Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae is a peer-reviewed, non-funded, independent, quarterly academic journal. All rights of featured content of website and PDF publication are reserved. Editor in Chief: Giovanni Aloi. 2017
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
The interface is an agentially charged field — it reveals itself as a productive material dimension through which our thinking, questions, and assumptions are formed, mapped, shaped, and tested. From this perspective, the interface manifests itself as an artistic material surface—a creative and reactive field through which we modulate the bandwidth of a perceptual gap—the poetic and philosophical distance between us and the actants and systems we study. And because of its inherent agential potential, the interface is also prone to become an ethicalbattle field. In- terfaces are sites of negotiation—they are selective. The same interface reveals very di erent aspects of reality when used in di erent disciplinary settings. a
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From this generative condition, however, sometimes stems the mistrust that limits collaborations in art and science. It is in this context that, in art and science, the interface can be configured as a political site of negotiation through which we can envision alternative futures. This is one of the most important roles collaborations in art and science can play—to instill empathy and promote engagement in the conception of a world that’s more than a resource and that we can engage with beyond the baseline of functionalism.
This is the second installment of a project co-edited in collaboration with American artist and philosopher Jonathon Keats whose bold experiments have raised important questions and put into practice his conviction that the world needs more “curious amateurs” willing to explore publicly whatever intrigues them in defiance of a culture that increasingly forecloses on wonder and silos knowledge into narrowly defined areas of expertise.
Biologist and philosopher of science Geerdt Magiels talked to Koen Vanmechelen about his work. Each piece tells a story in which the local
and the global interact. A reflection on
art, science, culture, and society. MORE >>
Gilberto Esparza is a Mexican artist
whose work involves electronic and
robotic means to investigate the
impacts of technology in everyday
life, social relationships, environment
and urban structure. He currently
conducts research projects on
alternative energies. His practice
employs recycling consumer
technology and biotechnology
experiments. MORE >>
Laura Splan’s Embodied Objects series uses biosensors to produce data-driven forms and patterns for objects and images. The project
examines the potential for objects to embody human experience and to materialize the intangible. MORE >>
Roger Malina’s remarkable career spans the natural sciences, art, design, and education. In this interview with Andrew Yang, Malina discusses his exceptional role as editor of Leonardo and the challenges involved in working at the intersection of art andf science. MORE >>
As a neuroscientist, Dana Simmons studied how autism affects the cerebellum, a brain region that supports our balance and posture,
and helps us learn new movements.
Dana used a high-powered microscope and manipulated laser light and color filters to create these intriguing neuron portraits.
Inomata’s work often involves 3D printing and relies on collaborations with animals. Together, works like Why Not Hand Over a ‘Shelter’ to
Hermit Crabs? and Think Evolution draw important considerations on notions of deep-time, mobility, temporality, and change. MORE >>
Para-photo-mancy is a series of experimental photographic artworks that utilise the inherent photo(phyto) chemical capacities of plants to
produce images. MORE >>
This article considers the health and safety challenges that my collaborators and I face in producing and exhibiting artworks, which take
the form of sculptural objects or installations and incorporate diverse materials such as altered historical objects or textiles combined with bacteria and DNA. MORE >>
As consilience results from transformation through the mirror of the other, Jan Fabre takes from Giacomo Rizzolatti a model for his
theatre and Rizzolatti takes from Fabre an image for brain function. MORE >>
An artist reflects on research-based
practice, the conception of a special
committee Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary
Arts and Science at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, and the privileges
of working, learning, and teaching at the
intersections of disciplines. MORE >>
Inspired by science fiction, futurism, and technology itself, Lee Blalock’s work is an exercise in body modification by way of amplified behavior or “change-of-state”.
Art-Eco-Science practitioner Keith Armstrong and sustainability scholar Tania Leimbach explore how artists hope to radically transform ourattitudes, perceptions, and modes of
participation. MORE >>
This essay explores the interconnecting elements at play in the practice of Tomás Saraceno, one very much studio-based and rooted in human/non-human collaboration.
Eduardo Kac is considered a pioneer of bioestetic and telematic research. He is widely recognized for his interactive installations and his Bio Art. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience to the cultural impact of biotechnology, collective agency the
creation of life and evolution.
Bernd Scherer, director of HKW in Berlin talks to Giovanni Aloi about the importance of engage-ment in the context of anthropogenic research and contemporary art