Week Four

Artwork

Tiny Crab makes awesome art

Instead of focusing on one of the artists this week, or on a specific piece of art by an actual human being... I wanted to present this. Its a Sand Bubbler crab, and basically, they unintentionally make artwork. Its hard to explain, so here is an explanation taken from the article. "During low tide, the diminutive species, averaging less than a half-inch across, exit their burrows to scour the sand for tiny bits of organic debris in a radial motion. While eating, the crabs ball the excess sand on their heads, then discard it when it gets too big for them to see over -- leaving behind a remarkable-looking reminder which helps them keep from searching for food in the same sand twice."
The remnants of this eating activity are radial patterns that expand outward from where the crab began to eat. I find it quite amazing that the most basic, primal instinct from such a tiny creature can leave behind these amazing patterns. The question that comes to my mind is: If these are unintentional patterns, can they be considered art? If I was eating a hamburger, and just threw the wrapper on the ground, is that art? Hopefully by the end of this class I can answer those questions with confidence, because at this moment in time, I see it as a form of art.

Here is a video of the crab in action:





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Ingrid Koivukangas - Environmental Artist

"Working in the land, responding to sites around the world - integrating new media & new technology - creating permanent public works,
site specific installation, intervention, ephemeral sculpture,video, sound, web, permanent site specific sculpture, photography, printmaking, painting & drawing."

 Ingrid works mostly with trees, she began her research with writing on trees to figure out what kind of history was associated with it.  "As an environmental artist I work intuitively at sites, usually directly in response to being there. For this new work at Bois de Belle Rivière I was sent site photographs of possible locations to create a new work and asked if I could choose one. I was immediately drawn to the photo of a stand of trees in the forest. Over the coming weeks every time I looked at the photograph I kept thinking - ‘writing on trees’. I began to have dreams of walking through a forest in the Laurentians, birds flying overhead and animals peering out at me from behind trees, keeping me company as I approached a tree and began to write upon it."  Ingrid Koivukangas is an environmental artist, educator, designer, writer, Reiki Master and energy healer. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia Okanagan and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary. She lives on Salt Spring Island, by the sea, surrounded with Arbutus and ancient Cedar and Douglas Fir. Eagles, hawks, ravens, hummingbirds, deer and otters are frequent visitors at her studio. Ingrid’s work as an environmental artist encompasses many mediums including site-specific ephemeral and permanent works, interventions, installation, sculpture, video, sound, web, digital, photography, painting, printmaking and drawing. She is interested in issues of identity, especially indigenous cultures including her own, the environment, technology and globalization – questioning how our identities are shaped by the land while also exploring how technology can be integrated into that understanding. Working intuitively she creates new site-specific works for each site she is invited to. Much of the work is an attempt to provide the viewer with a starting point to begin contemplating their own connections to the land.

Her blog











Current News

Ancient Lake Vostok

Vostok is the third largest freshwater lake in the world,by volume,  but it is not commonly known because of its location. It is trapped under 2 miles of ice in Russia. It was named after Vostok Station, which was named after the ship that discovered Antarctica. This lake was one of the last major geographical discoveries on the planet, and the Russian team stationed there has been drilling for twenty years, bringing up Ice-cores for research. The implications of reaching the actual liquid water trapped below is huge, now we can study anything we find in the water, such as microorganisms or sediment and oxygen levels. The Russian team plans to send a robot down to collect samples and test all ranges of chemical composition and gas levels.
It will help form a better picture of how the earth has changed over millions of years, and how it may change in the future. The article talks about how alien the environment is in Vostok, that it is comparable to Europa and a moon that orbits Saturn, and with research may help us determine if life exists in those areas of our solar system. I am very excited about this development, its been a long time since any profound discoveries have been made related to life on other planets or other bodies in our solar system, I really hope some kind of life is detected below - it may help push our governments back into funding our Space programs so we can have another space race. This time though, it would be to another planet or moon, not just our own. Hopefully ;)




Extra bit

Nano-Art

This is some really cool art I came across, but haven't had much time to look into it yet. I have no idea how its created, but it is simply amazing. Art at the nano-level..










Art for this week:

I did a recreation on a smaller level of what deforestation looks like, I wish I had a better camera, the picture quality didn't turn out too well.