Inquiry: Colin Ellard part two: YOU ARE HERE: WHY WE CAN FIND OUR WAY TO THE MOON, BUT GET LOST IN THE MALL.

Experimental psychologist COLIN ELLARD returns to Inquiry to talk more about psychogeography and how people navigate and perceive the physical spaces of their lives and how our environment in turn affects us. Tonight Colin Ellard discusses the urban environment and why it is that most modern city plans fail.  But modern technology is now allowing planners to experiment with urban spaces, and learn how people feel about them, before they are built. Professor Ellard also talks about the cutting edge research done at his amazing Research Laboratory for Immersive Virtual Environments (RELIVE). Here, using state of the art technology,  Ellard studies what happens when people are placed in virtual environments and when people begin to virtually “socialize” and his results are extremely surprising. If you have an on-line avatar or enjoy role playing virtual games, don’t miss tonight’s show. Colin Ellard’s book is titled YOU ARE HERE: WHY WE CAN FIND OUR WAY TO THE MOON, BUT GET LOST IN THE MALL. WHAT SCIENCE SAYS ABOUT OUR SPATIAL INTELLIGENCE AND HOW IT SHAPES OUR CONNECTIONS TO NATURE, CITIES, HOMES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS.