Department of Artificial Butterflies. Giorgos Gerontides. KEDA*PRESS

Posted in art, Artist Book, books, ecology, science on December 2nd, 2022
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The Department of Artificial Butterflies (DoAB) is a part of a larger project that aims to create a Museum of UnNatural History. The Museum will advance its global mission to discover, interpret, and disseminate information about human contemporary cultures, the natural world as we reproduce it and ecology through a wide-ranging program of scientific research, education, and exhibition.

The “DoAB” aims to research animal issues in contemporary art in relation to John Berger’s text “Why look at animals” which examines some of the most important concepts in social theory and philosophy such as the action of the gaze, the relationships between humans and animals in society as well as the objectification of the animal and the distancing of the human from the animal.

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Antarctic Resolution. Giulia Foscari, UNLESS (Eds.). Lars Müller Publishers

Posted in architecture, art, Artist Book, books, critique, geography, photography, research, science, writing on June 5th, 2022
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Accounting for approximately 10 % of the land mass of Planet Earth, the Antarctic is a Global Commons we collectively neglect. Far from being a pristine natural landscape, the continent is a contested territory which conceals resources that might prove irresistible in a world with an ever-increasing population. The 26 quadrillion tons of ice accumulated on its bedrock, equivalent to around 70 % of the fresh water on our planet, represent the most significant repository of scientific data available. It provides crucial information for future environmental policies, and, at the same time, is the greatest possible menace to global coastal settlements when sea levels rise because of global warming.

On the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica, Antarctic Resolution offers a high-resolution image of this hyper-surveilled yet neglected continent. In contrast to the fragmented view offered by Big Data companies, the book is a holistic study of the continent’s unique geography, unparalleled scientific potential, contemporary geopolitical significance, experimental governance system, and extreme inhabitation model. A transnational network of multidisciplinary polar experts – represented in the form of authored texts, photographic essays, and data-based visual portfolios – reveals the intricate web of growing economic and strategic interests, tensions, and international rivalries, which are normally enveloped in darkness, as is the continent for six months of the year.

With contributions by Doaa Abdel-Motaal, Conrad Anker, Ryan Ashworth, Francesco Bandarin, Carlo Barbante, James N. Barnes, Thomas Barningham, Carlo Baroni, Susan Barr, Elisa Bergami, Marcelo Bernal, Anne-Marie Brady, Ralf Brauner, Cassandra M. Brooks, Shaun T. Brooks, Hugh Broughton, Bert Bücking, David Burrows, Sol Camacho, Sanjay Chaturverdi, Swadheet Chaturvedi, Christy Collis, Peter Convey, Geoff Cooper, Gabriele Coppi, Ilaria Corsi, Lino Dainese, Klaus Dodds, Julian Dowdeswell, Juan Du, Graeme Eagles, Tess Egan, Alexey Ekaykin, Fausto Ferraccioli, Joe Ferraro, James Rodger Fleming, Adrian Fox, William Fox, Bob Frame, Peter Fretwell, Jacopo Gabrielli, Hartwig Gernandt, Andrew Gerrard, Neil Gilbert, Karsten Gohl, Francis Halzen, Kael Hanson, Ursula Harris, Judith Hauck, Robert Headland, Beth Healey, Alan D. Hemmings, Adrian Howkins, Kevin A. Hughes, Andrew T. Hynous, Julia Jabour, Stéphanie Jenouvrier, Solan Jensen, Andrea Kavanaugh, Daniel Kiss, Georg Kleinschmidt, Alexander Klepikov, Peter Landschützer, Louis John Lanzerotti, Elizabeth Leane, Sang-Lem Lee, Inti Ligabue, Daniela Liggett, Bryan Lintott, Vladimir Y. Lipenkov, Cornelia Lüdecke, Arturo Lyon, James Madsen, Craig McCormack, Tony McGlory, Hans-Jürgen Meyer, Christel Misund-Domaas, Nicholas de Monchaux, Chiara Montanari, Michael Morrison, Teasel Muir-Harmony, John Nelson, Camilla Nichol, Miranda Nieboer, Anne Noble, Dirk Notz, Shaun O’Boyle, Madeleine O’Keefe, Nouschka Očenášek, Lawrence A. Palinkas, Scott Parazynski, Carolina Passos, Michael Pearson, Francesco Pellegrino, Rick Petersen, Katherina Petrou, Andrea Piñones, Jean-Yves Pirlot, Ceisha Poirot, Jean de Pomereu, Alexandre Ponomarev, Brian Rauch, Ron Roberts, Donald R. Rothwell, Juan Francisco Salazar, Jean-Baptiste Sallée, Sir Philippe Samyn, Bojan Šavrič, Mirko Scheinert, Didier Schmitt, Thomas Schramm, Daniel Schubert, Karen Nadine Scott, Cara Seitchek, Maria Ximena Senatore, Jonathan Shanklin, Yuri Shibaev, Tim Stephens, Pavel G. Talalay, Steve Theno, Paul Thur, Philip Trathan, David Vaughan, Emerson Vidigal, Claudio Willams, Gary Wilson and Angela Wright.

Winner of the DAM Architectural Book Award 2021

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Not Human, Not Fly. Mao. Massacre

Posted in Artist Book, graphic design, politics, science on September 11th, 2021
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Not-human, Not-fly is a publication made of two books. One contains a study on the concept of the posthuman using David Cronenberg’s film The Fly as a starting point. It argues that the human-fly mutant in the film, Brundlefly, is not just another cautionary tale that invalidates deviations from conventional expressions of humankind. The creature is worthy of consideration both as an organism that functions on their own terms, beyond the features of humans and houseflies, and as a picture of Dorian Gray that reveals not some underlying immorality, but the terms for living in an age of systematic environmental destruction that has been called the Anthropocene. The second book is a work of fan fiction: it presents a series of fictional DNA sequence constructs belonging to Brundlefly, which create a narrative based on the genetic transformations that Brundlefly was subjected to, revealing the not wholly linear relations that connect humans, posthumans and houseflies.

Hugo Almeida is an artist (who goes by the name Mao) and postdoc researcher at the Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT), Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is an alumni of the Art & Science residency program of the IMéRA Foundation, Marseille (2016-2017), France and of the Saari Residence, KONE Foundation, Mynämäki, Finland (2016). He has been a postdoc at CIEBA, Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon University (2013-2016) and holds a PhD in Molecular Biology (2013, NOVA University of Lisbon), from his research at the Telomere and Genome Stability Laboratory, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), Oeiras, Portugal. Mao normally exhibits and publishes with the art research collective and publishing label Massacre. His work has also been published by Chili Com Carne and Komikaze. He was a founding member of zine label Clube do Inferno (2012-2019).

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intervals and forms of stones of stars. Nanna Debois Buhl. Humboldt Books.

Posted in Artist Book, distribution, science, travel, Wholesale on August 31st, 2017
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intervals and forms of stones of stars investigates a Nordic man-made beach landscape. Located near Copenhagen, Køge Bay Beach Park is a 7-kilometer-long recreational area reclaimed from the sea. While highly planned and regulated, the idea was to create a landscape that looked like wild nature. The book is a reflection of this anthropocene biotope, its botany, and its cultural context. Through a series of cameraless photographic registrations, Buhl maps the biotope’s flora, fauna, and particles and draws connections between the characteristics of the site and its photographic representation. Her photographs are inspired by the cameraless photographic works of W. H. Fox Talbot (1840s) and A. Strindberg (1890s); images created without a photographic lens, only by use of light and light sensitive surfaces. In the photographs, dust particles resemble the night sky and the wings of an insect look like a topographical map. The book contains the series of full-page photographs as well as a text of field notes and two conversations, with N. Bubandt, Professor of Anthropology, Aarhus University and with L. Gallun, Assistant Curator of Photography at MoMA, New York.

Nanna Debois Buhl is a visual artist who lives and works in Copenhagen and New York. She participated in The Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, New York (2008-09), and received her MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2006). Her practice is a continuous investigation of historical and cultural knowledge through botany, animal life, imagery, and architecture. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Pérez Art Museum, Florida; SculptureCenter, New York; Art in General, New York; The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York; MSU Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Lunds Konsthall, Sweden; ARKEN Museum of Modern Art; Kunsthal Charlottenborg; Kunsthallen Brandts; Museum for Contemporaty Art, Roskilde; and Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark.

 

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Gregor Mobius. DNA Semantics. Visual Representation of DNA and RNA Lecture @ Motto Berlin on 09.08.2016 @ 7:30 PM

Posted in Motto Berlin event, science on August 1st, 2016
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166 DNA Semantics-U3 MG Ljublljana 2016

Gregor Mobius. DNA Semantics. Visual Representation of DNA and RNA Lecture @ Motto Berlin on 09.08.2016 @ 7:30 PM

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This lecture is about an interpretation of DNA/RNA as visual structures with specific formal properties and relationships. Instead of the existing alphabet representation U, C, A, G and T, all the bases are expressed as five discrete values of the gray-scale:  T=white, G= light gray, A= gray, C= dark gray and U= black. Arranged in 3 x 4 matrices DNA strands as linear structures consisting of alphabet letters are converted into 2-D images with distinct visual properties. In this representation we could learn more about DNA/RNA, not only as biological (functional) structures but also as a specific language that can be expressed visually.

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Gregor Mobius is a theoretician of languages that are expressed visually. His early work was in the field of Graph Theory developing an algorithm for visual representation of all planar and regular graphs. As a Fulbright scholar he received master of Science in Visual Studies at MIT with the paper “Discrete Visual Structure – Elements of Visual Grammar” (1984). A few years later, based on his thesis paper, Mobius proposed a specific representation of DNA and RNA that converts linear alphabet DNA structure into a 2D image. This work was presented to the public at the exhibition Gene(sis) that traveled through some West Coast universities: Washington University(2002), University of California, Berkeley (2003) and University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (2004). It is now for the first time presented in a comprehensive way in the book “DNA Semantics”.

Making Worlds. Amelia Barikin & Helen Hughes (Eds.). Surpllus.

Posted in art, books, critique, distribution, film, literature, science, Theory, writing on January 7th, 2014
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Making Worlds. Amelia Barikin & Helen Hughes (Eds.). Surpllus.

Making Worlds: Art and Science Fiction is an anthology of new texts by artists, curators, art historians and writers who are self-confessed science fiction fans. The linking point is the idea of science fiction as a platform for the building of alternate art histories. This collection is concerned with the ways in which science fiction might be performed, materialised or enacted within a contemporary context.

Edited by Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes, with contributions by: Adrian Martin, Amelia Barikin, Andrew Frost, Anthony White, Arlo Mountford, Brendan Lee, Charles Green, Chris McAuliffe, Chronox, Damiano Bertoli, Darren Jorgensen, Dylan Martorell, Edward Colless, Helen Hughes, Helen Johnson, Justin Clemens, Lauren Bliss, Matthew Shannon, Nathan Gray, Nick Selenitsch, OSW, Patrick Pound, Philip Brophy, Rex Butler, Ryan Johnston, and Soda_Jerk.

Design by Brad Haylock

Softcover, 320 pages.

15 €

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Body Searches. Jon Ståle Ritland. Broken Dimanche Press

Posted in books, distribution, poetry, science on November 9th, 2013
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Body Searches. Jon Ståle Ritland. Broken Dimanche Press

Several processes of communication are continuously happening in the cells and organs of the body. Human language can be seen as a further development of these. Genetic material or DNA is a prerequisite for this internal communication. The four bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T) constitute what you might call the codes or the letters in the language of the genes. The sequence and composition of the letters are decisive for the synthesis of proteins and signal substances. The poems in Body Searches are inspired by the grammar of the genes and the structure of the DNA-molecule and they endeavor to try and unravel, in a new way, the old question: what is a human?

Language: English
Softcover. 54 pages. 2013

Price: €17.00

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Ric Rac. Jérémie Gindre. Chert + Motto.

Posted in distribution, drawing, illustration, science, writing on July 8th, 2012
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Ric Rac. Jérémie Gindre. Chert + Motto.

Ric Rac is a comic book adaptation of three artworks by Jérémie Gindre. In the real world, A Cavern is a series of eight drawings and two stones (29.7 x 42 cm, India ink on paper + 23 x 23 x 2cm, slate on engraved concrete 2010-2011), A Slip is a series of fourteen drawings (29.7 x 42 cm, India ink and pen on paper, 2012), Passwords Forgotten is a sculpture and two paintings (85 x 130 x 85 cm, slate on aerated concrete + 80 x 60 cm, India ink on canvas, 2010-2012).

The author is grateful to Huckleberry Finn for A Cavern, to the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences for A Slip and to Edward Leedskalnin for Passwords Forgotten.

Translated from the French by John Tittensor.

Published by Chert and Motto, Berlin, on the occasion of the exhibition Tintenfisch at CNEAI=, Chatou, in the frame of Berlin-Paris 2012.

300 copies, printed in Germany.
Distributed by Motto Distribution.

D 10 €

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Elias Arnér & Per Hüttner & Åbäke – (In)Visible Dialogues, Dent-De-Leone

Posted in art, books, design, distribution, science on May 12th, 2011
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Elias Arnér & Per Hüttner & Åbäke – (In)Visible Dialogues, Dent-De-Leone

(In)Visible Dialogues is a project at Konstakademien in Stockholm which includes a number of internationally acclaimed speakers from different disciplines. Predrag Petrovic´, A Constructed World, Konrad Kaufmann, Arijana Kajfes, Sandra Masur, Laurent Devèze, Véronique Wiesinger & Hugo Lagercrantz.(In)Visible Dialogues allow art and science to meet in harmony as well as friction. The project brings together leading specialists from Europe, Asia, Australia and USA to stimulate meaningful dialogues about life and the boundaries of reality. (In)Visible Dialogues was initiated by artist Per Hüttner and Elias Arnér, professor in biochemistry at Karolinska Institutet in close collaboration with graphic designers Åbäke in London and a group of sound artists from all over the world. The project is a continuation of Begrepp – en Samling (Concepts – a collection) that was realized by the two former in 1992 at Konstakademin.

www.invisibledialogues.org

Author / Editor: Elias Arnér & Per Hüttner & Åbäke
Pages: 240
First Edition: 900 copies
Language: English & Swedish
Published by: Dent-De-Leone

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Neural Insights : Words and Images by Brain Scientists

Posted in books, graphic design, Motto Berlin store, Motto Zürich store, science on March 22nd, 2011

Neural Insights : Words and Images by Brain Scientists

Booklet published on the occasion of the global ‘Brain Awareness Week’ from march 14-20, 2011.
It accompagnies the exhibition ‘Neural Architectures’ at swissnex San Francisco and the ‘BrainFair’ in Zurich.

48 pages

D 10 €

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