Susan Soares projects all explore the idea of new organs of perception. During the project she discovered some research into the use of bees to detect explosives. They can be trained in minutes and can also detect hormones and other chemical traces produced by the human body when ill or at different stages of the fertility cycle.
One of the more striking proposals to come from her project was for an alternative means of diagnosis, less technical and invasive, but also less precise. Bees trained to detect a particular hormone would be placed in a specially designed glass container, the person breathes into a smaller open chamber within the larger one, if the bees detect the hormone they move into the smaller space indicating its presence.
http://www.susanasoares.com/
Friday 11 December 2009
Thursday 10 December 2009
Victoria Reynolds - 'Carne- Landscapes'
Pity the meat! Meat is undoubtedly the chief object of Bacon’s pity, his only object of pity, his Anglo-Irish pity. On this point he is like Soutine, with his immense pity for the Jew. Meat is not dead flesh; it retains all the sufferings and assumes all the colors of living flesh. It manifests such convulsive pain and vulnerability, but also such delightful invention, color, and acrobatics. Bacon does not say, “Pity the beasts,” but rather that every man who suffers is a piece of meat. Meat is the common zone of man and the beast, their zone of indiscernibility; it is a “fact”, a state where the painter identifies with the objects of his horror and his compassion. The painter is certainly a butcher, but he goes to the butcher’s shop as if it were a church, with the meat as the crucified victim. Bacon is a religious painter only in butcher’s shops.
Gilles Deleuze. The logic of sensation. Continuum 2003
Tuesday 8 December 2009
SymbioticA - The Art and Science Research Laboratory
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/
'an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences.'
lots of interesting lines of scientific inquiry that encompass a multitude of biotechnological, transgenic and mechanised methodologies to pursue compelling design and creative avenues. have a look at the residencies, past and present, here
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/residencies/residents2
home to Oron Catts and Ionat Zur
'an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences.'
lots of interesting lines of scientific inquiry that encompass a multitude of biotechnological, transgenic and mechanised methodologies to pursue compelling design and creative avenues. have a look at the residencies, past and present, here
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/residencies/residents2
home to Oron Catts and Ionat Zur
Implantable Silicon-Silk Electronics at technologyreveiw.com
Duane pointed me in this direction......
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23847/page1/
By building thin, flexible silicon electronics on silk substrates, researchers have made electronics that almost completely dissolve inside the body. So far the research group has demonstrated arrays of transistors made on thin films of silk. While electronics must usually be encased to protect them from the body, these electronics don't need protection, and the silk means the electronics conform to biological tissue. The silk melts away over time and the thin silicon circuits left behind don't cause irritation because they are just nanometers thick.
lots more interesting stuff to be found at http://www.technologyreview.com/
like biodegrable transistors http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23940/
or 'rapid prototyping in biology'
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23567/
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23847/page1/
By building thin, flexible silicon electronics on silk substrates, researchers have made electronics that almost completely dissolve inside the body. So far the research group has demonstrated arrays of transistors made on thin films of silk. While electronics must usually be encased to protect them from the body, these electronics don't need protection, and the silk means the electronics conform to biological tissue. The silk melts away over time and the thin silicon circuits left behind don't cause irritation because they are just nanometers thick.
lots more interesting stuff to be found at http://www.technologyreview.com/
like biodegrable transistors http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23940/
or 'rapid prototyping in biology'
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23567/
Silicon on silk: This clear silk film, about one centimeter squared, has six silicon transistors on its surface. These flexible devices can be implanted in mice like the one in this image without causing any harm, and the silk degrades over time. The orange liquid on the hair is a disinfectant used during the surgery
Nobel Textiles.......research platform
http://textilefutures.co.uk/exchange/bin/view/TextileFutures/NobelTextiles#Metabolic_Media
Nobel Textiles is the result of a two year-long collaboration between Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and the Medical Research Council which paired 5 Nobel Prize winning scientists with 5 designers.
Part of Textile Futures http://textilefutures.co.uk/
_self assembly
_the fat map collection
_now you see it now you don't
_metabolic media
_suicidal textiles
Nobel Textiles is the result of a two year-long collaboration between Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and the Medical Research Council which paired 5 Nobel Prize winning scientists with 5 designers.
Part of Textile Futures http://textilefutures.co.uk/
_self assembly
_the fat map collection
_now you see it now you don't
_metabolic media
_suicidal textiles
BioCouture, Suzanne Lee
http://www.biocouture.co.uk/
http://www.fashion-body-materialcultures.org/research.php?sh=1&m=18
BioCouture - growing clothing using bacterial cellulose
'BioCouture aims to address ecological and sustainability issues around fashion. The BioCouture research project is harnessing nature to propose a radical future fashion vision.
We are investigating the use of bacterial-cellulose, grown in a laboratory, to produce clothing.
Our ultimate goal is to literally grow a dress in a vat of liquid........'
http://www.biocouture.co.uk/beaker.html
http://www.fashion-body-materialcultures.org/research.php?sh=1&m=18
BioCouture - growing clothing using bacterial cellulose
'BioCouture aims to address ecological and sustainability issues around fashion. The BioCouture research project is harnessing nature to propose a radical future fashion vision.
We are investigating the use of bacterial-cellulose, grown in a laboratory, to produce clothing.
Our ultimate goal is to literally grow a dress in a vat of liquid........'
http://www.biocouture.co.uk/beaker.html
Mike Webb, Suitaloon & Cushicle........(vicarious prosthesis?)
Suitaloon & Cushicle, Mike Webb, 1967
'Clothing for living in-or if it wasn't for my Suitaloon I would have to buy a house.'
Suitaloon is an inflatable, nomadic house conceived to be worn as a suit providing a living envelope whenever and wherever desired. It extends Archigram's interest in mobile architecture, expressed in earlier projects such as Walking City. Fitting the body like clothes, the Suitaloon is a reductive dwelling that reduces the components and support systems needed to sustain an entire community down to the necessities for supporting a single individual. The Suitaloon was designed to be a complementary component of the Cushicle.
'Clothing for living in-or if it wasn't for my Suitaloon I would have to buy a house.'
Suitaloon is an inflatable, nomadic house conceived to be worn as a suit providing a living envelope whenever and wherever desired. It extends Archigram's interest in mobile architecture, expressed in earlier projects such as Walking City. Fitting the body like clothes, the Suitaloon is a reductive dwelling that reduces the components and support systems needed to sustain an entire community down to the necessities for supporting a single individual. The Suitaloon was designed to be a complementary component of the Cushicle.
Monday 7 December 2009
Levi Van Veluw
http://www.levivanveluw.nl/
Levi Van Veluw, Veneer II, 2009
Levi Van Veluw, Natural Transfer III, 2009
Juan Enriquez......shares mindboggling science
He concludes with the notion that we are approaching 'Homo Evolutis', as a progression from Homo Sapien
(hominids that take direct control over their evolution...and that of others').
see also
Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html
(hominids that take direct control over their evolution...and that of others').
see also
Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1906-1961)........ideas
The Visible and the Invisible
For Merleau-Ponty, consciousness is not just something that goes on in our heads. Rather, our intentional consciousness is experienced in and through our bodies. With his concept of the lived body, Merleau-Ponty overcomes Descartes' mind-body dualism without resorting to physiological reductionism. Recall that for Descartes the body is a machine and the mind is what runs the machine. For Merleau-Ponty the body is not a machine, but a living organism by which we body-forth our possibilities in the world. The current of a person's intentional existence is lived through the body. We are our bodies, and consciousness is not just locked up inside the head. In his later thought, Merleau-Ponty talked of the body as "flesh," made of the same flesh of the world, and it is because the flesh of the body is of the flesh of the world that we can know and understand the world.
For Merleau-Ponty, consciousness is not just something that goes on in our heads. Rather, our intentional consciousness is experienced in and through our bodies. With his concept of the lived body, Merleau-Ponty overcomes Descartes' mind-body dualism without resorting to physiological reductionism. Recall that for Descartes the body is a machine and the mind is what runs the machine. For Merleau-Ponty the body is not a machine, but a living organism by which we body-forth our possibilities in the world. The current of a person's intentional existence is lived through the body. We are our bodies, and consciousness is not just locked up inside the head. In his later thought, Merleau-Ponty talked of the body as "flesh," made of the same flesh of the world, and it is because the flesh of the body is of the flesh of the world that we can know and understand the world.
Thoughts on the living......
'And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and then from hour to hour we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale.' William Shakespeare from As You Like It
Organ_etymology
In biology and anatomy, an organ (Latin: organum, "instrument, tool", from Greek ὄργανον - organon, "organ, instrument, tool") is a collection of tissues joined in structural unit to serve a common function.......
Sunday 6 December 2009
'Body Without Organs'
When you will have made him a body without organs,then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions and restored him to his true freedom
Antonin Artuad
The notion of Bodies Without Organs (or BwO) was coined by Giles Deleuze, and later developed as a central concept in his collaborative work with Felix Guattari.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs
In Deleuze's work, the term initially refers to the "virtual" dimension of the body. For Deleuze and Guattari, every "actual" body has (or expresses) a set of traits, habits, movements, affects, etc. But every "actual" body also has a "virtual" dimension, a vast reservoir of potential traits, connections, affects, movements, etc. (a phase space). This collection of potentials is what Deleuze calls the BwO. To "make oneself a body without organs," then, is to actively experiment with oneself to draw out and activate these virtual potentials. These potentials are mostly activated (or "actualized") through conjunctions with other bodies (or BwOs) that Deleuze calls "becomings."
Antonin Artuad
The notion of Bodies Without Organs (or BwO) was coined by Giles Deleuze, and later developed as a central concept in his collaborative work with Felix Guattari.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs
In Deleuze's work, the term initially refers to the "virtual" dimension of the body. For Deleuze and Guattari, every "actual" body has (or expresses) a set of traits, habits, movements, affects, etc. But every "actual" body also has a "virtual" dimension, a vast reservoir of potential traits, connections, affects, movements, etc. (a phase space). This collection of potentials is what Deleuze calls the BwO. To "make oneself a body without organs," then, is to actively experiment with oneself to draw out and activate these virtual potentials. These potentials are mostly activated (or "actualized") through conjunctions with other bodies (or BwOs) that Deleuze calls "becomings."
Design and the Elastic Mind
Some interesting stuff, (and some not so) to be found at this rather infuriating flash site accompanying the 2008 MoMA exhibion 'Design and the Elastic Mind'
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/206/
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/206/
Saturday 5 December 2009
Friday 4 December 2009
Vestigial organs: Remnants of evolution
from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826562.100-vestigial-organs-remnants-of-evolution.html?page=1
VESTIGIAL organs have long been a source of perplexity and irritation for doctors and of fascination for the rest of us. In 1893, a German anatomist named Robert Wiedersheim drew up a list of 86 human "vestiges", organs "formerly of greater physiological significance than at present". Over the years, the list grew, then shrank again. Today, no one can remember the score. It has even been suggested that the term is obsolete, useful only as a reflection of the anatomical knowledge of the day. In fact, these days many biologists are extremely wary of talking about vestigial organs at all.
This may be because the subject has become a battlefield for creationists and the intelligent design lobby, who argue that none of the items on Wiedersheim's original list are now considered vestigial, so there is no need to invoke evolution to explain how they lost their original functions. While they are right to question the status of some organs that were formerly considered vestiges, denying the concept altogether flies in the face of the biological facts. While most biologists prefer to steer clear of what they see as a political debate, Gerd Müller a theoretical biologist from the University of Vienna, Austria, is fighting a rearguard action to bring the concept back into the scientific arena. "Vestigiality is an important biological phenomenon," he says.
VESTIGIAL organs have long been a source of perplexity and irritation for doctors and of fascination for the rest of us. In 1893, a German anatomist named Robert Wiedersheim drew up a list of 86 human "vestiges", organs "formerly of greater physiological significance than at present". Over the years, the list grew, then shrank again. Today, no one can remember the score. It has even been suggested that the term is obsolete, useful only as a reflection of the anatomical knowledge of the day. In fact, these days many biologists are extremely wary of talking about vestigial organs at all.
This may be because the subject has become a battlefield for creationists and the intelligent design lobby, who argue that none of the items on Wiedersheim's original list are now considered vestigial, so there is no need to invoke evolution to explain how they lost their original functions. While they are right to question the status of some organs that were formerly considered vestiges, denying the concept altogether flies in the face of the biological facts. While most biologists prefer to steer clear of what they see as a political debate, Gerd Müller a theoretical biologist from the University of Vienna, Austria, is fighting a rearguard action to bring the concept back into the scientific arena. "Vestigiality is an important biological phenomenon," he says.
into the void....
Nine Inch Nails - Into The Void
Eric The Red | MySpace Video
Nine Inch Nails Into the Void from the Fragile (1999)
notes on vestigial structures.........
Vestigial structures are anatomical structures of organisms in a species which are considered to have lost much or all of their original function through evolution. These structures are typically in a degenerate, atrophied, or rudimentary form. Vestigial structures are often referred to as vestigial organs, though not all of them are actually organs....
Although the structures most commonly referred to as 'vestigial' tend to be largely or entirely functionless, a vestigial structure need not necessarily be without use or function for the organism. Vestigial structures have lost their original main purpose, but they may retain lesser functionalities, or develop entirely new ones.
Although the structures most commonly referred to as 'vestigial' tend to be largely or entirely functionless, a vestigial structure need not necessarily be without use or function for the organism. Vestigial structures have lost their original main purpose, but they may retain lesser functionalities, or develop entirely new ones.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Henry Moore, Drawings
Henry Moore, Study for Row of Sleepers, 1941
Henry Moore, Grey Tube Shelter, 1940
The Field: The quest for the secret force of the universe
from
http://twm.co.nz/McTag_field.htm#About
A bit like finding there is such a thing as The Force in Star Wars. The Field tells the story of respected frontier scientists all over the globe who have produced extraordinary evidence to show that an energy field -The Zero Point Field - connects everything in the universe, and we ourselves are part of this vast dynamic cobweb of energy exchange.
The Field also reveals a radical new biological paradigm-that on our most fundamental level, the human mind and body are not distinct and separate from their environment, but a packet of pulsating energy constantly interacting with this vast energy sea.
http://twm.co.nz/McTag_field.htm#About
A bit like finding there is such a thing as The Force in Star Wars. The Field tells the story of respected frontier scientists all over the globe who have produced extraordinary evidence to show that an energy field -The Zero Point Field - connects everything in the universe, and we ourselves are part of this vast dynamic cobweb of energy exchange.
The Field also reveals a radical new biological paradigm-that on our most fundamental level, the human mind and body are not distinct and separate from their environment, but a packet of pulsating energy constantly interacting with this vast energy sea.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
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