Mushroom Bodies: January 2010

29.1.10

Recents

Madonna, Mother and Child. Oil on Wood. 2009

A few of my most recent works, focusing the lens on my aesthetic interests by fusing victorian kistch, SEM imagery, Biological principles, religious iconography and Byzantine icons.

Viral Thorns. Mixed Media 2009

25.1.10

Defining Biomimicry

Art work by Dale Chihuly, photographed by Thomas Hawk

Though environmental crisis continues to impose its weight of challenges on the human race, perhaps what is more threatening is our potential to flounder in a sea of our own ingenuity. Solutions to the myriad of ecological, economic, environmental, social and medical problems associated with the rapid degeneration of natural resources remain disconnected, unrefined, unfunded or unexplored. Part of the reason for this is the fragmented means by which we approach these complex, interdisciplinary problems, producing self-contained vesicles of specialized information. Collaborations between fields often segregated by antique perspectives is required to fully realize the potential of specialized research. We must create a working web, or system of information sharing and product production. Fortunately we are equipped with powerful tools to realize these goals; social networking and the internet have expanded beyond expectations in the last decade. What remains is to overcome our own traditional definitions ofart and science as segregated disciplines with little overlap, and revise it.

One particularly promising, though somewhat marginalized field of sustainable research and development is Biomimicry. Biomimicry, or Biomimetics is a spiraling, continuous process, taking nature as inspiration to generate individual products or systems and processes for the purpose of integration into a sustainable system. The term was originally coined by Janine Benyus in the late 90s, but has evolved beyond her original concept into a much broader and unrefined term, given the advancement of sustainable technologies and biological information.

Now, I propose a new definition for Biomimicry highlighted by the Biomimicry Helix Model illustrated in Defining Biomimicry: Architectural Applications in Systems and Products a peer-reviewed paper emphasizing the practical applications of Biomimicry in sustainable architecture.Defining Biomimicry has been recently submitted to the Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Texas at Austin, and is pending publication.

You can access this paper here

Evolution of Paintings

The Genealogy of Transmission Project was undertaken in 2007 as a preliminary means to explore the physical relationship between art and evolution. A series of paintings were generated mimicking an evolutionary process, using Ebay as a natural "selecting agent". The project culminated in a show at the Centro Cultural Atzlan in San Antonio, Texas where the final piece (pictured above) was revealed having "survived" the laborious selection process. Below are thumbnails of highlighted works produced throughout the project, documented in their entirety at http://evolvepaintings.blogspot.com

15.1.10

Design Science Collaboration

Richard Perry/The New York Times

The Design Science Collaboration (a student organization at the University of Texas at Austin) has introduced collaborative communication between segregated disciplines on campus. Inspired by the initiatives of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit, students from the College of Natural Sciences, Fine Arts, Design, Engineering and the Computer Sciences attend meetings to engage in facilitated discussions, lectures, and projects exploring interdisciplinary solutions to dynamic problems (often sustainability issues). After receiving funding from the UT Coop this fall, DSC plans to embark on a project headed by myself and Ayham Grahowi to explore the concept of flux, hoping to visualize how influx of molecular processes contribute to the flow and fluctuation of mundane daily activity. The project seeks to explore this world using methods of 3D visualization software and the production of physical objects to illuminate the the equipotential surface of the intricately complex universe of molecular flux. If all goes well, the project should be completed and exhibited in May.

Flux: Sodium Ion channel models as catalysts of action potentials responsible for inter-neuron communication. Channels open and close according to the flux of sodium ions entering and leaving the cellular membrane.

8.1.10

Tabulation of Influences

Sometimes I find myself overwhelmed in a sea of influences. There are so many specific things I love, items, pieces, works, totals, that possess a certain quality of which I am perhaps genetically predisposed to love. I feel joy in images. So I suppose as a warm gesture I am to compile a series of image influences; a getting-to-know-you project beneficial to both imaginary readers and myself.