-
A recent New York Times Magazine article by Jon Mooallem discusses the research and assumptions surrounding “gay animals”. One of the more interesting issues that becomes a thread in the story is how often humans anthropomorphize animals in particularity using sexual orientation as a way to either prove or demonize the legitimacy of homosexuality.
“we’re quick to conceive of that great range of activities in the way it most handily tracks to our anthropomorphic point of view: put crassly, all those different animals just seem to be doing gay sex stuff with one another. “Jon Mooallem goes further to explore further how it has effected sciences, in particularly challenging assumptions around efficient evolution.
“Homosexuality is a tough case, because it appears to violate that central tenet, that all of sexual behavior is about reproduction. The question is, why would anyone invest in sexual behavior that isn’t reproductive?” –— much less a behavior that looks to be starkly counterproductive. Moreover, if animals carrying the genes associated with it are less likely to reproduce, how has that behavior managed to stick around”
The article covers a lot of fascinating information about the prevalence of what may be considered “gay” behavior in animals but in the end highlights more importantly how this is often simply a human construct and …“results in slushy logic. It’s naïve to slap conclusions about a given species directly onto humans.”
(interesting note: Photos by Jeff Koons)
-
Gilberto Esparza builds electronic “beam-bot” like robots that feed off of the environment. The urban parasite is device that crawls along the powerlines sucking on the electricity to fuel it’s movements. His more recent Nomadic Plants, on view at Laboreal Centro De Art
,”moves towards water when its bacteria require nourishment. It contains vegetation and microorganisms living symbiotically inside the body of the machine. The robot draws water from a contaminated river, decomposes its elements, helps to create energy to feed its brain circuits and the surplus is then used to create life, maintaining plants that, at once, fulfill their own life cycle. ” – from the exhibition.
We make money not art posted an interesting brief interview with Gilberto ->
“When i first read about Plantas Nomadas, i immediately thought about Archigram’s Walking City because of the nomadic and self-sufficient qualities of Plantas Nomadas. But what was your actual inspiration? Sci-fi novels and movies? Ongoing research in laboratories exploring the possibilities of microbial fuel cells in robotics?”“I have been researching and building autonomous robots that can survive in urban space, stealing the energy that the city itself generates. Later on, i found online some publications about research projects using microbial fuel cell. I was immediately inspired to develop a project that would engage with the issue of pollution in rivers. I visited El Salto Jalísco, a community very affected by this problem. I was therefore interested in making it the location of the intervention.
”
more at We Make Money Not Art->
-
southern california, dirty water, dying fish, dying bees, desert squatters, military wastelands, trash. Toxic Imperial Valley from vbs.tv
-
-
Excellent exhibit by Walton Ford where he explores the style of Audubon books, but twists Hemingway big game hunters era concepts.
from his bio:
“Each painting is as much a tutorial in flora and fauna as it is as a scathing indictment of the wrongs committed by nineteenth-century industrialists or, locating the work in the present, contemporary American consumer society.”
It’s a stunning exhibit at the Hamburger Bahnhof in berlin.
-
The Urban Wilderness Action Center (UWAC) is a project initiated by Jon Cohrs, in collaboration with the Eyebeam Student Residents (New York), Stephanie Pereira, and UK-based artist Kai-Oi Jay Yung (UK). The UWAC project includes a web platform uwac.anewfuckingwilderness.com and a day of action where people from NYC, Berlin, and London will design and disseminate guerrilla gardening projects.
UWAC DAY is Saturday, March 20. Each of four lead cities will host a day of free artist-led interventions that respond to urban wilderness. We will document the day through a live Twitter, Flickr, and video feed streamed through the UWAC website.
-
Switzerland is covering its glaciers with mega-blankets; protecting it’s only natural resource, snow. This has been going on for 5 years now and appears to be successful, at a cots of $12 million per square mile.
(from Times Online)
-
In the U.S., one pork factory farm can house more the 500,000 pigs. They produce more waste per year then the residence of Manhattan. The unregulated wastes causes massive damage to ground water.
What better way to control the waste then to potty train them pigs.
“Taiwan’s 6.5 million pigs are a source of river pollution. But one Taiwanese farmer has found that potty training is porkers goes a long way in both conserving water and keeping it clean. He’s trained his hogs to use a litter box, and has had such great results that he’s starting to advocate the practice to other farmers.” – from treehugger.com
Will it does cut down on waste? Yes, but it still needs to be deposed of somewhere. Shit in = shit out.
-
In the running up to the climate summit in Copenhagen, we’re featuring two approaches to the subject.
1. One approach to the subject is an installation by Petko Dourmana which “portrays a dystopian scenario: a “nuclear winter” initiated by political groups or governments in order to solve the problem of global warming and the melting of the polar icecaps.” Using night vision goggles and infrared projections one can navigate the dark post-apocalyptic north pole. It suggested a future where we may be blind without technology and thus highlighting the contradiction this dependance has been created by unchecked technology and its subsequent damage to the environment. Part of Transmediale ’09.
2. Another approach suggested by Amazon is “The Global Warming Survival Kit: The Must-have Guide to Overcoming Extreme Weather, Power Cuts, Food Shortages and Other Climate Change Disasters” by Brian Clegg capitalises on the fear of ..” Don’t wait until it’s too late: your survival could be at stake.” While we may face these issues, I doubt that the “how to survive a shark attack” type literature will do much prepare you. But the fact that bandwagon authors are seizing the day causes pause.
-
“Researchers in the Netherlands have created what was described as soggy pork and are now investigating ways to improve the muscle tissue in the hope that people will one day want to eat it.
No one has yet tasted the product, but it is believed the artificial meat could be on sale within five years.
Vegetarian groups welcomed the news, saying there was “no ethical objection” if meat was not a piece of a dead animal. ” from the Telegraph via next nature.
Maybe they mean animal right activists welcome the news. Somehow, I don’t think many vegetarians would jump at the chance to eat test-tube pork, nor pork lovers. But as the companies website markets mickey-mouse shaped pork, this could become the perfect new lunch-able.
