Studies for a new series from an American Civil War reenactment in Milton, Ontario:

Here’s a study I made for an upcoming series.  More to follow!

In 1903, German apothecary Julius Neubronner combined his two hobbies, pigeon fancying and amateur photography, into an innovative new undertaking. He fit a 75-gram camera to a pigeon’s breast and released it 60 miles from its cote. The bird flew home along a predictable route, and a pneumatic mechanism snapped an aerial picture.

A stunned German patent office rejected Neubronner’s first application as impossible, but by 1909 his photos were adorning postcards and winning prizes at the Paris airshow. The image below, of the Schlosshotel Kronberg, made a sensation because the photographer’s wingtips are visible at its edges.

via Futility Closet

Photo via BikePortland.org

Dr. Chris Cavacuiti, a Toronto physician who cycles competitively, started doing some research into how most bike-versus-car collisions happen while recovering from a nasty bike-versus-car collision. His findings:

While there is a public perception that cyclists are usually the cause of accidents between cars and bikes, an analysis of Toronto police collision reports shows otherwise: The most common type of crash in this study involved a motorist entering an intersection and either failing to stop properly or proceeding before it was safe to do so. The second most common crash type involved a motorist overtaking unsafely. The third involved a motorist opening a door onto an oncoming cyclist. The study concluded that cyclists are the cause of less than 10 percent of bike-car accidents in this study.

I can find that pretty easy to believe, actually. In most cities—and certainly in Los Angeles—cars rule the road. So drivers are attuned to check against potential car-car accidents but don’t think as much about potential car-bike accidents. When you park your car on the street you might check your side-view mirror for cars before you open your door, but you’d be less likely to check your rear-view mirror for cyclists coming up behind you. Also, you just generally feel more exposed and focused on a bike than in a car, so you’re more careful.

What’s way more perplexing to me is this animosity between “cyclists” and “drivers” as if we don’t all do a little of both.

via Good

Clare Samuel, The Seal, 2008, C-Print

Clare Samuel, The Dolphin, 2008, C-Print

Photo credit: Kris Heath

Claire Morgan, Fluid, 150 x 150 cm (height variable)

Strawberries, taxidermied crow, fishing hooks, nylon

From the group show, Building With Colour

Gallery North, Newcastle, 16 January – 28 February 2009

via – booooooom.com

Installation photograph from Sky On The Clouds via – Myung-Sun Kim

York MFA/PhD 2009 Summer Show

INQUIRE WITHIN

August 19 to August 30, 2009

Reception: Thursday, August 20, 2009, 7-10 PM.

Loop Gallery is pleased to announce the final show at our Queen Street West location, entitled Inquire Within.

Philosopher Francis Fischer has suggested that it is generally futile to want to grasp the emergence or the turning-point of a work. Moving from this notion, Inquire Within, the Summer group exhibition from York University’s graduate students in the Visual Arts, seeks to redirect inquiry from the confines of a possible ’turning-point’ to the broader process of art production. In re-framing how a work is examined, the conceptual underpinnings become more prominent and the conflicting ideas employed initiate an open dialogue.

The individual works in the show reference various ideas and employ multiple conceptual frameworks, but maintain a collective resolve to move beyond the respective aesthetic schemes in which they are realized. The idea of movement beyond the work’s current state is not necessarily medium related. The objects in the exhibition are not necessarily in a state of evolution. Instead the currency of conceptual schemes employed is revaluated and their subsequent definitions are shown to be unstable and continually changing. The fluidity of the discourses surrounding each object leaves the viewer with the task of interrogating the ideas rather than the object.

Curated by Arpi Kovacs, Inquire Within includes work by Jaime Angelopoulos, Laura Barrón, David Bender, Zev Farber, Melissa General, Lauren Goldman, Emily Gove, Rodrigo Hernandez, Risa Horowitz, Natasha Ivanco, Myung-Sun Kim, Anthony Koutras, Catherine Lane, Jennifer Linton, Melanie Lowe, Asma Arshad Mahmood, Julieta María, Kate McQuillen, Lisa Neighbour, Stephanie Reynolds, Jennie Suddick, and Dustin Wenzel.

This will be the final exhibition in loop’s Queen Street West location. Please join the artists in celebrating the opening reception on Thursday, August 20th, from 7-10 pm.

via – bethfrey.com

2009-2010 Benefactor Application

Name: _______________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Telephone: ____________________________________________________
Cellular: ______________________________________________________
Email: _______________________________________________________

1. Do you possess a sizeable amount of income?*  (circle one)    YES   NO

2. Have you recently gained a sense of your own mortality and realized the importance of writing a will in the near future? (circle one)     YES   NO

3. Do you have a country home on a lake/a cliff overlooking the sea/in a remote corner of the Rhodope mountains?            YES   NO

4. If you were to provide financial gifts to a talented young artist, would you also take her to places like the opera or on a cheese-tasting tour?        YES    NO

5. Do you ever wear a top hat or white gloves? (please specify) _________________________________________________________________________

6. On a scale of 1-10, rate your physical and intellectual attractiveness: _________________________________________________________________________

7. In 50 words or less, give your own definition of “no strings attached”:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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8. What is an ideal benefactor/benefactee relationship to you?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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______________________________________________________________________________________

* note: One whose income is not deemed as sizeable may still be considered. Other factors, such as international mystique or willingness to support a young artist’s career, may be noted as relevant.benefactorapplication

I’m forming a group on facebook in order to recruit willing participants for my current and upcoming art projects.  So, do you think you have what it takes to survive the Eisen challenge?  Join up!

I got free tickets to go see Ponyo last night – it was quite good (thanks Tiff!).  When I got out of the Scotia (at Richmond and John) I found a ticket attached to my handlebars.  I looked around to see if there were tickets on any other bikes, but I didn’t see any.  Here it is:

What can I say – I love it!  Thank you, whoever you are!

Look, I’m on torontoist:  Bicycle Ticketed for Excessive Awesomeness