"Naming The Animals" Call for Works, Curious Matter and Proteus Gowanus

Posted on by


A very exciting looking call for art works just crossed my desk; full details below:

Curious Matter is announcing its new Call For Entries, "Naming The Animals." If you believe that this will be of interest to your artist members, please make it available to them. Thank you for your cooperation.
Curious Matter

We're absolutely delighted to announce this special collaboration between CURIOUS MATTER and PROTEUS GOWANUS. Details are below and attached as a pdf file. Cheers!

CALL FOR ENTRIES

Naming The Animals

Entries Due: March 4, 2011

Exhibition dates: April 3 - May 15, 2011*

Naming The Animals is a collaboration between Curious Matter in Jersey City, NJ and Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition will be presented in two parts concurrently at Curious Matter and Proteus Gowanus. The curators will select the location for the artwork. The exhibition is a complement to the yearlong multi-disciplinary inquiry hosted by Proteus Gowanus on the theme of Paradise. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Theme: In our collective effort to understand the world we're driven to catalogue and name everything around us. From Adam’s task to name the animals in paradise, to cave painting to modern ecology and zoology, we’re compelled to describe and render the creatures that share our planet. Medieval bestiaries, and the work of Ernst Haeckel and John James Audubon are vivid examples, as are the installations of Mark Dion and the ecological works of Alexis Rockman. These various efforts are not necessarily purely aesthetic or scientific; naming and cataloguing can also include the assignment of moral or metaphorical associations–implicit is the desire to declare and understand ourselves.

We invite contemporary artists to submit work that draws inspiration from the natural world and the human drive to understand and catalogue the world around us. We're taking a broad approach to the theme and are particularly interested in work that looks beyond a literal interpretation.

Media/dimensions: All media will be considered. Artworks should not exceed 24"(framed) in any direction for wall hung work. Small sculptural work and bookarts particularly welcome, larger sculptures will be considered individually. Video artists must provide their own equipment.

Eligibility: All artists working in any media.

Submissions: (Please include all information. Late, incomplete, or weblink submissions will not be considered or responded to.)
1. Up to 5 images. Postal submissions should include 35mm slides or letter-sized color printouts. Do not send original artwork. Digital file submissions will only be accepted via email and must be in JPEG or PDF format, resolution set to 72 dpi, no larger than 800 X 800 pixels and no larger than 2MB. Please number images to correspond to Image List.
2. Image list. Numbered to correspond with your image submissions. Include image #, your name, title, date of work, medium, size and price. You may include a brief description for each image, however this isn’t required.
3. One page résumé. Please include a three line bio, your
contact information and an email address.
4. Artist’s statement. No longer than 300 words.

Fees: NO FEE TO ENTER, accepted artists pay a nominal materials fee of $35.

Deadline: Entries must be received no later than March 4, 2011.

Return of Submission Materials: Include a SASE if you want your materials to be returned. Make sure there is sufficient postage. Materials without postage will not be returned.

Notification: Accepted artists will be notified via email by March 7, 2011. NOTE: Accepted artists must confirm their participation by March 8 and provide a print-quality digital image for the catalogue by March 11.

Drop Off: Drop off of accepted artwork will be March 26 and 27, noon to 2pm at Curious Matter. Mailed artwork must arrive by March 25 and include return shipping label/postage/etc.

Pick Up: Artists are responsible for picking up artwork on May 21 noon to 2pm. Return of mailed artwork with return postage will begin on May 16, 2011.

Email Submissions To: CuriousMatter@comcast.net
By Post: Curious Matter, 272 Fifth Street, Jersey City, NJ 07302

* works selected for exhibition at Proteus Gowanus will remain on display until mid-July as part of the Paradise exhibition.

CURIOUS MATTER is an exhibition venue for contemporary visual art located in downtown Jersey City, NJ. Curious Matter exhibitions and publications evidence the pursuit to understand and articulate our individual and collective experience of the world, real or imagined. We examine fantastic notions, confounding ideas and audacious thoughts. Curious Matter strives to foster dialogue among artists at all career stages with a calendar of regular exhibitions. Our commitment extends to our audience as we endeavor to open a door to appreciating contemporary art in an atmosphere that encourages engagement and curiosity. The gallery is open Sundays noon to 3pm and by appointment during exhibitions. Curious Matter is a non-profit organization, and a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit service organization.

PROTEUS GOWANUS is a gallery and reading room located on the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY. A collaborative project, the gallery develops exhibits of art, artifacts and books and hosts events that revolve around a yearlong theme linking the arts to other disciplines and to the community. Proteus Gowanus incorporates the rich and diverse cultural resources of several non-profit organizations into its exhibits and programming. This year’s theme is PARADISE, an exploration of the light and dark sides of spiritual ascent and sensual escape, in which we invite artists and workers in other disciplines to respond to the siren song of that which is easy to imagine but difficult to attain.

CURIOUS MATTER
272 Fifth Street, Jersey City, NJ 07302,
[T] 201-659-5771 [E] curiousmatter@comcast.net
curiousmatter.blogspot.com
follow us on facebook!

There is no fee to enter, and submissions are due on March 4th; Click here for more information. To find out more about Proteus Gowanus gallery, click here; to fine out more about Curious Matter, click here.

Image: Illustration by artist/naturalist/monist Ernst Haeckel, 19th Century, via zannestars.com.

The Bolognese "Venerina," Anatomical Venus, Clemente Susini, 1780-1782

Posted on by



The Bolognese "Venerina" is one of the more or less faithful replicas of the original model, the Venere dei Medici, that Clemente Susini (1754-1814) made between 1780-1782 in Florence. The agony of a young woman is represented in her last instant of life as she abandons herself to death voluptuously and completely naked. The thorax and abdomen can be opened, allowing the various parts to be disassembled so as to simulate the act of anatomic dissection.

A virtual dissection, to be carried out by lifting the movable layers or ‘pieces’ to reveal veins, arteries and internal organs. A young woman, the Venerina carries a foetus in her womb – to suggest the procreative potential of the female body – despite the total lack of any outward signs of pregnancy.

The alienating effect that the statue produces by combining anatomical detail, crude and repulsive, with a harmonious and sensual litheness, is the result of a precise scientific choice: sensitivity is an essential quality of matter; sensitivity – with its wide range of manifestations, including the sensuality of the Venerina who surrenders herself to death – lies at the core of the physical and physiological organisation of man.

From the website for the stunning Museo di Palazzo Poggi in Bologna, Italy where the Venerina is housed.

FIELD TRIP: Guided Tour and Behind the Scenes Viewing of The Murtogh D. Guinness Automaton Collection at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey

Posted on by

clownhead
Field trip, anyone?

FIELD TRIP: Guided Tour and Behind the Scenes Viewing of The Murtogh D. Guinness Automaton Collection at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey
Date: Sunday, February 20th
Time: 12 PM - 4 PM (Bus pickup and drop-off at Observatory)
Admission: $45
*** MUST RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com
*** PLEASE NOTE: Trip limited to a maximum of 30 attendees; Admission fee Includes round trip transportation via chartered bus, tour cost, a Guinness beer, and museum admission.

Many people have no idea that one of the finest collections of antique automata--moving mechanical toys popular in the 18th Century and 19th Centuries-- in the world resides not in London or Paris but 25 miles away from New York City in Morristown, New Jersey.

This collection--compiled over 50 years by Murtogh D. Guinness (1913-2002), heir to the Guinness beer fortune--consists of 700 historic automata and mechanical musical instruments as well as more than 5,000 programmed media, ranging from player piano rolls to pinned cylinders. Guinness regarded the collection as his life’s work, and he traveled the globe to search of the finest surviving pieces of their kind. Many of the automata in the collection were made in France in the 19th Century and represent a broad array of subjects including snake charmers, magicians, singing birds, musicians, animals, and anthropomorphic monkeys enacting a variety of human situations. Together, these objects constitute one of the largest public holdings of automata in the United States.

On Sunday, February 20th, join Observatory and Morbid Anatomy for a special guided tour of this incredible collection, one of the most significant of its kind in the world. Guinness Collection Conservator Jeremy Ryder will lead us on an hour-long tour of the collection; on this tour, he will guide us through of the permanent exhibit Musical Machines & Living Dolls featuring 150 pieces from the spectacular collection, explain the techniques and history of these incredible objects, demonstrate automata in action, and show us pieces rarely on display to the general public.

After the tour, attendees will be given approximately an hour of free time with which to take in the other exhibitions at the museum such as Frank H. Netter, MD Michelangelo of Medicine--featuring more than 40 works of art by this acclaimed master of medical illustrations--and the museum's excellent permanent collection which includes costumes and textiles, fine art, decorative art, dolls and toys, natural science, geology and paleontology, and anthropology; more about the museum can be found at http://www.morrismuseum.org.

At the day's end, our chartered bus will pick up us and we will enjoy a toast to Mr. Guinness and his fantastic collection with a Guinness beer (naturally!) on our drive back to New York City.

Trip Details: The $45 event cost of this event includes round trip transportation on a special chartered bus from Observatory to the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey and back again, as well as museum admission, tour cost, and one Guinness beer per person. The bus will pick up and drop off in front of Observatory (543 Union Street at Nevins Street). Pick up is 12:00 noon sharp and drop off approximately 4:00 PM. Attendees will have approximately 1 hour of free time to view the rest of the museum collection.

More info here.

Image: Clown Illusionist Automaton; Made by Jean or Henry Phalibois, Paris, France, c. 1890-1900 "], from The Murtogh D. Guinness Automaton Collection

Buried Alive at Coney Island: "Night and Morning," 1907

Posted on by


Playing off the titillating terror of being buried alive--a theme exploited also by Edgar Allen Poe among many others--Coney Island's Luna Park premiered a new attraction in 1907 which allowed the visitor to experience their own premature burial and added a trip through Hades and Paradise to boot.

From a contemporary New York Times report on April 21, 1907:

NEW WONDERS THIS SEASON AT CONEY ISLAND - Beatific Heavenly Visions and Gruesome Scenes in Hell to be Luna Park's Latest Novelty ...

"The real big feature of the revised Luna Park," Mr. Thompson explained, "is going to be what I have named Night and Morning: or, A Journey Through Heaven and Hell." The idea in itself if, of course, not new, but the manner in which it has been worked up in entirely original and is expected to make it a 'thriller.' It shows you the complete journey to Hades and Paradise, and is full of surprises....

"The first room into which the people enter is like a big coffin with a glass top and the lid off. You look up through the roof and see the graveyard flowers and the weeping willows and other such atmospheric things. When everything is ready the coffin is lowered into the ground. It shivers and shakes, and when it tips up on end you hear a voice above give a warning to be careful. Then the lid is closed and you hear the thud of the dirt.

"The man who is conducting the party now announces that they must have a spirit to guide them. A subject is put into a small coffin and in an instant he is transformed into a skeleton. Then a real skeleton appears and delivers a solemn lecture in which he tells the people that they must 'leave all hope on the outside'--a gentle perversion of the old 'abandon hope all ye who enter here.' ...

Now there is a great clanking of chains and the side of the coffin comes out and visitors pass down into the mysterious caverns. First they see a twentieth century idea of Hell, with monopolists frying in pans and janitors fastened to hot radiators.... After the modern Hell the people come to the Chamber of Skeletons. Though these skeletons haven't a stitch of clothes on them, they smoke cigarettes most unconcernedly all the time just like live men.... Next you come to the panorama of Hell, where you see a vision of all the condemned spirits being washed down by the River of Death. Now comes the big change and you find yourself in a large ordinary room, with cathedral-like windows through which you can look outside and see the graveyard which looms up with a weird effect. Like great mist you can see the spirits rising from the graves and ascending to Heaven...

The great transformation now takes place. The whole grave yard floats off into space with the single exception of an immense cross, where the form of a young girl is seen clinging to the Rock of Ages. Fountains foam with all their prismatic colors, and the air is filled with troops of circling angels. The room itself vanishes and you find yourself in a bower of flowers under a blue sky. At the climax and angel comes down with a halo which she places on the head of the girl who is still clinging to the cross Then all that vanishes and you are within four blank walls once more."

Excerpted fom the April 21, 1907 issue of The New York Times; You can read the entire article here.

For more on the amazing and bizarre attractions of turn of the century Coney Island, check out my new project The Great Coney Island Spectacularium.

Image: Antoine Wiertz, The Premature Burial, 1854. Also the name of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Image found via a blog called Rouge's Foam.

Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet, Conference, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, February 5th

Posted on by




For the curious (sic) among you: On Saturday, February 5th I will be presenting a short lecture as part of the very intriguing looking "Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet" conference hosted by Seton Hall University. Lawrence Weschler--author of one of my all time favorite books, Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder--will be giving the keynote address on “A Natural History of Wonder;” my piece will examine the revival of private cabinets of curiosity as explored in my Private Cabinets photo series, from which the above images are drawn. I will also talk a bit about my own Private Cabinet experiment, The Morbid Anatomy Library.

This event is free and open to the public. Full line up and schedule follows; hope to see you there!

Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet

10-10:30: Coffee

10:30: Welcome (Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Seton Hall University)

10:45-11:45: Lawrence Weschler, Keynote address: “A Natural History of Wonder.”

11:45-12:15: Kirsten A. Hoving, Middlebury College, “Thinking Inside the Box: Joseph Cornell’s Cabinets of Cosmic Curiosity.”

12:15-1:15: Lunch

1:15-1:45: Melissa Ragain, University of Virginia, “Wonder as a Way of Seeing: Gyorgy Kepes and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies

1:45-2:15: Matthew Palczynski, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Organizing the Curious Damien Hirst”

2:15-2:45: Patricia Allmer, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), and Jonathan Carson & Rosie Miller (artist collaborators), University of Salford (UK), “Playing in the Wunderkammer”

2:45-3: Break

3-3:30: Joanna Ebenstein, Morbid Anatomy Library, “To Every Man his Cabinet or The Morbid Anatomy Library and Cabinet and the Revival of Cabinets of Curiosity.”

3:30-4: Roundtable with artists, led by Jeanne Brasile, Seton Hall University

4-5:30: Reception

You can find out more here and get directions by clicking here. This symposium is being produced in conjunction with a new exhibition called Working in Wonder at the Walsh Gallery at Seton Hall University; You can find out more about that by clicking here.

All of the photos you see here are drawn from my Private Cabinets series; you can see the full collection by clicking here; the first two images are from the collection of Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan; the bottom image is from the collection Evan Michelson of Obscura Antiques (and also more recently the television show "Oddites.")

Looming U.S. Battle on Fast Trains

Posted on by

From IEEE Spectrum:

In the U.S. budget proposal for the next fiscal year unveiled this week, the Obama administration is seeking $53 billion to promote development of fast train lines like those in Europe and Japan. "At least two projects—a proposed Tampa-to-Orlando route

NASA FY 2012 Budget Request To Cut Back on Commercial Space?

Posted on by

NASA Budget Plan Restricts Spending On Private Rockets, WS Journal

"The Obama administration's proposed 2012 National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget, expected to total more than $18.5 billion, scales back funding for private rockets and spacecraft intended to take astronauts into orbit, according to government and industry officials"

FY 2012 Budget, OMB

"The President's new budget for Fiscal Year 2012 will be posted at 10:30 AM ET, February 14, 2011."

NASA Announces Plan To Win The Future With Fiscal Year 2012 Budget

"The NASA budget and supporting information will be available online at 1 p.m., Feb. 14, at: http://www.nasa.gov/budget"

Kohlenberger To Depart OSTP, Space News

"James Kohlenberger, chief of staff for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and a proponent of commercial space initiatives, will leave his post at the end of February after two years serving under U.S. President Barack Obama, according to a Feb. 7 e-mail obtained by Space News. ... Last February when Obama rolled out his 2011 budget blueprint for NASA, including controversial plans to kill the nation's lunar exploration program in favor of fostering a commercial market for privately built space taxis, Kohlenberger defended the decision."

i-Path is Expanding

Posted on by
News_headernew

i-Path is pleased to announce that in line with our business expansion, we have moved to new premises.
Our new address is as below:
Innovation Centre, Belfast
i-Path Diagnostics Ltd.
Unit 2
Northern Ireland Science Park
Innovation Centre
Titanic Quarter
Belfast
BT3 9DT.

Our telephone numbers are now: 

Office:
+44 (0) 28 90 738 712

Sales:
+44 (0) 28 90 731 026

Development:
+44 (0) 28 90 731 037 

Client Services:
+44 (0) 28 90 731 028

 

News_footer
 
 

Isolating Disturbing Loads

Posted on by

Hi, I think isolating the disturbing load is a bit confusing to me, if a load is disturbing namely it starts up with a big current such as motors welders etc. so what difference makes to isolate these loads from the sensitive ones .İn essence they really are fed through the say same transformer