Ceramic Sketches #4

I didn't quite manage to capture that expression I see looking back at me when it's 4AM and I've woken up to find her watching me while I sleep.

Ceramic Sketches #3

A bowl for Topper, even though his preferred of eating is to gut a cat food bag and climb inside it to feast from it like a felled wildebeest.

Ceramic Sketches #2

In which Scout's fearsome visage becomes apparent.

I was somewhat worried that her glower would break my camera when I was taking reference photographs; she's such a little monster. I'm curious to see if she'll attack her cat bowl out of spite when I give it to her.

Ceramic Sketches

I've recently started throwing bowls on a wheel, and I'm enjoying decorating them with sgraffito designs. Normally when I'm in ceramics class I just scribble whimsically, but given that my bowls have begun to look less like the lumpy nests of Welcome Swallows, I thought that I might actually apply a modicum of forethought to their decoration.

The Fabulous Comics of Field Naturalist Rosemary Mosco

Rosemary Mosco's work is a fabulous example of how science and art can be combined to create narratives about the natural world which stir the imagination. Her comics are also superbly well suited to dissemination online; because of their compact, vertical format and 8-bit inspired aesthetics, and the adoption of the memetic and humorous language popularised in informal online forums. 

 

 

 

 (click on images to view full size) 

Rosemary Mosco's Field Studies

Rosemary Mosco's Comics

 

Virtual Habitats and the Value of Nature #2: What is a Habitat Diorama Anyway?

Habitat dioramas are an educational model form that dates back to the early nineteenth century (Quinn 2006, 12), emerging from the prior practice of mounted taxidermy specimens presented without their habitat context (Ibid., 10).

“Habitat dioramas are natural history scenarios which typically contain mounted zoological specimens arranged in a foreground that replicates their native surroundings in the wild. Ideally, the three-dimensional foreground merges imperceptibly into a painted background landscape, creating an illusion — if only for a moment — of atmospheric space and distance.” (Wonders 1993).

The invisible interstice between the real and physical and the artificial is paramount to the creation of an immersive experience. The habitat diorama presents an 'illusionistic spectacle' (Wonders 1990) that is unique in educational models.

The feeling of immersion, of being present in the natural surrounds, is a quality that's rare, and is the strongest advantage of the habitat diorama as an educational model. Successful immersion engages the lizard brain; “[T]hat part of the brain ... where instincts and gut feelings originate; primal thoughts; subconscious or involuntary processes” (Urban Dictionary n.d.) in the learning process. It's not an educational model that exists solely to provide information, it's an educational model that provides an experience. As the purpose of habitat dioramas is generally to educate about nature for the purpose of encouraging audiences to value it for its grandeur, this is the critical element of a habitat diorama: “The diorama artist is successful if, even for an instant, the viewer loses his perceptual ability to distinguish between reality and the scene before him.” (Wonders 1990). But the habitat diorama is a creature that is disappearing from museums. It's a big commitment, as the dimensions are made to life scale, to fit lions, and tigers, and bears and the scale of the human viewer. These zoological specimens of (often endangered) species are difficult to acquire. And each of these dioramas shows only one view of the world. Once the diorama is made, it's an unchanging arrangement which occupies valuable real-estate in the museum. The perception of taxidermy as an antiquated art form is also contributing to the downfall of habitat dioramas (Turner 2013). So the diorama as an educational form is waning, at the same time that vast capabilities of digital technologies are waxing with the potential to create new experiences for audiences.

The solution then, seems to be to try and translate this virtual experience out of the physical realm; and into the digital. How can the immersive experience of an educational form incorporating physical and illusionary elements be translated into a digital environment, where depth spatial relationships can only be eluded to virtually? That's what this project will be trying to find out, through an exhaustive experimental process. It is a largely speculative project, which will be investigating the potential ways this virtual educational model may be manifested in a digital environment.

References

Quinn, S. C. 2006. Windows on Nature: The Great Habitat Dioramas of The American Museum of Natural History. New York: Abrams.

Turner, S. S. 2013. “Relocating 'Stuffed' Animals: Photographic Remediation of Natural History Taxidermy”. Humanimalia: a journal of human/animal interface studies 4(2). http://www.depauw.edu/humanimalia/issue%2008/pdfs/turner.pdf

Urban Dictionary. n.d. lizard brain.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lizard%20brain
(accessed April 21, 2013).

Wonders, K. 1990. “The Illusionary Art of Background Painting in Habitat Dioramas.”
Curator: The Museum Journal 33(2). 90-118. doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.1990.tb00981.x

Wonders, K. 1993. Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History. Stockholm: Acta Universitasis Upsaliensis.

Essay #10 Doctorow: Little Brother

This is my last essay for Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, and I have to say how much I've enjoyed Professor Rabkin's unit. I think the texts chosen really offered a good cross section of both genres (and nearly all at no cost to access), and the short essay format really forced me to write leaner, meaner analysis. The increase in availability of such free and high quality education is something I'm really excited by as someone who's made a lifelong commitment to study, and I appreciate the efforts of all involved in making this course.

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Little Brother and the Technologically Informed Electorate

Little Brother is a response to the threat of constant government surveillance augured

George Orwell's 1984. In 1984 surveillance technology was used as a tool by the government led by the dictatorial “Big Brother” to control the citizenry:

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” (Orwell 1949)

Little Brother makes a counter-argument to this; that technology can empower citizens with the ability defend their liberty from tyranny. This argument is closely woven with the theme of democracy.

Thomas Jefferson argued that a well informed electorate was the most important component of democracy (Blair 1997); and in Little Brother it's the citizens informed by technology who are ultimately able defend democracy. In Little Brother technology is not just a means of oppression, but a weapon and a shield in the hands of the well informed electorate:

“My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn't spying on me. This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.”

While the constant surveillance from a tyrannical government is still a major threat to private citizens, technology itself can empower citizens to organize the resistance, and subvert the surveillance. Winning freedom is a function of an electorate specifically informed in the technologies used against them; and Little Brother introduces specific tools for inform readers in such subversion. 1984 is a dire warning about a government controlling its citizens with technology, and Little Brother is a delineation for defending freedom, and democracy under similar circumstances.

References

Blair, P. 1997. The Evolving Role of Government in Science and Technology.

http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/EngineeringEvolving/TheEvolvingRoleofGovernmentinScienceandTechnology.aspx (accessed April 9, 2013).

Orwell, G. 1949. 1984. London: Penguin Books.