making of 3D models arising from the their relationship to authenticity. These practices of science, medicine and arguments are put in an interesting technology between the mid-18th and light by Morgan and Boumans in “The the mid-20th centuries. While the edi- Economy as a Hydraulic Machine,” tors acknowledge the importance of in which they maintain that it is the abstract theoretical models, they have nature of 3D models to interpret, make intentionally limited this discussion to commitments and as thus they become those occasions when scientists, techni- less flexible. In contrast, the authors cians and physicians “insisted on mak- note, metaphors (1D models) do not ing and displaying” material 3D objects constrict our imagination. Higher- that can be “grasped with . . . hands.” dimensional models are good for teach- There have been many studies of 2D ing because they are more tangible, but representations of scientific knowledge, they also have more potential to be but not much attention given to 3D wrong. It is for this reason that these models. Here, an interesting variety models so easily became relics, collec- of historical 3D models are discussed, tor’s items and now a subject for study including how they might have worked by philosophers and historians. How- in the practice and teaching of their ever, Morgan and Boumans are prag- various disciplines. matic in their analysis when they write, The contributors to Models are mostly these elements [inherent errors] do not philosophers and historians interested necessarily cause difficulties in learning in the production of scientific knowl- from the model—we willingly suspend edge. Although there is limited use disbelief in order to focus on the demon- of academic jargon, the publication’s strative power of those parts which do readers will mostly be of the same aca- When 3D models embody scientific represent (p. 387). demic ilk. However, as many of the results (succeeding where 2D models Models, whether art or science, authors discuss the wider implications cannot), the construction of the work attempt to say, “This is how the world of these 3D models, this book should becomes difficult and might require could be, but don’t look too closely.” also appeal to those interested in the collaboration with artists skilled in relationships between representation, making. Occasionally, the artists knowledge, art and science. In addi- became authors, giving them status SPIRIT INTO MATTER: tion, despite the variety of models and within the scientific community. It was THE PHOTOGRAPHS disciplines discussed, thematic patterns collaborations such as these that pro- OF EDMUND TESKE emerge, unifying the book as a whole, voked much controversy surrounding by Julian Cox. Getty Publications, which is helped by a thoughtful intro- the making and display of 3D models , CA, U.S.A., 2004. 180 pp., duction and additional commentaries as discussed, for example, in the chap- illus. Trade, paper. ISBN: 0-89236-760-1; encompassing the main body of work. ter “Monsters at the Crystal Palace,” by ISBN: 0-89236-761-X. Three-dimensional technical and James Secord. Some models, intended scientific models are often intended as for education, were labeled by critics Reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg. E-mail: some sort of mediator: between patron as mass entertainment and were said . and client, lecturer and audience, to only satisfy the visitors’ thirst for researcher and colleagues, maker and spectacle. In contrast, late-19th-century Is Edmund Teske “the least appreciated consumer. 3D models mediate by repre- educational psychologists argued that master photographer,” as the dealer senting something, by making visible in order for true understanding to Lee Witkin believed? This survey of the abstract, the small, the distant or occur, firstly, imagination and emo- Teske’s life and work published by the the yet to be made. In Ludmilla Jor- tions needed to be stimulated through Getty Museum in Los Angeles certainly danova’s words, 3D models are an visual impression. Other advocates suggests that this is the case. The book “incomplete concept.” Models of this of these experiments in visual educa- was published to coincide with the first sort attempt to embody knowledge, to tion pointed to the value of tactile major retrospective of Teske’s work, make knowledge graspable. 3D models learning, where hands and eyes need held at the Getty in 2004. can embody scientific theory (hypothe- to coordinate. Teske was born in in 1911 sis), and in these cases the models are As artists became more involved in and began his photographic career research tools, mediating between the making of 3D models, imagination there. He moved to Los Angeles in the the mind, hands and eyes of the confronted “fact,” the visual confronted 1930s and continued to develop experi- researcher. However, as many of the text, and museum scientists (for one) mental and innovative darkroom tech- essayists note, these models often inad- became concerned about authenticity. niques such as duotone solarization vertently become something else. For These concerns, as Lynn Nyhart, in and composite printing. The 79 plates instance, it is argued that in different “Science, Art, and Authenticity in Nat- in this book survey Teske’s work circumstances 3D mathematical models ural History Displays,” comments, mir- throughout his career. The earlier work can represent an epistemic thing (on rored “larger bourgeois anxieties about is more accessible and easier to under- the road to new knowledge), an object the manipulability of nature’s truths in stand, but it is clear that Teske was, (when used by surrealists), a flag signal- an age of mass culture and artificial during his Chicago period, a great ing the reality of mathematics or simply reproduction.” 3D models had become modern photographer who photo- the act of representation itself (Herbert a site for questioning the roles of graphed the commuters in Chicago Mehrtens, Mathematical Models). artists, scientists and museums and street cars (before anyone else pho-

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Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/leon/article-pdf/38/5/432/1572855/leon.2005.38.5.432.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Teske’s search for technical innovation of the experiments are done with and for new ways of seeing was a search mice, which are how we know that for a mode of existence for himself in a “the genome of a mouse is virtually world that would not allow him to be identical to the genome of a human” himself. Ultimately, however, Teske’s (p. 166). Now I know why I like cheese work does not succeed in transcending so much! his personal predicament, and it is hard Bourtchouladze’s casual writing style to agree that his work as a whole belies the fact that she is one of the belongs with the great photographers world’s leading scientists engaged in of the 20th century. laboratory research into the molecular, This volume contains not only 79 chemical and genetic basis of memory. prints by Teske but also a comprehen- The first five chapters, with such titles sive introduction and essay on his life as “The Wiring of a Seahorse and and work, a transcript of a conversation Almond’s Fears and Emotions,” are with George Herms, who knew him for filled with wonderfully personal and over 30 years, a chronology, a bibliogra- highly relevant anecdotes. Chapter 6, phy and a list of Teske’s exhibitions. “The Biology of Memory,” explains in fairly technical, though not necessarily complicated, language, the scientific EMORIES RE ADE OF M A M experiments and findings that have THIS: HOW MEMORY WORKS helped piece together the little that IN HUMANS AND ANIMALS is really known about memory. tographed commuters, claims Julian by Rusiko Bourtchouladze. Columbia Bourtchouladze notes this dearth Cox in his essay in this book), man- Univ. Press, New York, NY, U.S.A., 2002. of knowledge regarding memory in nequins in store windows, the shop 208 pp., illus. Trade, paper. ISBN: the book’s Preface when she writes, window as a still life, menacing mari- 0-231-12020-6; ISBN: 0-231-12021-4. “I must admit we know very little.” onettes and other ordinary aspects and Chapter 7, “What Have Genes Got found objects of contemporary urban Reviewed by Rob Harle, Australia. E-mail: To Do With It?,” is the sledgeham- life. Unfortunately, Teske, by his own . mer! I was not prepared for the very admission, was a difficult artist who did serious, heavy-duty ramifications of not often get along with dealers, cura- At first glance this book seems rather Bourtchouladze’s and her colleagues’ tors and others who could advance his timid and, to some extent, understated. research findings. Here we learn that career. His achievements were recog- Nothing, however, could be further nized by only small circles of people, from the truth. Reading it closely is like they also hold out the possibility of the manipulation of gene function with albeit often quite eminent ones, such drinking champagne cocktails: every- drugs. The tetracycline-regulated system as , thing starts out innocently and gently has now been combined with the tech- and . enough, then bang—it hits you like a nique of producing region-specific mu- Teske’s work changed dramatically sledgehammer. tations. This will allow us to control both when and where in the brain the gene of over his lifetime. His experimental Memories Are Made of This is much interest is turned on and off (p.162)[!] darkroom work came to dominate, more than a well-written, highly read- and it is hard to believe that the same able book concerning the nature of photographer who took the darkly memory in animals and humans for compelling photographs of the clown general readership. It works on four marionette and the store windows is somewhat distinct levels: (a) simply, a the same photographer who produced “ripping good yarn”; (b) a serious sci- the composite prints of women’s faces entific exposition of the latest research transposed onto buildings, of children’s on memory; (c) an overview of just how faces hovering in the air over a lake and science is done, concerning politics and of nudes transposed onto rocks and funding; (d) a frightening scenario for natural objects. These composite prints the future resulting from the misuse of and solarizations seem like a form of scientific research findings. Victorian surrealism—a strange hybrid. Memory is one of the most important It is as if Teske began as an early mod- aspects of being human and, as such, ernist and then developed innovative warrants intense research efforts. With- and complex darkroom techniques that out memory we would have no sense of allowed him to move back in time to self. Brain injury and disease can have express the repressed sensibilities of devastating effects on both long- and an earlier generation. As Cox points short-term memory, and many such out, a powerful homoerotic element cases are discussed throughout this runs through much of Teske’s work, book. The book also describes many and it is hard not to conclude that his experiments done using animals, pre- search for technical innovation was not sented in a matter-of-fact way; this infor- also a search for a way of viewing and mation might distress some readers expressing the male body in a form who support the decreased use or abo- acceptable to the time. It is as though lition of laboratory test animals. Many

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