About Us
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.




Gravity by mrmama.tv
In this series of .gif’s (which you can see here, the files together were too large for tumblr!) mrmama.tv created an artwork for two environments, the gallery and the internet. Arek Nowakowski, a motion designer for the project, told us about Gravity. As he states,
“This is a variation on time and movement. A clash of various forces creates a visual performance that surrounds us every day. Gravity is one of these forces and looking at the achieved pictures we have a feeling that everything is immersed in it, like an insect immersed in amber. I decided to stop a very dynamic situation in order to have access to those moments that pass too quickly to have a good look at them. AnimGifs are such ambers with frozen moments in which we were immersed.”
But how does it work? By using the time slice technique, the group took shots and then spun them in an endless loop using .gif’s. The end result is that the subjects appear to be flying in circles. But the images are not on par with the final project, so see them in full here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Sasha vom Dorp
Sasha vom Dorp is an artist who works with vibrations. In his most recent series, Sound Bending Light, vom Dorp explores the dynamic interplay of light, sound and water. To create this series he made a machine that would bring all these elements together. As he describes the series,
“These photographs aim to capture the beauty and turmoil that occurs inside the most pedestrian events. Sunlight bounces on water; sound waves march toward oblivion.”
To see more of vom Dorp’s work, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Reads and Zines with The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles
In The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles, Renato Barilli examines the history of artistic style in relation to scientific discovery. Applying an innovative analysis, he illustrates the subtle, yet intrinsic, connection between paradigm shifts in the sciences and in the arts.
Throughout the book Barilli argues that there are connections between specific discoveries or inventions and revolutionary advances in artistic techniques. He draws upon the pioneering work of Lucien Goldman, as well as the theories of Luciano Anceschi and Marshall McLuhan in order to reassess conventional modes of dividing art history into such periods as modern, contemporary, and postmodern. By correlating moments such as the invention of the printing press and the internal combustion engine with canonical periods in the evolution of art, Barilli unearths conceptual links across domains and disciplines. In doing so, Barilli connects fields to create a more comprehensive idea of historical discovery.
For more information on Barilli’s book published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, click here.
[text from McGill-Queen’s University Press]


Kelly Jaclynn Andres: The Temporary Archive for Ambiguous Architectures
What if you could completely recreate a space with a 3D Printer? For The Temporary Archive, artist Kelly Jaclynn Andres did just that. Through her project, objects were collected from a specific site, tagged and digitally scanned using a 3D scanner. Both the contents of the fieldwork and physical aspects of the geographical site were digitally modeled and printed in 3D to develop three miniature environments. Each object, microorganism or plant subject collected from the site is recreated in one of three glass rectangular prisms. The installation is part of Andres’s residency at Eastern Bloc. As they describe the installation,
“The Temporary Archive explores the overlap between the imagined, the speculative, the subjective, and the “experiment.” It is an investigation into the sensitive nature of working between site, technical processes, material-objects, and living organisms. The work combines digital and biological reproduction to echo complex symbiotic relationships between animals, plants, environments and objects.”
For those of you interested in attending the installation it will be on from the 7th to the 9th of December at Eastern Bloc, New Media Production & Exhibition Centre, with a vernissage on December 6th at 6pm. For more on Andres’s work, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Simon F. Park
A Senior Lecturer in Molecular Bacteriology at University of Surrey, Simon F. Park’s artworks are driven by a need to correct the common misconception that microbiological life is primitive and always detrimental. As Park states,
“I hope that through my art, and collaborations with artists, that the real and sublime nature of the microbiological world can be revealed. I also find the interface between arts and science to be a powerfully pluripotent one, that can occasionally give rise to outliers and thus new avenues of scientific investigation.”
As a microbiologist, Park works mostly with microorganisms and uses them to explore the inherent creativity of the natural world and to reveal its subtle, and usually hidden, narratives. But, rather than imposing any strict human-centred design upon the organisms that he works with, he prefers to evoke them as co-authors in the creative process so that important events that many of us often overlook, or fail to consider intimately, become manifest. To see more of Park’s work, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Maya Lin
Maya Lin creates both art and architecture, and this is event in all of her works. Her works are inspired by landscapes and our natural environment. As her website states,
“She peers curiously at the landscape through a twenty-first century lens, merging rational and technological order with notions of beauty and the transcendental. Utilizing technological methods to study and visualize the natural world, Ms. Lin takes micro and macro views of the earth, sonar resonance scans, aerial and satellite mapping devices and translates that information into sculptures, drawings and environmental installations. Her works address how we relate and respond to the environment, and presents new ways of looking at the world around us.”
For more of Lin’s work, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Tyler Varsell
In this series Science, collage and mixed media artist Tyler Varsell embroiders on canvas. Her works bring back the fun from elementary school science, and the quirky textbooks that went with it. As Varsell describes the series,
“The series began with ‘Nucleus’, in which I was inspired by the aesthetic design of the atom symbol. I decided to create a series based on scientific curiosity and wonder, and the aesthetic beauty of patterns found in science and nature. Each work is centered around a different hand-embroidered design over collaged images from vintage children’s encyclopedias.”
For more of Varsell’s works, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Kate MacDowell
In this work, Crave, the artist Kate MacDowell has hand-sculptured porcelain to make a human/plant hybrid. MacDowell is better known for her animal/plant hybrids, but in this series the plant appears to grow out of human veins and body parts. As MacDowell discusses the influences in her work,
“The romantic ideal of a union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment. These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones. In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world. In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction and discomfort with the disturbing implication that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practices.”
To see more of MacDowell’s works, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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Lisa Kellner
In this series Inner Urban Sanctum, one of Lisa Kellner’s Site Responsive pieces, the artist focuses on decay, erosion and disease. As Kellner describes the project,
“These works use the imagery of diseased cellular activity to directly respond to the space in which they are installed. I hand form, paint and sew together thousands of organic, bulbous shapes out of silk organza creating a structure that operates both as environmental sculpture and a three dimensional painting in space.”
All her Site Responsive installations are temporary, and once the installation finishes the parts are separated once more and used for the next installation. In this way, Kellner’s works are constantly being repurposed. To see more of her Site Responsive works, click here.
(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)
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