The Arts Catalyst

Wild Science

Sreshta Premnath 'Freedom of the Seas, from 'Black Box' Gallery Ske, Bangalore

One of the things I am doing here in Bangalore is touring around the science institutions of the city with a small but enthusiastic group of Srishti undergraduates, whose active brief is to break down the distance between the two cultures. They started at the prestigious research establishment, the National Centre for Biological Sciences where they attended lectures on synthetic biology and interrogated scientists studying population movements of tigers. They then went on to the Bangalore Science, Technology and Industry Museum view the Indian Space Research Organisation's public information films about the Indian Space programme (they will work on ideas for improving it) They then went on to look at Sreshta Premnath's show (above) which, apart from some startling flickr appropriation included some indigenous plants growing, all patented by US corporations. This was among other things a good introduction to the theories and polemic of Vandana Shiva. There was also a startling soundwork about the moon as a phantom limb, juxtaposed with a text on self-amputation. On this subject, more soon from Bangalore about the Moon Vehicle project, a wide ranging 'vehicle for ideas' about India's moon launch Chandraayan 1 and SymbioticA's first Indian Biotech art workshop and masterclass. Also check out CEMA, the new experimental media lab here at Srishti.
Rob La Frenais, Curator

The Wild Science group at NCBS

mad rapture for molluscs

I have spent a couple of days at the third Species of Origin workshop. Much of the workshop focused in on language and the voice, with particularly fascinating presentations by scientist Tecumseh Fitch on the evolution of the voice, author William Fiennes speaking about the writing of his book The Snow Goose, and artist Marcus Coates who spoke about two of his works: his re-construction of birds' song using human voices, Dawn Chorus, and Radio Shaman, in which Coates roams around the town of Stavanger in Norway, communicating with animal spirits in an attempt to address issues around prostitution in the town. Whilst Marcus' work comes across as very accessible, largely because of the humour and wit in the works, there's an obsessive quality and strangeness about them that I find mesmerizing.

Marcus' work has prompted me to do one of those list things that tend to appear in Januarys:
A Few Things I Saw in 2007 That I Wished I'd Commissioned:
Marcus Coates' Radio Shaman, Alexander Ponomarev's Secret Fairway, Artur Zmijewski's Them (though even more his 2005 Repetition), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room,  Steve McQueen's Queen and Country, Andreas Gursky's Kamiokande, Grace Weir's In My Own Time, Christine Borland's Support Work (Hippocrates 1:075) and also This Being You Must Create (Spy in the Anatomy Museum) (even though it's a 1997 work, I didn't see it until recently – that's my excuse).

As a step towards making our website a more active part of our organisation's work (along with this blog), we now have videos online of a couple of our projects that I'm very glad we did commission:
Aleksandra Mir's Gravity (mentioned below) and Simon Faithfull's Escape Vehicle No. 6.

More videos coming very soon ...

Nicola Triscott, Director

* Title of entry from 'Pig', a poem by Jo Shapcott