gazing = good

To exhibit nature as art came across my mind before reading this week's articles but never before so vividly or tangibly as when I thought of the predicament that George Gessert raises. The fact that there isn't one exhibition space for art anywhere in the world that has been designed with nonhuman organisms in mind really underscores 1) a lack of understanding and misconception about how this type of art exists or functions and 2) that it brings up social/moral/ethical questions that most institutions would rather just not confront. To understand where this problem arises Gessert explains how the "most direct way to explore art as a part of nature is to work respectfully with other living things and how museums and galleries are architecturally designed to exclude all non-human life from interior spaces."

the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis by Tadao Ando

I doubt many living things could survive within the bleak confines of a Tadao Ando structure (the Pulitzer, I would argue, is even pan-optic; a tried and true way to kill whatever's inside).

The Darwinian view of nature, which Gessert is fond of, "implies radically new uses of art, to provide mirrors and models of evolution." And to achieve this he states that we need non-hierarchical models which affirm kinship. This brings to mind, not exactly a zoo, but something more like the Biosphere project where man is brought into the mix with the living organisms he impacts at a distance where what is affected can be measured and where man must think about and respond to relationships that are mutual.

The prospect of evolutionary art is a little sci-fi and intimidating to me. But I think a part of that is because of how I've been trained to think about my relationship with animals and other living things: I'm on top, they're on the bottom. But if this relationship is thought of as more mutual, maybe I would have less apprehension. And maybe if institutions would give a thought to exhibiting art outside of the visual media made of toxic materials realm (painting, sculpture, photography, the list goes on...) there would be greater steps made towards achieving a more cohabit-able and sustainable art world.

Gasp, our discussion is topical to current NPR...

The biological gaze by Evelyn Fox Keller fascinated me in a way that I haven't thought about science since I looked through a microscope sometime back in grade school. It brought back all those encounters I've had looking and at times prodding and dissecting nature; to explore and consequently learn about what I was seeing. I think I can say that what is written in the article has been wandering through my head (along with my cousin, (Dr. Ruzicka) who is a bio-geneticist and works on tomato plant roots) since I was a kid. There were numerous backyard experiments and gardens and holes made to grow and trap and look at what existed in my backyard. All were successful for what I learned, but I can't help but think about how many bees and lightning bugs (fireflies if you're not where I'm from) were killed for the knowledge that I have now...

Keller says that according to some philosophers of science "we do not actually see anything at all through a microscope." But this is because "they do not understand the nature of the activity of scientific observation." Keller goes on to explain that in this modern age scientists can and do "reach in and touch" what is under the microscope thereby 'making it real'. However by some measure, the organism whether it be a cytoplasm or chromosome is irrevocably affected by us gazing upon it because of the massive power needed to look so closely at an organism so not of our own scale.

Pre-19th Century, logic is wonderful in it's simplicity of thought. There aren't any variables or x factors, it is or it isn't. The pre-19th century way of seeing might be argued to have come back in vogue as reality TV, virtual reality and other new technology exploits what is called "real" but is actually a simulation of the real and not real at all.

I don't pretend to know what the solution to this problem is but I think the issue is that we should really come to understand the power we wield within the gaze. The problem is huge but I think I come to understand it through my own experience. In high school sophomore biology I dissected at least a half a dozen animals (I'll never forget the smell) and although I sympathize with the decision to take life for the understanding of science, I think it was worthwhile that curious young men (I went to a private catholic boys school) got a close up look at what to that point, had been cartoon renderings and diagrams. The look and feel of the insides of an animal is something that is hard to describe even with an awesome device like a camera. I think the lesson is if we look and touch, we do it when we need to, and we do it in a way with as little damage as possible. The information gained lets the imagination thrive in a way it could never have if it hadn't had the opportunity.