January 2012 Archives

I have been observing the activities (and sometimes lack thereof) of a Giant Pacific Octopus via webcam housed at the Hatfield Marine Science Center at Oregon State University. Here's the link to the Octocam if you're curious. She is a new octopus at the facility and they're keeping her in a quarantine tank until mid February to make sure she's healthy and acclimate her to people. When I'm at home I have the live feed on most of the time and have been writing a journal entry of sorts each day. Now I need to start translating the entries into notations. Her color and texture shifts are so dramatic sometimes and I'd like to notate those expressions.

Kate Casanova

The Imaging Center was amazing. On the microscope with the video camera (can't remember the name) we looked at the underside of a starfish and identified tiny, cube shaped salt crystals clinging to it from salt water. Sight is arguably the most important sense to humans and these devices give us a look at the world in ways otherwise impossible. I am interested in observing the activities of tiny organisms. They're micro-universes seem so alien.

Kate Casanova

I've been tracking my mouse movements for 15 minutes a day everyday since January 20th while doing an internet search to track down a person. Here are some of the dates and their corresponding notations. I want to try layering them over top of each other or possibly figuring out how to differentiate each day by color.

-Teréz

I'm always interested in how things work, and the interaction of different parts in a complex system. An interesting thing about the imaging lab was how the scientists and technicians interacted with the digital and mechanical equipment and biological material. Each contributed to the experience, and also to make the invisible apparent. The scientist needed to explore the various calibrations in order to achieve the most articulate image. The material presented challenged these folks to work with the equipment in a very creative mode; exploring, experiencing and reacting to both the digital/mechanical and the biological. Observation of this process is an example of how humans can co-exist with other life, rather than dominate, as Young had suggested.

Once again, I observed the movements of Sea Monkeys by way of a projection system which I then recorded their paths by tracing their shadows. This week, I moved to a slightly different form of notation, in which I distinguished between the young, smaller sea monkeys with pencil and the mature sea monkeys with watercolor. And again, the limits of the tank are represented by the diagonal lines on the sides of the image.

I am trying to approach a more methodical type of notation more akin to an 'experiment'. I am most interested in understanding the sea monkeys' cognizance. Before, I didn't distinguish between the maturity levels of the sea monkeys, mostly because the young ones are so tiny, I didn't notice they were there until I looked closely. But it was apparent to me that the young sea monkeys were aware that there was a bright light projecting through the water, and were even attracted to it. This is seen in how the paths of the young sea monkeys begin and terminate mostly all within the image. Whereas the more mature sea monkeys are either unaware of the light, or uninterested in it, because their paths frequently pass beyond the boundaries of the image.

One thing I found interesting at the imaging lab was the difference between the 3 devices. I understand how the 2 more powerful microscopes were conceptually much more interesting than the stereoscope, but the stereoscope, to me, was much more aesthetically interesting. While the confocal microscopes allowed you to understand the biological body much more deeply, the stereoscope presented much more visible detail.

However, the other two microscopes seem to be capable of providing much more interesting information over the course of time. The idea of viewing microscopic changes over time might yield some interesting results for me.

Blog author Regine [we make money not art] blogged about the recent installation of H.O.R.T.U.S. (Hydro Organism Responsive to Urban Stimuli).

She reveals her uncertain response to the project. What is your response to this installation, what questions might your have for the architectural group that created it?

What I found to be the most interesting piece of equipment at the Imaging Center (though they were all pretty impressive) was the macro-confocal microscope, which revealed natural fluorescence in organisms. When looking at Laura's monarch wing under the microscope, she pointed out how each individual scale follows a Cartesian system (x and y axes). It was like looking at a blueprint of nature on a very micro level. The formation of the individual scales seemed to mimic the way humans lay shingles on a roof and could be best described as micro architecture.

The white spot on the monarch wing was also imperfect under the microscope. It wasn't made to be a perfect circle or ellipse, but had a white scale or two that lay outside the general cluster of white scales. This caused the greatest amounts of fluorescence to be slightly scattered across the wing, rather than all entirely concentrated within the white spot. There was something humbling about seeing the imperfections of such a small creature. I began thinking about how the dialogue between science and nature often revolves around how to correct and perfect upon nature's flaws in both animals and in humans. It was the first time I ever considered that a monarch and I could have anything in common, both flawed creatures when put under scrutiny.

I'm now considering a project involving before and after photos of genetically modified plants, essentially mirroring the use of before and after photos in popular culture (i.e. weight loss ,fashion makeovers, plastic surgery. I'm curious to see how new and improved versions of these organisms compare to their naturally occurring ancestors.

-Teréz

while i think the imaging lab was an unbelievably neat experience, i am really not sure what to take away from it. the confocal microscopes were the ones i spent the most time with... and while everyone there did a wonderful job explaining to me how they work in i way i could understand and why they are incredibly useful i just didn't know how i could personally connect with the technology in a way that would be "useful" to me. while the imaging was amazing and i fully understood how awesome it was for me to be standing next to a piece of machinery that could do what they did, i left shrugging.

i spent a lot of the time wondering about the colors of the fiber optic and laser lights they were choosing for the samples and why those were the ones they were using (i must have missed that part somehow). in the end when i asked diane it was a disappointingly simple answer, those were the colors that the samples were created to react to. i think this was disappointing to me because right now in my personal research i spend most of my time exploring metamerism and what different spectrums of light mean for me as a lighting designer and painter. i had hoped that there was some room for playing with the microscopes and the samples... or perhaps that was what they were doing to get those results which didn't make sense because the color of the sample, the color of the light, and the color of the image did not jive with my understanding of LED color mixing.

i definitely value the experience on many levels, but i just don't know what to do with any of the knowledge i have acquired from it yet.

This score represents the first step in a process I am using to compose a piece for double bass about the growth and death of yeast. Each staff contains pictures of the yeast at different stages. In the first staff, each measure captures the yeast at one minute intervals. The second staff captures the yeast at five minute intervals. The third staff captures the yeast at intervals of one hour and the fourth captures the yeast once per day. Tomorrow, I will coat the surface of the yeast in sugar and reverse the time intervals.

Yeast Staff1.psd.pdf

After looking at a butterfly wing under a series of microscopes I began to muse about the potential lenses have to shift our perspectives. The butterfly, for example, is often deployed as a cliche metaphor in poetry or song, but the lens itself twists that romanticized image out of its stilted, dead state--we see the point where the wing was ripped from the body of the creature and the scales that grow off of the substrate of its wings. We not only see new aspects of the butterflies physical makeup, but we see a glimpse of what happened to its living body (and the violence that happened to its carcass). The lens is capable of shifting both our symbolic and material understandings of the thing that we place under them--indeed, the symbolic and the material need not be distinct categories.

How does the perspective of a lens (or lenses, plural) shift, alter, elapse, and mechanically embody subjectivity? To what degree is the lens itself made of the flesh that manipulates and views the images it optically (or physically) re-presents? To what degree can lenses explode point of view? To what degree do they "other" (estrange) the subjective out of the familiar, embodied form and place it in the material, bio-political realm of raw actants? The potential of the microscopes we used to shift our viewpoints out of our familiarized realm of the experiential is quite wonderful, I think. They allowed us to view things that would normally be impossible to see. They also gave new, more complex, viewpoints of images that we might already have from other similar technologies--these are lenses that allow to see new viewpoints that may have political potential.

Take the idea of a "mood"--we can say that it is an effect of being in a body, or we can look at the various chemical processes that led to that mood (a Vitamin D or Omega-3 deficiency, perhaps). Or, we can begin to think about how trash isn't simply "away" in the landfill (since it is directly removed from a direct, phenomenological relationship)--the trash is engaged in a series of complex actions: leeching chemicals, building up its volume in a particular area, and producing massive clouds of harmful methane gas. The ability to take on this vitalized form of materialism--where other things act--can allow for a critical eye on how bodies are being affected. This can also be applied to human bodies--what is the perspective of the "other," what happens when the quality of that lens gets leveled to be on the same level as our own? What happens when currents, weather patterns, or even butterflies exert biopolitical power. What lens do butterflies see through? To what degree are our lenses merged and of the same raw, material "stuff" ?

Also, I found this cool new popular application of some of the same imaging technologies we used in the lab:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7babcK2GH3I&feature=player_embedded

These are macro lens photographs of Physarum polycephalum engulfing and consuming sterilized oats. This is my first attempt growing the organism from the initial culture I received.

Transformation_Vector_info.pdf

1. Allow tube containing competent E. coli cells to thaw on ice.

2. When cells have thawed pipette 2 μl of the of plasmids into the cells.

3. Mix the DNA and cells by gently flicking the tube.

4. Incubate on ice for 5 minutes.

5. Heat-shock the cells for 30 seconds at 42°C.

6. Immediately transfer the tubes to ice.

5. Add 250 μl of room temperature LB Medium.

6. Cap the tube tightly and shake the tube at 37°C for 1 hour.

7. Spread cells onto plates as indicated in the table below.

.....Quantity of cells (µL).....................Plate type
.....2 µL.............................................LB (one line on plate)
.....2 µL.............................................LB Ampicillin (two lines on plate)
.....2 µL.............................................LB Amp, Arabinose, IPTG (three lines on plate)
.....100 µL.........................................LB Amp, Arabinose, IPTG (three lines on plate)

8. Grow overnight at 37°C.

After leaving the class on Tuesday, I told my dad I got the chance to work with state of the art microscopes (a rare occurrence for me as an art and theatre student) that each cost more than my entire undergraduate tuition 8 times over, and the reason behind why I got to (for an art class) left me feeling puzzled. We might get to use these new technologies from another department for the sake of "art" - in a way it's a privilege, in another way, I feel it comments at a much larger and more interesting philosophical concept. Upon reflection of my experience at the imaging center, I found myself amused at the entire concept of the center, as well as at our reason for being there. I have to step back and remind myself of the larger picture sometimes:

I am taking a class registered under the title of 'art studio' within a large university. We are exploring the biological body within art and are, as a class body, an assembly of biological human bodies, each with very different and unique sets of skills, interests, backgrounds, disciplines, and credentials. We are getting the chance to use state of the art equipment to observe anything (within the limits of the research facility) we want, and to then manipulate the products of our research in anyway we want in order to achieve an artistic aesthetic yet to be determined.

All this makes me wonder if there is not some other kind of biological body observing us for the sake of their own strange ways of self expression - or maybe that is just my own projection onto another life form that may not even exist. These microscopes are so fixed on specific details of microscopic (no pun intended) forms that I sometimes can't even grasp what it is we are seeing through the lenses. I would be interested in zooming out to look at a larger picture and observe live organisms - cells or animals - just as they move about. The images we could look at of the butterfly wing, or cat whiskers, or roots of a mustard plant are all incredibly fascinating; but what do those images mean? I get so lost within these tiny details and so caught up with my own fascination of the complexity of what it is we are seeing that I easily forget how all of that information connects back to my reason for being here.

So, instead of starting out small and trying to expand outwards to figure out what those ideas mean, I'd like to start with a larger idea and work my way down because I learn better when I can see the process by delving into a subject layer by layer rather than starting at the smallest possible detail and working my way back in order to relate it to a larger picture.

Hannah S

1/24/12

As I experience the world and forms of life in it, it is evident that the presence of gravity has a profound effect on the evolution of species and the expression of traits. I find the relationship of the fundamental force of gravity with biology to be fascinating. It dictates why whales have evolved to be so massive. But there is also some kind of resilience to gravity that insects have despite the constant force of gravity which I can't explain, but is amazing because it completely breaks the proportional relationship between gravity and size that we would expect.

What was engaging about visiting the imaging lab was using tools made by man that break the barrier that prevent us from interacting with bodies out of scale with humans. We have evolved our senses and their limits for a reason, and by making and using such tools, it feels almost forbidden or special that we can engage with things so small or so huge.

I am interested in biological bodies at the cellular level. I find humans and animals difficult and relatively uninteresting to study because they operate under motives. Micro-organisms, cells, molecules are pure biology to me, and therefore more interesting and telling about the phenomenon of life.

I'm attaching a tiny picture because it is in the same vane as my comment about man's use of tools to see things beyond our intended limits. This is a cell phone picture I took a few years ago through a telescope of Jupiter. The two tiny dots to the right of Jupiter are two of its moons. It is absolutely mind-blowing to think that we can do that.

-Peter

It is interesting to consider that when we say "the ocean is blue," what we actually mean is that it is blue to us as humans with our eyes that are sensitive to particular light wavelengths. Blueness does not have to do with the ocean's essence as much as the particles (is this the right terminology?) it is made of, which absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. They of course have other properties as well that arguably make the ocean what it is. In the imaging lab I was struck by the fact that these scientists are looking for ways to visually differentiate parts of cells, creatures, etc. but are not necessarily concerned with how it looks, just what the way it looks tells us. They are using different colored lights and fluorescence to indicate material differences or to illuminate actions. They want things to be visible by whatever means possible. What they are looking for seems to have to do more with differentiating relationships among things/materials/processes, which is possibly a more objective way to understand the nature of an object. In their labs it is essentially irrelevant that an image of something is "true" to how it would look if we could actually see it with our own eyes.

On January 31 we will be meeting in room 176 of the Biological Sciences Center on the St. Paul campus. Click here for a map showing the Biological Sciences Center.

For whatever reason, the only creatures I know for certain that I truly fear are arachnids. For this reason, seeing a gilded tick at extreme magnification was a very interesting experience. In particular, I found it interesting to note that I felt a combination of simultaneous revulsion and appreciation of its beauty. The gold covering made the tick look like a piece of ornate jewelry, which made me think a lot about how covering the tick in gold objectified it for me--made it seem less real, and therefore less threatening.

Your comments on your experience at the imaging center will help us to know what was most interesting, what sparked your imagination, what surprised you?

Are you considering an idea that you may want to pursue at the Imaging Center?

Following your introductory experience, is there something that you now wish that you could observe with one of the scopes?

I am observing my breath cycle while singing. As I sang a piece by Reynaldo Hahn entitled, "À Chloris," I used a stopwatch to time every inhalation and every exhalation of breath. Inhalations are recorded on one half of the page, exhalations and their accompanying poetry (when applicable) on the other.

1/22/12

My experience in the imaging lab to day was revealing, no pun intended. I got the opportunity to become rather intimate with a butterfly wing. While looking at the lovely and delicate scales that could both seem like armor and ruffles at the same time, discussions of human perception vs. the perception of a butterfly came into conversation. Due to the spectrum of light that butterflies can perceive, the spots on their bodies show in much starker contrast to other butterflies than they do to us. The colors that we can see so vividly apparently matter very little in their world.

What fascinates me is the idea that different light or lenses can alter or change what eyes can or cannot see. It would be interesting to experiment with how this characteristic could be applied to a three dimensional space and experienced through time. One space could possibly hold several different experiences depending on which light wavelengths are being reflected.

All in all, an amazing experience and perhaps an excuse to go spend $50 and an hour of my time exploring these concepts further.

Recording the biological bodies of meal worms.

I have set up a box lined in paper, and then sprinkled in corn meal. In that box I have placed 10 meal worms. The corn meal will record not only the eating habits of the meal worms, but also the paths that they travel and their waste (exoskeletons, excrement, and perhaps bodies).

For now, I have resorted to photography as a recording device to communicate the passage of time. I would like to somehow be able to preserve the paths and other treats left within the cornmeal in another fashion, perhaps through lacquer or some other hardening agent.

Any other recording suggestions, leave a comment!

For a short period of time I observed the movements of Sea Monkeys in a small tank. Sea Monkeys are a hybrid species of brine shrimp called Artemia NYOS.

I used a flashlight to send light through the tank and I recorded the paths of their shadows. Because the light was passing through the tank at a downward diagonal, the bottom of the image represents the top of the tank and the top of the image represents the bottom of the tank, and the two flanking lines are the edges of the tank. Some paths become thinner as it moves toward the top of the image because the sea monkey traveled toward the bottom of the tank.

For this image I tracked the movements of three koi fish in our aquarium. I took a 30-second video so that I could follow the movement of each fish during the same period of time. From the video I traced the movement of each fish with a blind contour line following the head. Each fish is represented by a different colored pen.

Using software called Mousepath I mapped the movements of my cursor while conducting a daily search for 15 minutes on Google. My aim was to visually illustrate my journey through the digital landscape of cyber space as I try to track down someone who I have neither seen nor spoken with for over 17 years.

-Teréz

Yeast.pdf

I generated this notation by making a sourdough starter combining water and flour (and a little yeast for help) and I let it sit out for a few days. Once it was active, I recorded the most audible bubbles for 45 seconds. I notated their approximate timings and relative pitch in this score.

Joey

• go to: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/uthink/

• Login to UThink with your x500 [top right on the page]

• System Overview [top left on the page] has a pull down menu

• select our blog: interdisciplinary collaborations :: the biological body

• select Create, then Entry

• within this space you can type text of paste text from another document. The menu includes icons that enable you to upload images and another to upload other kinds of files and to add embedded links, email addresses as well as a series of formatting icons for fonts, paragraphs, etc.

• on the right side you will see a Categories section. check the box next to the category/ies that best relate to your entry. There is also a field for entering tags and keywords.

• selecting Preview at the bottom provides you the view of your entry. You can then re-edit or save.

Our next class meets at the Imaging Center on Tuesday, 1/24.

We will be meeting in room 13 in Snyder Hall (click for map) at 1:30 PM on the St. Paul campus.

Here is an overview of the equipment at the Imaging Center.

Amy Youngs
Rearming the spineless opuntia
Intraterrestrial soundings
Digestive Table

Phil Ross
composed
micotecture

Rob Faludi, Kate Hartman, and Kati London
botanicalls

Gail Wight
Hydrophilia [creep]

Future Farmers
Rainwater Harvester Greywater Feedback Loop

Tissue Culture and Art Project
Victimless Leather

Stelarc
Ear On Arm

Caitlin Berrigan
Viral Confections

Doug Repetto:
How to annoy a plant
Fly Away Not Going Very Far

For the first month of our course we will each choose a biological body to observe and notate. Create your own idiosyncratic system of notation.

Prior to our class on Tuesday 1/24, make observations of the biological body that you have chosen and post one of the notations that you have made.

examples of notation broadly interpreted:

Cui Fei • Manuscript of Nature

Hillary Lorenz • GPS Running Drawing

Neil Olszewski • light dark entrainment

Stephen Vitiello • First Horizon

Anthony van Leeuwenhoek

Marina Rosenfield - the Emotional Orchestra

Sheer Frost Orchestra

Richard Long • untitled

Our first reading,

The Fine Art of Creating Life was written by artist Amy Youngs in 2000.

Amy Young refers to Jack Burnham, a writer on art and technology and author of Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century in 1968. His view, at that time, was that artists would, in the future, create amazingly lifelike artworks that he said would, "break down the psychic and physical barriers between art and living reality."

When you reflect on this reading and the selected works of artists accessed via the first cluster of artists posted on the blog, how would you characterize "the psychic and physical barriers between art and living reality"?

Post your reflections on the blog.