Leonardo Reviews
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Leonardo reviews Leonardo reviews These artists set out to fill the gap left is cremated and reduced to carbon Editor-in-Chief: Michael Punt by scientific language, to more accu- graphite before its transformation into Managing Editor: Bryony Dalefield rately convey complex scenes and to a diamond; this piece asks the audience evoke a sense of wonder that stretched, to consider the environmental cost Associate Editors: Dene Grigar, confused and ultimately fleshed out the of carbon-intensive lifestyles. In other Martha Blassnigg, Hannah Drayson West’s geographical imagination. works it is the embodied senses that A full selection of reviews is pub- Today, under the auspices of Cape become the modus operandi for explor- lished monthly on the LR web site: Farewell, we see something of the same ing the landscape; the play of light as <leonardoreviews.mit.edu>. coming together around shared sites it is absorbed, reflected and refracted of study and common fields of interest. through and by ice is a central facet in There also appears, however, to be a works such as David Buckland’s Ice Texts critical reflection upon these previous (2008), wherein messages are trans- Exhibition traveling endeavors and their striving posed by video projector onto icebergs, to appropriate the secrets of distant and Chris Wainwright’s Red Ice—White places—a curiositas mirabilium that has Ice (2009), which presents the differ- n f o L d ULtUraL U- - - - - : a C long been suspected, from Plutarch ing visual effects of white and red flash response to CLimate onward, to be shameless audacity. photography, as well as Lateral Moraine Change Instead, the creative responses on Meets Fjord (2008), Nathan Gallagher’s The Museum of Contemporary display seem to suggest the “devout photographic work. Photography and the Glass Curtain pilgrim,” whose encounters with other As a collection, U-n-f-o-l-d has taken Gallery, Chicago, IL, U.S.A., Febru- peoples and places help them to map Cape Farewell’s cultural responses to ary 2011–April 2011. Exhibit web site: out their own place in the world. climate change on a transatlantic jour- <www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2011/03/ In U-n-f-o-l-d we find that it is often ney, presenting to its various audiences unfold.php>. the passage of the journey itself—meta- works that explore the expeditions and phorical and embodied—that becomes their destinations through a number of Reviewed by Elizabeth Straughan, Deborah the catalyst for creative practices. Exam- materials—unfired clay, photographic Dixon and Harriet Hawkins, Institute of ples include works that consider the plates, lenticular print, carbon and oil Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth movement of the ship, such as Tracey University, Wales, U.K. E-mail: <ers6@aber. Rowledge’s Arctic Drawing (2008), which ac.uk>. presents the bold points and fine lines of a pen, constructed as a pendulum, Reviews Panel: Kathryn Adams, Nameera U-n-f-o-l-d is a touring exhibition that marking the passage of the ship with Ahmed, Katherine Ancher, Fred Andersson, Wilfred Arnold, Jan Baetens, Niran Bahjat- showcases the work of 25 artists who, its sway. We find an attentiveness to the Abbas, Brian Baigrie, Jenny Bangham, John alongside other creative practitioners, embodied and emotional responses to F. Barber, Jon Bedworth, Roy R. Behrens, scientists and communicators, have the journey in Amrije de Hass’s piece Katharina Blassnigg, Martha Blassnigg, Barry participated in expeditions organized Wellness over Time (2010), which notes Blundell, Catalin Brylla, Annick Bureaud, Franc Chamberlain, Chris Cobb, Ornella by Cape Farewell to engage with land- the crew’s physical reactions to the Corazza, Geoff Cox, Sean Cubitt, Luisa Para- scapes considered particularly “fragile” climatic extremes encountered. An guai Donati, Hannah Drayson, Anthony Enns, in the face of global climate change. emphasis upon the journey is also Jennifer Ferng, Enzo Ferrara, George Gessert, Traveling to the high Arctic in 2007 and manifest in the traveling form of the Thom Gillespie, Luis Girao, Allan Graubard, 2008, and to the Andes in 2009, artists exhibition itself, flat-packed in Sam Dene Grigar, Diane Gromala, Rob Harle, Craig Harris, Paul Hertz, Craig J. Hilton, Jung A. have produced a wide range of creative Collins’s eco-friendly, biodegradable Huh, Amy Ione, Boris Jardine, Richard Kade, responses to this environmental crisis, crates cum artworks (2010). John Knight, Mike Leggett, Helen Levin, Kieran some of which are on exhibition in Unsurprisingly, an emphasis upon Lyons, Roger Malina, Jacques Mandelbrojt, Chicago. the unfolding of key issues from the Florence Martellini, Eduardo Miranda, Rick Mitchell, Robert A. Mitchell, Christine Morris, Founded in 2001, Cape Farewell’s minutiae of life is also central to the Michael Mosher, Axel Mulder, Frieder Nake, remit is to allow for both artists and works on display. Daro Montag’s Leaf- Maureen A. Nappi, Angela Ndalianis, Martha scientists, as part of a small, intimate cutter Ant Drawing (2009), for example, Patricia Nino, Simone Osthoff, Jack Ox, Nar- group, to see firsthand the landscapes considers the passage of marching ants endra Pachkhede, Jussi Parikka, Rene van Peer, that are undergoing transformation via when confronted with a thick black Giuseppe Pennisi, Cliff Pickover, Patricia Pisters, Michael Punt, Kathleen Quillian, Harry Rand, changing average temperatures, shift- line of oily carbon. The work asks Sonya Rapoport, Trace Reddell, Hugo de Rijke, ing ocean currents, loss of biodiversity questions about both ant and human Stefaan van Ryssen, Sundar Sarukkai, Laura and so on. Thus its expeditions inevi- behavior when presented with a car- Salisbury, Lara Schrijver, Bill Seeley, Aparna tably recall the placement of “traveling bon problem: Points of departure and Sharma, George K. Shortess, Chris Speed, Yvonne Spielmann, Eugene Thacker, Pia Tikka, artists” onboard ships from the mid- arrival are folded together, opening out David Topper, Nicholas Tresilian, Ian Verstegen, 18th century onward, as the Enlight- the worldly consequences of domestic Claudia Westermann, Stephen Wilson, Brigitta enment impulse to inventory became behaviors. In Ackroyd and Harvey’s Zics, Jonathan Zilberg married with the colonial enterprise. Polar Diamond (2009), a polar-bear bone ©2012 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 65–76, 2012 65 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_r_00333 by guest on 29 September 2021 on paper, ink on paper—and creative and efficiency. In science, only a long artists who did not actually use its rules. forms, such as performance, installa- work can remodel the original ideas to He then goes on to examine how artists tion, film, poetry and music. Eschew- get rid of all its useless aspects and lead can play around with numbers to cre- ing any overt political manifesto, the to (temporarily) final expressions. Lévy- ate works of art. Morellet, for instance, emphasis is firmly upon bringing the Leblond gives the example of Kepler’s makes complex works using elementary supposedly “far away”—in time as well laws of planetary motion: It took more rules. as space—into the “here and now,” such than a century for it to be discovered Other striking interpretations of that audiences can, one hopes, begin to that they were the consequences of works of art are rather in the domain map out their own place in the world Newton’s laws of gravitation. of epistemology: To Lévy-Leblond, as a prelude to undertaking their own What if the feeling of beauty is the the works of Max Charvolen strikingly devout pilgrimage through its dips and illumination scientists have at the evoke the way a scientific theory sticks troughs, its weaves and folds. moment when they suddenly under- to nature, so to speak, and then is torn stand a new aspect of nature? Two away from it while keeping some of its concepts, according to Lévy-Leblond, essential aspects. Piotr Kowalsky, the ooks b should replace that of beauty: adequa- author asserts, shows how the same con- tion and power. Adequation relates the cept can apply to contrasting objects, La sCienCe n’est pas L’art ideas to the phenomena being studied, such as an enormous pyramid made by Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond. Editions and the power of these ideas reflects from stacked hay bales and a neon Hermann, Paris, France, 2010. 119 the fact that they can apply to numer- pyramid of suspended lights. pp., illus. ISBN: 978-27056-6945-4. ous different phenomena. In conclusion, the “science is dif- Lévy-Leblond examines several ferent from art” analyses are, in a very Reviewed by Jacques Mandelbrojt, France. aspects of images in science. Since subtle way, about relationships between E-mail: <[email protected]>. 1970, modern technology has led sci- science and art. The writing is very criti- ence to discover fascinating images of cal of many scientists’ naïve attempts In this provocative book, whose title the microcosms or the macrocosms, to find similarities between art and page humorously reads both “Sci- or of biology. The question is: Should science, but it does describe works of ence and Art” and “Science Isn’t Art,” these images be considered art? The art that evoke to the author scientific physicist and essayist Lévy-Leblond beauty of scientific images is compel- concepts or procedures. This book can examines, in a critical and subtle man- ling for the non-scientist and accounts lead Leonardo readers or authors to dis- ner, similarities, often expressed by for the increasing esotericism of scien- cover a point of view different from that scientists, between art and science. The tific concepts or theories. Lévy-Leblond which usually prevails in Leonardo, and chapters are like essays, each exploring finds that publishing or exhibiting it can allow them to find their own path different points of view on these simi- these images aims mainly at making by comparing those two points of view.