Art
milhayser | January 26, 2010
Self-expression is a human ideal, but just as you can be a virtuoso with a hammer, you can be a hack with a paintbrush. On Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer questions the value of painted canvas when the painters "neither recognize nor are particularly interested in" the scenes they produce. In the case of Chinese technicians who imitate western styles for the American market, Jessica asks, "isn't an artist's active creative input, his or her emotion and imagination, or at least some degree of innovation, essential to create 'art'?" Razib Khan considers literary issues on Gene Expression,…
cagapakis | January 25, 2010Check out these cute hand-embroidered oscilloscope merit badges! Available on Etsy.
cagapakis | January 20, 2010Modern day biological engineering and artificial life research focuses on the microscopic, the molecular, the informational, the stuff of the scientific revolutions of the past one hundred years. Our current synthetic biologies aim to turn the living into the designed, the wet into the computational, the complex into the understandable. In the 1700's, the interplay between the living and the mechanical was reversed; engineers were trying to make machines look and feel more like living things--soft, flexible, moist. Studying these historical artificial life technologies provide a valuable…
grrlscientist | January 15, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Riparian Rashomon, Agami Heron, Agamia agami, Brilliant Forest Frog, Lithobates warszewitschii, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is a fascinating stop-motion video of the creation of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting, Riparian Rashomon. This is a diptych (two-panel) piece, vertically oriented. The upper panel is painted first, then the lower one, and finally the two are brought together as intended. Each panel depicts a different viewpoint of the same event: a Brilliant Forest Frog evading an Agami Heron in a…
grrlscientist | January 14, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Eastern Painted Turtle, Chrysemu picta, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is a fascinating stop-motion video of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting of an Eastern Painted Turtle, Chrysemu picta, a common and widespread American reptile. In my opinion, Carel Brest van Kempen is the finest wildlife artist alive today.
The original painting has been sold. Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of…
cagapakis | January 13, 2010There have been a lot of great Darwin themed things popping up in the past few months in celebration of the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, but none as avant garde and awesome as "Tomorrow, in a year", an electro-opera based on the life and work of Charles Darwin by The Knife, a Swedish electronic music duo (and one of my favorite bands). From the website of the company performing the opera, Danish theater group Hotel Pro Forma:
An opera singer, a pop singer and an actor perform The Knife's music and represent Darwin, time and nature on stage. Six dancers form the raw material…
grrlscientist | January 13, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Lanjak Dawn, Crowned Flying Lizard, Orang-utan, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is yet another fascinating stop-motion video of the creation of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting, Lanjak Dawn. This is his first major painting to receive the time-lapse treatment. In this piece, a male Crowned Flying Lizard displays to a prospective mate in a Bornean forest while a big male Orang-utan calls from his sleeping nest. Featuring music; I Formed the World with my Tongue, I Cleared the Bar with my Diaphragm and Haloumi,…
grrlscientist | January 12, 2010tags: Grab More Science, LabGrab, science news, technology, graphic, image of the day
Image: LabGrab, 13 January 2010.
An American start-up company in Portland, Oregon, announced the release of their new technology that creates a colorful chart to visualize the volume of science and medical stories published by discipline (above). The boxes are defined by discipline and their sizes are determined by the total number of article headlines published by universities, journals, science news aggregators, and science blogs within the given time period (as defined by the user).
"We read a…
grrlscientist | January 12, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Painting the Golden Pheasant, Golden Pheasant, Chrysolophus pictus, birds, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is yet another fascinating stop-motion video of the creation of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting, Golden Pheasant, Chrysolophus pictus. Contrary to popular belief, Golden Pheasants do not naturally occur in pens and aviaries, but in rugged mountain woodlands in western China.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the…
grrlscientist | January 11, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Brown Anole Portrait, Brown Anole, Anolis sagrei, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is a fascinating stop-motion video documenting the creation of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting, Brown Anole Portrait. Probably Florida's most common reptile, the Brown Anole, Anolis sagrei, was introduced from Cuba.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.
grrlscientist | January 8, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Wilson's Bird of Paradise, Cicinnurus respublica, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is a fascinating stop-motion video of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting of a Wilson's Bird of Paradise, Cicinnurus respublica. Wilson's Bird of Paradise is a small forest species endemic to Waigeo and Batanta, two islands just NW of New Guinea's Vogelkop peninsula. In my opinion, Carel Brest van Kempen is the finest wildlife artist alive today.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my…
grrlscientist | January 7, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Call of the Flood, Poison Rock Frog, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is another fascinating stop-motion video documenting the creation of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting, Call of the Flood. Here, a male Poison Rock Frog, a common Southeast Asian species, calls from a flooded spiny bamboo.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.
pharyngula | January 6, 2010Some people seem to react to the autotuned stuff with a kind of automatic detestation. So how about this? The unaltered words of Carl Sagan wrapped in a musical accompaniment.
pharyngula | January 6, 2010The National Library of Medicine has released scans of classic science texts from the 15th-16th century — they're beautiful.
And the amazing thing is, they're still better science than anything you'll find from a creationist!
pharyngula | January 6, 2010More autotuned science lectures:
I've been reading Meyer's awful Signature in the Cell lately, and I have to say — there's no poetry in creationism.
grrlscientist | January 6, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Spectacled Owl, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is yet another fascinating stop-motion video depicting the creation of another of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's paintings. This time, it's a Spectacled Owl, a widespread bird of the American tropics that favors heavy woods near water and feeds heavily on crabs.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.
grrlscientist | January 5, 2010tags: Frankfurt am Main U-Bahn-Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Expat Life, Frankfurt Subway Art, photography
Frankfurt am Main U-Bahn-Kunst.
Hauptwache, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 29 December 2009 [larger view].
One last look at the completed work.
ddobbs | January 5, 2010I rarely take direct exception to anything my friend Jonah Lehrer writes, and I fully recognize he's just quick-riffing on a Hollywood movie. But if I understand his Avatar post correctly, my good man Jonah is arguing, at least in a minddump-at-the-bar sort of way, that James Cameron's latest movie is a pretty full neuro-aesthetico-art-critico realization of film's medium. His is a fun post, and worthwhile just to see Cameron crammed onto the same page, with appropriate apologies, with Clement Greenburg, Clint Eastwood, and Jorge Luis Borges. But I must differ. In Avatar, which I saw last…
emjohnson | January 5, 2010 Recruitment poster calling for defense of the "Soviet Motherland." Woman holds a document that translates roughly to "military oath."My grandmother sends me a lot of chain e-mails. Many of them are of the right-wing Evangelical Christian variety that have been resent so many times that I have to scroll down several pages just to get through the history of everyone it's been sent to. I've received a video about how Muslims are out-breeding Europeans and how this will be the death of Christianity. Another celebrated the anti-Muslim Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders who claims "there is…
grrlscientist | January 5, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Northern Casque-headed Treefrog, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is another fascinating stop-motion video by artist Carel Brest van Kempen. This video documents the creation of an acrylic painting of an unusual Panamanian frog, the Northern Casque-headed Treefrog.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.