“Live scribing” captures shared experience of 2012 talks
Graphical notes created by Perrin Ireland for Linda Kah’s talk, “From Mauritania to Mars: Earth scientists invade the red planet” at ScienceWriters2012. Photo: Duke University
Live drawing by Perrin Ireland, who attended ScienceWriters2012 as a CASW traveling fellow, added a novel dimension to both the New Horizons and NASW sessions. We asked Perrin to tell us more about “live scribing” as a way of interpreting and communicating science.
My name is Perrin Ireland. I’m a science scribe, a science doodler, a visual science storyteller.
Live scribing, or graphically capturing, a scientific presentation is permission to perform how I’ve learned my entire life: by doodling. With no prior knowledge of the talk, I set up my boards, get out my markers, listen and draw what I hear and see.
People often ask me how I keep track of everything that’s going on during a talk, and it’s something I like to cover in my workshops. It’s a skill that one only learns through practice. I’ve developed three or four holding tanks in my mind, and different elements of the scribing process temporarily land in each of them. I’m listening to what’s being said, and I’m deciding what visual metaphors I’ll use to describe it. I’m also in the process of catching up on what was just said while I finish the corresponding image. I check my watch to estimate how much time is left in the talk and thus how much space I should leave for the remainder. I’m thinking about the structure and flow of the visual, and I’m planning which elements I’ll punch up with some color when the talk is finished, before people come up to talk to me and take my picture with the piece.
I learn by drawing, and most of the world learns by seeing. It is no surprise to me that the visuals I produce are wildly popular at an event like SciWri12—scientists, science writers and consumers of science alike feel an intuitive pull to the drawings because the drawings tell their story. What’s most important about the drawing is that it convey a shared experience. Audience members often come up to me and say, “That was exactly what I saw in my head!” or, “I love that you captured this joke that she made.” When I scribe, it’s not just that I listen to the speaker—I think some part of me listens to the experience of the entire room and channels that opportunity to represent a collective experience.
A palpable sense of relief comes from scientists and science communicators when I capture a complicated talk. And there’s a growing impulse that can be seen in renewed public interest in science cafes, science radio shows, and science television shows: science no longer wants to be the inaccessible princess in the castle tower. She wants to tell her story like the human that she is. Scribing captures complex scientific ideas as part of the human experience that drives them. Acting as a channel for this process is indeed a privilege.
