bridges, railways, steam engines, and passenger liners. In doing so, engineers used steel as a material manifesto to transform the landscape and to sow the seeds of modernism. The twentieth century is often referred to as the age of silicon, in reference the materials breakthrough that gave rise to the silicon chip and digital computing. But this is to overlook the kaleidoscope of new materials that revolutionised twentieth century living. Architects took the new mass-produced sheet glass and combined it with structural steel to produce skyscrapers that invented a new type of city life. Product designers and fashion designers took the new plastics and transformed the home and fashion. Polymers were used to produce celluloid and in doing so ushered in the biggest change in visual culture for a thousand of years, the cinema. The development of aluminium alloys and nickel superalloys allowed us to fly cheaply and changed the rate at which cultures collided. Medical and dental ceramics allowed us rebuild ourselves and change the social context of disability and age. As the term plastic surgery itself implies, materials are often the key to new treatments used to repair a patient's faculties (hip replacements) or to enhance their features (silicone implants for breast modification). The Gunter von Hagen's Bodyworlds exhibition and Stelarc's plastic surgery experiments, also testify to the cultural influence of new biomaterials and illustrate that materials are not confined by discipline boundaries. Thus the twentieth century witnessed a materials revolution in which new materials played a central role in transforming architecture, product design, urban design, fashion, transport technology, medicine and the visual arts. I could describe a similar picture for many other branches of science and engineering, and so it is clear that it is not remotely possible to separate the development of music from science and engineering nor is it possible to separate art, design, architecture, film, or fashion, and yet, somehow, incredibly, we as a society have managed to do it. My agenda in all my public and media engagement activities is simple, to reinforce the message that science and engineering are part of culture, not separate from it. I will write for National newspapers, and develop TV and Radio programme ideas that explore this theme with interested production companies, and to pitch these to broadcasters.I will fight for more recognision for engineers, especially their role in project thats win high profile prizes such as Sterling prize for architecture, and the Turner prize for contemporary art.I will continue respond to media requests for TV and Radio interviews on breaking materials science and engineering stories, but also to be pro-active in alerting journalists to new research results.