A Bouquet of Semiotics

Many meanings and hidden symbols are lost to us today. In Victorian times, objects as simple as flowers could mean a whole range of emotions, such as dread, happiness, and bouquets could hold secret messages of unrequited love, or an elaborate (and honestly, gorgeous looking) insult.

Artist Lisa Oppenheim takes this old tradition of coded messages in flowers, and makes her photograms using only the stem and leaves, while shining coloured light, mimicking the petals. The outlines of the stems and leaves can be seen faintly, but what is important here, is the use of colour. Though the actual flower is not present in the image, the colours help mirror the intention; in Regret (Hyacinth) II (2011), the purple helps solve the mystery of what the meaning is. Hyacinth can mean anything from ‘the quality of being faithful’ to ‘beauty’, but it is the purple Hyacinth that specifically means ‘please forgive me’, and thus, the reason also why the image is entitled ‘regret’. Then there is her diptych Perfect Lovers (Tulips) III (2011). The colours give the image a sense of passion, and rightly so, as tulips are a symbol for the declaration of love, and in this case, the two ‘lovers’ are represented, interacting as a diptych.

It is a fun way of playing with these long forgotten signals, and bringing them forth as a new aesthetic. Modern tools, such as flashing lights and cameras, recreate the feelings people would feel from receiving a flower. It seems that with time, the more abstract in image is, the easier it is to understand it.

-Anna Paluch

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Landscape Revisited

The ability for people to go into space has opened many doors in terms of exploration and knowledge of the universe, yet it has also given us a chance to look at our Earth from a different perspective.

Col. Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut, currently onboard the International Space Station, who takes pictures of the Earth while on his mission in space. It is a new style of landscape photography. Previously, our only options in terms of ‘landscape’ photography were to take a picture of the Earth, on Earth, or capture the vast expanse of space via astrophotography.

Now, we can take into account the scale of the Earth; how massive desserts are, how tiny cities are. We can see both natural beauty and industrial devastation. His images are reflections of the various societies in this world, and its history. Like all great photographs, they tell stories, either about lost civilizations, daily routines or environmental changes.

Though not everyone can just get into a spaceship and take pictures all day, what Col. Chris Hadfield is doing, is opening doors for future artists, scientists, and explorers, to see the different ways in which we can capture our surroundings, through photography.

-Anna Paluch

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Amy Schissel Ottawa area artist Amy Schissel recently showed her piece Cyberfields (2012) from her series “Systems Fever” at the Volta Art Fair in New York City illustrating another sense of connection from the advancements of science and technology to (landscape) art. Her work featured here consists of fine lines meant to mirror the seemingly invisible connections from person to person on the digital landscape, otherwise known as an Internet Map, as visualized by The Dimes Project. By exploring the question of the digital landscape in her mixed media art, Schissel seems to beg the question of where we exist (geographically, at least) when using our tech (smart phones, twitter, texting, facebook, etc.). Are the messages we send invisible, a means of communication, or do they signify something more? Are the places we send our digital messages or notes from/to representative of us—what can our digital landscapes tell us about ourselves and this brave new world we live in? So much can be understood from the connections we make every day, even those we cannot physically see. By turning the visualization of the Internet Map into a art form of physical, tactile painting, Schissel has already, like the lines on the map, forged a connection from the digital to the traditional.  - Rose Ekins

Amy Schissel

Ottawa area artist Amy Schissel recently showed her piece Cyberfields (2012) from her series “Systems Fever” at the Volta Art Fair in New York City illustrating another sense of connection from the advancements of science and technology to (landscape) art.

Her work featured here consists of fine lines meant to mirror the seemingly invisible connections from person to person on the digital landscape, otherwise known as an Internet Map, as visualized by The Dimes Project. By exploring the question of the digital landscape in her mixed media art, Schissel seems to beg the question of where we exist (geographically, at least) when using our tech (smart phones, twitter, texting, facebook, etc.). Are the messages we send invisible, a means of communication, or do they signify something more? Are the places we send our digital messages or notes from/to representative of us—what can our digital landscapes tell us about ourselves and this brave new world we live in? So much can be understood from the connections we make every day, even those we cannot physically see.

By turning the visualization of the Internet Map into a art form of physical, tactile painting, Schissel has already, like the lines on the map, forged a connection from the digital to the traditional. 

- Rose Ekins

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Photo Friday With the Russian Tourists Who Climbed the Pyramids

This past week, photos and a rather contentious story of a few Russian tourists have been covered by dozens of major news sources. The stunning photos above were captured illegally by a small group of tourists at the Ancient Egyptian Pyramids, who hid from guards for four hours after closing time before climbing the Pyramid of Giza. 

Despite breaking the rules and the chaos that would ensue if more people tried to pull this off, I love these photographs. I have had the opportunity to visit the Pyramids a couple of times, and these photos portray the kind of experience that one hopes for but doesn’t necessarily receive. While the visit makes for an incredible experience, and the history and wonder is palpable, I remember the line ups, maze of tour buses, and litter as well as I can recall anything else. These photos inspire the sublime wonder of the Pyramids without all of the distractions.

Since the stunt, one of the photographers, Vadim Makhorov, has publicly apologized, though quite obviously without actually regretting the action. Nor is this the first brush with the law for the team, which included Vitaliy Raskalov, named Russian Skywalker by the Huffington Post . Check out his Instagram account for more photos.

Should the team have apologized? Or are photos like this an example of when rules are made to be broken?

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Kyle Bean’s What Came First?


In light of the Easter holiday, here is a simple but clever creation by UK designer Kyle Bean. Described concisely as a “chicken made from eggshells,” his sculpture whimsically illustrates the age-old question and all of its philosophical implications. 

For more interesting work by Bean (favourites include Apps and Aerotropolis) see his website here.

- Erin Saunders

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Human Webs

The traditional web design is being transformed to create amazing works of art. Artists such as Janet Echelman, Megan Geckler, and Marie-Josée Laframboise take string, netting, tape and various other materials to create their site specific installations that not only transform a room or city, but how we view these materials.

For Echelman, the beginning of her work started in India, when she used fishing net to create a last minute sculpture for her exhibition. The work was a success, and it led her to use lighter materials to create large-scale works in city centers, such as Sydney and Amsterdam. One of her works, 1.26 (2010-ongoing), was created originally in Denver, Colorado, and uses data taken from the 2011 earthquake off the coast of Chile, to ‘sculpt’ her piece in order to look like the wave pattern. It is a mesmerizing display of colour and form.

The work of Megan Geckler, on the other hand, does not move as fluidly as Echelman’s, nor is it as large, but Rewritten by machine on new technology (2012-2013) is still large-scale enough to engulf the viewer into a vortex of colour. Like Echelman, Geckler’s site-specific pieces work with the rooms that they are put in, playing with the architecture.

With Marie-Josée Laframboise, her work seems to be a mixture between the rigid geometry of Geckler’s works and the natural fluidity of Echelman’s works. Her webs are site specific, but there is little rigidity. Instead her work evokes the idea of a wave, engulfing the viewer, or even a web. It is not ominous, but enchanting.

These web-works demonstrate a fresh new take on what we can do with malleable materials, and the results, are truly spectacular.

-Anna Paluch

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Doug Aitken’s Mirror at the Seattle Art Museum

American multimedia and light artist Doug Aitken’s new installation Mirror strives to be a living museum, a dynamic representation of the constantly changing urban core of Seattle. Installed permanently on the north-west corner of the Seattle Art Museum, Mirror was unveiled this past Sunday and has since been received very warmly by the online community. 

Described as a “living kaleidoscope,” the installation responds to changes in weather conditions, pedestrian movement, and lighting conditions. Referring to its reservoir of hundreds of hours of video footage, the installation uses data from its sensors to compose these moving images, choreographing them in unexpected ways. Most interestingly, the installation has been programmed in such a way that the same sequence never occurs twice — it is constantly generating new sequences, all the while doing so in a way that responds to the unique changes in the city’s environmental conditions. The effect is a perpetually moving light show, an incessant video montage that is constantly reinventing itself.

The footage used was shot all around the region of Seattle, including but not limited to neighbouring mountain ranges and the city of Seattle itself. In this sense, Mirror is not merely a reflection of Seattle’s urban core — instead, it is a totalizing representation of the environment surrounding and affecting the very hustle and bustle of the city itself. Its constant visual manifestation of every minute of Seattle life calls into question philosophical notions of space and time, and its juxtaposition of rural and urban imagery provides a valuable reminder of the larger environment of which cities are a part. If Mirror is anything like Aitken’s past installations, it is sure to spark interesting dialogues, and hopefully some that delve deeper than the phrase “very cool,” the general consensus on the Internet thus far.

Although it may be a permanent fixture of the SAM, the installation is experimental at its core, so its very essence is its ability to grow and evolve over time. We will be watching the evolution of Mirror closely. If any of you happen upon this installation in real life, drop us a line — we’d love to hear about it! 

- Gabrielle Doiron

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Reads and Zines with The Universe Within 

In The Universe Within, Neil Shubin ambitiously traces the history of the universe and the story of evolution through the bodies and remains of all living things on Earth. Seeking to better understand how we have come to be, Shubin’s quest results in the discovery of connections between human and animal physiologies and the wider cosmos. While this may seem like a rather difficult and and confusing connection to make, the book reads so much like an adventure novel that you forget it is actually a work of scientific inquiry that ultimately shifts the way we see humanity. 

Shubin, a prominent palaeontologist, provides fascinating facts and stimulating comparisons easily understood by anyone with even the slightest knowledge of science, astronomy, biology, and evolution. However, Shubin by no means “dumbs down” the science he writes about here. Instead, his enthusiasm for scientific discourse shines through in his highly entertaining and enthusiastic writing style. 

Shubin’s enthusiasm is notedly demonstrated in his recounting of major historic anecdotes that pepper his research. One example is Shubin’s account of how geologists Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen mapped the ocean floor and how their discovery of mid-ocean ridges ultimately led to our contemporary theories of continental drift and the Earth’s tectonic plates. Shubin’s focus on the stories of major discoveries, as well as the science behind them, reads like an account of how the undertakings of various scientific disciplines are all connected by a shared desire to unearth the secrets of life in the universe.

Overall, I found this book ambitious, quick paced, and highly enjoyable. A definite must-read for a slightly more basic understanding of how the universe was formed and how forces in the cosmos and on Earth have shaped our contemporary world. 

For more information about Dr. Shubin and The Universe Within, visit his website here. The Universe Within is available on Amazon for $18.15 CAD. 

- Victoria Nolte

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Chris Drury

 What’s quite interesting about Chris Drury’s work is how there appears to be an underlying paradoxical message in some of his pieces. In ‘Mushroom Cloud’ for example, acrylic-coated mushrooms joined together by nylon thread are suspended between a steel frame to form the shape of a mushroom cloud. The irony lay in the fact that mushrooms are symbolic of the cyclical nature of the natural world; as types of fungi they can mark the onset of death through the decomposition of matter in the soil, and it is by the organic products of this decay, that plant life springs forth. Mushroom clouds on the other hand – the resulting atmospheric effects of nuclear explosions, illustrate the part that humans have played throughout the course of history in causing death. Drury dangles this metaphor before us provoking thought in our humanitarian and ecological consciences.

 ‘Hand on Heart’, in which a bloody fingerprint is superimposed on an echocardiogram is a very literal depiction of the symbiosis that exists between the rhythms of the heart and the product of its pumping, each being the consequence and elicitor of the other.

 Chris Drury’s work is captivating, as each piece feels very familiar, the audience is continually reminded of things they’ve seen in fields, forests and even hospitals, thus emphasizing how loud artwork with scientific underpinnings can resonate.

 Chris Drury’s work can be found on his website here: http://chrisdrury.co.uk/

 - Adrian Deen

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Photo Friday with Luca Zanier’s Space and Energy 

Swiss photographer, Luca Zanier, photographed over fifty nuclear power plants, coal-fired power stations, storages for nuclear waste, and other energy systems over the course of two years. By focusing on shapes and colours, Zanier abstracts these environments and forces the viewer to think of them beyond their purpose. In doing this, the artist highlights a complexity, and perhaps even beauty, to these structures that may have otherwise been overlooked.

In his artist’s statement he explains, ” Enormous spaces, endless walkways, wide sluices, cryptic signs; all combined with miles of cables and pipes.They form a technical universe that radiates a cool logic. A hidden world, known only to a few and yet which has a huge influence on our day to day lives, absolutely essential in fact…What I am proposing is to dissipate technology into aesthetics, at least to a certain extent. Only the caption will remind the beholder of what he or she is contemplating: A highly complex system whereof our modern life depends. Energy systems which serve us and, at the same time, can threaten us.”

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

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