{science} – Page 53 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links: 2012 edition

The Hand of Fate, Life magazine, October, 1912. Artist unknown.

• In Search of Barney Bubbles: the great graphic designer is profiled on BBC Radio 4, Monday, 2nd January. And speaking of album cover designers, Cool Hunting talked to Storm Thorgerson about his work.

• FACT mix 310 is a hugely eclectic two-parter from Moon Wiring Club. Grab it while it’s still available. And there’s also Solstmas 2011/2: The Final Countdown, a mix by El Minko Misterioso.

• One of the music events of the new year will be the release of Captain Beefheart’s Bat Chain Puller album. Pre-order it here.

In 1972, at the age of thirty-one, [Fred] Halsted released L.A. Plays Itself, a film which drew upon Kenneth Anger’s surrealist eroto-expressionism, and went way beyond Anger’s sublimated homoeroticism to explicitly portray gay male S/M sex. In 1969, when Halsted first decided to make a sexually explicit film, he decided to create a part for himself, and then be that part.

Halsted Plays Himself by William E. Jones reviewed at Lambda Literary

• Lunar Rover: An interview with Steve Moore and extract from Somnium.

• Battersea Power Station, a graveyard of architectural schemes.

Editors might admire a fine book, but are overridden by marketing and accounting departments who now have the final say. I know of a novel that wasn’t accepted by one publisher after the manuscript was first submitted to W.H. Smith, who said that it wouldn’t sell enough.

Jenny Diski on the state of fiction publishing in the UK

• EU copyright on James Joyce‘s works ended at midnight.

• Dressed to Kill: Dispelling the Myths of Men in Drag.

• The Geology of the Mountains of Madness

• Mandala of the Day

• Chomeography

• The Floppy Boot Stomp (1978 mix) by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.

Le Poulpe Colossal

If this isn’t quite the ur-Kraken of illustration history, it’s one of them, reproduced countless times when sea monster depictions are required. The source is Histoire naturelle, générale et particuliere, des mollusques, animaux sans vertèbres et a sang blanc (1802) by Felix de Roissy, some of whose other illustrations are in this Flickr set from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

There are further cephalopodic curios in the BHL Mollusks and Invertebrates sets, the example below being from Résultats des campagnes scientifiques accomplies sur son yacht (1889), a fine collection of what the French would call aquarelles.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Abysmal creatures
• Fascinating tentacula
• Jewelled butterflies and cephalopods
• The art of Rune Olsen
• Octopulps
• Coming soon: Sea Monsters and Cannibals!

Mathematics – A Beautiful Elsewhere

David Lynch turns up again via a post at New Scientist about Mathematics – A Beautiful Elsewhere, an exhibition currently running at the Fondation Cartier, Paris:

A large number of mathematicians and scientists contributed to the creation of this exhibition, and eight of them acted as its overseers: SIR MICHAEL ATIYAH, JEAN-PIERRE BOURGUIGNON, ALAIN CONNES, NICOLE EL KAROUI, MISHA GROMOV, GIANCARLO LUCCHINI, CÉDRIC VILLANI and DON ZAGIER. Representing a wide range of geographical backgrounds and mathematical disciplines, they work in areas such as number theory, algebraic geometry, differential geometry, topology, partial differential equations, probability, mathematics applied to biology…

They were accompanied by nine artists chosen for their exceptional ability to listen, as well as for their great sense of curiosity and wonder. All of these artists have exhibited at the Fondation Cartier in the past: JEAN-MICHEL ALBEROLA, RAYMOND DEPARDON AND CLAUDINE NOUGARET, TAKESHI KITANO, DAVID LYNCH, BEATRIZ MILHAZES, PATTI SMITH, HIROSHI SUGIMOTO and TADANORI YOKOO, as well as Pierre Buffin and his crew (BUF). They worked together to transform the abstract thinking of mathematics into a stimulating experience for the mind and the senses, an experience accessible to everyone.

The image above is credited to the surprising combination of Lynch and artist/collagist/psychedelicist Tadanori Yokoo. There’s a catalogue of works on the Fondation site but since all the pages there are Flash-based it’s impossible to link to anything. One of the pieces that caught my attention was by Beatriz Milhazes, a Brazilian artist whose work I don’t recall having seen before although she’s been exhibited in the UK. Her abstract paintings are gorgeous things. The James Cohan Gallery has a selection of her work.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• David Lynch window displays
• David Lynch in Paris

Hive Culture and Shamanic Illuminations

Apiphobia (2011) by Anonda Bell.

A couple of exhibitions opening this week for those in the New York area. Hive Culture: Captivated by the Honeybee is at the Glyndor Gallery at Wave Hill where 18 artists present works inspired by our favourite pollinating insects:

Painting, prints, sculpture, photography and video are featured, by artists Jennifer Angus, Anonda Bell, Deborah Davidovits, Anda Dubinskis, Cara Enteles, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Sally Gall, Hope Ginsburg, Talia Greene, Judi Harvest, Rob Keller, Andrea Lilienthal, Holly Lynton, Lenore Malen, Julia Oldham, Michelle Rozic, Jeanne Silverthorne and Draga Šušanj.

This isn’t solely an art exhibition. In October Wave Hill will be staging a series of bee- and honey-related events, details of which can be found on their press release (PDF).

El Encanto de las Piedras by Pablo Amaringo.

Over at the ACA Galleries, Shamanic Illuminations which opens on Thursday will feature the art of Pablo Amaringo, Alex Grey and Mieshiel. There’s little detail at the moment on their website but they have a preview of the paintings including a number of Amaringo’s vivid, ayahuasca-inspired works which are psychedelic in every sense of the word. Shamanic Illuminations runs from September 15 to October 22. Via Phantasmaphile.

Weekend links 75

Eternal Pain (1913) by Paul Dardé. (And also here)

Rain Taxi caused a stir this week with its savaging of Hamlet’s Father by science fiction writer Orson Scott Card. The book is another of Card’s blatherings about the hell of being homosexual dressed in garments stolen from the unfortunate William Shakespeare. Rain Taxi made the obvious point about many of Shakespeare’s sonnets being homoerotic. For my part I was more appalled by the quoted extract which reduced one of the greatest plays in the language to that lifeless, cardboard-character-speak which is endemic in bad genre writing. News of the travesty quickly spread to gay news blogs, The Outer Alliance and elsewhere, ensuring that what’s left of Card’s reputation continues to spiral down a Mel Gibson-shaped black hole.

• “Sounds only like itself, like no one before or after.” Julian Cope on Tago Mago by Can which will be reissued in a new edition in November. Nice to see the return of the original sleeve design, something I saw once in a record shop then didn’t see again for years. For a long time I thought I’d imagined it. Related: two German art exhibitions inspired by the group.

• The Responsive Eye (1965), a catalogue for the MoMA exhibition that launched Op Art. Also at Ubuweb: La femme 100 têtes, a film by Eric Duvivier based on the collage work by Max Ernst.

• More apocalyptic art: William Feaver on John Martin whose exhibition will be opening at Tate Britain later this month. There’s a trailer here.

• Borges and I, an essay by Nandini Ramachandran. Related: Buenos Aires: Las Calles de Borges, a short film by Ian Ruschel.

• “Who was JG Ballard? Don’t ask his first biographer,” says Robert McCrum.

• Biologically-inspired fabric and material design by Neri Oxman.

• Cross-pollinating subgenres: “Steampunk ambient” at Disquiet.

• In the Shadow of Saturn, a photo by the Cassini spacecraft.

• The art and fashion designs of Alia Penner.

• Fleet of hybrid airships to conquer Arctic.

• RIP Jordan Belson, filmmaker.

• Ten years of Ladytron whose new album is released on the 12th of September: Playgirl (2001), Seventeen (2002), Destroy Everything You Touch (2005), Sugar (2005), Ghosts (2008), Ace Of Hz (2011).