I know that I often have a strange mix of art and science posts throughout the week, even though I generally consider this an art/design site. That’s because I honestly can’t see the difference between the two. I love art and design because they allow me to see joy and beauty in the world, and I love science for the very same reason. Everything I learn, every new discovery I read about, just serves to make the world seem that much more beautiful and intricate. Did you know that bats create tiny vortexes on top of their wings? That was just discovered recently. I react to that in the same way that I react to the first Goya painting I ever saw in person. It makes me want to shout, because I don’t know what else would be a strong enough reaction to that kind of joy. I pretty much feel like shouting all the time.

The most amazing parts of my week are the moments when I find something that blurs the line of art and science in a way that everyone else can understand how I feel when I look at clouds. Recently I came across two such things, and I figured they warranted a nice long post to themselves.

The first is an image gallery on the website of Aqua Design Amano for Aqua Forest Aquarium (a Bay Area business that I’ll be visiting very soon). The images are all of simple, glass aquariums. The beauty comes from the design of the aquarium environment, an “amano” style. Each tank is designed to be a natural, aqueous environment for plants and animals. This is basically the aquarium version of bonzai. Each element, and there are never very many, is delicately placed with respect to its height, relation to other plants, and overall effect on the sense of perspective in the tank. Then fish are added, usually one species to maintain simplicity. The CO₂ levels are very carefully maintained, and the light sources are designed for maximum plant growth, as well as light for viewing the environment. The photos are great, but imagine seeing the tanks in person. Tell me that’s not art.

The second item I came across is the flickr page of Reciprocity. He creates the most amazing images using shaped and textured plastics. Each image is shot using a focused light beam aimed through the plastic object. The lens of the camera is removed and replaced with the object so that the light pattern is captured directly on 35mm film. The images change with the shapes, textures and colors of the plastic, and the colors and intensity of the light. Each image comes out looking like some multi-colored photo of microscopic organisms or maybe the smoke from some Lewis Carroll caterpillar. Refraction and reflection, spectra of light, texture, all scientific realms, but here their captured as beautiful images. Tell me that’s not art.

Every structure, every pattern, every tiny scientific fact that I encounter in the world adds depth to my life, and the way that I view the world. Art and science enrich everything around me to a degree that is indescribable. I hope I’ve managed to capture a small part of that here.

Most of us are familiar with the iconic last photos of Marilyn Monroe shot by Bert Stern. You might not know that Bert Stern was the photographer, but you’ve seen at least one of those photos if you’ve been alive for more than 4 years.

WARNING: Children four years of age and younger should not be reading this site. Go outside and play you angelic little fuck-trophies.

The photos that Stern shot were of a drunken, downward-spiraling Marilyn Monroe. Though she’s smiling and playful, she seems to have lost the sparkle and sultriness that once made her a national sex-symbol. It seems fairly fitting then that Stern has re-shot the Monroe set with Lindsay Lohan, who is about as seductive as 2×4. All of Lohan’s recent partying and various media fiascoes draw a nice parallel between her and Marilyn, and I think Stern emphasizes the similarities by caking on the make-up. Lohan trying to recreate Monroe’s poses and sultriness is laughable, but that only magnifies the irreplaceable loss of an icon like Marilyn Monroe.

I never saw Marilyn as a sex symbol. She seemed to overwork what would have been attractive in a simpler form. But she was an alluring, and beautiful woman who was coming into her own as an actress when she took her own life. I’ve never seen Lindsay Lohan as a sex symbol either, more just a pretty girl with a nice rack. She could be a very sweet person, but she mostly just seems like the kind of girl that says “We should totally do that” a trillion times a day, but never does anything. I wonder if she even realizes the subtle tragedies that Stern is recreating with her as the model.

Bert Stern Shoots Lindsay Lohan

With the anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson’s death having just recently passed (February 20th), a day that preceded a lunar eclipse, a day that was both storm-ridden and sunny, it’s a strange coincidence that I should stumble across a set of photos from a show at M+B Gallery from over a year ago. No single author has been so influential to my own style, and what’s more, my own life than Thompson. I have to wonder about a person that can create so many changes in so many people, but then be reduced to a series of images and words, fragments of memories floating through our collective subconscious. I’m staring out a window at the same California sky that Thompson walked under for a better part of his life, looking at pictures of the times and places that he thought important or just vivid enough to need a reminder of, and I’m not questioning my mortality or anything as trite as that. I’m just enjoying a sky that a friend of mine once enjoyed, a friend I never met.

Hunter S. Thompson at M+B Gallery.

As of today I’m on vacation until next Friday. I’ve got people coming to visit and I’d rather spend time with them than with you, internet. I know that’s harsh, but I need to be honest. We’ve got to have communication. When I come back I expect that my hits will have fallen drastically since most of them come from Google image searches. The four of you that read this will, I’m sure, find something better to do with your time. To tide you over for the week I leave you with these pictures that I have taken recently. I don’t expect that to help for very long.

Sincerely,
Management

Palm trees outside

Scraggly bark

Her earrings

My living room, featuring plants in a cage!

Me, looking lurkish

The new woman in my life

I can’t put my finger on why I like British photographer Guy Archard’s work so much. There’s something about it that feels like it’s staring back at me, watching me, and not just the other way around. That’s not something I’m accustomed to with most photographs, and eerie though it is, it also keeps me interested. His photos want you to look, and then they look right back at you while you’re looking at them. Or maybe I am just completely insane. Either way it makes for a new experience.

Guy Archard

Found via It’s Nice That.

As promised here are the pictures from my art outing this weekend. There are pictures from Caroline Hwang at GR-SF, Mel Kadel, Matt Haber, Travis Millard, Adam Flores, and Jeana Sohn at Shooting Gallery, plus Alex Lukas, Chris Pew and Amy Casey next door at White Walls. There would’ve been a lot of great incidental photos, like the one of our cab driver, or the one of two dudes unable to keep their dogs from fighting, or even the girl that looked like Frida Kahlo on the BART, but the batteries died while we were at the gallery so you all get shafted.

You clever bastards. I miss my records.

Vinyl Sleeve Heads

Exactitudes is a nice project from a Rotterdam duo chronicling the standard fashions that sub-cultures wear to separate themselves from other groups. I remember seeing some of the earlier images from this project four or so years ago, but it’s gotten much bigger since. I’m really just partial to the aesthetic of the site and the photo groupings. I’ve also realized that there are too many clothes in the world. Let 2008 be the year of the nude!

Exactitudes rememberd via Josh Spear

I’ve probably never taken a photo even half as good.

National Geographic Photo Contest

Flickr user Future Ancient has some great nature photos. So clearly I need a Leica M8. You guys have a lot to buy me for Crimmas. Sucks for you.

Flickr: Future Ancient