Sensibilities 2.6: Unexpected collaborations
As we close out Buddy Month, welcome back to Sensibilities! Here's some of the far-ranging resources, ideas, and inspirations that have been bouncing around in our heads this month, in the hopes that they pique your interest, jumpstart your creativity, or simply add a little intrigue to your day. Happy exploring!
1 is international artist collective Kép Klub's collaboration with the residents of Zalaegerszeg, Hungary to create bright, personal public art:
From their website:
"The three artists: Amy Ritter (US), Kieran Butler (AU), and Rob Burton (UK) met for the first time in Hungary on September 7th, 2015. As a collective KÉP KLUB develop artworks using the potential of expanded photographic, drawing and installation practices responding to the places they find themselves in. Currently KÉP KLUB is reaching out to the community of Zalaegerszeg to collect interviews and later on create art installations based off of their conversations. The family or person(s) will donate a surface whether it is a wall, façade of their home, garage door, or fence where the artists will then create a work of art."
2 is a shot-by-shot remake of Woody Allen's Annie Hall, made by two young filmmakers with the residents of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, an old folks home in Manhattan:
From the New York Times:
"[Filmmakers] Mr. Sachs and Mr. Starr showed about 10 trailers, and asked the group to vote on one. 'It was a tie between Singing in the Rain and Annie Hall,’ Ms. Sachs said. “We encouraged the class to do Annie Hall just because Lenox Hill Neighborhood House is so close by to a lot of the original locations. And it’s a memory movie. It’s about looking back and thinking about what you choose to remember, why you choose to remember certain things, what are the most salient and important memories. And also, it’s a love story. It’s accessible and seemed very ageless.'
Auditions lasted three weeks. Mr. Miller, who wanted a secondary part, got the lead instead. 'I was the only short one at the center,' he said. To this day he has not seen Annie Hall, and refuses to do so.
'I didn’t want to try to imitate,' he said. 'I just wanted to follow the script.'"
3 is the plasmodial slime mold species currently honored as scholars-in-residence at Hampshire College, and the multidisciplinary human cohort that has formed to learn from them:
From Megan Dobro, Assistant Professor of Human Biology at Hampshire College:
"They are simultaneously one and many -- the way they pulse and send signals throughout the network seems to imply that they're making decisions. It's easy to dismiss slime mold decision-making and say they're just processing chemicals and then there's an output behavior, but that's what humans are doing too."
4 is conceptual artist Sophie Calle's collaborative work, Take Care of Yourself, in which she invited women of all ages, experiences, and disciplines to create something in response to a callous breakup email:
From an interview in The Guardian:
"Over two years later, she distributed the missive to 107 women professionals, photographed them reading it and invited them to analyse it, according to their job. The ex's grammar and syntax have been torn apart by a copy editor, his manners rubbished by an etiquette consultant and his lines pored over by Talmudic scholars. He has been re-ordered by a crossword-setter, evaluated by a judge, shot up by a markswoman, second-guessed by a chess player and performed by actress Jeanne Moreau. A forensic psychiatrist decided he was a 'twisted manipulator.' The temple to a woman scorned is entitled 'Take care of yourself.'"
5 is the strange relationship between pom-pom crabs and sea anemones:
From New Scientist:
"When they’re born, boxer crabs don’t have anemones. They don’t even have claws. They float around in their larval stage as they develop, but when they end up on the sea floor they acquire the anemones soon after they land, [marine biologist Yisrael] Schnytzer says.
They have delicate claws that they rarely use for anything but holding onto their anemones. Their claws have a series of small hooks that once embedded in the anemones keep them from getting away.
The crabs tend the anemones a bit like a bonsai tree, limiting their food and even sometimes nibbling at them to keep them small enough to hold easily. [...]
The coast where these crabs live is an area of no more than a few square kilometres and there are dozens of researchers out there, he says, and no one has reported seeing any lone anemones like these.
'The anemones are being carried around, and the very fact that we haven’t found them, we have to say maybe they are dependent on the crabs,' Schnytzer says."
enjoy!
:) devan
