GARY GREENBERG

Posted on April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 by jharrower

Greenberg combines art, science, and engineering to create microscopic photographs that reveal the hidden beauty of sand, flowers, food, and the human body. Greenberg builds the tools of his craft; he invented the “high-definition, three-dimensional light microscopes” with which he creates his photographs.¹ His images give us unfamiliar and intimate views of materials we encounter every day.

Microscopic images of retinas and bone.

Microscopic images of Royal Poinciana and Hibiscus flowers.

See Greenberg’s site.

¹See Greenberg’s biography.

HEATHER DEWEY-HAGBORG

Posted on April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 by jharrower

Stranger Visions, 2012-15
Dewey-Hagborg collects DNA samples unwittingly left behind by New Yorkers. She gathers cigarette butts, chewing gum, and threads of hair, lifts DNA from the items, and looks for genetic codes that indicate gender, eye and hair color, racial background and facial structure.¹ She then feeds those genetic markers into software that generates a facial image and 3D-prints a sculptural portrait. Dewey-Hagborg’s portraits highlight the DNA trail we leave behind in our day-to-day activities; her work asks us to think about how discarded genetic information might be used in surveillance and crime investigations.

¹ Peter Aldhous, “Artworks highlight legal debate over ‘abandoned’ DNA,” New Scientist, (June 10, 2013)

NEWTON and HELEN MAYER HARRISON

Posted on April 21, 2015April 23, 2015 by jharrower

Helen and Newton Harrison map the effects of climate change and explore ways to rehabilitate damaged ecosystems.

Wilma the Pig, 2012
A pig wanders around an indoor meadow planted in LA's Museum of Contemporary Art. The project re-creates a similar piece titled Hog Pasture first realized in 1970 at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. In its first instantiation, the Boston Museum refused to let a pig play a part in the exhibit.

Helen Harrison discusses the audience's encounter with the work: "All of a sudden people are looking at the environment in one way or another. And they're looking differently. In other words, it's bringing their attention in a way that is meaningful; they're enjoying it."¹

Greenhouse Britain, 2007-2009
Projected images trace Britain's shrinking coastline as the seas rise. The images delineated eight future coastal boundaries; each one displaying the effects of an additional two-meter increase in sea level. The UK's rivers expand and coastline recedes at each stage of the sea's invasion.

Beyond documenting the changes to Britain's coastline, the project also proposes a variety of architectural, economic, and environmental solutions to reduce the impact of surging tides. The Harrisons write: "One key element in this work responds to the fact that the waters will rise gracefully, posing the questions, 'How might one withdraw with equal grace?' and 'How might one defend against the ocean’s rise?'"²

See more at the Harrison's studio website.

¹The Harrison Studio presents Wilma the Pig
²Greenhouse Britain, The Harrison Studio

BRANDON BALLENGEE

Posted on December 8, 2014December 8, 2014 by jharrower

For twenty years, Ballengee has studied and documented deformed amphibians. He creates portraits of the deceased animals using a biology-lab process that removes everything but the collagen and stains the bones and cartilage. Ballangee sees his portraits as a way to memorialize the animals. He states: “If we start to look at the environment as made up of individuals just as unique as each and every one of us, I think that has the potential to really reframe our approach towards our own actions every day.”¹

See Ballengee’s website.

¹ Annie Minoff, “SciArts Spotlight: Brandon Ballengee,” (Science Friday: April 4, 2014), www.sciencefriday.com/blogs/04/04/2014/sciarts-spotlight-brandon-balleng-e.html?series=20.

ANTHONY DUNNE and FIONA RABY

Posted on December 8, 2014February 24, 2015 by jharrower

Dunne-and-Raby projects imagine near-future scenarios informed by the practices of industrial design. Their work is neither utopian nor dystopian; instead it creates imperfect solutions to techno-cultural problems and embraces conflicting desires.

Dunne describes his work:
"The kind of pleasures you get from reading a book or watching a film, I think are the kinds of things we’re trying to explore in relation to products. How can you design products that provide complex and complicated pleasures?"

"I guess we’re attracted to the bad side of people. The side that is complicated, contradictory, irrational. And we’re really curious if you filled up a room or a space with objects that reflected those values, how that material world would look different from the material world that surrounds us now."¹

Design for an Overpopulated Planet, 2010
Dunne and Raby collaborated with writer Alex Burrett and photographer Jason Evans to create several scenarios that examine the implications of a global population boom. In one project, No. 1: Foragers, a community responds to food scarcity by augmenting their digestive systems with a variety of technologies that permit them eat foods that were previously inedible. "What if it were possible to extract nutritional value from non-human foods using a combination of synthetic biology and new digestive devices inspired by the digestive systems of other mammals, birds, fish, and insects?"² The foragers with help from their augmentations find sustenance in leaves, algae, grass, and flowers.

See Dunne and Raby's website.

TOBIE KERRIDGE, NIKKI STOTT, and IAN THOMPSON

Posted on November 30, 2014November 30, 2014 by jharrower

Kerridge and Stott create speculative design projects that experiment with new materials.

Biojewellery, 2003-7
Working with bioengineer Ian Thompson, Kerridge and Scott created wedding bands coated with bone cells. “The bone tissue was cultured in a laboratory and then seeded onto a bioactive ceramic that acted as a scaffold for the growing cells….The final bone tissue was taken to the designer’s studio and combined with precious metals to finish the ring.”¹ The ring functions as both a symbol of commitment and an actual memento of your partner’s corporeality.

See the Biojewellery website.

¹ Paola Antonelli, ed., Design and the Elastic Mind.(New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008), 111.