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The biggest thing I learned about radiolarians that I did not realize, is that they are small, single-celled organisms. A you must look through a microscope to see them. I imagined them as the size of a coral or starfish. I also thought of them as organisms that lived in the distant past, but some are still alive today. The aspect of Haeckel’s life and work that interested me the most was the fact that he went on sea voyages. It is hard to imagine in the modern day long sea voyages where the only form of calculating direction was with a map, a compass, and the stars, where the only communication home was through letters. I enjoyed his letters during that time period. You could really feel how much he was learning and enjoyed that learning. This film made me realize that often the line between art and science is often very blurry. Science is often an art, especially when drawing or modeling such complex forms. Art is a science. It is precise, and accurate when it represents something living or extinct. I relate to Haeckel in that he enjoyed art so much he almost quit science, but found a way to incorporate one passion into the other. An implication from sculpting based off of Haeckle’s drawings is the layers of unconscious subjectiveness- the viewer’s perspective. Haeckel drew based off of what he could see through the microscope. He may have taken some artist liberties or perhaps his perception of a specimen, due to bias etc, was not always 100% accurate. We are then taking our perspective based off of his and creating something. It is like a game of telephone, eventually the original message, or in this case a true skeleton of a radiolarian, gets distorted. Overall, the most thought provoking part of Proteus was when they were narrating Haeckle’s letters, they put the view of the film in his, so that you could be in his shoes, where he was, how he felt, and was thinking, while he was talking. 

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qF8CgOtvRhWgkXyQVV4RdsM75SjofWA9WgldmDFZCsw/edit#slide=id.p

The podcast explored the unusual story of an animal research lab in the 1960s. It was theorized that dolphins could potentially learn English and perhaps even vocalize with their blowholes. A young dolphin who had not yet reached maturity, Peter, was selected for the experiment. An apartment style arrangement was made so that he could live with a female researcher (who was interviewed in the podcast). The apartment was partially flooded, and the two lived together for nine months. The research showed promise. Audio recordings seem to suggest that the dolphin was doing more than just trying to mimic sounds (such as what a parrot would do). When given prompts to say words, he would attempt to say only the words while omitting the prompt. The research began to run into trouble when it was revealed that the head researcher had been giving psychadelic drugs to several of the dolphins in the lab (though not Peter). More notably, a tabloid had gotten wind of certain unorthodox training methods being used with Peter. As he was beginning to reach sexual maturity, he began developing strong sexual urges, and Margaret (the female researcher) started pleasuring him in order to keep him focused. She did not think very much of this, but the bad publicity ultimately doomed the project.

Thesis: my project is meant to take the idea of a dolphin roommate to its anthropomorphic extreme, constructing a messy, horny, aquatic college student, passed out on a beanbag chair and surrounded by open pizza boxes.

Animals have more similar cognitive abilities to humans than we are currently aware. Part of these advanced cognitive abilities are related to social relationships among certain animals. Animals have more in common with humans than was previously thought, and likely more than we know currently. Therefore, it is important to respect and protect animals as intelligent creatures.

Inside Animal Minds: ‘Who’s the Smartest?”

Nagel argues that, “the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism.” He then lays out that this would mean there is something it is like to be a bat and asks you to imagine being that bat. From there he argues that you would never be able to answer that question because you are not a bat so you are limited by the restrictions of having human senses in so far as you cannot even fathom what the experience would be like for the bat. He takes it further by arguing that, “Even if I could by gradual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine what the experiences of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like.” Nagel is considering this thought experiment with the motivation of answering the mind-body question. However, the main points he discusses are that even though some people may attempt to figure out how other animals’ minds work, we will never be able to truly connect to them on that level because there is simply too great of a distance between humans and animals. -Karnes

Antony Gormley-Brick Man

Immediate Response

My immediate thought when looking at this sculpture is that the man is silent, gagged. He has no mouth–or face–to speak of, leaving him mute and, in my mind, trapped. I feel almost like I, myself, cannot breathe while observing this piece and a slight claustrophobia makes the piece intense for me. The fact that the sculpture is in the shape of a person makes me feel like there must be a person encased within–a Han Solo, though I know that that is not the case. While this piece makes me, in a way, fearful, I’m drawn to it in the hope that I might divine what this Brick Man is thinking.

Objective Description

The sculpture stands on a short pedestal and is the shape of a male human figure, 6 ft tall. The statue is made entirely of red brick that is held together with mortar. It stands straight and upright, like a soldier at attention, his arms at his sides, legs together, feet facing frontward, and staring straight ahead. There is no face or detail besides a strong jawline and pointed chin; the sculpture has the blank expression of a mannequin.

Technical Decisions

Construction and craftspersonship

Antony Gormley tends to make a lot of human figure sculptures out of hard, inorganic materials. He has a larger meaning behind this but I will discuss that later. Gormley used red brick, a classic building material, and mortar to form this piece. I imagine the most likely process was to make a rectangular prism out of the materials before carving away pieces in a negative method in order to form the human figure.

Context

This piece has quite the backstory. Apparently, Gormley originally created this work as a proposed municipal statue for Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. He planned for the statue to stand 100 ft tall, overlooking the city. Unfortunately, the city was uninterested and voted to use a different proposal instead. This history coloured my interpretation of the sculpture with a feeling of pity, pity for the poor statue who was rejected as quickly as he was brought into existence. As he stands forlornly in the corner of the gallery I hope he is not lonely.

The Work in the World

For me, I recognize and connect both the human form and the brick and mortar of this sculpture with the outside world. It reminds me of a city, people and buildings, all rolled into one piece of art. This simple figure looks as if he walked through a wall and came out the other side covered in brick. The fact that the artist chose red brick specifically makes me think of colonial-era houses, which makes me wonder how much time this Brick Man will watch pass by as he remains unchanged.

 

The Story it Tells

The meaning of this piece of art is much larger than a single sculpture. While choosing one of his works, I noticed that Antony Gormley has made quite a few sculptures depicting the human figure. What stands out to me about this one is that it is one of the few that actually exist in a gallery, most others exist out in nature in one way or another. The connection between all of these pieces is important because they are all made out of hard, unforgiving, inorganic material which, to me, makes me feel like Gormley is trying to represent a body of life made from things that are unliving. He brings forth a person shape that may naturally evoke feelings of kinship in people but he creates this “being” without any possibility of life. What’s most interesting to me is that by setting these sculptures out in nature he does give them life, in a way. They can spend their days enjoying mountain views and beach sunsets. Which leads me to why I feel so sad for this Brick Man, who has to spend his existence within the confines of an art gallery.

 

 

 

 

Title of Event: Who is Puberty and How Does She Hit?
Date & Time of Event: December 7, 2017 at 12:30pm
Location of Event: Downtown Samek Art Gallery
Type of event: Current Exhibition