bioephemera
Posts by this author
May 30, 2008
I just watched X-Men 3 again on Sunday - how exactly is a detatched suspension bridge supposed to remain intact? Grumble, grumble. . . As a result, this story on the Golden Gate at Wired.com caught my eye - but I was more intrigued by this pictorial tour of beautiful bridges. Bridges truly are the…
May 27, 2008
White Plains Hospital Bus Wrap (detail)
Nick Veasey
Self-labeled "X-Ray Photographer" Nick Veasey created this life-size bus wrap by running a bus through a million-dollar device used to screen vehicles at border checkpoints, then superimposing individual radiographs of a single corpse posed in…
May 27, 2008
After the long weekend, I'm catching up on links friends and readers have sent me. Artist Erik Nordenankar shipped a GPS device by DHL to create this giant tracking self-portrait (according to the project website, appropriately titled "biggestdrawingintheworld.com"):
This video shows how he did it…
May 23, 2008
Chris Smith and Todd Redmond of Crowboy recently asked to use my painting Fly Away Home as the cover of their new alt-country album, Making Up for Lost Time.
This painting was inspired by a rusty aqua trailer that my dad bought and refurbished twenty years ago for use as a family vacation cabin…
May 22, 2008
(Index) Finger, 1997
Pens, Pencils & Polyester Resin
Tim Hawkinson
Ace Gallery
Tim Hawkinson's artwork is more than slightly disturbing to me. As part of his artistic quest to reimagine the body, he takes found materials like pencils and transforms them into distorted, dismembered parts like…
May 15, 2008
How difficult life must be for expatriates. Moving from the West coast to the East coast has made it difficult for me to find certain brands of food, and foreign foods are doubly difficult to come by. This week, anticipating a recipe created by the fabulous Nigella Lawson, I ran out to the store…
May 14, 2008
Holiday of the Reindeer
Senya Koyakin
Watercolor on paper
The watercolor painting above is by Senya Koyakin, a middle school student in Zhigansk, Siberia. Senya's art, and that of other Siberian schoolchildren, is visiting AAAS in Washington, DC, as part of The Student Partners Project: Engaging…
May 14, 2008
Plate XVIII, 2002
Selena Kimball
From The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz
More disquieting collage art - this time from Selena Kimball. Her collage illustrations from The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz by Agniezka Taborska depict the surreal, sinister visions of a fictional 18th century…
May 7, 2008
Tomorrow and Friday I'll be attending the 33rd Annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy in Washington, DC. According to AAAS, the Forum
is the conference for people interested in public policy issues facing the science, engineering, and higher education communities.
Gotta love those…
May 6, 2008
Figureight Knot Complement vii/CMI (Clay Mathematics Award)
bronze
Helaman Ferguson
"We are living in a golden age of science and a golden age of art, and I like to celebrate that." -Helaman Ferguson
Back in March, I attended a talk by mathematician/sculptor Helaman Ferguson. He's one of the so-…
May 5, 2008
One of the benefits (?) of being a biologist is receiving biotech spam in one's inbox, as this screenshot shows. I'm a little disturbed that the subject lines of emails advertising lab reagents are not readily distinguishable from those advertising adult pharmaceuticals.
May 2, 2008
Animal Logic 2007
Richard Barnes
Richard Barnes' Animal Logic collection depicts natural history museums in a state of after-hours undress. Half-installed dioramas, partially wrapped specimens, taxidermy animals in shipping crates. . . each photo has an illicit From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs.…
May 2, 2008
This entry originally appeared November 24, 2007 on the old bioephemera. I was inspired to repost & update it after seeing this post over at Morbid Anatomy earlier this month.
Wounds (2007)
Nicole Natri
I ran across this collage by the talented Nicole Natri shortly after attending an…
April 29, 2008
Vollig Weichgestrikt
Sarah Illenberger
Those of you who enjoyed JPolka's crochet cabinet in Sunday's Cabinet of Curiosities carnival may also like these cloudlike knitted sculptures by Sarah Illenberger. I'm impressed with how effectively the yarn captures the delicate translucence of human…
April 29, 2008
Remember that today, Tuesday April 29, is Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day! Regrettably, I will be nowhere near a B&J's. . . sigh.
April 27, 2008
. . . wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine has made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature has wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included. . . [Bacon]…
April 25, 2008
Mr. Tompkins Learns the Facts of Life, 1953
Via eliz.avery's flickr stream
Happy DNA Day!
It's been slow here on the blog lately, for a number of reasons - the most salient of which is that I've been on the Hill all week at the Congressional Operations Seminar sponsored by the Government Affairs…
April 25, 2008
This is just plain cool! It's amazing how intuitive data can be when plotted visually. And as of Tax Day, you can plot your own data on a stripped-down version of this software, thanks to Google, which bought Trendalyzer from Gapminder in 2007. I can hardly wait to try this out for myself. . .
April 21, 2008
Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA, 1953
London's Natural History Museum
photo by Mo at Neurophilosophy
April 13, 2008
What did Leonardo look like? And why are people so obsessed with this question?
Greg Laden just posted a new video in which Siegfriend Woldhek (illustrator, founder of nabuur.com, and former CEO of Dutch World Wildlife Fund) uses simple logic to "discover" what he claims to be the Renaissance…
April 13, 2008
Madame Ovary , 2008
Collage, 3.5 x 5.5"
Richard Russell
Following up neatly on my post about Nicole Natri's anatomical collage, artist Richard Russell mixes beeswax and book art to create provocative, creepily symbolic images like Madame Ovary (above). Russell describes himself as a serious…
April 10, 2008
Vanitas, 2008
Nicole Natri
My friend Nicole Natri has finished her new website, updating her blog and portfolio of collage art. Nicole has a somewhat dark artistic vision involving sinister medical implements and bizarre anatomical diagrams - which she seems to have no trouble finding in vintage…
April 8, 2008
S. Watson's American Museum of Living Curiosities
British Library, via Museum of Hoaxes
It will be my pleasure to host the April edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities blog carnival created by Tim at Walking the Berkshires. According to Tim, here's what you're in for:
What I have in mind is show…
April 8, 2008
Hochgekocht, 2008
Sarah Illenberger
Vertumnus (portrait of Rudolph II), 1591
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
April 7, 2008
Untitled (labrador), 1995
Stuffed labrador, polyester
Merijn Bolink
Reader Jan-Maarten kindly directed me to the artwork of Dutch sculptor Merijn Bolink:
In Untitled (labrador) from 1995, a stuffed female dog is followed by a bevy of small plastic dogs -at first glance the host of little ones…
April 5, 2008
This week, I'm completely infatuated with the eclectic, macabre vision of young Irish designer Jonathan Anderson. From his fall/winter 07 collection:
A contemporary look at Russian surrealism, J.W. Anderson's autumn/winter 2008 menswear and jewellery collection, The Rattle Bag, delves into the…
April 4, 2008
It looks like the British Museum has a good chance of keeping this medieval brass astrolabe quadrant on public display in the UK. The export license for the device has been delayed until June, giving the BM a chance to raise its 350,000-pound selling price - which should please retrotechnophiles…
April 2, 2008
Silvio, 2005
turtle shell, brass hardware, beads, bone, antique vestment trim, leather, glass eyes
Jessica Joslin
I sat down on the Metro this morning and read a most inauspicious horoscope:
"Your interest in things unusual, unexplained, bizarre and at times tasteless is likely to make it…
April 2, 2008
Ok, I'm not sure if I should be pleased or not that my friends automatically send me links to stories about octopus courtship.
Apparently "marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subterfuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex." Whoa! Why…
April 1, 2008
Untitled (Everything at once, or one thing at a time?), 2004
oil, paper, and printed matter on board
Robert Van Vranken
Commissioned by the National Academy of Science
This is my favorite artwork at the National Academy of Science - a trompe l'oeil window of reclaimed architectural elements,…