Everything       Radical Art           


Nature as Art



    Process Art

    Natural Disasters

    Physics

    Animal Art

     

    The Aesthetics of Nature




Miscellaneous material


Charles Eames: Blacktop (1952). 10'47".

This film shows the shapes produced by the movement of soapy water across an asphalt surface. Don Albinson controlled the hose and movement of the water. Eames edited the film and synchronized it to Bach's Goldberg Variations on the basis of visual cues from the film's optical track.


Jan Henderikse: The San Pedro Art Project, 1973. (Three artificial lakes.)


Wolfgang Mally: Paper in Water 0-58 Days, 1977/1978.

Mally placed 365 sheets of paper in water, earth and air, and removed one sheet every day. (Dorothea Eimert: PaperArt, Geschichte der Papierkunst. Wienand Verlag, 1994.) (Cf. Marcel Duchamp: Readymade Malheureux, 1919; and some pieces by Yves Klein.)


Jan Henderikse: Ice, 1981.


Yukinori Yanagi: Wandering Position, 1995.

"The plan for Wandering Position, which will be executed on-site, is to set an ant free within a square area surrounded by a steel frame. The artist will follow the ant and trace his own footsteps in pastel. Only the size and position of the enclosure are to be determined by the artist. The rest will be drawn according to the ant's 'will'."


Asa Elzen: Communiejurkje, 1998.

A glass container with water and salt. The water dries out and leaves a pattern of salt crystals.
(Catalogue Flexible 3, Close to the Body. Nederlands Textielmuseum, Tilburg - 2000.)

Trace of pendulum in sand during earthquake.


Ken Goldberg, Randall Packer, Wojciech Matusik and Gregory Kuhn: Mori, 2001.

Ongoing display of earth movements in Berkeley, CA.      


Wim van Egmond, Loes Modderman, Spike Walker, Karl E. Deckart: Photomicrographs.
Michael W. Davidson: Photomicrographs.


Reference


Jan Henderikse: Photo. Installations 1960-1992. Almere: Directie Kunstzaken / Amsterdam: Galerie . Apunto, 1992, pp. 15, 18-19, 47.




Simulations

Steam: Kevin Newman: Smoke. (<5k Flash 5, 2002.)
Erosion: Bit-101 Laboratory: 01 dec 08/12/20; 02 dec 23-25
Explosion: Bit-101 Laboratory: 01 dec 11

   




Music: The Aeolian Harp

Howard Dearstyne: Material Compiled on the Subject of the Aeolian Harp from Various Sources. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., 1954.

Stephen Bonner: The history and organology of the Aeolian harp.

Stephen Bonner and M. G. Davies: The acoustics of the Aeolian harp. Bois de Boulogne, 1974

Mins Minssen et al.: Äolsharfen: der Wind als Musikant. Universität Kiel, Institut für die Pädagogik der Naturwissenschaften, 1997.
   




Exercises:
  •    Make computer simulations of some natural phenomena.
  •    It has often been observed that Immanuel Kant's analysis of the aesthetic experience focusses on beauty in nature, and that the status of art in his theory is problematic. Discuss against this background the "Nature as Art" genre in the art of the 1960's. Take into consideration also: Duchamp's readymades, algorithmic art, and Artificial Life.
     


Remko Scha, August 2002 / January 2003.

Some works and links suggested by Chris Alderliefste, Jorn Baas, Maja Brouwer, Daniel Marcel Joosse.