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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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The Marvels of Chemistry
Speaking of petroleum, let's take a look at the photograph on this page. What's that? You don't see what petroleum has to do with it? Well, look again! Except for those objects made of metal — and of course, the people themselves— almost everything in the photograph is made of synthetic or man-made materials. What's more, most of those materials were originally derived from petroleum, and they are among the many marvels of chemistry.
(note: images and quote are excerpted from a clipping from an old Disney kid's book on science, featuring Donald Duck & his brood ... circa. 1965?)
Yesterday M.Jean and I went to see Body Worlds 2. It was both utterly predictable and entirely fascinating. I thought of it as an R&D mission, but I don't have anything conclusive to report. At least not yet. A few notes:
The show is really sexist which is distracting and irritating. All the female cadavers are in super-feminine poses: ballet, figure skating, angel, and the so-called "Yoga Lady" could as easily be titled "Doggy Style." feh. Given that the premise of the show is about as essentialist as you can get, the unsophisticated cultural overlay was pretty annoying.
A weird detail is that each display bears a brushed steel placard with Gunther Von Hagens' signature. It's all very 19th century curio-cabinet, which I find kind of groovy and grotesque.
The show is laced with big purple banners carrying quotes from Nietsche, Goethe, Kant, Sartre, and the like. Secular and existential and weirdly comforting.
The dead guy playing baseball is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.
Both M. Jean and I thought we could smell human decay on more than one occasion, and both of us suspected it was just our imagination.
The body parts are really neat and I was not repelled or disgusted. I held a Plastinated human brain in my hand, which felt a tad transgressive. By the end of the exhibit, other (living) people's faces looked the way I felt: thoughtful, mildly deppressed, and mildly confused. Afterwards I felt leaden and tired, as if I'd been watching trashy TV for 12 hours.
A few quotes:
"Societies that lose all sense of reverence for the dead will lose it also for the living."
- Andrew Stuttaford
"What I do is not art, nor is it science,' he says. 'It reaches into artistry but the effect goes beyond education because feelings and emotions are involved."
- Gunther Von Hagens, quoted by Imogen O'Rorke in the Observer.
"It would take a lot of beers for me to be attracted to a skinless woman. So beauty is skin deep and this exhibit proves it. Or does it? There is something profoundly beautiful about the skinless body. I propose that the famous saying should be corrected. Sexy is skin deep whereas beauty goes through to the bone. [...] I do not perceive it as gratuitous exploitation, or even if it is, it is justifiable as it invites us (or invited me at any rate) to confront the unthinkable. There is no snobbery, just an unforgettable and accessible presentation of anatomy and a desire to give knowledge."
- Jim Eadon
Yes, I have been playing with dolls. Love that face-editing stuff. This art game on rhizome made me go looking for paper dolls online. There's lots. duh. I must be regressing. Before I went doll hunting I was browsing for cats and found this site, which may not have the best cat pictures ever, but does have the best fancy flashing fonts and winking bears (click on MiniMiezen).
I should just make mention here that Canadian Club, the Persona Volare exhibition at Rodman Hall in St. Catharine',s is f***ing great. If you are looking for a field trip, go there and see it. I wrote a little bit about their last exhibition here. I enjoyed all three of their shows, but in the past have felt that the artists were really disaparate and I couldn't see much reason, other than convenience and social fun -- which are fine reasons -- for all these works to be shown together. This time, however, the show is really coherent! Maybe some cross-talk has been developing over the years. Not only that, but everyone's work is cranked up a notch, really, really good stuff. Of course I am always thrilled to see the lovely and brilliaint art of the lovely and brilliant Lorna Mills. Other highlights for me were Rebecca Diederichs' big digital banners that hit a fine juicey balance between abstraction, typography and narrative; John Dickson's foggy sci-fi cardboard city that was spooky cool in affect (apparently where there's smoke there's not always fire); Chantal Rousseau's totally freaking awesome little black and white animations about strange birds; and Michael Davey's wonky snow cones on the shoe tips video. I liked all the other works too by Lyla Rye, Lisa Neighbour, Brian Hobbs, Carlo Cesta, Kate Wilson, Johannes Zits, and Reid Diamond.
skeptical neurologists & friends debunk brain philosophy
Warning: this video contains the word "qualia."