Grow House Grow.

I found this collection of wallpapers inspired by female naturalist during the Victorian era. I think they are an interesting artistic tribute to the work of the scientists represented. I like the designs for their quirkiness, although I think it is the narrative behind the design that makes these wallpapers more than they are on the surface.

Mary Treat (1830-1923) was an American-born naturalist devoted to the understanding of carnivorous plants. Throughout her many years of autodidactic study, Treat made extensive contributions to the botanical world, published several books and was an outspoken correspondent to Charles Darwin.

Treat and Darwin’s recorded discourse extends over five years, and most notably involves the inner workings of the Utricularia plant's trap. Darwin believed insects wedged their heads into the traps, thus becoming stuck and then consumed. Treat's extensive research, fueled by her curiosity and vigor for experimentation, revealed that the Utricularia plant actually snapped shut when small hairs around the entrance of the trap were triggered. Treat so influenced Darwin's understanding on the subject that he references her several times in his Insectivorous Plants (1875).

Though much of Treat's work has been forgotten, four species of plants and animals bear her name, including the ant species Aphaenogaster treatiae. Look hard enough, and you might spy one of the little critters within her leafy carnivorous menagerie. 

Mary Ward (1827-1869) was born into to a renowned scientific family in Co. Offaly, Ireland, she was educated at home with her sisters and by the age of three had developed a penchant for collecting bugs. These insects became the subject of study for Mary, and with the help of a magnifying glass she began meticulously drawing and reproducing their details. By a stroke of luck, astronomer James South discovered the drawings, and was so impressed with her talent that he persuaded her father to invest in a microscope.

Owning her own microscope allowed her to transform her love of insects into full-blown, self-taught microscopy. She spent her time reading everything she could get her hands on regarding the subject, and became so skilled that her knowledge surpassed that of most experts. Over the years she wrote a series of books, of which A World of Wonders Revealed by the Microscope (1858) was reprinted eight times. It became a go-to student text in the field of microscopy, which considering her sex, is truly representative of her talent.

Further distinctions include her work as an illustrator for scientific publications, and her significant status as one of just three female recipients of the Royal Astronomical Society's newsletter (of the other two women, one was Queen Victoria).

True to her love of scale, this pattern blends late-Georgian silhouettes with over-sized insects; an entomologist's dream.
 
Visit Grow House Grow.

There is Light on Earth.

Poverty is big business, and it's really quite amazing how designers have managed to put a gloss over the whole affair and market poverty as a pet project for the rest of us not in the majority. Artemide's new campaign features light sculptures by some of the world's top designers throwing light onto evocative portraits of some of the heroes in the world of aid and political turbulance.

It's a very catchy idea. Now if only the people with the most money had a bit more taste (see Inside the world's mos opulent private jets.), this campaign might just be more then just a very clever gimmick selling light fittings.

Generous Gesture

While digging around for awesome fonts, I came across Generous Gesture. Another one of those fair trade outfits that provide decent work and decent pay for the underprivileged in Bangladesh. I'm skeptical as to how much these women are paid for every €129 shawl is sold, but they are very beautiful. I particularly like how the letters are stiched on. They would be a lot better though, if there were a wider variety of fonts to choose from.

Natural Media.

Gosh, am I so behind the curve? I noticed while cycling to the gym a few days ago an imprint on the pavement advertising the location of the Gemeente Museum. These imprints are very popular in Holland, and are done by a company called Green Graffiti.

It's genius isn't it. You don't ever have to pay for advertising space, it's natural and oh-so-playful. Reminds me of that Art Attack show I used to watch when I was a kid where the guy goes out into nature and makes a really, really big piece of art with random materials. Like salt, sand, chipwood, etc.

The work at Curb is pretty amazing. There's something beautiful about taking such precise forms and implementing them in nature.

Interactive Magazines.

I saw this today.



It might not look like much in terms of the differences between the layouts of magazines form print to digital, but one day we'll look back at those mag archives and wonder at how stale the experience had been before these arrived.

The magazines I regularly read are New Scientist, Wallpaper and the Economist. I think particularly for mags whoes sole function is to instill material desire (like Wallpaper) e-readers are fantastic. You get to see the glam in 3-D, like in The Elements, for the iPad. I can't help but wish such things were around while I was still studying high school science. For visual thinkers, words and static images just don't cut it. Digital animation can get to the point faster and clearer. As for political magazines, linking to interactive infographics can get the point across so much better, cross referencing alot easier.

I also have a particular love for Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I know it's great that because books usually don't have pictures in them, you're compelled into imagining your own. But sometimes, it's just nice to have pictures, and e-readers can link to the best fan art out there. Why not?

Coming of age in Bumfuck nowhere.

While working on my novel today, I was reminded of Very Annie-Mary, a film I saw in 2003 in a small art house cinema in Christchurch. The concept of an Art-House cinema didn't exist in Singapore there. If you wanted art films, you had to go to the alliance francaise (which didn't necessarily show only French films- the last time I was there was to see an animated American remake of the Ramayana).

In it, Rachel Griffiths plays Anne-Mary, an introverted, repressed small town girl with a big voice, kept under the mysogynistic thumb of her father, Jack Pugh,  played by Jonathan Pryce. As the town baker, he delivers his loaves in a Luciano Pavarotti mask. Whenever his feet get cold, he uses Annie-Mary as a human sleeping bottle.

Funnily enough, while listening to the BBC Radio's The Strand, a recent movie of Griffiths came up. Beautiful Kate is directed by Rachel Ward,  and set in the Australian outback. It is about impossible love, comming of age and family secrets. The interesting thing about the film is that Ward has set it in the present, with flashbacks tot he 80's; what she has attempted to recreate is an impossible romance for a cynical audience in a permissive society.



I love films set in the outback; I love minimalist films set in bumfuck no-where in general. They are always beautiful and exotic, infused with a sense of the Edenic utopia gone awry. The remind me of my childhood, where life was slow, the days were always warm and humid, nothing ever changed -not even the weather- and that little neighbourhood was all there was to life.

Another one I watched recently was Down in the Valley, where Edward Norton plays a delusional cowboy who falls in love with a teenage girl, played by Evan Rachel Wood (the "Queen" in True Blood).



I think about these films are that because there's less going on, a lot more attention is paid to simple details, like how the light would fall througha flower vase or how people say their words, and all those other little details that are in our lives, everday, that we fail to notice.

From Africa to NY.

One of my favourite contemporary artists, Wangechi Mutu has an exhibition in Brussels till September, at a contemporary art space called WIELS, which is slightly off the main core of the city. I think the aesthetic and emotional response her work yields is throughly compelling; a mixture of sensuality dashed with repulsion.



Another African artist based in NY I also love is Julie Mehretu.

“Julie Mehretu’s abstract paintings explore the often unwieldy issues of mobility, social organization, political entanglement, and global competition. Most cities are built, dismantled, and rebuilt over time, yielding structures and spaces that reflect ongoing urban change. Mehretu’s paintings follow a similar course as she layers and, in her most recent works, erases information from her compositions, showing how each new level becomes a foundation for new iterations, stories, and identities. Embedded in her abstract images, are elements taken from architectural blue prints, maps, sports arenas, and commercial logos.”