Of Hearts and Red

Antarctica

by Katherine Glenday

Our thoughts form us

And like the forams

And the caddis creatures

We live in our

Patterned habits

I can run with this

And do

Away from text and fact

And the common herded wayfare

Of thought and learned behaviour

It is too dense for me

I am overwhelmed already

And the truth of it

Scampers off somewhere

And snarls in the brambles

Beneath the woods

Of a forest of trees

I would rather drop my sounding bells

Below a frozen sea

And watch with my long distance heart

As my friends swim them down

To sing an angelus

On the ocean bed

Here all things are weighed

In the company of creatures

Who build their hearts on the sleeves

Of their houses.

Art/science collaboration - summary of some past work

I just completed another collaborative research proposal with some really smart colleagues. The application includes a novel art/science collaboration to help promote scientific literacy. Let's hope it gets funded!

While digging through the blogosphere to prepare my cv for the application, I came across a wonderful post that summarized a past project with New Zealand artist Claire Beynon. Its various pieces and the people it involved reminded me of the tiny threads of cytoplasm (i.e., pseudopods) that foraminifera use to go about their business.



The Antarctic foram Astrammina rara with its cytoplasmic network extended on a glass dish. The ramifying pseudopods are likened to an art/science collaboration, with the body of creative work encased by an elegant shell.

 

Daydreaming about the trajectories of its individual components (i.e., the many poems, musical pieces, and artworks that were generated) drew imagined parallels to organelles saltating within these pseudopods. And looking at this body of work as a whole, packaged within its posted "shell" - well, it really seemed to be no less than a live foram!

One thing is for sure: art/science collaboration is an effective way to ignite the imagination ...

Spitball Testate Amoebas





Award-winning amoeba art!

  

Beginnings ...

As an undergraduate, I never thought much about the parallels between art and science. It took a pal of mine - Anthony Tassarotti - to lead me down that path. At the time, I was a student in Sam McGee-Russell's electron microscopy class, and "Tony" was deeply involved with photography. When he saw some of my micrographs, he went into the darkroom and started making some "crazy prints" (my words at the time).

Anthony's rendering of a carbon-platinum shadowed latex sphere

You never know where friendships will take you!

The mind of an artist

An artist colleague once remarked that if I was to understand how artists think, I need to reverse roles in life. With a perplexed look, and a "huh? what does that mean," he suggested that I try working in the lab wearing my scuba suit. The next day I followed his suggestion ...

Showing up for a day's work, ready to experience the artist's mind.

Most of the day involves paperwork (sigh).

But occasionally I get to use fancy equipment, like this low voltage scanning electron microscope ...

... or the Albany high-voltage transmission electron microscope ...

It was hard to see anything through a fogged scuba mask.

Dejected and less inspired about understanding artists, I return to the lab. Sorry, Jan, it's better to collaborate with artists than it is to think like one ...

(Thanks to Amanda Andreas for taking these photos and tolerating my humor)

Perfect Hole Followup

For many years now, I have included at least one artist on our Antarctic research team. The argument for this practice was recently presented at the SCAR meeting in Portland, Oregon (see: Scientists should consider an artist when selecting field team members).

Sometimes these artists have a lot of prior experience  (e.g., Steve Alexander - scientist, diver, and photographer; Shawn Harper - diver, photographer; Henry Kaiser - diver, musician, and videographer), but in other cases they have less (e.g., visual artists Claire Beynon and Laura Von Rosk). Regardless of their level of lab or field training, artists always prove to be excellent team members who remain faithful advocates of the continent.

Nevertheless, I'm often a bit nervous taking visual artists to Antarctica. Their "style" (forgive my ignorance of art terminology) is celebrated by their audience, and I'm concerned that Antarctica will change them in ways that might "ruin them." Will their followers be turned off by their Antarctic-inspired work? Maybe this is a silly concern ...

Laura Von Rosk has spent the last six months producing a new series of paintings. I'm biting nails, hoping that her images are well received. Maybe I shouldn't have asked her to melt so many perfect dive holes ???

Team Bravo(!) 043

I've been remiss by not introducing the members of our 2011 research team. I'll post more complete introductions and detail each person's role in the project at a later date. For now, from left to right:

Laura Von Rosk - Art/science collaborator (Schroon Lake, NY)

Cecilia Shin - Lead research diver and camp safety officer (University of California Santa Cruz)

Dr. Jan Pawlowski - Molecular protistologist (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

Danielle Woodward - Youngest research diver in Antarctica (Hilo, HI)

Hilary Hudson - Research diver, documentary film maker

Dr. Sam Bowser - Principal Investigator (Albany, NY)

Dr. Andrew Gooday (pictured below in the Explorers Cove lab) - Biological oceanographer (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, U.K.)

Our project centers on characterizing the ~20 new species of foraminiferan protists we have identified in past work, and on obtaining information on the genetics of these organisms.

More about that as results pour in!