bioephemera is art + biology - anything and everything from representations of science in art and literature to the neuroscience of aesthetics. Along with lots of other stuff that's just plain interesting.
Jessica Palmer is a biologist & artist currently based in Washington, DC. She spent the last few years teaching at a small state college out West, and now plays with science policy. Her homepage includes the bioephemera archives & a gallery of her work.
Note: the contents of this blog are the personal opinions of the author, completely independent of any organizations with which she is affiliated.
August 20, 2008
Category: Department of the Drama
Check it out! For my birthday, my mom sent me two little bird skulls! They weigh almost nothing - I can't even feel them in my hand.
I guess I have to forgive my mom for some of the embarrassing things she did to me while I was a teenager; few girls have a mom who will collect skulls for them, much less wrap them up and mail them. Thanks, mom!
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 5:01 PM • 3 Comments
August 19, 2008
Category: Artists & Art • Museum Lust • Wonder Cabinets
Very Slow, Very Tired
Machine-Animals
Nicholas Lampert, 2006
I promised last week to review the MoMA exhibition "Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities." Since making that promise, I've heard from several more friends that they've been to see it - so perhaps this review is preaching to the choir! I was extremely impressed with the breadth and curation of this show, and would go again, if I were in NYC.
Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities, arose in mid-sixteenth-century Europe as repositories for all manner of wondrous and exotic objects. In essence these collections--combining specimens, diagrams, and illustrations from many disciplines; marking the intersection of science and superstition; and drawing on natural, manmade, and artificial worlds--can be seen as the precursors to museums. This exhibition presents a contemporary interpretation of the traditional cabinet of curiosities, bringing together a diverse selection of works by twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists who have likewise felt the pull of unusual and extraordinary objects and phenomena.
It's hardly necessary anymore to explain what a cabinet of curiosities is, and MoMA doesn't really try to define it. After all, the Wunderkammer design aesthetic has been a staple of high-end retailers for several years (Anthropologie, Pottery Barn), and artists have been tapping into it like never before. Today, wonder cabinets are slightly overexposed - a paradoxical state, given that they were originally intended to show off unique and valuable specimens, and/or impose order on things so unusual they defy reason and expectation. In short, wonder cabinets are like the Spanish Inquisition: you shouldn't expect them, and if you do, they're not doing their job.
That said, the MoMA curators did their job. Within a small gallery space, and limited mostly to prints, they created a show that effectively elicits both curiosity and surprise. The content of the works varied from disquieting to freakish - with an appreciation that the most disturbing artwork is often that which marries the familiar with the unknown. Jake and Dinos Chapman's Untitled: From Exquisite Corpse (2000) is an obvious example of this, bloating horribly from from the innocent, little-girl head down to the monstrous claws and "feet."
Untitled from Exquisite Corpse
one from a portfolio of twenty etchings
Dinos and Jake Chapman, 2000
The most excellent thing about this piece is that you probably recognize that little girl, don't you?
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 6:40 PM • 9 Comments
Category: Science in Culture & Policy
My friend Don Engel, a physicist, is running for delegate to the Maryland Assembly. In addition to understanding math far better than I ever will, he's extremely web-savvy, and has harnessed Facebook to mobilize supporters.
A few days ago, Don sent out this link to his ElectBlue page:
As a scientist, I'm excited about bringing a different, much-needed perspective to the state legislature.
As far as getting there, this perspective has a handicap attached. My personal network has many scientists and techies. Other candidates' networks tend to have many former law school classmates who understand the importance of donations in the political process. I believe that scientists' aversion to giving political donations is one of the reasons that scientific expertise is so absent in policy making.
Obviously one can't run a successful campaign without donations. But is the problem that scientists and techies don't "understand the importance of donations"? I doubt it - I'd suggest they simply don't have the financial resources lawyers do. After all, a postdoc or professor at a small college can make less than $40K a year.
Or, is it really that scientists genuinely do have an aversion to making campaign donations - perhaps because we'd prefer political races to be decided on the candidates' merits, using a rigorous peer-reviewed methodology? If that's the case, and if the financial support of personal and professional networks are so important to politics, then will scientists always be hampered in their quest to use their scientific backgrounds in public office? Does the scientific community need to make a conscious effort to support and elect our fellow geeks?
I really don't know what I think about this issue, so it's wide open. . .
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 1:00 PM • 8 Comments
August 18, 2008
Category: Department of the Drama • Education • Frivolity • Gender Issues • Science in Culture & Policy
Jen Ouellette takes lethal aim at the myth of the sexless girl-geek in this post, which made me want to pump my fist and cheer and go out dancing in a sexy dress and look in a microscope and write a blog post all at the same time:
The mistake many people make, however, is to over-compensate too far in the other direction, wherein anything remotely "girly" is somehow exerting undue pressure on young girls, with no thought to the possibility that maybe some girls genuinely like this stuff. Maybe this is part of who they are. Maybe they also like science and math. Ergo, we are putting a whole different kind of peer pressure on them that also squelches their individuality, by insisting they simply can't be both interested in science and in clothes and makeup. ("Accessorizing is evil and will turn you into a bubblehead! Put down that Coach handbag and back away slowly! Do it for science!") . . .
But you know, I grew up hearing I was smart quite a bit, and while I'm grateful for that, it didn't save me from struggling with self-image and self-worth. That's just part of growing up. Since hardly anyone (other than my mom, and who can believe their mom?) ever bothered to tell me I was pretty as well, I concluded I was ugly. Ergo, I just didn't bother with anything involving my physical appearance, figuring it was hopeless. In so doing, I ignored an important part of my identity.
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 6:40 PM • 8 Comments
Category: Artists & Art • Photography • Retrotechnology
This is one of the most strangely compelling artworks I've encountered recently: a pinhole camera made from a 150-year-old skull.
Wayne Martin Belger's Third Eye is a human skull with a tiny hole drilled in the traditional location of the mystical "third eye." The pinhole allows light to enter the cranium and expose photographic film.
The cranium is opened and the film accessed through an elaborate, gothic set of findings crafted from jewelled aluminum, titanium, brass and silver. The effect is steampunky, but also reminiscent of the decorative metalwork used in saints' reliquaries.
Even more striking are the gelatin silver prints Belger creates using this camera. Ghostly and distorted, they could almost represent the visions of the skull's disembodied spirit - the spirit, according to Belger, of an adolescent girl:
Two Hearts
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 10:30 AM • 10 Comments
August 17, 2008
Category: Department of the Drama
Okay, I haven't been very active on the blog the past few days because I'm on vacation - hopefully, an artistic vacation, during which I will actually paint something. To motivate me to paint that something, I commit to you, readers, that I will have some art product, however sketchy, to post in the next few days. If I do not, mock me mercilessly in the comment section. I have so far framed two pieces for a local group show I'm doing in a few weeks, and that's a good start, right?
I also plan to plow through the giant pile of blog fodder which is slowly devouring my computer desk - news clippings, postcards, dog-eared books, etc. I got a start yesterday by reorganizing my blogroll, deleting some nonfunctional links and sorting it by category, which should help to make it more useful to you. I'll be adding a few more links over the next few days as I sync it with my RSS feeds.
In the meantime, I leave you with this teasing-yet-serious editorial by David Brooks, from the August 7 NYT:
All my life I've been a successful pseudo-intellectual, sprinkling quotations from Kafka, Epictetus and Derrida into my conversations, impressing dates and making my friends feel mentally inferior. But over the last few years, it's stopped working. People just look at me blankly. My artificially inflated self-esteem is on the wane. What happened?--Existential in Exeter
David Brooks' answer? The iPhone, natch! And it's true - I no longer have to make conversation at cocktail parties, I just pass my iPhone around. I did it on Friday at Happy Hour. Let's be honest, people would rather play Crash Bandicoot and look at satellite maps than talk stuffily about culture. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Discuss amongst yourselves! Meanwhile, I'll be over here in the corner battling artists' block. . .
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 10:08 AM • 8 Comments
August 13, 2008
Category: Artists & Art • Books • Destinations • Museum Lust • Wonder Cabinets
Le Corbeau Volant, 1875
Edouard Manet
While in NYC last weekend, I squeezed in an hour at the MoMA to see their exhibition Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities (July 30-Nov 10, 2008). It's really phenomenal. The main criticism I heard as I wandered the gallery was that the collection was perhaps a bit incoherent and scattered, and that may be true, but order barely imposed on a chaotic diversity of specimens is the essence of a wonder cabinet - isn't it?
This was one of the specimens that caught my eye: a simple, fluid lithograph of a flying raven by Edouard Manet. It's from the illustrated French edition of "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. Apparently Stephane Mallarme, the poet who translated "The Raven" into French, was friends with Manet, and they collaborated on this edition.
I fully agree with the curator who chose the ex libris image above for inclusion in the MoMA collection: it's timeless and graceful, and a little bit sinister. Unfortunately, the other lithographs Manet did strike me as boring. Ultimately, the book was not very popular, perhaps because Poe, Manet, and Mallarme were not yet well-known - or perhaps because (in my opinion, at least) the bookplate was the best thing about it!
I'll post my review of the MoMA exhibition in a few days.
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 8:24 AM • 11 Comments
August 11, 2008
Category: Frivolity • Science in Advertising
I love egregious examples of faux-scientific jargon and weird portrayals of the research process in advertising. I just noticed that Rembrandt, the company that makes tooth whitening systems, has a couple of doozies. From their "Brilliant Science" website:
At REMBRANDT®, we believe if you want to make something different, you have to do things a little differently. That's why we like to think outside the lab (which is, in actuality, a giant box). Who knows when a cloud in the sky or guitar playing in the park will lead to the next bit of amazingness. It's this novel, creative approach to science that has led us to think differently about our mouth.
This is like Apple ad copy (Think Different!) crossed with a preschool activity schedule (giant boxes, clouds, parks, guitars). But wait! According to the copy on their 2 Hour Whitening Kit,
As we continue to make great advances in oral care, sometimes we have to stop and enjoy a good laugh. Laughing releases endorphins, neurotransmitters that make you feel good. Exposing yourself to the laughter of others can have the same effect.
I'm not sure I like the advice to "expose yourself to the laughter of others." I mean, is this whitening kit going to turn my teeth green? That would elicit a burst of cortisol, not endorphins.
But I do appreciate the vision of a bunch of scientists working solemnly in the Oral Care lab (which is, in actuality, a giant box), and periodically breaking into eerily synchronized group belly-laughs. Scientists are people too, you know - people who must self-medicate with laughter-induced endorphins because we work in giant boxes.
Still, Rembrandt's ad team ultimately charmed me with their wacky mission statement, What We Believe:
It's good to have a mouth.
A healthy mouth that sits inside your head. Right next to your brain. They're friends, these two. They work together. . . A mouth is the closest you'll ever get to a person's mind. Its a direct link to another person's experience. The power of a healthy mouth that works well shouldn't be underestimated. Gums stand tall. Teeth white, smiling. Tongue bouncing around. Verbal surprise flying out. That is brilliance.
Okay, okay, you win: my mouth is smiling, if only because that must be among the weirdest series of images ever used to describe the human oral cavity.
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 5:32 PM • 6 Comments
August 10, 2008
Category: Artists & Art
From Canadian artist Francis Koch at Uberbrain, art that mixes Art Nouveau design, steampunk elements and a post-industrial grit. It's like Alphonse Mucha with sinister animals instead of languid nymphs.
Posted by Jessica Palmer at 9:40 AM • 4 Comments
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(Non-U.S. subscribers, click here.)
