Art
sciencepunk | September 7, 2009Thanks to Morbid Anatomy for this fantastic mashup: Ernest Haeckal's highly-celebrated engravings from Artforms of Nature turned into mutant beauty using a fractal generator.
More images available from sub blue
sciencepunk | September 4, 2009Icon magazine presents The Termite Pavillion, a sculpture designed by wildlife recordist Chris Watson in collaboration with Softroom Architects, Freeform Engineering, Atelier One, and Haberdashery London. Based on a scan of a Namibian termite mound, It was created for Pestival, a weekend-long celebration of insects at London's South Bank.
bcohen | September 4, 2009I had the chance to interview Rebecca Solnit for The Believer. It's on shelves now, in their September issue. They've also put the full text of it on-line at their website. (Here it is.)
To quote the interview's intro, Solnit is the author of twelve books. She is a journalist, essayist, environmentalist, historian, and art critic; she is a contributing editor to Harper's, a columnist for Orion, and a regular contributor to Tomdispatch.com and The Nation; she's also written for, among other publications, the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the London Review of Books.
She talks…
pharyngula | September 3, 2009I got a letter from John F — you know, John Flansburgh, of They Might Be Giants — and he says, "We've got this new album coming out that you might like, want me to send you a copy?", and so I nonchalantly type back, "Sure, here's my address," which was really hard to do when you understand that I was dancing jigglety-pigglety in my chair, pumping my fists in the air, and shouting "WOO-HOO!" at the same time. It would have been impossible except for my blogging superpowers. (Oh, yeah…I'm a TMBG fanboi.)
I got the album Here Comes Science the other day, and it is fabulous. It's kids' music, so…
pharyngula | September 2, 2009Let's hear it for the arts!
The detestation of Genesis is universal, but hey you Brits! Instead of nagging on our creationist creepazoids, maybe you need to pick on the creationists in your backyard. Although, I have to say, the English creationists seem much less unpleasant than Ken Ham.
It's time for some monkey music, composed from patterns in tamarin monkey calls. The 'fearful monkey music' is irritating to even this ape, and the 'happy monkey music' doesn't make me happy at all. Maybe we're not so related after all. Especially since the monkeys seem to like Metallica.
I also can't…
grrlscientist | August 31, 2009tags: dance, evolution of dance, humor, satire, fucking hilarious, streaming video
I've shown this video to you before, but I think it's worth a repeat. This video features comedian, Judson Laipply, demonstrating the evolution of dance (along with the appropriate music). If you can, watch this video full screen.
aardvarchaeology | August 29, 2009
Stacy L. Mason is an Aard regular and a talented artist. Check out his awesome interpretation of the Swedish tardigrades that are going to Phobos!
In other news, I have issues with the lyrics of the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas podcast's theme song, a fine ska tune by 7 Seconds of Love.
I'm gonna flip out like a ninja
'Cause that's what ninjas do
I'm gonna flip out like a ninja
And you should flip out too
The thing that throws me here is the word "because". When deciding on important matters such as whether or not to flip out, Dear Reader, I feel that a person should have a stronger justification…
grrlscientist | August 29, 2009tags: art, statue, sculpture, mare and foal, Helsinki, Finland, cities, nature
Ãidinrakkaus (Maternal Love)
Bronze sculpture (1927) by sculptor Emil Cedercreutz (1879 - 1949).
Photographed at Varsapuistikko,
at the corner of Unioninkatu and Kaisaniemenkatu, Kluuvi,
in Helsinki, Finland.
Image: GrrlScientist, 23 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image)
I love this sculpture. Does anyone know who the artist is, its name and anything else about this piece? (I can't find anything on the web to share with you).
grrlscientist | August 22, 2009I've struggled with being introverted all of my life. I am not exactly shy (although I tend to be in many circumstances), but I am reserved. Many people find this intimidating, and I have been told many many times that I need to change my personality so other people will like me. Of course, this advice made me feel more uncomfortable rather than less, since I was constantly trying to ascertain what other people's expectations were and then attempting to fit in while simultaneously feeling like a complete fraud. So I avoided social situations whenever possible, spending most of my life by…
grrlscientist | August 21, 2009tags: Personas, Online Personality, Online Information, technology, art
GrrlScientist Personas [larger view]
Personas is an interesting program that searches for online references to you and uses it to create a piece of art that describes you. To do this, it analyzes these references for repeated words and phrases and builds a graphic (like the one you see above) that "describes" you. It's really interesting because you can watch the process as it builds this picture and gives you some food for thought regarding the sorts of information that is "out there" about you. It's almost as…
pharyngula | August 16, 2009Those Australians know how to sell a classy bottle of wine — it's all in the label. There's a good chance I'll be traveling to Melbourne this Spring, and I might just have to bring an extra suitcase to haul back plenty of these:
But noooooo — they're all sold out! Maybe I'll have to change those travel plans and visit a more hospitable country.
cevans | August 13, 2009
Recently, Rhizome.org invited me to contribute a long-form article to their Rhizome Writer's Initiative, a new program designed to give emerging and established writers the opportunity to pontificate on the world of new media arts. I was glad to do it, especially when I realized that the exhibition I was to review is called "Beam Me Up" and that the themes it dissects coincide neatly with my recent re-appreciation of Star Trek. I include my finished article here on Universe because I think some of the ideas discussed in it dovetail well with the recent topics here--systems, complexity,…
zooillogix | August 13, 2009I recently came across the Russian nesting doll art of Irina Troitskaya and thought I would share. Also called matryoshka, matreshka, or "those things are freaking awesome" in Russian, nesting dolls are a traditional artform from the town of Semyonov, where the land was terrible for farming, but the trees were great for nesting dolls. Irina creates her matryoshka on a per order basis only, so get in line!
"Queer Fellows"
Animals from Russian fairy tales
Set of five animals
Set of white animals
The backs of aforementioned white animals
See all her work here or her animal nesting dolls…
bioephemera | August 7, 2009
Father Heart, 2006
Black Nickel on Rolled Steel; Glass Tank - 80cc with pedal
Josh Hadar
It's always puzzled me that bicycles don't take better advantage of the gleaming potential of curvacious, polished metal. Why are most bike frames so boring and triangular? Fortunately Josh Hadar has come to the rescue, with his beautiful curved steel custom bicycles. They're all lovely, but when he adds blown glass "hearts" to their steel ribs, his bikes seem positively. . . alien. Isn't it interesting that adding elements of human anatomy makes the bikes seem more unnatural? More bikes (and the…
aardvarchaeology | August 6, 2009
From Birmingham art students Tanya Mircheva and Mihaela Calin, a clip about office-job boredom.
awild | August 5, 2009
Here's a novel use for an ant photo. German designer Beat Hintermann induced a party of wedding guests to individually color in squares from one of my images of fighting Odontomachus. The pieces were then assembled as a gift to the happy couple. Both, I'm told, study the aggressive interactions of ants.
Love can arise in the oddest of circumstances.
emjohnson | July 30, 2009
Artist Ricardo Cortes has a beautiful exhibition of his work in the current edition of Vanity Fair entitled Sketches of the Drug Czars. In his series he points out the steps that have led our country through the most expensive (and least effective) domestic policy in history.
Starting with the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, Cortes describes the first federal restrictions on "medicines-gone-wild" such as morphine and cocaine (sorry Coca Cola) followed by the criminalization of marijuana in 1937, coincidentally taking place just a few years after the prohibition of alcohol was being…
pharyngula | July 23, 2009A gallery in Glasgow has put out a Bible and suggested people write in it.
The Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow has invited art lovers to write their thoughts down in an open Bible on display as part of its Made in God's Image exhibition.
Next to the Bible lie several pens with a note saying: "If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it".
It's an interesting idea. I've signed a few bibles at people's request myself — I usually mark up the first page with the question, "Where are the squid?" — so I like the sentiment that people ought to be free to…
zooillogix | July 16, 2009In the Midwest they have a game called "cornhole" which involves throwing bean bags into holes in boards. Growing up on the East Coast, cornhole had a completely different meaning, but living in Chitown for three years now, I am doing my best to blend in.
As a patron of the arts, I recently had a very special cornhole board commissioned featuring the likenesses of my two hunting dogs, Izzy and Mathman. I wanted to share the glorious result.