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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Laura Splan - Doilies This is not just any old doily. This is a virus doily. The work of Laura Splan involves taking images of viruses, such as Influenza and SARS, and creating her own design, based on their basic anatomical structures, through a graphics editor. The images are then sent through computerized embroidering software, where it proceeds to create the stitches, and then the doily-viruses are born via the computerized sewing machine. The delicacy of these doilies parallels that of the virus. They are such small forms; should be easy to destroy, and yet they have a great amount of destructive power. Only recent medicine has been able to partially subdue, if not completely eliminate, the side effects of viruses in our systems. According to the artist, the fact that these viruses are everywhere domesticates them. This is a status of domestication that is, for example, shared with a doily. The doily has traditionally depicted natural motifs within its threads, and was passed on through generations. As the virus is a natural entity, and has to be passed on from something in order for someone to get it, combining the two concepts of traditional craft and illness, into an art form, demonstrates our psychological acceptance of the viruses’ existence. It is only now that we choose to fight this ‘tradition’ of accepting the virus as our fate. Just recently, a child has been cured of HIV, a previously incurable disease caused by a virus. And you also, you don’t see many people embroidering lace nowadays.-Anna Paluch

Laura Splan - Doilies

This is not just any old doily.

This is a virus doily.

The work of Laura Splan involves taking images of viruses, such as Influenza and SARS, and creating her own design, based on their basic anatomical structures, through a graphics editor. The images are then sent through computerized embroidering software, where it proceeds to create the stitches, and then the doily-viruses are born via the computerized sewing machine.

The delicacy of these doilies parallels that of the virus. They are such small forms; should be easy to destroy, and yet they have a great amount of destructive power. Only recent medicine has been able to partially subdue, if not completely eliminate, the side effects of viruses in our systems. According to the artist, the fact that these viruses are everywhere domesticates them. This is a status of domestication that is, for example, shared with a doily.

The doily has traditionally depicted natural motifs within its threads, and was passed on through generations. As the virus is a natural entity, and has to be passed on from something in order for someone to get it, combining the two concepts of traditional craft and illness, into an art form, demonstrates our psychological acceptance of the viruses’ existence. It is only now that we choose to fight this ‘tradition’ of accepting the virus as our fate. Just recently, a child has been cured of HIV, a previously incurable disease caused by a virus.

And you also, you don’t see many people embroidering lace nowadays.

-Anna Paluch

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The Future of Nature in Art The forms of nature are, in their own ways, works of art. For centuries, artists have mimicked natural phenomenon, such as the roughness of tree bark, and the vibrant colours of fruit, in oil paintings and even sculpture. Now, most artists are using new tools to attempt to control these forms, and in doing so, re-create the natural form. Artist Ken To, for example, uses metal wiring to create detailed and realistically sized bonsai trees. The easing twists of the metal perfectly mimic the tree bark, that ever so slightly curves up and outwards, creating branches. Even more extreme, artist Natalie Jeremijenko uses L-systems, which are algorithms created in order to mimic the cell growth of a tree. With the L-system technology, you could have your very own forest growing on your computers’ desktop! She has even created a whole art project called ONETREES, and she calls her virtual trees ‘e-trees’, or ‘electronic trees’. Not only that, the e-trees themselves can be manipulated to grow at certain rates when a CO2 reader is plugged into the USB ports of the computer. The virtual trees mimic the cell growth of natural trees, and they also react in a similar way that trees do when they come into contact with atmospheric changes. It is a revolutionary twist of artistic mimesis. So whether you prefer a forest of trees on your desktop, or a little bonsai tree on top of your desk, there are many different mediums that you can explore in order to experience this new movement of nature mimesis in the 21st Century.-Anna Paluch

The Future of Nature in Art

The forms of nature are, in their own ways, works of art. For centuries, artists have mimicked natural phenomenon, such as the roughness of tree bark, and the vibrant colours of fruit, in oil paintings and even sculpture. Now, most artists are using new tools to attempt to control these forms, and in doing so, re-create the natural form. Artist Ken To, for example, uses metal wiring to create detailed and realistically sized bonsai trees. The easing twists of the metal perfectly mimic the tree bark, that ever so slightly curves up and outwards, creating branches.

Even more extreme, artist Natalie Jeremijenko uses L-systems, which are algorithms created in order to mimic the cell growth of a tree. With the L-system technology, you could have your very own forest growing on your computers’ desktop! She has even created a whole art project called ONETREES, and she calls her virtual trees ‘e-trees’, or ‘electronic trees’. Not only that, the e-trees themselves can be manipulated to grow at certain rates when a CO2 reader is plugged into the USB ports of the computer. The virtual trees mimic the cell growth of natural trees, and they also react in a similar way that trees do when they come into contact with atmospheric changes. It is a revolutionary twist of artistic mimesis.

So whether you prefer a forest of trees on your desktop, or a little bonsai tree on top of your desk, there are many different mediums that you can explore in order to experience this new movement of nature mimesis in the 21st Century.

-Anna Paluch

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Biofilms Bacteria, just by the sheer fact that they duplicate very quickly, and because safety is mostly in numbers, tend to form what are called biofilms. But biofilms aren’t quite just an aggregate of cells. These cells adhere to each other and to the surface, and produce an extracellular substance containing extracellular DNA, proteins and polysaccharides, that are going to act as a protective and adhesive layer. Some biofilms have even been found to contain channels to help distribute nutrients and signalling molecules. So bacteria may well be able to survive on their own, but they are also able to intelligently organize their mass when difficult times arise, and we’re just beginning to see which dangers this can hold. To show these organization skills, researchers have tagged differents lineages of Bacillus subtilis — rod shaped bacteria commonly found in soil —  with distinct fluorescent proteins (TagRFP-T, sfGFP, TagBFP, mKate2 and mOrange2). They then mixed the cells randomly on a petri dish. By looking at the culture with a confocal microscope, they can detect the different colors used to tag the cells. Surprisingly, what should be a random mix of colors actually looks like an incredible painting, full of discernible streaks. Indeed, as the bacteria grew, they were found to organize themselves into patterns, reproduciblepatterns that can be predicted with mathematical models (Computational Modeling of Synthetic Microbial Biofilms, ACS Synthetic Biology). Therefore is looks like bacteria can arrange themselves so that the biofilm is divided in regions where cells exhibit different patterns of gene expression, to increase both their metabolic efficiency and their resistance to changes in their local environment. The study of biofilms has skyrocketed in recent years due to the increased awareness of its efficiency and its effect on natural, industrial systems and human health. And it is far from over. Photo credit: Fernan Federici, Tim Rudge, PJ Steiner and Jim Haseloff,  Haseloff Lab, University of Cambridge This beautiful work was one of the winners in this 2012 Wellcome Image Awards - Agathe of Frontal Cortex

Biofilms


Bacteria, just by the sheer fact that they duplicate very quickly, and because safety is mostly in numbers, tend to form what are called biofilms. But biofilms aren’t quite just an aggregate of cells. These cells adhere to each other and to the surface, and produce an extracellular substance containing extracellular DNA, proteins and polysaccharides, that are going to act as a protective and adhesive layer. Some biofilms have even been found to contain channels to help distribute nutrients and signalling molecules.


So bacteria may well be able to survive on their own, but they are also able to intelligently organize their mass when difficult times arise, and we’re just beginning to see which dangers this can hold. To show these organization skills, researchers have tagged differents lineages of Bacillus subtilis — rod shaped bacteria commonly found in soil —  with distinct fluorescent proteins (TagRFP-T, sfGFP, TagBFP, mKate2 and mOrange2). They then mixed the cells randomly on a petri dish. By looking at the culture with a confocal microscope, they can detect the different colors used to tag the cells. Surprisingly, what should be a random mix of colors actually looks like an incredible painting, full of discernible streaks. Indeed, as the bacteria grew, they were found to organize themselves into patterns, reproduciblepatterns that can be predicted with mathematical models (Computational Modeling of Synthetic Microbial Biofilms, ACS Synthetic Biology). Therefore is looks like bacteria can arrange themselves so that the biofilm is divided in regions where cells exhibit different patterns of gene expression, to increase both their metabolic efficiency and their resistance to changes in their local environment.


The study of biofilms has skyrocketed in recent years due to the increased awareness of its efficiency and its effect on natural, industrial systems and human health. And it is far from over.


Photo credit: Fernan Federici, Tim Rudge, PJ Steiner and Jim Haseloff,  Haseloff Lab, University of Cambridge

This beautiful work was one of the winners in this 2012 Wellcome Image Awards


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Art & Science Journal Print Issue Launch Party


Last night we had our first issue print launch at Raw Sugar Cafe. It was so much fun—great entertainment, great food, and great people! To see the full facebook album, click here. If you weren’t able to come, you can pick up a print issue and have it delivered to your door by clicking here. 

Thanks for the great night everyone!

- Lee Jones

[photos by Siu Yu and Nikolina Vujosevic]

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