Bellatrix is The World Female Beatbox Champion. In this dazzling talk and demo, she gives a fascinating insight into the history of hip-hop culture and the art of beatboxing: sharing secrets on hitting the bass notes, kick-drums, high-hats and snares, she transforms the audience into a giant human drum machine and quite literally stuns everyone with her vocal techniques. From hip-hop, dubstep to D&B this girl has to be seen to be believed.

Andrew is a professor of public arts and the founder of Greyworld, a world-renowned artists’ collective creating art in public spaces.  His work is all about creating art that holds up a mirror to the public, putting us right at the centre of it, whether it be musically, sonically, through systems or in other interactive ways.

In this exceptional talk he takes on the ‘pomp’ of the art world by showing what ‘public’ art really means. He takes us through a fascinating array of his recent works, which include everything from musical railings, park benches, clockwork forests to a Giant Sun installation in Trafalgar Square. All of which put the viewer right at the centre of the experience.

Lost HQ is delighted to announce a brand spanking new line up of speakers ready to take to the Lost Stage on May 30th and 31st. As always, they are a truly eclectic bunch of thinkers, doers, innovators and true originals. There will be six speakers per evening, as well as a host of interactive performances and demonstrations to keep you tingling throughout the evening.  So without Further ado, here they all are…

May 30th 2012 (7.30 pm – Midnight)

Ashling O’Connor is The Times Olympic and Sports News Correspondent. As well as having possibly the best job in journalism, she has a front row seat and unprecedented access to every aspect of the Games preparations (and she doesn’t have to answer to the Olympic Committee). She’ll be taking us behind the scenes for an un-edited view of what really goes into creating ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ and sharing the more entertaining trials and tribulations that make for a uniquely British Games.

Prof. Owen Holland is a Professor and leading authority in the field of Cognitive Robotics. He has several world firsts to his credit including ant-based telecommunication robots, predatory robots, tiny flying web servers, and anthropo-mimetic robots with human-like skeletons and muscles. His talk will be about building the first conscious robot: demonstrating advances over the last few years to explain how consciousness is merely a product of brain and body (both machines), and how it’s really a question of when, not if, you’ll ever meet your first conscious robot.

Zoe Margolis is known better by her pseudonym ‘Abby Lee’. She’s a prolific Blogger and author of ‘Girl With a One Track Mind’, both of which detail the ins-and-outs of her sex life. Shortly after her book release, she was ‘outed’ by a newspaper and her real identity revealed. A follow-up Book and critically acclaimed C4 documentary later, she’s putting her media presence to good use by creating debate about the double-standards around sex and raising awareness of the need for better sexual health education.

Moose Allain is an Artist, illustrator, writer, fool, mal viveur and prolific Tweeter. His talk will be a report on his attempts to tease out moments of poetry in everyday life from the hive mind that is Twitter. He’ll attempt to see if this can be used as the foundations for building an ideal home or even an ideal city. Well, that’s his ambition…but knowing Moose, it’s unlikely to be that straight forward. Let’s see how far he gets!

*Carl Warner is a visual gastronomer, photographer and pioneer of the mouthwatering art of Foodscaping. His whimsical landscapes made entirely of food have seen him work with top ad agencies and food clients across the globe. They are the subject of documentaries, virals and a stunning new book. From London’s sky-scape featuring Mackrel and Asparagus lampposts, salmon seas and a Tuscany made entirely out of salami, Carl’s creations make the world look even tastier than it really is! His talk will be about how his art has become a surprising yet incredible tool in encouraging sustainability and education around food for the younger generations in developing countries and those a little closer to home.

Onyx Ashanti is a musician: more specifically he’s what you might get if you crossed a sci-fi obsessed jazz artist with a futurologist instrument inventor. His creation, Beatjazz, is the result of 20 years research: a completely live, improvised form of electronic music created from scratch to build a unique soundscape and light show using nothing but his body movements and a series of controllers and ipods. He’s travelled the world, recorded with the likes of Soul II Soul, Marshall Jefferson and Basement Jaxx. He’s our first international act at The Lost Lectures and we’re incredibly excited to be welcoming him to London and the Lost stage.

May 31st 2012 (7.30 pm – Midnight)

Max Whitby is a multiple BAFTA award winning producer and founder of several successful digital media companies (he is current CEO of Touchpress), he’s also a scientist of Nanomaterials with a PHD in Chemistry. Over his unique career he’s led a staggering array of ground breaking projects: playing with carbon nanopipes, researching nano fluidic motion, building elaborate periodic tables for display in museums around the world and creating apps that have become digital publishing phenomena The Elements and The Waste Land oh yes, somehow he’s even found time to film every single type of British bird, butterfly and bumblebee. His talk promises to be an interactive treat on the relationship between the periodic table, bumblebees and Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Alwyn Collinson is an Oxford history graduate who began a 6 year project to tweet every day of the second World War with events as they happened 72 years ago. The project @RealTimeWWII, now in its second year and with nearly a quarter of a million followers, has become something of a twitter phenomenon. It covers major military and political developments, eyewitness testimony from the battlefield, contemporary photography and newsreel footage. His talk will be about the significance of his project in helping people connect and empathise with history in new ways and the importance of bringing history to life beyond just the text book.

Matt Durran is a glass artist whose work defies easy categorisation. His expertise in the properties of glass and its structures, have seen him move from being a ‘conventional’ artist to the forefront of the world of tissue engineering. He now works with leading surgeons and researchers to create glass moulds for tissue and organ generation. His work has given life-changing new noses for patients following rhinoplasty as well as many other complex organs for transplant. His talk will be about the possibilities of a fast advancing field and the importance of artistic application in the medical world.

Sasha Wilkins: Sasha is an influential style journalist, editor and creator of the multi-award winning lifestyle blog LibertyLondonGirl. She lives between London, New York & LA writing about everything from fashion and food, right through to philanthropy. She won Blogger of the Year at Red’s Women of the Year awards, which honours British women showing talent, success and imagination in their fields of work. Having written her blog anonymously for 3 years, her talk will be a fascinating look at identity in the digital realm: from egos to alter-egos and even the odd ‘troll’: are peoples online personas still a reflection of the real world?

Henrik Dahle is, by his own description a failed activist and environmentalist. However, his inspirational UpTrees project will quite possibly change all that. Henrik spent a year of his life climbing a tree every day, in 11 countries, interviewing over 80 people up there including artists, poets, economists, anarchists, a class of 8 year olds, a politician, some professors, an ex drug smuggler, his estranged parents, a dog called Daisy and a plastic cow.  His time in the canopy is due to be turned into a fancy book, but in the meantime we’re pretty smug that we managed to coax him down to ground level for just about long enough to share his story with us.

*Marisa Carnesky, Olivier Award Winning show-woman and creator of many spectacular performance works, state of the art fair ground rides and large scale illusions (most notably Carnesky’s Ghost Train) will be taking us on a journey into her magical world. She’ll reveal the secrets of The Ghost Train, show how women can perform magic illusions (without being on the receiving end) and explain the many scrapes and pitfalls involved in being a traveling artiste: expect, thrills, laughs and more magic than you can squeeze into a giant doll’s house.

In addition to all the Lost speakers, we will have interactive demonstrations during the intervals on both evenings from:

Odette Toilette: Purveyor of Olfactory adventures, she will be guiding us on an archeological dig into the fragrances that time forgot…get your noses ready!

Charlie Tuesday Gates: Sculptor, Artist and Taxidermist who’ll be giving a live demo and educational workshop in the art of taxidermy.

Finally, introducing the speakers on the night will be Lost Founder Julian K-S who will keep it short, sweet and let his speakers do the talking.

* Due to unforeseen personal circumstances of two of our speakers, we’ve had to make changes to our original billing. For this we’re very sorry, but fear not Lostlings, our new speakers promise to be just as gob-smackingly wonderful! For details of the changes see below:

May 30th: Carl Warner, Foodscape artist replaces Christine Taylor, Founder and Creative Director of ChoccyWoccyDooDah. We wish Christine all the best during this difficult period and hope she’ll be back to join us at a future event.

May 31st: Marisa Carnesky, Olivier Ward winning show-woman and creator of large scale illusions replaces Prof. Vanessa Toulmin, Director of the National Fairground Archive and circus historian.

Mark Forsyth is the author of The Etymologicon and writer of the Inky Fool blog. He is obsessed with the origin and meanings of words and his book, rather fittingly, is a circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language.

In this hugely entertaining talk he takes on what is considered ‘correct’ English: dispelling myths, highlighting inconsistencies and generally poking fun at what all our teachers taught us to be true. From prepositions to plurals he goes to the far reaches of the archives to tease out the most ridiculous rules that apparently govern our language, silencing even the most punctilious of linguistic pedants!