Betcha didn’t see this at MLA. . .

Posted on January 9, 2007 by cicada

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Out of reach
Dave Rau
www.redlabor.com

Just as I began to fear that no topic could comfortably follow a post invoking medievalism and cephalopodmania, Phantasmaphile pointed me to the artwork of Dave Rau. Grungy engravings, fonts, textures, collaged and screened with random animal appendages? I’m so there!

Redlabor also hosts the art of Josh Bertrand; check out his “Beautiful Armaments; Rocket”. They even have a store where you can indulge in T-shirts with peculiar pseudo-biological motifs. Here’s how they describe “Two Guys and an Octopus:”

19th century twins gone awry in a wicked science experiment involving an octopus, insects and two gorillas. Old school biotech never looked so proper; the top-hats really finish their outfit.

Sweet, guys! But I did notice there aren’t any women’s shirts with octopi on them. . .

Posted in Artists & Art, Cephalopodmania | 1 Comment

Deliver us from MLA

Posted on January 7, 2007 by cicada

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog reminds me why I didn’t do my PhD in medieval lit:

So it befel in dede that a volvo did pulle up and a voys from it seyd, ‘You going to Philadelphia?’ And thys creatur seyd, ‘I go to MLA,’ and the voys seyde that MLA was part of Philadelphee and thus sche cam with hem. And in the volvo was a cumpany of thre yonge scolers, to wit I woman and II men. And thys creatur spak to them and seyd, ‘Tell me what maner ffolk ye aren.’ And oon the men seyd, ‘My dissertation addresses the pressing question of the relation of the Owl and the Nightingale to the paradoxes of materiality and to changing ideas of spirituality at the same time that it questions what I would call outmoded models of allegoresis. Essentially, I propose that this heavily mediated text engages with debate poetry not as a generic exemplar but rather vis-a-vis an interstitial combination of truth claims and bestiary passages about cephalopods.’ And thys creatur was soore confusid, and sche prayid to ower lord and wepid gret teares for the passioun of the child Jesu who had been born in a maunger to taak awey the synnes of all ffolke and also to deliver her from MLA.

The most amazing revelation here is not that the MLA is frightening (duh), it’s that cephalopodmania has infiltrated humanities circles. I thought this was a strictly scientific affliction. What IS it with the damn squid (and octopi)? Somebody? Anybody??

Posted in Cephalopodmania, Frivolity, Littademia | 1 Comment

Wombs, Waxes and Wonder Cabinets

Posted on January 5, 2007 by cicada

This essay has been reposted at the new bioephemera, Feb 19, 08.

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Anatomical Teaching Model of a Pregnant Woman
Stephan Zick, 1639-1715
Wood and ivory

Kunstkammer Georg Laue is a Munich antique/art gallery informed by the sensibility of the “wonder cabinets” (kunst- or wunder-kammer) of 17th century Germany. One of the interesting objects described on the site is this ivory model of a pregnant woman with removable parts, including internal organs and a fetus.

Such dissection models may seem incongruous to modern eyes – the perfectly clean, white ivory cadaver not only has impeccably coiffed hair, a hinged arm allows her hand to rest delicately against her forehead as she reclines on a small lace-trimmed pillow! She’s clearly dead, with a little inlaid coffin for a case, but she’s more like a puzzle box than a body.

17th-18th century medical illustrations offered a variety of odd perspectives on the pregnant female form. A more clinical approach prevailed in Jan van Rymsdyk’s 18th-century illustrations for atlases by William Smellie and William Hunter. (Please be aware that if you’re not of a medical bent, you may find the illustrations below the fold unpleasant.)

Continue reading →

Posted in Artists & Art, Biology, Museum Lust, Wonder Cabinets | 14 Comments

So true

Posted on January 4, 2007 by cicada

Go on, name one work by Donatello. Admit it, you’re not even sure if he sculpted or painted! All right, all right, here’s his wikipedia entry.

From the immortal, beloved xkcd.

Posted in Artists & Art, Frivolity | 1 Comment

Gross Clinic Stays Put

Posted on January 3, 2007 by cicada

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The Gross Clinic
Thomas Eakins, 1875
oil on canvas

‘The Gross Clinic’ will stay in Philadelphia – International Herald Tribune

Apparently the Wal-Mart heiress’ plan to buy the painting by Philadelphia native Thomas Eakins and transplant it to Bentonville, Arkansas (a town of less than 30,000 people, where the museum to house it has not yet been built), has been stymied by outraged Philadelphians.

Why is it that universities are pressured to divest themselves of anything saleable, and possession of a piece of landmark art is seen as an unnecessary luxury? Jefferson University’s president reportedly excused the sale, saying Jefferson isn’t “in the business of art education.” I can’t blame Alice Walton for wanting to decorate her hometown, but pulling a piece of art by a Philadelphian out of the Philadelphia university it depicts (where Dr. Gross taught and Eakins studied), to plunk it in Arkansas? What sense does that make?

Continue reading →

Posted in Artists & Art | 2 Comments

Fashionable nature

Posted on January 1, 2007 by cicada

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Still life: Photography by Guido Mocafico

Guido Mocafico has worked as a fashion photographer, but his interests range from landscape to still life to nature to architecture. His website is a true cabinet of curiosities, including collections of jellyfish, snakes, skulls, glaciers, ants crawling over diamond rings, and dead fish entwined with loops of pearls.

His book Medusa (Amazon) has just been released and another book, Serpens, is scheduled for release later in 2007.

Despite the obvious commercial context for his work, Mocafico clearly has a sense of humor about the industry; his 2001 series for the late mag The Face depicted fashionably dressed skeletons (actual skeletons, not starving models that resemble them).

Posted in Artists & Art, Biology, Photography | Comments Off

Some words I learned in 2006

Posted on December 31, 2006 by cicada
  1. inchoate
  2. aleatory
  3. ambit
  4. echt (ok, I actually learned that in 2005, but I just saw it again)
  5. lusus naturae
  6. aetiology (I really should have known that one already – no excuse)
  7. alible
  8. amerce
  9. mutatis mutandis
  10. deictic
  11. pogonip
  12. enchiridion
  13. virgule

Sometimes it seems the only place I encounter new words, besides the dictionary (I like the Free Dictionary), is the New Yorker. Bless the New Yorker, for keeping me from degenerating into complete illiteracy whilst practicing lab science and subsequently living in red rural America!

Posted in Words | 1 Comment

Faces of Poverty

Posted on December 29, 2006 by cicada

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Beavis
Tom Stone, 2006

Stoneth’s Photos on Flickr

Tom Stone Gallery

Now that John Edwards has made poverty one of his platform issues, we’ll no doubt be hearing a more about it in the news again. But these haunting photographs of poverty by San Francisco’s Tom Stone are more evocative than any words.

I hope to connect. and i see the most beautiful and the most heartbreaking things.”
-Tom Stone

hat-tip: the impressively named Musings on Neurology And Lenitives in Simplistic Art, a fellow art/science blog

Posted in Artists & Art, Photography | Comments Off

A GOOD idea

Posted on December 28, 2006 by cicada

A friend sent me a link to this new magazine called GOOD. It includes features such as “The Color of War: An embedded artist chronicles Iraq” and “Search And Destroy: Ramming and sinking whale boats wherever they can be found.” To be sure, neither of those topics is Martha Stewart’s kind of “good thing” – but it sure sounds interesting! Heck, they even have a section called “Provocations”.

The best part is that if you subscribe to GOOD, your entire $20 fee will go to the charity of your choice (they have twelve to choose from, including DonorsChoose, Teach for America, UNICEF and WWF.) They say they’re doing it in order to self-select subscribers that fit their readership model, and I think it’s going to work! Their goal is to get 50,000 subscribers and so far they have just over 10,000.

So if you were going to do some end-of-the-year donations anyway, you might want to channel some of your money through GOOD and get something good for yourself, too.

Posted in Science in culture & policy, Uncategorized, Words | Comments Off

A truly weird case of mimicry

Posted on December 28, 2006 by cicada

The moth in spider’s clothing, via the Neurophilosopher’s weblog

Earlier, I posted about the tendency of prey species to mimic the appearance of other prey, usually to take advantage of the predator’s learned aversion to noxious species. Now the Neurophilospher reviews a strange new case, in which a prey species (the moth) mimics its predator (the jumping spider) to bluff its way out of being eaten.

It works, too: the jumping spider responds to the moth with a territorial display, lifting its front legs in the air above its head. I don’t necessarily buy that this proves the spider believes the moth is a spider – jumping spiders in my garden respond that way to me all the time – but it does show the spider thinks the moth is a threat, not a treat.

Here’s a YouTube video of the moth, and darned if it doesn’t look and move just like a jumping spider. Creepy! (The original post also links to another video of the spider’s territorial behavior).

Posted in Biology | Comments Off