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Page 1: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice

Page 2: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 3: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Daniel Beech GIS Visual Construction with Environment Systems

Page 4: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Supporting Text and Objects

VOLCANIC STONES

The stones on display are collected from the Tongariro national park in New Zealand

where three volcanoes - Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngaurahoe - are located in close

proximity. The stones are produced through geological processes resulting from active

and recurrent volcanism, such processes are determined by metamorphosis and plate

tectonics. The convergence of the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates produce volcanic

phenomena that create such materials, which become geological artefacts studied by the

physical sciences. However, these stones are also of social significance to the local Maori

whose tribal land is located within this volcanic landscape. Volcanic stones, such as these,

have become synonymous with North Island Maori culture, as they represent the earth

upon which the local Maori tribes worship. The stones, volcanic debris and pumice that

litter the landscape have become a form of cultural symbolism for the Maori.

Page 5: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

VOLCANIC GIFT AND LEAFLET PROMOTION

On display is visitor certificate that I received as a reward and memory for venturing into

the volcanic craters of New Zealand’s North Island. Such tourist memorabilia place

emphasis on the experience of encountering volcanic landscapes. Yet while the

certificate provides an example of how volcanic landscapes are promoted to tourists,

such memorabilia pay little attention to the physical processes and dynamics of volcanic

landscapes and their geological instability.

Page 6: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

VOLCANIC TOURISM

The unique landscapes created by volcanoes have become sites of adventure tourism as

people travel to both active and extinct craters to sightsee, hike, climb, camp,

mountaineer or take hot air balloon trip. The volcano Cappadocia, in Turkey, provides

an example of this form of tourism. Advertising Cappadocia as a ‘spectacular landscape

from the pages of science fiction’, tourist operator Argeus: Tourism and Travel provides a

number of transport options that range from car to hot air balloon, demonstrating that

accessing volcanic landscapes is not an experience limited geologists and volcanologists

Images and Supporting Text

Volcano tourists arrive by the busloads at the rim of Nisyros volcano in Greece, before hiking down into the crater itself. This hike entails an element of risk as the only guardrails to prevent tourists from falling are found around the craters rim, while the track that leads into the crater itself offers no such support.

Page 7: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

The cinder cone of Eldfell, a composite volcanic cone located on the Icelandic Island of Heimaey, attracts tourists eager to climb the 200 meter the slope created by an eruption 1973.

Page 8: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

VOLCANO MODEL

The model portrays digital visualisations of the Cleveland Volcanic landscape. Drawing

inspiration from ‘The Other Volcano’, an instillation by artist Nelly Ben Hayoun, this

project re-works two-dimensional cartographic information back into a three-

dimensional form, with the aim of invoking different interpretations of the Cleveland

landscape. Using detailed imagery the work draws attention to the cultural and scientific

dynamics that exist between various social actors who live and work in and around the

Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality

of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural and social dynamics that are woven through

the landscape, enables an excavation of art/humanities and science entanglement of

Cleveland. Using visualisation technology in this way, the work suggests the import of

such technology in the consideration of geopolitics, for Cleveland, this played a vital role

in the events of the Cold War. This project then, offers a space for thought. How

might visualisation technology add to retrospective studies of geopolitics? And, in its

interactive capacity, which draws on audience participation in the form of a survey, the

work also questions the response of different demographics to visualisation software?

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE MODEL

The model depicts and reconstructs an intensely physical volcanic landscape. The

Cleveland landscape is demarcated by the geological phenomena of a symmetrical

volcanic cone created by geologic and tectonic processes. The model accounts for the

various ways through which, the physical dynamics of this landscape can be re-presented,

remodelled and reconfigured, accounting for landscape evolution, change and

remediation. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology and associated

software have been widely used within this project as a means of accessing this landscape

at a distance. Such applications are based fundamentally upon scientific and numerical

methods of producing digital cartography. The resulting representations enrich the

scientific foundations so that social and cultural characteristics can be accommodated.

The visualisations reconstruct the current features, environments and surroundings in

which the Cleveland volcano is located; distorting and manipulating reality by using

zoom, panoramic applications as well as ‘affectual’ tools that exaggerate the atmospheric

and climatic elements of the visualisation.

Page 9: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 10: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Delyth Robinson

Botanical Art with the National Botanic Garden of Wales

Page 11: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Supporting Text and Objects

INTERPRETING BARCODE WALES

Having conducted a work placement at the National Botanical Garden of Wales I have developed my own interpretation of the Barcode Wales project. The work presented here draws on the tradition of Botanical Art, a mode of scientific study still deployed today as a means to create detailed images that mimic the appearance, form and colour of plants. In contemporary art, this unique style has been adapted and new, innovative forms of Botanical Arts have emerged. Drawing on this tradjectory I have developed my own, personal response to this art form, which consists of bold colours and shapes that highlight the individual characteristics of the plants studied. The style I have used considers contemporary advances in the scientific, botanic study of plants where focus has shifted from consideration of the whole, to constituent parts. These advances raise a series of questions such as how we might visualise that which we cannot see: plant identity at the micro level? How can we imagine biological specimens as classification systems shift to focus on DNA following the global techno-scientific project, the Barcoding of Life Initiative (BOLI)? And how might such imaginations invoke curiosity into this scientific process?

Page 12: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 13: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

SPREADING BELLFLOWER

These three images all represent the Spreading Bellflower (Campanula patula), which has

recently been Barcoded by the National Botanical Garden of Wales. This plant in

particular is of importance as it is currently endangered in the UK and critically

endangered in Wales. Very little is known about the plant, though studies are currently

underway by members of the science team at the National Botanical Garden of Wales fill

in some of the gaps in our knowledge of this species. Each image represents different

stages of the Barcoding process, beginning with the identification of the plant within its

natural habitat. Then the plant is collected and protected within a herbarium specimen

where details such as, the person who collected the sample, as well as its location or

origin, are recorded. The final image is that of the plants unique barcode which enables

the plant to be identified from a very small fragment.

Page 14: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 15: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Photos of the Display

Page 16: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 17: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Dominic Walker

Aesthetics and Science at Hafod with Ceredigion Museum

Page 18: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Posters providing an overview of information on the digital display:

Page 19: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 20: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Supporting Image

Photographs of the Display

Page 21: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 22: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Elizabeth Straughan

Inverted Taxidermy with SymbioticA

Page 23: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Supporting Text, Objects and Images

Within Geography the spaces of the body itself have become an object of inquiry. In

my PhD I honed in on the body’s surface, the skin, in order to explore the relationship

between dead and living bodies in the practice of taxidermy. The word taxidermy is

derived from the Greek words taxis, meaning order or arrangement, and derma, translated

as skin. In more literal terms taxidermy means the arrangement of skin, or the body’s

surface layer. In order to study this practice I learnt taxidermy as a means of

understanding the fleshy materiality of dead animal bodies through a hands on approach

that focused on the role that the sense of touch plays in directing the engagement

between the dead and the living. In this research, I found that the materiality of the dead

affects the taxidermy process sin numerous ways, emotional as well as physical.

The animal that I practiced most regularly whilst learning taxidermy was the mole. The

mole on the left is one whose skin I arranged, while the mole on the right was mounted

by a professional taxidermist.

Page 24: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

PLAYING WITH MATERIALS

At the start of my residency at SymbioticA I initially planned to create an animal-shaped

form over which I would grow human skin cells. Electing to do this with the low slung

body of the platypus, an animal shape readily available in Perth toy shops, I attempted at

first to practice carving this shape with a cuttlefish skeleton, an organic material available

at the beach. It quickly became apparent that this brittle, porous skeletal material was

going to be very difficult to work with. Firstly, I found thin sections (such as a limb,

once carved) were prone to breaking. Second, when experimenting with this material’s

potential as a scaffold over which to grow cells, I found that porous cuttlefish skeletons

tended to disintegrate when saturated with the nutrient media required too keep the cells

alive. This idea was abandoned.

Page 25: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

VISUALISING CELLS

Another non-human, organic material I considered as a possible scaffold over which to

grow human skin was a feather. Using magpie feathers collected on my morning walk

into SymbioticA, I attempted to grow bone marrow cells that had been genetically

engineered to have a gene that produces the Green Florescent Protein (GFP). This is a

molecule found in jellyfish, which fluoresces green under ultraviolet light, enabling cells

to be seen. This protein was important here, for not only did this experiment hinge on

the capacity for cells to grow over a feather scaffold, of interest was also a question of

visualization. That is, knowledge of cell growth would be determined on their being seen

on the surface of the feather, something with which GFP would assist.

Once the feathers had been ‘seeded’ with cells and time had been given for cell growth I

practiced using the microscopic visualisation technologies and found that these cells

would indeed grow over a feather scaffold, but only to a certain extent as the cells tended

to gather at the feather tips. Some cells did appear further down the feather strands, but

as predicted by SymbioticA’s resident artist Ionat Zurr, this was hard to monitor as the

feather’s dark form under the microscope obscured the cells from view.

Page 26: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 27: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

SACRIFICING, ETHICS AND STAINING

Towards the end of my residency at SymbioticA I started to play with the idea of

growing cells over an entire body. Inspired by specimens on display in SymbioticA’s

laboratory I aimed to dye a mouse body with Alcian blue-Alizarin red skeletal staining,

which turns bone red and cartilage blue.

This move to work with an entire dead body unveiled the ethical protocols within the

department of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology. That is, when an animal life is

to be ‘sacrificed’ an email is sent to all the department’s scientists asking if they would

like any ‘parts’ of a body for their particular research. During my residency mice were

being sacrificed for their skin, skeletal muscles and hearts. As such, once I received

mouse bodies to work with they were no long ‘whole’.

In order to do Alcian blue–Alizarin red staining a mouse body first has to be skinned and

gutted. Then the body needs to have all its cells removed in a process called

decellularisation, in order that the flesh can turn opaque. This is done by placing the

mouse body into ethanol and then leaving it on a ‘rocker’ so that the cells are massaged

out of the flesh. Then the mouse body is placed firstly in acid and Alcian blues stain, and

second, in acid with Alizarin red stain.

Page 28: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural
Page 29: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Photos of the Display

Page 30: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Event Photos

Daniel Beech with visitors

Daniel Beech with Professor John Grattan and Professor Martin Jones with Dr Natasha

De Vere from the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Page 31: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Delyth Robinson talks with students about her project

Delyth Robinson talks about her project with Dr Natasha De Vere from the National

Botanic Garden of Wales representative.

Page 32: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Sebastian Hudson and Nicki Turton from Environment Systems talk with Dr Natasha

De Vere from the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Dominic Walker talks with Institute of Geography and Earth Science’s head of

department, Professor Mike Woods.

Page 33: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Dominic Walker and Dr Rhys Jones

Elizabeth Straughan discusses her project with event visitor

Page 34: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Event visitor meets a mole

Institute of Geography and Earth Science staff and postgraduate students, with Access

to Masters Project and Business Development Officer, Karen Hutton.

Page 35: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural

Professor Deborah Dixon holds a de-brief session with Access to Masters students

Delyth Robinson, Daniel Beech and Dominic Walker.

Attendance Registration

Visitors signing in

Page 36: Merging Worlds: Art and Science in Practice · Cleveland volcano. Using cartographic software to explore the physicality and materiality of this volcanic site, as well as the cultural