Writing
For the most recent additions to the magazine, this is the page to visit. Here, we publish all of our content in chronological order: both the essays that are part of a constellation and essays that are sparsile – that is, unattached to any constellation.
The Edge of Reason: Shedding Light at the Phipps
By Christina Schmid
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
– Albert Einstein[i]
Trust Einstein to articulate what reconciles two seemingly opposite ways of making sense of the world: science with its prerequisite distance to ensure analytical dissection of [...]
Taxidermy and Extinction: Considering the Work of Mark Dion
By Colleen Sheehy
In 2009, when Mark Dion created his sculpture Monument to the Birds of Puffin Island, he contracted with a taxidermist to provide him with rats. This piece was one of his macabre sculptures, highlighting the grotesque. Unlike traditional taxidermy that aims to present idealized examples of species in a moment of poised stillness, [...]
A Conservative Icarus
By Jake Ramberg
For this year’s Art-A-Whirl the Rogue Buddha Gallery opened its doors with a new show entitled “Science & Wonder” featuring haunting portrait paintings by Caitlin Karolczak and intricate sculptural assemblages by Michael Thomsen. Sadly, despite the obvious talent of both artists, the work lacks the science alluded to in the title of the [...]
An Archive, A Forest: John Bell, Ginny Maki, and Branden Martz at the Bell Museum of Natural Histor.y
By Tom Haakenson
Observation is not objectivity, a claim which may appear obvious to some, sacrilegious to others. Yet historians of science such as Lorraine Daston and Peter Gallison have argued convincingly that the history of Science’s supposedly unadulterated observations reveals just how subjective “objectivity” can be. Intended or not, the exhibition of John Bell’s, Ginny [...]
Slicing and Stretching Time: Luke DuBois and Digital Manipulability
By Diane Mullin
The subject of this brief essay is temporal scale and its manipulation in the work of composer, performer, digital artist and filmmaker, R. Luke DuBois. In particular, I consider the relationship of this work to the relatively recent idea of “infinite digital reproducibility” in the context of Walter Benjamin’s idea of mechanical or technical reproducibility [...]
David Goldes: Nothing on Faith
By George Slade
En route to a doctorate in physics, David Goldes realized that he wasn’t a scientist. Scientists reduce complexity, with a goal of distilling unified theory out of chaos and ambiguity. Science likes to name, while art likes open-endedness and is willing to accept multiple answers to questions about unquantifiable, elusive topics such as [...]
The Muse’s Bare Shoulder
An Erotic Monologue by Dia Felix
and her Dialogue with Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi
I’ve been walking around thinking about the erotic underworld of creative production. Why a certain person might be compelled to complete a major work of art or a scientific investigation, when others might retreat and settle into safer harbors of well-grooved (but less groovy) channels. [...]
Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art?
People often react negatively when encountering conceptual art. Reactions range from the indifferent to the dismissive to the outright hostile. I am less concerned with those who indifferently walk on by looking for something else. Rather the actively aggressive naysayers who charge such art to be “inauthentic” and “insincere” bother me. They argue that certain [...]
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Dada Deception
Munich, Germany. – The scene would be disturbing to anyone familiar with modern history: Angry crowds protesting museums, galleries, and cultural institutions. For many, such demonstrations are undoubtedly reminiscent of the National Socialists’ efforts to eradicate what was labeled “degenerate” music and art. The most unbelievable aspect of the more recent campaign, coordinated by a [...]
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Posers and Pranksters: Getting serious on the art of The Yes Men and Hasan Elahi
When thinking about fakery in art, copying an original most likely comes to mind, from De Chirico copying his own paintings to Sherrie Levine placing a Walker Evans’ photo under her own name. But these artworld postures are just that: an aesthetic proposition with little impact or relevance outside the gallery walls. I don’t take [...]
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