KdderLimpp (2024)

11/02/2022

Visualising viruses: how art and science can flourish together
The first cases of AIDS were described over 30 years ago, in the early 1980s. The notion of a new viral disease that killed almost everyone who became infected was terrifying. Since then, HIV infection has become a manageable chronic condition, with a normal life expectancy if one is lucky enough to be able to access treatment. HIV is now the most studied and best understood virus of all.

A virus is the smallest biological entity that can replicate itself, although they are absolutely dependent on their host. In the case of HIV, only humans are infected. Viruses are essentially molecular machines that can reprogramme host cells to make viruses.

Viruses are much too small to see with the naked eye. Scientists visualise them using powerful microscopes which use beams of electrons instead of light. This fast developing technology is revealing virus structure in ever greater detail, helping us understand how viruses work. But there are other ways of visualising viruses too, as we discovered when we began working with the artist John Walter. He got in touch about some of our microscope images of HIV.

The John Walter show CAPSID is at HOME, Manchester, November 10, 2018 – January 6, 2019. HOME
Viruses
All living things are infected with viruses. Viruses typically cause disease in their host. The host, in turn, typically deploys a multi-layered defence system to prevent and control infection. This is our immune system. Viruses and hosts are engaged in an antagonistic relationship that has existed throughout the evolution of life on earth. This is evidenced by remnants of ancient viral infections, which left their DNA in host genomes and now comprise about 8% of human DNA.

The work in our laboratory rests on the broad hypothesis that HIV has been able to infect 80m people, kill 30m, and cause a global pandemic, because of its unique ability to overcome the defences encompassed by our own immune system.

We work on the HIV capsid. The capsid is a container that protects the viral genetic material. But it is not a passive container. It is a molecular machine that regulates synthesis of viral DNA and acts as a GPS by interacting with a series of proteins in the host cell that it infects. Through these sequential interactions, the virus knows where it is, what it has to do and when to do it. We aim to understand how the capsid works, asking how it interprets this information and how we can target capsids with new types of drug.

John Walter, The Zany Capsid, The Zany Capsid, HD video (still), 2017. © John Walter
Capsids
We began working with John when he contacted us to ask us questions about capsids. John had been making art influenced by the HIV epidemic for many years, and his work had begun to consider what he describes as “the crisis of representation in HIV”. John wanted, as he put it, to “look under the bonnet of HIV”.

He found out about capsids. As a central part of our work, we make images of capsids coated with their host cellular protein binding partners. John had seen some of these pictures and had even made some beautiful viral capsids out of cardboard. We were struck by how accurate they were.

Our ‘scientific’ visualisation of a capsid. Greg Towers, Author provided
We realised almost immediately that despite our different perspectives, we were asking the same questions. How does the capsid fit together and how does it work? Somewhat to our surprise, our early conversations quickly turned into a genuine collaboration. John attends our lab meetings, asks questions about our work and inspires new questions and perspectives. John acts as the jester. His questions empower us to think afresh about our observations and their interpretation. John licenses our creativity in a new way, and we hope that we do the same for him.

John’s art is massively influenced by the discussions he has in the lab. But he doesn’t just illustrate our work. Rather, our science provides new material to inspire his work.

Painting science
For example, John has produced epic paintings of the inside of a cell as seen by a virus. His “cytoplasm” series is influenced by our discussions of hostile hosts and evasion of defences and cloaking of viruses from innate immune systems. He has also made a film called A Virus Walks Into A Bar that tells the story of how a capsid is assailed by host defence mechanisms but is eventually successful, infecting the cells and drinking at the bar. Some of us are in the film.

A Virus Walks into a Bar, trailer, John Walter.
His “allostery” series of works, meanwhile, are influenced by our hypothesis that the HIV capsid changes shape each time it touches part of a host cell. Allostery is the word we use to describe shape changes when proteins touch. Critically, it’s not just the touching bits that change, the whole protein can change shape. We propose that this is how the HIV GPS works. It knows where it is depending on what shape its capsid proteins are in.

Science and art are both highly creative disciplines and our work with John has really brought this home to us. It has promoted a real commitment to taking a creative approach to answering our scientific questions. John has given us a new basis for encouraging early career scientists and students to recognise that science is a creative enterprise. He now teaches our undergraduate students and discusses scientific problems with our PhD students and post docs.

Hung, drawn and circumcised. John Walter, 2016. Photograph: Jonathan Bassett
Our collaboration with John has been much wider-reaching than we expected. We have encouraged each other to expand the space in which we ask questions and open ourselves to other perspectives. We think, perhaps, that we are inventing a new way to do science, and a new way to do art.

10/02/2022

Museums present visual art as beautiful things you can touch
A shift is taking place in museums and the way art history is presented globally. More museums now value visitor experience and at the same time, there is a growing emphasis on accessibility in Canadian public institutions.

Some museums are offering adapted guided tours, which include tactile elements in addition to relying on various digital devices. The devices range from audio guides to 3D printed models that can sometimes be touched.

I have been awarded a Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation scholarship to look into the impact of multisensory mediation tools. These tools often include a tactile or auditory element and so encourage the use of more than one sense at the time. My research focuses on the low-vision and blind community.

Two years ago, I co-created two multisensory-art prototypes to offer a tactile experience of a 1948 painting and its colours. The idea was to give visitors a version of the painting they could touch, to discover and interact with manually. Each colour is represented by a different texture. These prototypes were exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, underneath the original artwork.

What might museums gain from following this recent art history shift? How can they start to embrace multisensory aesthetic experiences?

These new approaches propose solutions to barriers that limit access to museums for marginalized audiences. Such barriers include cultural, financial, emotional and intellectual factors, among others. Experts predict that the numbers of blind people will reach 115 million by 2050 worldwide. Those numbers don’t include others with mobility barriers or other disabilities.

‘Prisme d'Yeux’ by Alfred Pellan, 1948, oil on canvas interpreted by Patricia Bérubé as a tactile object. Patricia Bérubé, Author provided
New ways of presenting art + culture
The museum public is slowly expanding to populations that previously lacked access to these institutions. It is now essential for museums to adapt the way they present collections. In her book The Museum of the Senses: Experiencing Art and Collections, Constance Classen, a cultural historian who looks at the history of the senses describes how contemporary museums are making use of multimedia and interactive displays to stimulate the senses.

Stimulating the senses might prove to be beneficial to help museum visitors retain information through what is called the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. This type of intelligence occurs when we actively interact with given objects or artefacts through the sense of touch.

These innovative mediation tools involve visitors by stimulating multiple senses, which is beneficial to various audiences including children. Children rely on their sense of touch to grasp the world that surrounds them and touch tools can help them learn more about culture.

Since these displays require a certain level of interaction, visitors are no longer passive. They can actively contribute to the museum visit, creating more memorable experiences.

Multisensory art
Art appears to be evolving as it now seems to be focusing on other senses than sight. More and more artists now try to make their art accessible to all, either by adding a tactile component or sound, whether it be speaking, music or noises. New forms of art have recently been developed and many examples stand out.

Richard Harlow of Blind Eye Works. Richard Harlow of Blind Eye Works
Among these is the work of Andrew Myers who creates tactile paintings with screws. This type of artwork serves two purposes: to be beautiful for sighted visitors since the end of the screws is painted, and to be accessible through touch for the low-vision and blind community.

Another artist, Richard Harlow, decided to pursue his love of art after becoming blind. To make sure his art is accessible to others, he developed various techniques to make his paintings tactile. He also provides braille and audio descriptions during exhibitions.

New technologies can also help create innovative forms of artwork, virtual or not. One of the potential objectives of the creator of these artworks is to find ways to translate a visual representation, namely paintings or drawings, into something that can be touched. To do so, they must rely on using raised lines instead and focusing on the visual narrative.

The museum as a laboratory
As more mediation tools are being developed and used to address different audiences, could the future of the museum be ensured by the evolution of its functions? Could we start seeing the museum as not only a cultural institution, but also a type of social laboratory?

Andrew Myers: the Inventor of Tactile Portraits.
This trend seems to be emerging as the role of museums is slowly changing and leading them to become key players in the inclusion of marginalized audiences. A good example, among others, is the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts which offers activities aimed at promoting a “culture of inclusion” through its art therapy department.

Amidst this sensory turn within museums and art history itself, it is essential to remind ourselves that these institutions are at the heart of society. When museums and art institutions work to make artefacts and artworks accessible to broader audiences, they can help raise awareness and encourage respectful social interactions.

Thus, museums not only foster social interactions between visitors coming from different backgrounds but also contribute to creating a feeling of belonging amongst them, through sharing an aesthetic experience.

10/02/2022

In der Premier League macht Manchester City den nächsten Schritt in Richtung Meisterschaft. Philippe Coutinho überrascht mit einer weiteren Gala für Aston Villa.

09/02/2022

How a volcano and flaming red sunsets led an amateur scientist in Hawaii to discover jet streams
On the evening of Sept. 5, 1883, people in Honolulu witnessed a spectacular sunset followed by a period of extended twilight described as a “singular lurid after sunset glow.” There were no signs of anything else out of the ordinary, but these exceptional twilight glows returned each morning and evening over the following weeks.

Among the mystified Honolulu citizens was 56-year-old Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop, who in his varied career in Hawaii had been a chaplain, school principal and surveyor, and who had a keen interest in science. Over the subsequent weeks and months, the exceptional twilight glows occurred around the whole globe. Remarkably, as scientists first grappled with understanding the origin of the twilight glows, Bishop’s efforts would lead to the first convincing explanation.

Profile photo of Bishop with a beard and glasses and wearing a suit
Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop (1827–1909) Wikipedia
His discoveries led to scientific investigations of the winds high above the ground and ultimately yielded information that today is used to forecast weather over extended periods.

I am a meteorologist in Hawaii who helped revive appreciation of Bishop’s seminal contribution to the scientific exploration of the upper atmosphere.

A volcanic eruption half a world away
Today we know that the 1883 glows were caused by the sun below the visible horizon illuminating a mist of small liquid droplets in the atmosphere high above the ground.

The mist was made of sulfuric acid droplets that were formed by reactions of the massive amounts of sulfur dioxide gas produced by the explosive eruption of Mount Krakatoa close to the equator in Indonesia on Aug. 27, 1883. The eruption sent the droplets high into the atmosphere, where the winds transported them around the world. They spread gradually, and it was November before people in London began to notice the glow.

Much later, scientists observed similar effects after the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The material Pinatubo injected into the upper atmosphere could be followed in detail with satellite observations, and their connection with spectacular sunsets and twilight glows was clearly established.

Sketches of twilight and afterglow on one evening in 1883 in London following the Krakatoa eruption. William Ashcroft via Houghton Library/Harvard University
In 1883, Bishop had no idea that there had been a volcanic eruption until the San Francisco newspapers arrived. Very quickly, he formulated a hypothesis that he published as a letter in his local newspaper.

“I am disposed to conjecture that some very light element among the vapors of the Java eruptions has continued at a very great height in the atmosphere, and has been borne … across the Pacific into this region,” Bishop wrote.

He realized that he could connect the eruption to the glowing skies most credibly by gathering reports of the first appearance of the glows elsewhere and tracking the initial spread of the “vapor” from Krakatoa. Bishop continued his letter: “I earnestly invite, in behalf of science, all shipmasters and mates to publish what they may have observed at sea.”

Bishop assembled a dozen such reports over the first three weeks after the eruption and was able to show that the “vapor” that produced the glows had moved westward from Krakatoa, along the equator to reach Honolulu 10 days later. This implied that there was a wind high in the atmosphere blowing steadily with an extreme speed that, at ground level, is seen only in hurricanes.

Tracking the red sunsets following the Krakatoa eruption. The stars mark the initial reports and dates of seeing the exceptional twilight colors in 1883.
Bishop published his observations in The Hawaiian Monthly, concluding that there was “a vast stream of smoke due west with great precision along a narrow equatorial belt with an enormous velocity, around the globe.”

The equatorial jet stream
Bishop called the motion of the volcanic aerosol a “smoke stream.” In fact, the equatorial winds transporting the aerosol were the first discovery of what meteorologists now call a jet stream.

A half-century would pass before the experiences of pilots flying at heights of several miles revealed the existence of the extratropical jet streams lower down in the atmosphere that are now familiar from TV newscasts. Jet streams are strong, typically narrow bands of wind. The more familiar lower atmospheric jet streams move weather systems in the middle latitudes from west to east. By contrast, Bishop’s jet stream circles the equator at high altitudes and actually can blow from east to west.

Bishop’s work opened further exploration of the equatorial jet stream that culminated in the 1961 discovery that the equatorial jet stream varied from strong east winds to strong west winds roughly every other year. This so-called Quasi-biennial Oscillation has been shown to connect with weather near the ground, particularly in Europe and the North Atlantic, a fact that is now routinely exploited in making long range forecasts for the weather.

Bishop’s contribution was acknowledged by the scientists who first followed him, and he won a prize from New York’s Warner Observatory in a contest for essays explaining the post-Krakatoa glows. Bishop even merited a brief obituary in an American meteorological science journal.

Bishop, who was the son of missionaries, could also be a divisive figure in Hawaii. He supported the U.S. annexation of the islands, and his religious views opposed some native Hawai'ian traditions, such as the hula dance. His contributions to science were largely forgotten in the 20th century.

An international scientific committee’s celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Quasi-biennial Oscillation discovery is an opportunity to remember Bishop and his discovery.

08/02/2022

Art and online activism amid the pandemic: lessons from around the world
During the COVID-19 pandemic, arranging protests and political movements in the streets has proven challenging due to social distancing orders.

Campaigns around the world such as the movement initiated by Greta Thunberg have moved online through the use of social media. The movement has now turned into , where hundreds of social media posts pour in every week.

Artistic posters on Twitter and dance choreography on TikTok have helped increase appeal for the movement among young people around the world and continue it in a more light-hearted way.

Students are fighting climate change, one TikTok video at a time.
This movement’s sustainability and its ability to captivate audiences suggests these kinds of artistic approaches can be a great medium for activism in the digital space.

Arts activism — traditionally performed offline in the pre-social media era — combines the creative and emotional capacity of the arts with the strategic planning of activists to push for meaningful change in society online.

These three examples highlight how digital arts can help spark and sustain political engagement as it moves online amid the pandemic.

Stirring emotions to build political participation
Digital arts activism has the power to help people channel suffering, trauma or their outrage into persuasive messages.

Many studies have indicated this can help increase community engagement and political participation — from human rights advocacy to campaigns against discrimination and economic inequality.

Twenty-five-year-old Danielle Coke from Atlanta, for instance, is an illustrator who posts digital drawings on Instagram to advocate for important issues such as ending systemic racism.

Although she has criticised people for not crediting her appropriately, her work has been cited and shared by many people and to support a number of political movements such as .

For instance, some of the art she created discusses the cases of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd — two African-American citizens killed by local police on separate occasions. These artworks have since been used by thousands of people to voice outrage against institutional racism in America’s law enforcement system.

The iconic poster of the “ballerina and the bull” is another example.

The artwork, created by Micah White through his anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, played a significant role helping initiate the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The poster contrasted the image of the Wall Street Bull statue — meant to symbolise the dynamics of capitalism — with the “zen stillness” of a ballerina.

These details, along with the shrouded figures in the poster’s background helped evoke a sense of fear and shared urgency regarding the country’s state of economic inequality. This helped pushed some to participate in, or at least become aware of, the movement.

The New York Times noted in an article that although the magazine through its poster did not come up with the frustrations felt by the movement’s protesters, it significantly shaped the movement’s aesthetic brand.

Sustaining the complexity of theatrical performances
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many artistic movements to migrate into the digital space.

One example is “Conexion: Art and Activism in Oaxaca”. Originally planned as a showcase at the Newcomb Art Museum in Louisiana, United States, Conexion Oaxaca is an interactive digital exhibition by Latin American Studies students.

The digital exhibition highlights issues such as gender-based violence, access to education, family separation, and economic inequality.

The digital Coaxaca exhibition was curated by Tulane University students and faculty staff trough a Zoom meeting. (Screenshot from Conexion Oaxaca)
Due to the pandemic, the exhibition has transformed into a fully interactive website that guides viewers throughout its four navigable themes which contain magazines, quilted art and documentary films.

However, it wasn’t always this easy.

The practice of staging art exhibitions online was once criticised for lacking what German philosopher Walter Benjamin calls an “aura of authenticity” — a sensory experience that results from an artwork being uniquely present in time and space.

However, the growth of social media has helped online exhibitions fulfil the basic principles of art; that it should be visible, versatile, suggestive and transmissible.

In fact, I argue that the viewing experience is enhanced as now artworks can be played back, examined thoroughly and intensively studied, on demand, by a diverse range of audiences.

Universities must teach arts activism to students
An effective way way to start making digital arts activism prevalent among students and young people is by incorporating it within higher education.

In most developing countries, however, art is currently still a highly specialised program in college. Activist movements, on the other hand, are often only studied only under faculties teaching the social sciences or humanities.

In order to complement the scientific methodology used in most natural and social science programs, universities need to incorporate art in each of their department’s curricula as part of the intellectual tradition of higher education.

King’s College London, for example, has been developing an interdisciplinary module titled “Art and Activism in the Digital Age” to be implemented across its study programs.

The university also collaborates with local artist and provides grants for digital art projects that are accessible even to students outside the Faculty of Humanities.

If we want higher education to have impact, students need to learn how to absorb experiences from events happening in their environment and channel them into meaningful initiatives. Digital art activism is a great way to help them do this.

08/02/2022

Bringing art into public spaces can improve the social fabric of a city
You don’t need to look far to see the impact of art in public spaces. Art can connect us to place and record history as it unfolds.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, stories on the importance of public art are being told globally. And this isn’t new. Times of crisis have often inspired some of the most influential artistic movements.

Displaying visual symbols of resistance publicly, like the face of George Floyd, can connect social movements across the world. And in Canada, the display of statues like Egerton Ryerson have been deemed unacceptable as we reckon with our ongoing colonial history.

Public art can be defined as art that is available to the general public outside of museums and galleries; publicly funded; and related to the interests or concerns of, and used by a public community.

Public art is referred to by some as creative placemaking: a process of artistic creation and collaboration that helps to shape the surrounding built, natural and social environments.

An elderly woman walks past a mural that depicts a Black health-care worker wearing a blue face mask and scrubs.
An elderly woman walks past a mural that pays tribute to health-care workers in Toronto, Ont. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
For French philosopher Jacques Rancière, art is disruptive. Done right, he says, it can make the spectator rethink their understanding of politics and society by calling to attention previously hidden inequalities.

For many, the power of public art rests in its ability to turn artistic practice into a social practice. It challenges the viewer to confront social issues that affect the very place they stand.

Art in times of crisis
COVID-19 is just one example of a period of shared adversity when our connection to the arts has flourished. The Dadaists’ commentary on the 1918 flu reflected an intense and collectively frustrated desire for meaning in a world filled with chaos.

During the Great Depression, the arts became increasingly experimental. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal saw the largest public art funding initiative the country had seen. A few decades later, in the 1980s, provinces and municipalities in Canada followed suit and began significantly investing in public art.

A man stands infront of a mural depicting Bernie Sanders. The word demos is written above.
A mural inspired by a photo of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders bundled up and wearing mittens and a face mask at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on a legal graffiti wall at the Leeside Tunnel skateboard park in Vancouver. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Protest music during the civil rights movement and Vietnam War expressed anger, despair and hope. Gay artists and writers during the AIDS crisis memorialized a collective grief that was being either ignored or vilified. The art from both eras came at an immense cost, and has been profoundly culturally and socially influential.

Today, the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated inequalities that were already present.

Read more: Coronavirus discriminates against Black lives through surveillance, policing and the absence of health data

But there has also been engagement and social solidarity: from Black Lives Matter, to the Indigenous Land Back movement and support for unhoused people.

Those who have the privilege not to pay attention are finding this option less viable. This engagement arguably comes with its own set of problems, but it is a momentum that can be built upon to imagine and do the work needed to create better futures for society.

Artists are well positioned to do this creative imagining.

Art beyond the gallery
As we each search for meaning throughout our intensely local and geographically limited lives during the pandemic, public art finds, creates and shares the beauty, joy and solidarity that can be found in public spaces.

Galleries are often isolated from the communities in geographical proximity. They have often been places of exclusion, and have historically served to uphold a dominant, European settler-centred narrative. They have played a role in perpetuating colonial and racist attitudes towards Indigenous communities, their art and histories.

Indigenous artists have long been challenging these narratives. Mainstream art is catching on, and there has been an unprecedented level of Indigenous representation and leadership within gallery spaces in recent decades.

People walk past paintings in a museum.
Galleries can often be places of exclusion that uphold colonial and racist attitudes. (Unsplash/Diogo Fagundes)
This leadership should shape public art in Canada. Public spaces, like art galleries, have also privileged some more than others. Bringing art outside of the gallery space is not a catch-all solution. What matters more is how it’s done.

Toronto’s year of public art
In Toronto, the municipal government has announced that its “Year of Public Art” will begin in the fall with a total budget of $4.5 million in 2021. This is the inauguration of a 10-year public art plan. It responds to calls for an improved public art strategy, with a greater commitment to equity in the location of installations, the level of engagement with communities and the artists who create works.

Toronto has promised a strong commitment to Indigenous self-determination, leadership and placemaking within its public art strategy.

The city’s public art installations have increased in the past 50 years, with over 700 installations added between 1967 and 2015.

Toronto’s Percent for Public Art program, a commonly used strategy in cities in North America and Europe, encourages developers to donate one per cent of their gross construction costs towards public art in their development’s direct vicinity.

The program is voluntary though. And because most development is happening in the downtown core, this is where public art has been concentrated, meaning neighbourhoods with less development have received less investment in public art.

Nonetheless, the city is home to a multiplicity of adept communities and talented artists who continue to use public art to build community capacity and foster social inclusion.

Listening to artists of diverse backgrounds and elevating communities to participate meaningfully will support important conversations that determine our collective future. And that makes the investment in public art worthwhile for us all.

KdderLimpp

11/02/2022

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