3D portraits from random DNA samples

Heather Dewey-Hagborg

Something you may not be aware is that you are leaving a DNA footprint behind every chewing-gum you throw away in the street. And something you may not even imagine is that there someone that can pick it up, go to a DIY biology lab, amplify the DNA sample through PCR (polymerase chain reaction)  to study the SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) and trace in this way genetic traits like, gender, eye color, hair color, ancestry and so. But that´s not the end of the story, after an Allele profile has been define a computer software builds a 3D model of THE FACE! of the individual whose DNA was found in the chewing-gum and after some "finishing touches" the 3D model is printed and hang in a wall (some will say like a hunting trophy) of an Art Gallery. Yes, this is an Art project still. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is the responsible for this amazing journey from Science to Art. Her work can be seen in some galleries now and of course in her website and in her Blog.

Via: thisiscolossal

 

the creators project: Stefan Sagmeister

The Creators Project its an initiative that put together people whose work is connected with the use of new media in their creative processes and/or products. It's a really interesting sample of works and visions from different areas of the creative practice such as Design, Music, Film and Art just for name a few, but also is a tasteful gathering of different culture flavors that show us the singularities of every culture in the approach to creative work.
Between the featured personalities are big names like Spike Jones, MOS Architects, Peaches, and Phoenix, but my personal selection is one of my favorites graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, who is also a big fish, but never the less, always fun.

By the way, check:http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/en-uk/

Sometimes we forget that the environmental issue is not just technological, political and social, but also cultural. Art is one of the stronger cultural tool that we have because its critical sensibility. Some Art connect with us through beautiful aesthetics and other Arts through critical reflexions, and some really good art combine both ways (and other ways too) in multilayer artistics representations. I think this is the case of this animation on wich a very critical view is presented in a delightful visual and sounding experience that tells us not about what is happening but what is supposed to happend with our sensibility regarding the energetical issue. The windmill farmer of Joaquin Baldwin, is talking about the involvement of our felling and hopes in the enviromental issue, saying when we manage to feel deep sandness instead of just neglect what's happening in our sorrounding we'll achieve the point of inner motivation to get involve ourselves in processes of change and not just be simple spectators of what others do. In my own personal way to see it, it's not just a beautiful animation but a calling to feel and act.

The Plenitude of Rich Gold

Some weeks ago I went in a local bookstore just to kill some time , and after take a quick look into the shelves a small green spine cath my attention in the design theorie area (after that I notice that theorie books even when it comes to design, are usually graphically bored). I take it from the shelf and just there another two things call my interest. First, all the cover was illustrated with doodles that looks like made by a school kid -a thing that I found clever in a bookshelf full of elaborated computer renderings- very warm and very beautiful. The second thing was ''foreword by John Maeda'' writen under the autors name, Rich Gold. Then when I went into the book, to my surprise I didn't found any pictures, any renders, any oversimplify diagrams, nothing but words..and CARTOONS! yes cartoons. Every chapter or section starts with a cartoon, and also every main idea on the book is stressed with a cartoon. There is a cartoon to explain the overstuffed enviroment in wich we live that Gold calls ''the plenitude'', there is also a cartoon that show clearly the four disciplines (and professions pursuit by the autor) that have the responsability of around 97% of the plenitude, there is a cartoons to explain the seven path of innovation, the five problems of the Plenitude and the seven solutions for that; and even for explain how the Plenitude of ones is based in the poverty of others.

After been exposed to that amount of quality information two thoughts came to my mind, cartoons rules and I have to reed this book.

The book is about thing, or better say Stuff. What it is, from where it comes, where it goes, how we can deal with it and why we need to be sorrounded by this thing call ''the plenitude'' (after write this post I'm not sure anymore if this book it's really about ''stuff'')

The Plenitude, Creativity, Innovation and Making Stuff

autor: Rich Gold (foreword by John Maeda)

pages:111

the MIT press

From Art to Science...and back (Reuben Margolin's kinetic sculptures)

First of all, if it is anyone real follow this blog i would like to apologize me for the big time window between this post and the previous one. Now, i find this excelent example of the crossover between art and science. Reuben Margolin translate the physics of waves into the language of art with amazing results, big and complex instalations waving smoothly as a light water perturbation or as the peculiar gait of the caterpillar.

The crossing between Art and Science it's not new, but it is somehow one of the most interesting and revolutionary paths that the Arts is following these days. In the same field of kinetic sculpture we can find the amazing beach animals by Theo Hansen, but also we can count the phylosophical questioning made through hightech-interfaces by Natalie jeremijenko who put in evidence the nature of our relationships with other people, animals, the cities, and so on.

There is a lot of people working now in this area, bringing the concepts of science and using the new technologys to make some reflections about the world on what we live, and they are making amazing things. But also there is a few who follow the opposite path, from science to art, and they are discovering the big power who lies behind the human expression and how these knowledge -intuitive and irrational as usually is - can hold the keys of one of the most complex structures, the human behaviour.

amazing

Martin Puryear, Monomaterial cultural explorations

http://video.pbs.org/video/1237794459#

Recently i've came to know the sculptor Martin Puryear (1941), he catch my atention with his wooden sculptures who resembles in a very subtle way some ''cultural bags'', objects that carry representative shapes and shades of an past moment in history, like a Wooden wheel or a ladder.

Another thing that realy grab me was the austerity of his work. Almost all his pieces are built in only one material, this can be stone or metal but above all wood. This artist fill spaces with objects that are wonderfully crafted in wood in wich ones you can recognize the most traditional techniques of woodworking. The relation with cabinet-making it's obvious in every joint. The cultural explotarion of his work goes through the objects into techniques, and put the ancient knowledge of woodworking into the lenguage of modern Art.

What i like of Puryear? the way he relates deeply with the material, the cultural and simbolic awareness of the comun objects. An also the way that he translate his wooden shapes into other materials.