Two Up

Overview

With the dawn of the 21st century, humanity was gifted a new power — the extraordinary ability to multitask, albeit quite badly. Needless to say, this also changed the way we entertained ourselves. As MSN Messenger became popular, the grand tradition of vaudeville seemed to falter and fade. With the rise of smartphones, circuses and fairs experienced dwindling crowds. For a while, the public lecture seemed as though it too would go gentle into that good night. Until now.

Two Up is an organisation that invites two specialists to come and enlighten an audience on two completely different topics. Each speaker gives a short lecture on their chosen area before the floor is opened up for questions. The multitasker, a prolonged spasm of phone and watch-glances in a single-subject lecture, returns home satisfied, convinced they have extracted twice the information that a regular person could wring from a single evening.

Past talks have pitted explanations of Chinese ink painting against arguments for strong narrative in science reporting, or thrown a discussion of Australia's pokies addiction into the fray against the case for solar energy.

Two Up's first session of 2017 will combine digital protection with ethical fashion as HackLabs' Chris Gatford and Courtney Sanders from Well Made Clothes wax technical about their professions. This will be the first of the lectures to take place in Cake Wines Cellar Door in Redfern. Although the ideas alone should sufficiently inebriate, the additional lure of wine may tempt the otherwise unwilling housemate.