|
Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
View current page
...more recent posts
I had a stomach-dropping sensation when I walked into YYZ Artists' Outlet and first saw Christopher Flower's installation because the video of shaking beads looked JUST LIKE some of my video of shaking beads which has not yet been shown. Only his looks better. And he also has a cat in box. Arg. But I figure its a big world and there's room for more than one artist to make images relating to physics and philosophy using shaking beads and cats in boxes...right? heh. Anyhow, once I got over the professional jealousy hurdle I started to really enjoy the work. There are more things shaking than cats and beads, also bagels, beer bottles, soccer balls, goldfish, and other sundry items. The installation is called The Cave, which makes tons of sense, as these objects and the patterns they make are both everyday and mysterious, un-revealing like shadows on a wall. Three monitors display three different scenes, each always a container with something bouncing around inside. I don't know how he achieved the effect, as the boxes and bowls are static, while the stuff inside is clearly bouncing and jouncing as it is being vigorously shaken. As you stand there for awhile, the accumulative effect of watching these items zoom around under unseen forces gets pretty spooky. But nothing is really hidden, you can hear the sounds of shaking, and everything has a nice clunky table-top feel. Flower cites the influence of Der Lauf Der Dinge by the artist team Peter Fischli and David Weiss (nice little trailer available here). The connection makes lots of sense, as both works share the gawky-get-somehow-thrilling dichotomies of banal/sublime, mechanical/alchemical, science/magic, experiment/performance, all handled with clumsy/finesse and DIY/expertise. The show is on til May 21st. If you are the least bit nerdy, go see it.
Omigod I love Wikipedia. Somebody uploaded this gorgeous gif of their own MRI scan.
Here's some more nice brains:
 |
 |
 |  |
Listening to Vilayanur S Ramachandran has got me looking for pictures of grey matter. His lecture on art, that I quoted earlier, was okay, but his stuff on "self" and his bizarre case studies (a la Oliver Sacks) are fabulous. He's extreme in his physiological outlook. Here's a quote:
What exactly do people mean when they speak of the self? Its defining characteristics are fourfold. First of all, continuity. You've a sense of time, a sense of past, a sense of future. There seems to be a thread running through your personality, through your mind. Second, closely related is the idea of unity or coherence of self. In spite of the diversity of sensory experiences, memories, beliefs and thoughts, you experience yourself as one person, as a unity.
So there's continuity, there's unity. And then there's the sense of embodiment or ownership - yourself as anchored to your body. And fourth is a sense of agency, what we call free will, your sense of being in charge of your own destiny. I moved my finger.
Now as we've seen in my lectures so far, these different aspects of self can be differentially disturbed in brain disease, which leads me to believe that the self really isn't one thing, but many. Just like love or happiness, we have one word but it's actually lumping together many different phenomena. For example, if I stimulate your right parietal cortex with an electrode (you're conscious and awake) you will momentarily feel that you are floating near the ceiling watching your own body down below. You have an out-of-the-body experience. The embodiment of self is abandoned. One of the axiomatic foundations of your Self is temporarily abandoned. And this is true of each of those aspects of self I was talking about. They can be selectively affected in brain disease.
Best bad joke award goes to Kevin Radigan. The third year OCAD sculpture student proved that just one person can create massive change...(heh). His installation of giant arrow and nickels is a welcome intervention on the AGO's "Massive Change" signage (which I already complained about here). While I was down there today taking pictures, passersby were laughing and stopping to chat. Lots of media interest too, and apparently the AGO are talking about making the installation permanent. I guess everyone is getting pretty sick of that big friggin sign!
 |  |  |  |  | |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
 | |||||
Thanks Tino, for the link to bike gifs!
Neurologist Vilayanur S Ramachandran on art (from BBC Reith Lectures 2003 online) (thanks to Marc Ngui):
Let's assume that 90% of the variance you see in art is driven by cultural diversity or - more cynically - by just the auctioneer's hammer, and only 10% by universal laws that are common to all brains. The culturally driven 90% is what most people already study - it's called art history. As a scientist what I am interested in is the 10% that is universal - not in the endless variations imposed by cultures. The advantage that I and other scientists have today is that unlike we can now test our conjectures by directly studying the brain empirically. There's even a new name for this discipline. My colleague Semir Zeki calls it Neuro-aesthetics - just to annoy the philosophers.Ramachandran's 10 universal laws of art:
- Peak shift
- Grouping
- Contrast
- Isolation
- Perception problem solving
- Symmetry
- Abhorrence of coincidence/generic viewpoint
- Repetition, rhythm and orderliness
- Balance
- Metaphor