Sunday, December 11, 2005

The Institute for Figuring

The interests of the recently founded Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles are twofold: the manifestation of figures in the world around us and the figurative technologies that humans have developed through the ages. From the physics of snowflakes and the hyperbolic geometry of sea slugs, to the mathematics of paper folding, the tiling patterns of Islamic mosaics and graphical models of the human mind, the Institute takes as its purview a complex ecology of figuring. Link (Thanks, George)

Thursday, December 01, 2005

December SEED Salon: Cathy Fitzgerald and Paula Murphy


December 6, 7pm, at the Odessa Club (above The Odessa Restaurant, at 13 Dame Court, Dublin 2). Voluntary contribution: 5 Euro.

Presenting A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE, an informal exhibition of work created by artist Catherine Fitzgerald during her recent Arts Council supported art residency in the labs of the Zoology Dept, Trinity College with Dr Paula Murphy, a molecular geneticists working in developmental biology.

CATHERINE FITZGERALD is a New Zealand artist now living in Ireland. Catherine’s art practice is informed by her background in agricultural microbiology research. After working in the science area in New Zealand for ten years, she attended the National College of Art and Design, in Dublin, Ireland during 1996-2002 and gained a BA then an MA in Fine Art. Catherine’s practice involves studio work and written research about art + science. Over the last few years she initiated two residencies in science laboratories in Dublin that has enabled her to work on larger projects (much of her recent work was on public display in the BA Festival of Science, held at Trinity College, Dublin in Sept 05; she also recently curated HETEROPTERA, a show of Cornelia Hesse-Honegger's work for Carlow’s Visualise programme investigating the effects of nuclear fallout from Chernobyl and other sites on insect mutations. Catherine uses a range of traditional, new media and interactive skills to engage and enable a wide audience to reflect on ideas and developments in contemporary biological science. She has exhibited her work both in galleries and in science spaces - the more interesting and challenging exhibitions have occurred in places where both the public and science communities do not normally encounter contemporary art.

DR PAULA MURPHY is a developmental biologist at the Zoology Department at Trinity College Dublin. She works on visualizing gene expression patterns in vertebrate embryos.