Bio-Mechanical

After considering the possibility of combining animals to help them adapt, I began to think of ways humans could use technology to interfere with nature. The images I found combining the organic and the mechanical were pages from Fritz Kahns's book on the human body. I had never seen these pictures before but apparently they are considered to be some of the first info-graphics. Fritz Kahn was a scientist who worked in 1920's Berlin. He used mechanical metaphors for his insightful theories of how the human body worked and commissioned artists to visualise his ideas. I loved all the examples I could find, I think the ones that look like mechanical cross-sections of glamour posters are the most interesting.

Although I didn't experiment applying mechanical parts to humans, I did try with a few insects- as insects, especially bees are crucial to our survival as they pollinate plants. Insects cannot be allowed to die out... but if they did could they be replaced with machines?

  

I really like the aesthetic of these images, the combinations between photographs, paintings and real mechanisms but I think I need to start considering how and why these mechanical parts are being applied, and not get carried away with appearance.

Bad Taxidermy and Victorian Monsters

After searching for examples of "bad taxidermy" and expecting to find images of moth-eaten, utterly unbelievable Victorian inventions I came across a modern artist who works along the same lines. However, the work of Enrique Gomez de Molina is much more beautiful, shocking and believable (to an extent) than I was expecting. Unfortunately, Molina as recently been arrested for using the skins of endangered animals which goes against the entire principle of our themes. However, his images are still useful for our research and I began to consider how we could combine different animals to either bring back extinct animals or aid existing ones. What are the endangered animals lacking that could be provided by another animal? How could animals be altered to exist in a new urban habitat?    

After finding Enrique Gomez I continued to look for examples of bad Victorian taxidermy. Instead I found only the name of an avid collector of these artifacts from the same era and the book he wrote about them. Ulisse Aldrovandi wrote "The Monstrorum Historica", "A compendium of all known human and animal monstrocities", the illustrations from which are hilarious... and a little scary. Supposedly this man had in his vast taxidermy collection several dragons and even a mermaid but sadly I couldn't find any photographs. 

It struck me that it might be interesting to attempt to make a modern "Monstrorum Historica" using animals which have become monstrous by adapting to the urban world. Although it might be more fun to make a less serious version using slightly comedic adaptations. 

Initial group research

During our first group meeting we mind-mapped a collection of ideas for us to research individually over the weekend. It quickly became apparent that we were mostly interested in the reclamation of nature, or nature reclaiming its place in the modern world. Here are some of our initial ideas:

On the theme of nature reclaiming it's place...

• Trees and plants overgrowing cities or man made structures
• Animals adapting to urban environments
• Ways to stop endangered animals becoming extinct

And reclaiming nature...

• Bad taxidermy- how the Victorians took to stitching exotic animal skins together to create new or mythological animals
• Mythology- how myths began, for example, elephant skulls resembling a cyclops
• Spontaneous Generation- a reclamation of the old belief that life grows from nothing and animals appear from the substances they are found near. E.g, mice are produced by dirty clothes and old cheese. 

We also agreed that we were interested in the Wunderkammer or "Cabinet of Curiosity" style museum presentation so I researched this too. 

The MOSI

I had imagined the Museum of Science and Industry to be a lot more inspirational than it was. I was hoping to find some evidence of lost theories or science that had been proven wrong to link to the theme "Reclamation" but the things I found most interesting were the old machines and Victorian style illustrations and old photographs on the signs.

The old-fashioned illustrations reminded me of an artist I found in Juxtapoz called Dan Hillier who collages together victorian drawings, often combining humans animals and machines. I wasn't really sure about how I could link this to "reclamation" other than it reclaiming old drawing methods... I did think about modifying old household objects within the drawings or photos to demonstrate how old technology could be reclaimed by modern people but didn't push the idea much further.

Above: Dan Hillier's collage work