Adam Zaretsky

"For me, scientific research is just a minor subset of perversion. It is a particular way of exploring the forbidden. Life on earth is curious, intuitive and creative. Those things are not rationally explainable. There are invisible worlds all around us. So, scientists want to reveal them in ways that are repeatable, empirical and reductive. We artists may be looking for equally important isolated instances of amazingness, anomalous and singular, personal and subjective. We poke and prod, sniff and stare, even into those areas that defy the social norm. The process of analysis assumes, A Priori, that the unknown is seductive, that secrets unfold when interrogated. Otherwise, why look any deeper? And the methods of interrogation are extreme. Often, you must destroy something to comprehend it. It is for these reasons that I refer to the processes of artistic and scientific discovery as perverse practices."

http://emutagen.com/vivoartgl.html

http://emutagen.com/artbiogl.html

http://www.subtletechnologies.com/2001/zaretsky.html

http://emutagen.com/downloads/nature.pdf

Advanced Beauty

Advanced Beauty [advancedbeauty.org] is an ongoing exploration of digital artworks influenced by sound, as a collaboration between programmers, artists, musicians, animators and architects.
The first artwork collection includes a series of audio-reactive video sound sculptures, as manifestations of sound, sculpted by volume, pitch or structure of the soundtrack. The films embrace unusual video making processes, the visual programming language Processing, high-end audio analysis and fluid dynamic simulations alongside intuitive responses in traditional cell animation.
Rendered in the 1920 HD format, with 5:1 surround sound, each artist was given the same set of parameters to work within; to start, finish and exist within a white space, creating a seamless coherence, all sculptures sharing the same white environment.
Watch all the videos online here, or check out a few below.
See also lyrics and audio-responsive visual and rethinking the music video. Via Ping Mag.

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2008/11/advanced_beauty_audio-reactive_video_sound_sculptures.html

Pure Culture

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Philip Ross is an inspiring american artist that works with living organisms as means of his artistic work. In a very controlled environment, Ross manipulates, nurtures and transforms a variety of living species into sculpture. Particularly interesting for our blog is his work Pure Culture, a series of sculptural objects from living mushrooms.

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Philip Ross

Using fungus called Ganoderma lucidum, also known as Reishi or Ling Chi, Ross develop a living-art project that takes him around a year to complete, from finding and growing the mushrooms to the final result.
Reishi Mushroom
The project here prsented, Life Like is inspired by the famous photo of Harold Edgerton called Milk Drop Coronet.
Harold Edgerton Milk Drop Coronet

Bonnie Bassler on how bacteria "talk"

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html

SEEDMAGAZINE.COM § The Scent of Design

By Amelia Black / April 29, 2010

A designer who creates objects and spaces engages our sensations of touch, sight, and sometimes hearing. But what of our noses? Despite olfaction’s unmatched ability to evince memories and emotions—two essential objectives of design—smell is a relatively untapped medium in design practice. Combining scents with design was the challenge put to five designers, deemed “accidental perfumers,” by the organizers of HEADSPACE: On Scent as Design a symposium recently held in New York through the joint collaboration of Seed, Parsons the New School for Design, MoMA, International Flavors & Fragrances, and Coty. Selected for their diverse approaches to design, each “accidental perfumer” was paired with two professional perfumers from IFF and commissioned to explore how evanescent chemistries, when translated into smell, shape our experience of space and time. Though the participants chose to take their projects in radically different directions, they all came to the same conclusion: This is only the beginning. Many of the works you’ll see in this slideshow represent just the starting point for what promises to be a fruitful merger of olfaction and design.