I want to drink from a silk cup.
At least I do after Fiorenzo Omenetto’s talk about high–tech applications for nanostructured biomaterials. Or, basically, what can’t we do with silk?
In addition to making disposable cups that naturally biodegrade, Fiorenzo’s lab is working on silk that can dissolve in the body as well transmit light.
Janet Echelman’s fluid sculpture is beautiful. Enormous. Grand. And literally awe-inspiring. As she was walking on the beach some odd years ago, she came across fishing nets. Handcrafted. And she turned it into art. Or perhaps, re-framed it as art. I would love to have a sculpture of hers in Chicago. Over Lake Michigan. Please check out her portfolio.
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins” is a quote Daniel Tammet used to illustrate his high functioning autistic savant syndrome – a syndrome where words have colors and numbers become paintings. I have often referenced Nabokov’s opening line from Lolita as one of my favorite lines of writing EVER- especially coming from a Russian writer writing in his third (or fourth?) learned language. The beauty, power, craft, fire, poetry and alliteration of that amazing sentence has stuck in mind and rings in my ears to this day. And Daniel’s mind sees the words from Lolita in purple (purple prose?) and pointed out that Nabokov had the same syndrome.
Then Anthony Atala printed out a kidney.
No shi*t.
Shea Hembrey is hilarious. As an artist he set off to curate a biennial with over 200 artists. The problem is/was corralling 200 artists would be painstaking. So he just constructed 200 fictional artists, complete with bios, and now the biennial is set to open later this year. As he walked us through about 20 of the works, my favorite “artist” in his group is a collective know as the Silver (Sober?) Dobermans. Their mission is to spread pragmatism across the world, one person at a time. And their installment is a barbed-wire fence with every single barb tagged with a “warning” flag. Still makes me lol.
I heart Kate Hartman.
She of the muttering hat and the go go gloves and glacier-embracing suit. She makes these super funny, almost Seussian articles of clothing that are interactive and primitive at the same time.
Quote that best sums up the spirit of the conference:
“We’re not here to protest global warming, we’re here to fix it.” By Christina Lampe-Onnerud. Exactly.
Sarah Kay came onto the stage like a power surge. She is simultaneously balls out and sweet and a super hardcore performance artist. She riffs these fantastical, confessionary poem-anthems that seriously rocked my world. And her performance is not to be missed. It’s so much fun to witness someone who seems like they are intensely wired. She was a sparkling presence.
JR made a live appearance in Palm Springs. The dude is well, just super cool. He’s got an inspirational vibe, great clothes and an awesome accent. And he appears so comfortable and approachable that it’s charismatic. He took a bunch of questions from the audience, talked more in depth about his project and just hung out. He is such a great example of how following your muse truly can set you free. He didn’t have to prepare a talk, he can just talk. Because he has a meaningful project and thus, meaningful work.
Beauty, imagination, enchantment. My favorite session of the conference.
No comments:
Post a Comment