Curiosity Journal

The Curiosity Journal is comprised of seven days of collection. Each day I had the task of collecting a minimum of 3 sketches, photos, images, places, texts, sounds, etc.

DAY ONE:

1) Sonic Art

Above is an interview with a sonic artist and experience designer named Mileece, who transforms the energy of plants into an interactive instrument. The ambient sounds that are produced by the plants are accompanied by elaborate set designs to create an experience that aims to enhance the participants relationship with the natural world.

2) Planter

Above are a set of handmade planters designed by Score + Solder. Though they seem to be purely aesthetic, I take personal interest in their design due to the use of sacred geometry, good craftsmanship, and its biological elements.

3) Hermit Home

Japanese Artist Aki Inomata has created a work in which science, art, and the natural world overlap. His 3D printed hermit crab shells creates a surreal relationship between the manmade and naturally occurring.

DAY TWO:

1) Le Comptoir General

Tucked away down an alleyway, this vine-covered African museum/bar is by far one of my favorite hidden spots in all of Paris. As you enter the space you are greeted by warmth and greenery. It feels as though you have left Paris and entered a sub-tropical oasis. In the day it is a relaxing lounge space but  as the sun sets and night creeps in the energy of the space shifts. The families and children clear out and are replaced with local youth drinking, chatting, and dancing. It is a place I like to frequent both in day and night. Its free wifi makes it a ideal work space in the day.

2) Panama

In an attempt to delve into my unexplored Panamanian heritage, I used Google Earth to return to my origins.

3) Personal Mythology 

Ασιη/Ασια = Asie/Asia > An oceanid nymph. Daughter of Oceanos & Tethys and wife of Titan Prometheus, the creator of man.

Oceanids > sea nymphs who were the three thousand daughters of  Okeanos & Tethys. Each was the patroness of a particular spring, river, sea, lake, pond, pasture, flower or cloud. Famous Oceanids include: Calypso, Clymene, Asia, and Electra.

A common theory is that the Greek name ultimately derived from the Phoenician word asu, which means “east”, and the Akkadian word asu which means “to go out, to rise.” In reference to the sun, Asia would then mean “the land of the sunrise.”

DAY THREE:

1) Radiolab – Colors

http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/

This podcast discusses the many fascinating mysteries of color. To what extent is color a physical thing in the physical world, and to what extent is it created in our minds?

2) Mantis Shrimp

3) Red Tides

Red tides, which often contain harmful algal blooms (HABs), are caused by chemical reactions that occur between algae and other substances. Red by day, blue by night, this colorful ocean phenomenon is a relatively rare natural occurrence that has spawned a number of imitations in movies and literature, the most recent example being a rather striking scene in the visually-driven movie Life of Pi.

DAY FOUR:

1) Self

British artist Marc Quinn has created a self portrait made entirely out of his own blood. The Blood was drawn from the artist over the course of several months to create this bio-art piece.  Every five years he updates the project with a new version.  By crafting these heads out of his own blood, Quinn reconnects us to the the fact that in the fullness of time, no artist’s attempt at immortality through self-portraiture will prevail.

2) Radiolab – Who Am I?

http://www.radiolab.org/story/91496-who-am-i/

This installment of Radiolab touches on a question I have often asked myself: Where is that part that is”me”? When the brain refers to “me” or “I”, what exactly is it referring to? the body? the soul? This is all discussed throughout the episode.

3) Defintion 

Phaneron: the world as filtered through our senses. A term first coined by the American philosopher Charles sanders pierce. He claimed individuals live in your phaneron, not reality.

DAY FIVE:

1) Artist of Interest: Ashkan Honarvar

http://www.ashkanhonarvar.com/index.php/portfolios/

Above is the link to an incredible collage artist’s portfolio that I was referred to by a friend.

2) Bio Graffiti 

Above is an instructional illustration of how to create your very own moss graffiti mix. This gives any individual the chance to delve into bio art.

3) Metamaterials

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/digital-metamaterials-get-us-closer-invisibility-cloaks

This article describes how materials are being developed to allow a range of new abilities such as invisibility.

DAY SIX: 

1) Data Mosh

Data moshing is a form of new media art that uses glitches in video files to create artworks. It is something I’ve wanted to learn for some time now.

2) A Poem: A History of Everything, Including You -Jenny Hollowell

First there was god, or gods, or nothing. Then synthesis, space, the expansion, explosions, implosions, particles, objects, combustion, and fusion. Out of the chaos came order, stars were born and shown and died. Planets rolled across their galaxies on invisible ellipses and the elements combined and became.

Life evolved or was created. Cells trembled, and divided, and gasped and found dry land. Soon they grew legs, and fins, and hands, and antenna, and mouths, and ears, and wings, and eyes. Eyes that opened wide to take all of it in, the creeping, growing, soaring, swimming, crawling, stampeding universe.

Eyes opened and closed and opened again, we called it blinking. Above us shown a star that we called the sun. And we called the ground the earth. So we named everything including ourselves. We were man and woman and when we got lonely we figured out a way to make more of us. We called it sex, and most people enjoyed it. We fell in love. We talked about god and banged stones together, made sparks and called them fire, we got warmer and the food got better.

We got married, we had some children, they cried, and crawled, and grew. One dissected flowers, sometimes eating the petals. Another liked to chase squirrels. We fought wars over money, and honor, and women. We starved ourselves, we hired prostitutes, we purified our water. We compromised, decorated, and became esoteric. One of us stopped breathing and turned blue. Then others. First we covered them with leaves and then we buried them in the ground. We remembered them. We forgot them. We aged.

Our buildings kept getting taller. We hired lawyers and formed councils and left paper trails, we negotiated, we admitted, we got sick, and searched for cures. We invented lipstick, vaccines, pilates, solar panels, interventions, table manners, firearms, window treatments, therapy, birth control, tailgating, status symbols, palimony, sportsmanship, focus groups, zoloft, sunscreen, landscaping, cessnas, fortune cookies, chemotherapy, convenience foods, and computers. We angered militants, and our mothers.

You were born. You learned to walk, and went to school, and played sports, and lost your virginity, and got into a decent college, and majored in psychology, and went to rock shows, and became political, and got drunk, and changed your major to marketing, and wore turtleneck sweaters, and read novels, and volunteered, and went to movies, and developed a taste for blue cheese dressing.

I met you through friends, and didn’t like you at first. The feeling was mutual, but we got used to each other. We had sex for the first time behind an art gallery, standing up and slightly drunk. You held my face in your hands and said that I was beautiful. And you were too. Tall with a streetlight behind you. We went back to your place and listened to the White Album. We ordered in. We fought and made up and got good jobs and got married and bought an apartment and worked out and ate more and talked less. I got depressed. You ignored me. I was sick of you. You drank too much and got careless with money. I slept with my boss. We went into counseling and got a dog. I bought a book of sex positions and we tried the least degrading one, the wheelbarrow. You took flight lessons and subscribed to Rolling Stone. I learned Spanish and started gardening.

We had some children who more or less disappointed us but it might have been our fault. You were too indulgent and I was too critical. We loved them anyway. One of them died before we did, stabbed on the subway. We grieved. We moved. We adopted a cat. The world seemed uncertain, we lived beyond our means. I got judgmental and belligerent, you got confused and easily tired. You ignored me, I was sick of you. We forgave. We remembered. We made cocktails. We got tender. There was that time on the porch when you said, can you believe it?

This was near the end and your hands were trembling. I think you were talking about everything, including us. Did you want me to say it? So it would not be lost? It was too much for me to think about. I could not go back to the beginning. I said, not really. And we watched the sun go down. A dog kept barking in the distance, and you were tired but you smiled and you said, hear that? It’s rough, rough. And we laughed. You were like that.

Now, your question is my project and our house is full of clues. I’m reading old letters and turning over rocks. I burry my face in your sweaters. I study a photograph taken at the beach, the sun in our eyes, and the water behind us. It’s a victory to remember the forgotten picnic basket and your striped beach blanket. It’s a victory to remember how the jellyfish stung you and you ran screaming from the water. It’s a victory to remember treating the wound with meat tenderizer, and you saying, I made it better. I will tell you this, standing on our hill this morning I looked at the land we chose for ourselves, I saw a few green patches, and our sweet little shed, that same dog was barking, a storm was moving in. I did not think of heaven, but I saw that the clouds were beautiful and I watched them cover the sun.

 3) Greenhouse at Jardin des Plantes

The greenhouse at the Jardin de Plantes is a place I’ve been meaning to visit for a while now. My interest in greenhouses spawned from my desire to find pockets of warm, flourishing environments within the gray, cold, city during the winter season. I felt that greenhouses would satisfy my craving for humidity and palm trees. upon further research, I discovered that one of the largest greenhouses was located in the Jardin de Plantes, which happens to be around the corner from my apartment. It is a place that is so close, yet still very distant. I hope to go and experience it in person at some point.