Technologies of the Picturesque: British Art, Poetry, and Instruments 1750-1830 (Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture)
"Technologies of the Picturesque" is an original study of how art and technology mutually align their representations of nature in order to transform land into intelligible landscapes. Ron Broglio explores three technologies in eighteenth-century Britain whose influence on the picturesque aesthetic has been overlooked: cartography, meteorology, and animal breeding. He traces how these scientific fields influence the works of Wordsworth, Gilpin, Constable, Gainsborough and other key figures of the period. Broglio argues that technology and interior experience of the poetic subject overlap in their means and methods of removing the viewer from nature, while presenting the land as a comprehensible object.Each chapter pairs archival research with a phenomenological critique of how representation abstracts from the lived engagement with the land. With considerable learning and insight, Broglio reveals how artists are both complicit with such objectification of nature, and at other moments work toward a more vivid connection to the environment.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0v582b0THzEC&lpg=PP1&ots=xEdNfBPqQg&dq=Technologies%20of%20the%20Picturesque&pg=PA29#v=twopage&q=&f=false
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
+ Origami
The goal of this art is to create a representation of an object using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without gluing or cutting the paper, and using only one piece of paper.
Almost every origami book begins with a description of the basic origami techniques which are enough to construct those models described as basic or intermediate in difficulty. These include fairly standard diagrammatic representations of the basic folds like valley and mountain folds, pleats, reverse folds, squash folds, and sinks. There are also standard named bases which are used in a wide variety of models, for instance the bird base is an intermediate stage in the construction of the flapping bird.
It is common to fold using a flat surface but some folders like doing it in the air with no tools especially when displaying the folding. Many folders believe no tool should be used when folding. However a couple of tools can help especially with the more complex models. For instance a bone folder allows sharp creases to be made in the paper easily, paper clips can act as extra pairs of fingers, and tweezers can be used to make small folds. When making complex models from origami crease patterns, it can help to use a ruler and ballpoint embosser to score the creases. Completed models can be sprayed so they keep their shape better, and of course a spray is needed when wet folding.
The practice and study of origami encapsulates several subjects of mathematical interest. For instance, the problem of flat-foldability (whether a crease pattern can be folded into a 2-dimensional model) has been a topic of considerable mathematical study.
The problem of rigid origami ("if we replaced the paper with sheet metal and had hinges in place of the crease lines, could we still fold the model?") has great practical importance. For example, the Miura map fold is a rigid fold that has been used to deploy large solar panel arrays for space satellites.
There may soon be an origami airplane launched from space. A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel on March 2008, and Japan's space agency adopted it for feasibility studies.
(Spring Into Action, designed by Jeff Beynon, made from a single rectangular piece of paper)
Almost every origami book begins with a description of the basic origami techniques which are enough to construct those models described as basic or intermediate in difficulty. These include fairly standard diagrammatic representations of the basic folds like valley and mountain folds, pleats, reverse folds, squash folds, and sinks. There are also standard named bases which are used in a wide variety of models, for instance the bird base is an intermediate stage in the construction of the flapping bird.
It is common to fold using a flat surface but some folders like doing it in the air with no tools especially when displaying the folding. Many folders believe no tool should be used when folding. However a couple of tools can help especially with the more complex models. For instance a bone folder allows sharp creases to be made in the paper easily, paper clips can act as extra pairs of fingers, and tweezers can be used to make small folds. When making complex models from origami crease patterns, it can help to use a ruler and ballpoint embosser to score the creases. Completed models can be sprayed so they keep their shape better, and of course a spray is needed when wet folding.
The practice and study of origami encapsulates several subjects of mathematical interest. For instance, the problem of flat-foldability (whether a crease pattern can be folded into a 2-dimensional model) has been a topic of considerable mathematical study.
The problem of rigid origami ("if we replaced the paper with sheet metal and had hinges in place of the crease lines, could we still fold the model?") has great practical importance. For example, the Miura map fold is a rigid fold that has been used to deploy large solar panel arrays for space satellites.
There may soon be an origami airplane launched from space. A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel on March 2008, and Japan's space agency adopted it for feasibility studies.
(Spring Into Action, designed by Jeff Beynon, made from a single rectangular piece of paper)
+ Cross-fertilization
Cross-fertilization: interchange between different cultures or different ways of thinking that is mutually productive and beneficial; "the cross-fertilization of science and the creative arts" (http://www.wordreference.com/definition/cross-fertilization)
• fertilization (reproduction)
• outbreeding (biology)
Encyclopædia Britannica
biologyalso called Allogamy,
the fusion of male and female gametes (sex cells) from different individuals of the same species. Cross-fertilization must occur in dioecious plants (those having male and female organs on separate individuals) and in all animal species in which there are separate male and female individuals. Even among hermaphrodites—i.e., those organisms in which the same individual produces both sperm and eggs—many species possess well-developed mechanisms that ensure cross-fertilization. Moreover, many of the hermaphroditic species that are capable of self-fertilization also have capabilities for cross-fertilization.
There are a number of ways in which the sex cells of two separate individuals can be brought together. In lower plants, such as mosses and liverworts, motile sperm are released from one individual and swim through a film of moisture to the egg-bearing structure of another individual. In higher plants, cross-fertilization is achieved via cross-pollination, when pollen grains (which give rise to sperm) are transferred from the cones or flowers of one plant to egg-bearing cones or flowers of another. Cross-pollination may occur by wind, as in conifers, or via symbiotic relationships with various animals (e.g., bees and certain birds and bats) that carry pollen from plant to plant while feeding on nectar.
Methods of cross-fertilization are equally diverse in animals. Among most species that breed in aquatic habitats, the males and females each shed their sex cells into the water and external fertilization takes place. Among terrestrial breeders, however, fertilization is internal, with the sperm being introduced into the body of the female. Internal fertilization also occurs among some fishes and other aquatic breeders.
By recombining genetic material from two parents, cross-fertilization helps maintain a greater range of variability for natural selection to act upon, thereby increasing a species’s capacity to adapt to environmental change.(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/144101/cross-fertilization)
• fertilization (reproduction)
• outbreeding (biology)
Encyclopædia Britannica
biologyalso called Allogamy,
the fusion of male and female gametes (sex cells) from different individuals of the same species. Cross-fertilization must occur in dioecious plants (those having male and female organs on separate individuals) and in all animal species in which there are separate male and female individuals. Even among hermaphrodites—i.e., those organisms in which the same individual produces both sperm and eggs—many species possess well-developed mechanisms that ensure cross-fertilization. Moreover, many of the hermaphroditic species that are capable of self-fertilization also have capabilities for cross-fertilization.
There are a number of ways in which the sex cells of two separate individuals can be brought together. In lower plants, such as mosses and liverworts, motile sperm are released from one individual and swim through a film of moisture to the egg-bearing structure of another individual. In higher plants, cross-fertilization is achieved via cross-pollination, when pollen grains (which give rise to sperm) are transferred from the cones or flowers of one plant to egg-bearing cones or flowers of another. Cross-pollination may occur by wind, as in conifers, or via symbiotic relationships with various animals (e.g., bees and certain birds and bats) that carry pollen from plant to plant while feeding on nectar.
Methods of cross-fertilization are equally diverse in animals. Among most species that breed in aquatic habitats, the males and females each shed their sex cells into the water and external fertilization takes place. Among terrestrial breeders, however, fertilization is internal, with the sperm being introduced into the body of the female. Internal fertilization also occurs among some fishes and other aquatic breeders.
By recombining genetic material from two parents, cross-fertilization helps maintain a greater range of variability for natural selection to act upon, thereby increasing a species’s capacity to adapt to environmental change.(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/144101/cross-fertilization)
Monday, 8 February 2010
+ Mike Webb / Tempe Island
Temporal Depiction of Rotating Drum
The vertical dimension shows the drum in different position of its rotation.
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelspiderwebb/)
The vertical dimension shows the drum in different position of its rotation.
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelspiderwebb/)
Saturday, 6 February 2010
+ Lee Miller
Lee Miller was an American photographer from upstate New York. Her determination, her beauty and perhaps her agreeable disposition enabled her to travel. She began her career as a New York City fashion model, on the other side of the camera, photographed by the likes of Edward Steichen and other reputable names. Her first big break was acquainting herself with photographer Man Ray, who took her to Paris to, assumingly, pose as the character of many roles. Through this relationship, among others, she gained the eye of a documentary photographer. She was exposed to a world outside her home in upstate New York, a world far more vast than perhaps she had ever imagined. With the opportunities that came her way, she took the bull by the horns. She is best known for her surrealist photographs which speak in the language of poetic metaphors. Similar to fashion photography and quite opposite photojournalism, her surrealist work (and her fashion photography work for which she is less known) intentionally and intelligently offer invading objects that occupy her photographic space. In some ways, this is surrealism because it is not true documentary. For better or for worse, it is the manipulated landscape. With surrealism, the power lies in the hands of the photographer rather than in the hands of the scene. Other renoun surrealists are Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali, who took this movement a few steps further and altered his mind far beyond the likes of sanity. With intentional starvation and sleep deprivation and love sick mutiny, Dali’s body and heart became a tool to produce imagery that a ‘healthy’ mind may not encounter. On a similar note, Lee Miller used herself as a tool of expression and access, which can speak, in an artist’s world, as the relationship between artist and muse and muse and artist. Through both artist’s gestures, an image taken by Lee of Picasso staring back at his own female creation suggests perhaps both artists are thoroughly perplexed. Above, however is a surrealist picture of a ripped screen offering a view of a barren desert. Is that a mirror above it?
(http://stephanieoconnor.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/lee-miller/)
+ Sculpture
(http://www.kinetica-artfair.com/)
Dimensions
Height 230 cm, ø 40 cm
Materials
Wood, magnetism, acryl, steel-wire
(http://www.hanskooi.com/sculptures/?sid=4)
Friday, 5 February 2010
+ Photographic Developer
In the early days of photography, a wide range of developing agents were used, including chlorohydroquinone, ferrous oxalate[3], hydroxylamine, ferrous lactate, ferrous citrate, Eikonogen, atchecin, antipyrin, acetanilid and Amidol (which unusually required mildly acidic conditions).
Developers also contain water softening agent to prevent calcium scum formation (e.g., EDTA salts, sodium tripolyphosphate, NTA salts, etc.).
Modern lithographic developers contain hydrazine compounds, tetrazolium compounds and other amine contrast boosters to increase contrast without relying on the classic hydroquinone-only lithographic developer formulation. The modern formulae are very similar to rapid access developers (except for those additives) and therefore they enjoy long tray life. However, classic lithographic developers using hydroquinone alone suffers very poor tray life and inconsistent results.
The developer selectively reduces silver halide crystals in the emulsion to metallic silver, but only those having latent image centers created by action of light. The light sensitive layer or emulsion consists of silver halide crystals in a gelatin base. Two photons of light must be absorbed by one silver halide crystal to form a stable two atom silver metal crystal. The developer used generally will only reduce silver halide crystals that have an existing silver crystal. Faster exposure or lower light level films usually have larger grains because those images capture less light.
The areas with the most light exposure use up the tiny amount of developer in the gelatin and stop making silver crystal before the film at that point is totally opaque. The areas that received the least light continue to develop because they haven't used up their developer. There is less contrast, but time is not critical and films from several customers and different exposures will develop satisfactorily.
The time over which development takes place, and the type of developer, affect the relationship between the density of silver in the developed image and the quantity of light. This study is called sensitometry and was pioneered by F Hurter & V C Driffield in the late 1800s.
Standard black and white stock can also be reversal processed to give black and white slides. After 'first development,' the initial silver image is then removed (e.g. using a potassium bichromate/sulfuric acid bleach, which requires a subsequent "clearing bath" to remove the chromate stain from the film). The unfixed film is then fogged (physically or chemically) and 'second-developed'. .
In colour print development, the Cibachrome process also uses a print material with the dye-stuffs present and which are bleached out in appropriate places during developing. The chemistry involved here is wholly different from C41 chemistry; (it uses azo-dyes which are much more resistant to fading in sunlight).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_developer)
Developers also contain water softening agent to prevent calcium scum formation (e.g., EDTA salts, sodium tripolyphosphate, NTA salts, etc.).
Modern lithographic developers contain hydrazine compounds, tetrazolium compounds and other amine contrast boosters to increase contrast without relying on the classic hydroquinone-only lithographic developer formulation. The modern formulae are very similar to rapid access developers (except for those additives) and therefore they enjoy long tray life. However, classic lithographic developers using hydroquinone alone suffers very poor tray life and inconsistent results.
The developer selectively reduces silver halide crystals in the emulsion to metallic silver, but only those having latent image centers created by action of light. The light sensitive layer or emulsion consists of silver halide crystals in a gelatin base. Two photons of light must be absorbed by one silver halide crystal to form a stable two atom silver metal crystal. The developer used generally will only reduce silver halide crystals that have an existing silver crystal. Faster exposure or lower light level films usually have larger grains because those images capture less light.
The areas with the most light exposure use up the tiny amount of developer in the gelatin and stop making silver crystal before the film at that point is totally opaque. The areas that received the least light continue to develop because they haven't used up their developer. There is less contrast, but time is not critical and films from several customers and different exposures will develop satisfactorily.
The time over which development takes place, and the type of developer, affect the relationship between the density of silver in the developed image and the quantity of light. This study is called sensitometry and was pioneered by F Hurter & V C Driffield in the late 1800s.
Standard black and white stock can also be reversal processed to give black and white slides. After 'first development,' the initial silver image is then removed (e.g. using a potassium bichromate/sulfuric acid bleach, which requires a subsequent "clearing bath" to remove the chromate stain from the film). The unfixed film is then fogged (physically or chemically) and 'second-developed'. .
In colour print development, the Cibachrome process also uses a print material with the dye-stuffs present and which are bleached out in appropriate places during developing. The chemistry involved here is wholly different from C41 chemistry; (it uses azo-dyes which are much more resistant to fading in sunlight).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_developer)
+Anak/ Kinetica Art Fair
Souldance is a captivating dance of shadows.
An attempt to explore the possibility of touching the other self.
A subtle romance where space, light, and perception mysteriously reflect from a mirror to another realm.
Anak is a multidisciplinary artist engaged in exploring patterns of perception confined in our culture by using a wide range of mediums from graphic design, urban art, interactive work to performance art and dance.
With music by Roi Erez.
Photograph by Shira Klasmer
(http://www.kinetica-artfair.com/)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
