artsontheinter.net

Les Deux Garcons

The amazing work of Claire Morgan

Jan Fabre

Perhaps spurred by an early interest in Grunfelds hybrid taxidermy animals ( http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/thomas_gruenfeld/ and my taxidermied insects, I have started working with actual dead things.

The dead things includes little Algenon -  The Fetal Calf who is currently hibernating in my freezer pending risk assessment for 60 litres of para-formaldehyde – and a series of birds which are going to be used in my new cabinet works about genetic modification.  Since I have been learning how to make jewellery for the skin jewellery project, they will most likely be set with a precious and semi-precious stones (diamonds, CZ and garnets).

Img src=”http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3658:placenta-urns-and-breast-milk-”

“Placenta urns and breast-milk necklaces were probably the last thing French food and design foundation La Cuisine thought of when asking a group of designers to interpret the subject of eating together. But that is what they got from the Duende Collective for the upcoming exhibition La Part des Anges opening in Negrepelisse, southern France, in September.

“Nothing epitomises eating together like the way mother and child interact,” says Anthony van den Bossche, founder of the Duende collective. “The placenta is considered rubbish in our society but it hasn’t always been like that, and it isn’t like that in other cultures. This is what we decided to investigate in our work.”

Couples who want to share more than vows are getting the opportunity to share their bone too in a “bio jewellery” research project.

Using bioglass, a special bioactive ceramic which mimics the structure of bone material, researchers are growing rings made out of the couples’ bone.  Five couples are having the rings made. They will be grown from bone cells taken from their jawbone.  The project in London aims to ignite public debate about bioengineering.

MORE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4070522.stm

Early trials of “The Contamination of Alice”.

A series of agar heads were created using a variety of extra ingredients ranging from sugar and flour to plant food.  The different ingredients produced different forms of mould, bacterial and fungal growth.  Most fungal and mould growth was observed in the instances which contained flour.  Wholemeal flour was a particularly good source for strange growths and produced the most variety of coloured fungal/mould.

Continuing my obsession with Tim Hawkinson’s amazing machines…I have started to learn basic electronics and bought a sack fulll of goodies to make a series of works inpired not only by Hawkinson but also by Eugene Carchesio’s amazing collections of small objects recently seen at the Queensland Gallery.   I already have a title which is “Petite Machines” – kinda stolen from a Kashmir song.

Img src=’http://www.suttongallery.com.au

Well.  I have finally started making my mouldy faces using the vacuum formed plastic faces of Alice.  The first series of three (unfortunately I broke one) are set up on 300gsm acid free watercolour paper.  I am hoping that the more porous nature of this paper will absorb some of the agar and enable a variety of moulds to thrive.  We’ll see.