Remapping
“Remapping” investigates new ideas concerning mapping as manifest in art but which are generated by algorithms that link different websites or are inspired by neural network theory.
Suzanne Anker is a visual artist working with scientific iconography in the realms of genetics and neuroscience. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the J.Paul Getty museum, the Smithsonian Institute, the Philips Collection, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art in Japan among others. Her work is represented by Universal Concepts Unlimited in New York City.
The Butterfly in the Brain continues Anker’s investigation into the visualizing techniques available through high technology simulation such as the microscope and the telescope. This work focuses on a dialogue of signs within the symmetrical (or virtually symmetrical) structures of the butterfly and the brain, both of which possess an axis copy. Using neurological maps as well as charts of urban sprawl, Anker plots the shape of a butterfly in each pattern. Constellations emerge from these distinct models calling into question the ways in which biological form is replicated in the cultural domain.
Alan Bruton – The Space of the Psyche – 1997-2002
If presented with ten slices of a brain, knowing that each of them is a sequential section of that brain, you can imagine how you might you go about reconstructing the brain’s entire form from these sections.
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What, then, if you were presented with sectional representations of a psyche, could you similarly construct a form for that psyche?
This is the question posed by architect Alan Moonan Bruton in his Space of the Psyche project, inspired by research into the history and structure of the Rorschach Ink Blot Psycho-Diagnostic Test Series. The Space of the Psyche project proposes a structured formal template for a psyche, associating it with the form of the brain. The operative hypothesis in the project is that the 10 standard ink blots in Dr. Rorschach’s test series can be seen as sequential sectional representations of a psyche, a conjecture inspired by Dr. Rorschach’s writings on his development of the series.
The project develops a materialistic view of the psyche, taking it out of the realm of the psychological and placing it within the realm of the authored, perceptible, and affective artifacts of culture. As the primary generative medium of the project is video, the project can be seen as a "concrete video" played in space. Constructed using digital topographic, modeling, image analysis, and film editing tools, the Space of the Psyche Project consists of video, models, and drawings describing a contiguous set of nine spatial modules. Each module defines the space between two of the 10 blots, utilizing these blots literally as construction documents.
The project’s intention is the structuring of a space into which one could project oneself to think reflectively about the interactions between self, space, memory, and the mechanisms of perception and projection.
Cheryl A. Cotman – Auditory and Visual Methods for Examining Patterns in Rhythmic Network Activity
The image on the left, Auditory and Visual Methods for Examining Patterns in Rhythmic Activity in Rhythmic Network Activity, is a drawing of the course of a laser pointer throughout a lecture explaining the visual and sound products of network activity of the brain. The course of a laser pointer during a lecture is not only indicative of the subject but also of the specific network activity of the lecturer.
As was discussed during the lecture, the moving image on the right shows the electrophysiological activity of a brain hippocampus. The positive and negative voltage values are represented here by blue and yellow respectively.
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The moving image shows the electrophysiological activity of a brain hippocampus. The positive and negative voltage values are represented here by blue and yellow respectively.
More specifically, signals from 64 sites in rat hippocampal network were recorded simultaneously during network rhythms. The top left image is a rat hippocampus atop its recording electrodes. Numerous network connections are present within this hippocampal system. Inspection of complex spatiotemporal patterns in three dimensions (two spatial dimensions plus time) was facilitated by open-source OpenDX visualization software, resulting in images that captured the temporal order inherent in the data. The image on the top right shows a three-dimensional view of the data as viewed from the beginning, or where time equals zero. The moving image (previous page), created in MatLab, represents the spatial dimensions with time as itself. The images on this page indicate another methodology of viewing the brain’s complex activity. In addition, specialized software was written to transform the raw time-varying signals into musical sounds, enabling both chaotic and rhythmic elements of the signals to emerge.
Cheryl A. Cotman has explored the venues of both Art and Biology. After receiving a B.A. in Biology from Reed College in 1998, she worked as a researcher in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the University of California, Irvine, where she collaborated with other scientists on projects involving neurodegeneration, genetics, and inflammatory processes. In 2000, she entered the Art and Integrated Media Graduate Program at California Institute of the Arts.
Cotman has continued her interest in the interrelationship of art and science. Last summer, as a Resident at Arteleku, San Sebastian, Spain, she focused on “Cell Culture: The Function of Art, Technology and Scientific Research in Cultural Practice.”
Cotman has presented at an Annual Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience, an Image and Meaning Conference at MIT, the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia at UCI and a joint seminar of the Departments of Neurology and Cell Biology & Anatomy at The University of Arizona. Her work has been exhibited at various galleries, including Track 16 at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica and the Lime Gallery at CalArts. Her illustrations are found in several peer-reviewed journals, including Current Opinion in Immunology, Neurobiology of Aging and Molecular Immunology; books and book chapters on inflammatory and other aspects of Alzheimer’s disease; a tutorial on Spinal Cord Research and Injury and an Encyclopedia of the Human Brain now in press. Underlying and enriching her work are extensive, in-depth and continuing associations with fellow artists and scientists.
Janet Cohen, Keith Frank, and Jon Ippolito
Agree To Disagree Online_ is an interactive map of an argument that begins when one of the three makes the statement, “In the future, books will be replaced by maps.” As each of the artists replies in turn, each statement is plotted according to how much agreement it garners from the other two participants: inflammatory statements remain on the periphery, while the center represents consensus. Visitors to the project can control the pace and level of detail of the argument as well as choose to follow digressions made to different topics, from Watergate to buffaloes to the Evelyn Wood speed reading course. _Agree To Disagree Online_ gives visual form to the flame wars and communications breakdowns that characterize Internet culture.
The artists working at www.three.org have been exploring the conflict inherent in the collaborative process since Janet Cohen, Keith Frank, and Jon Ippolito began working together in 1992. While early adversarial collaborations by these three artists took the form of an installation, book, or drawing, in 1995 they began to take advantage of the Internet’s capacity for encouraging flame wars and other clashes of perspective. The artists’ work has been seen at ZKM/Center for New Media Karlsruhe, the Walker Art Center, and Sandra Gering Gallery. When they’re not arguing or throwing stuff at each other, Janet Cohen makes drawings, Keith Frank designs Web sites for Oxygen Media, and Jon Ippolito curates media projects at the Guggenheim.
Casey Reas – Tissue – 2002
The Tissue software exposes the movements of thousands of synthetic neural systems. Each line in the image reveals the history of one system’s movement. Each system is two synthetic sensors and actuators and different relations between these elements determine how the systems react to the stimuli in their environment. There are four different types of systems and each reacts to the stimuli in a different way. People interact with the systems by positioning a group of yellow dots on the screen. By positioning and re-positioning the dots, an understanding of the total system emerges from the subtle relations between the positional input and the rich visual output. The Tissue images were created through the interaction between the artist and the software.
Visit Reas ‘Tissue’ Project online (Requires java) | http://www.artbrain.org/gallery2/reas/web_tissue.html
Casey Reas Website: http://www.groupc.net/
Stanza – Emergent City.2002. Also called phyletcity
My interest is in the nature of emergent systems and the metaphors that exist between the city and as a system and possible links with cellular structures.
[Inner City ]……. 2002
Sections inside include
virosity. artitexture. blackstar. complicity. cuboxis. intoxcity. megalopolis. misterium. modernista. ecumenopolis. motorate. organicity. phyletcity. revolver. utopias.more info. The idea is to go deeper into analogies for the organic identity of the city. Inner City is an audio visual, interactive, internet art, experience. The micro city becomes an organic networks of grids and diagrams.The form and content of this work is a visual world of the city and its structure. Motifs of urban design de-constructed and repeated in a grid. A series of continually edited and reprocessed urban images and forms containing isolated fragments of our city experience.
Please visit the Emergent City blog of Stanza here: http://www.stanza.co.uk/emergentcity/?page_id=6
Warren Sack
Please visit the project page of Warren Sack at the University of California, Santa Cruz.