1. Franklin Art Works NexTen Benefit: Franklin Artworks turns ten years old with a benefit celebration and auction on Saturday November 7th from 7pm to 11pm. The auction features an impressive lineup of 40 local, national and international artists including Uta Barth, David Rathman, Nicola López, Shinique Smith, Ghada Amer, Paul Chan, Santiago Cucullu, Stacey Davidson, Kota Ezawa and Rob Fischer, Xavier Tavera, Javier Piñón, tectonic industries, Zak Smith and Maximillian Toth, among many others. There will be music, drinks and all the other reasons to come out and support an important local art venue.  If you are a student ask about discounted tickets as well! 

 

 

Bruce Tapola

2. Bruce Tapola: AU NATUREL: opens on Saturday night November 7th at Art of This Gallery  from 7pm -11pm..  This new installation is a can’t miss highlight of the weekend.   The piece combines two distinctive bodies of work to create a novel investigation within the artist’s painting and sculptural practice to initiate a dialogue between the distinctive and eclectic artworks.  All the cool kids will be there.

3. mnLIT Original: “The Four Hermans” by Brian Beatty is the first of mnartists.org’s newly commissioned pieces by the 2009 mnLIT grand prize-winning poets and writers. Each work will be accompanied by a curated selection of work drawn from mnartists.org’s vast database of artists.  Look for more original works in the coming weeks and announcement for the 2010 mnLIT series schedule soon.  

4.  Art and the Economy: Here is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about how art collectors are looking closer to home due the unstable global art market.  On a somewhat related note…I have had numerous discussions lately with local artists about the need to build an active and informed collectors base for local art.  There are a lot of good investment opportunities close to home which can be had on a limited budget. There is a trend in local food to buy local…it would be nice to see some of that same mentality carry over to the local arts.  Here is also an article from the New York Times about a sometime forgotten aspect of the downturn in the economy….the gallery owners.

5. Art Attack:  is an annual open studio and gallery crawl at the Northrup King Building, in the heart of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. The weekend-long event features over 200 artists working in all media.  Art Attack is an exciting opportunity to gain admission to private studios and to buy original art direct from local, nationally and internationally known artists. This a great one-stop event to see a dramatic range of artists and artwork and perhaps add to your art collection or get a few early holiday gifts.  

6. giveMN.org: Check out this site to research and contribute to Minnesota non-profits.  

7. Congrats to the 2009-10 Jerome Fellowship winners in visual arts Steven Accola, Caroline Kent, Tony Sunder, and the collaborative of Tynan Kerr and Andrew Mazorol.

8. Bad at Sports: is an awesome contemporary art blog and podcast based out of Chicago…. that everyone should check out on a frequent basis.  Their blog has an interesting post as to food as the hot trend in art events and performances.  Here is a link posted on the blog this week to best Halloween costume of the year …in my opinion.  8-bit is a bit played out, but this is cleaver. 

9.  As a tribute to the seminal local punk rock band the Suicide Commandos, newly re-elected mayor RT Rybak is declaring this Saturday, November 7, “Suicide Commandos Day.” The band will re-emerge to play three separate shows on Saturday: a pair of “10 and under” shows at the Walker Art Center during the day (one at 11 a.m. and one at 1 p.m.), and a late-night gig at the Dakota Jazz Club that begins at 11 p.m. The Walker concerts are first come seating and you must have a child with your group :)

10. mnartists.org / Walker Art Center artist pass program  We are launching a new program today for registered members of mnartists.org to receive admission to the Walker Art Center galleries and discounts on select events for the discounted price of $20 annually.  This program is intended to offer access and recognition to working artists  and active mnartists.org members within the state.  For more information and for an application for visit www.mnartists.org/artistpass.

The Red Detachment of Women: Art in the Throes of Change

The Red Detachment of Women

Ballet as a medium is restricting and unified, expressive and without limits. These seemingly opposite parallels in the world of dance are not only what makes the art form so beautifully of its own, but what so closely ties it to China, to the recently celebrated 60th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China.
In an examination of cultural forms—in this circumstance, dance—there is a divine parallel between the nature of the form and the actual artistic piece presented. A desire for escape exists—of leaving the present time to be immersed with the life of the art. The potential catch-22 is the depth of the medium and the cultural/political undertones of these stories.

The story of The Red Detachment of Women, for example, takes place during China’s ten-year Civil War and is about one woman’s trials and tribulations to become the Commissar of the Red Detachment of Women. The end of the play is marked by a vow: “Forward, forward! Under the banner of Mao Zedong, forward to victory!”

Quite clearly there is cultural resonance in The Red Detachment of Women—whether a critique or celebration of history. The Red Detachment of Women was one of “eight” model works permitted during the Cultural Revolution. These stories, ranging from plays to films to operas to ballet performances, have striking political overtones of the time but remain popular today. The resonance a repertoire dance or operatic piece can have is really quite astounding. Consider works like Swan Lake and Don Quixote that have been performed numerous times but remain as cultural milestones in the genre. Red Detachment, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution of China, has morphed into a momentous work, renowned not only for the art of the ballet itself but for its component of history.

Within the collection of dance pieces the National Ballet of China performs, cultural milieus run rampant. The dancers embody not only a timeframe but history, ancestry—the life worked towards and away from—in their profession that in many cases moved the dancers from their families. The parallels between the regimented training of the dancers in contrast to, say, military training, do not go unnoticed. Coincidentally enough, the original dancers from The Red Detachment actually lived in military camps to learn swordplay to vividly portray the soldiers on stage.

In September of 1964, the National Ballet of China premiered The Red Detachment of Women, which would go on to become the first and most successful full-length Chinese ballet. Two versions of the story were filmed—a film in 1961 on which the ballet was based, and the other in 1972 of the production of the National Ballet of China. This Sunday at 3 pm, the Walker will be screening the 1972 filmed ballet as a part of the People’s Republic of Cinema: 60 Years of China on Film. The 1961 film will be screened Monday, November 9th at 6 pm at the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum Auditorium.

Still from Good Cats (Hao Mao), 2008

As attested by the remarkably choreographed festivities at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese know how to party—and nothing was spared for the recent celebration of the People’s Republic of China 60^th Anniversary party on October 1, with special attention paid to showcasing military strength. This momentous occasion marks the longest Communist party rule in history, and although the last 60 years have been met with much criticism and unease, and marked by intense economic, political, and cultural growing pains, China’s unique blend of communism and capitalism is undeniably large and here to stay. Chinese filmmakers (those both inside and outside of the border) are in a unique position to process and reflect their current cultural moment. Many different Chinese film programs around the world are running this fall to celebrate and recognize these filmmakers and this unique and important time in history, including our own film series, The People’s Republic of Cinema which runs November 4-23.

In the scheme of things, 60 years is a drop in the bucket for China’s immense history as one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, but the transformations the “New China” has undertaken are radical on a global scale. The process of modernizing an ancient culture coupled with an inflexible political climate, an environmental crisis, a growing consumerist culture, the tension between Eastern and Western values, a construction zone taking over every major city, and a new generation striving for individualism and creative freedom present enormous challenges.

I experienced this first hand in 2006 on a study trip through the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Spending time with Beijing and Shanghai art students, hip-hop artists, and filmmakers allowed a privileged glimpse into the tensions they experience and make work about. I met some boys in Shanghai who strongly identified with American hip-hop and had started a group that traveled throughout southern China and rapped in Mandarin, Japanese, and English. (Most of the music they knew about had come through Japan, as the Japanese have an easier time finding American music and have been interested in hip-hop culture and paraphernalia for quite some time now.) The 021Crew, as they call themselves, recognize the challenges referenced in hip-hop music (the struggle for self-expression, distrust of government transparency, freedom, individualism, social and class distinctions, and the tension between generations) as parallel to their own. A few of them had studied abroad in Toronto and London, and were presented with new visions of China then the ones they had grown up with. None of them knew about the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 (it is impossible to find information about this when in China, as it is a restricted online search), nor did they feel comfortable discussing it in public. In fact, after learning about it, they said, “That’s not my China!” And although they felt extreme pride in their country, they longed to experience different freedoms they felt were denied them. Through hip-hop they are able to express themselves and their ideas in ways they couldn’t otherwise. To them, it is a platform of revolution, but the difference is the prescribed action. As language and the written word are the embodiments of knowledge and the foundation of Chinese culture (traditionally, at least), I wonder if in some strange way Chinese hip-hop is an attempt to be a contemporary equivalent.

My Chinese painting professor who led the trip had grown up in a much different China. In fact, as a young boy he had left school to become part of the Red Guard and march all over southern China with other boys his age. The changes he has seen in his lifetime, although subjective and unique, chart the transformations (I struggle to use the word progress) many have experienced on a large scale.

Here is a list of some other festivals celebrating and recognizing the “New China,” and although there probably won’t be fireworks or choreographed parades, I hope you can make it out.

The People’s Republic of Cinema

Walker Art Center

Minneapolis, MN

November 4-23, 2009

http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=5308

China Independent Film Festival

RCM Museum of Modern Art

Nanjing, China

October 12-16, 2009

http://www.chinaiff.org/html/EN/

LENS ON CHINA

Portland Art Museum Northwest Film Center

Portland, Oregon

September 24-November 5, 2009

http://www.nwfilm.org/screenings/21/207/#1379

NYFF Masterworks: (Re)Inventing China
A New Cinema for a New Society, 1949 – 1966
Film Society of Lincoln Center

New York City

September 26 – October 6, 2009

http://filmlinc.com/nyff/china.html

China Classic Film Festival

Confucius Institute, University of Wales Lampeter

Wales

October 1-31, 2009

http://www.chinaclassicfestival.com/

2009 Tokyo China Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo

October 18-25, 2009

http://www.tiff-jp.net/en/lineup/title_24.html

New Zealand Chinese Film Festival

New Zealand’s Pacific Culture and Arts Exchange Center

New Zealand

October 15- November 8, 2009

http://www.nzcta.co.nz/events/

FILMING EAST FESTIVAL

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

UK

October 3-31, 2009

http://www.filmingeast.org/

www.bafta.org/whats-on/global-spotlight-china,828,BA.html

RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

UK-China Film Association (UCFA)

London

October 3-10, 2009

http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?aid=3797

VISIBLE SECRETS: HONG KONG’S WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Cornerhouse

Manchester, England

October 9 -November 3, 2009

www.cornerhouse.org/visiblesecrets

______________________________________________________

Jesikah Ruehle bio:

+Loves being an intern in Film/Video at the Walker

+Graduated last year from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Fiber and Material Studies and Film/Video

+Loves to ride her bike and experiment in the kitchen

+Is a hairstylist at FIVETWOSIX salon in St. Paul

+Some of her favorite filmmakers are Chris Marker, Shirin Neshat, Doug Aitken, and Stan Brakhage

+Is an escapist and consequently spends a lot of her free time looking up places to travel to

Graham (left) inside "Public Space/Two Audiences" (1976)

Dan Graham and his retrospective got robbed of the “Artist of the Year” and “Solo Show of the Year” awards at last night’s First Annual Art Awards, a glitzy and somewhat tongue-in-cheek affair at the Guggenheim in New York. Here in Minneapolis, however, Graham delighted everyone at yesterday’s media preview for Dan Graham: Beyond, offering chatty, humorous insights into work from four decades and referencing everything from Dean Martin to the paper-dress moment in the ’60s to the “cliché arcadia of the suburbs, where normal people live.”

He “may be the most influential American artist you’ve never heard of ,” as Gregory J. Scott put it in the Star Tribune.

In The Daily Planet, Jay Gabler noted how, during the preview tour, curators Bennett Simpson and Chrissie Iles “kept finding themselves enthusiastically interrupted by the artist, who clarified a point here, shared a story there, and kept emphasizing that whatever place he’s earned in the international contemporary art world (and he’s surely earned a place; Beyond is the cover story of the current Artforum), most of his work was meant to be funny.”

Even Fox9 News weighed in with a video preview of the galleries, noting in a feature on last night’s Student Open House how Graham “taps into youth culture and a rock and roll sensibility to create art, architecture and public spaces.”

The show is getting a final spit-and-polish and will be on view to the public tomorrow – and don’t miss the 2pm conversation with Graham, Iles, and Simpson, featuring an “opening set” by post-punk duo Japanther.

We’ve noticed this, too: “The word ‘curate’,” lofty and once rarely spoken outside exhibition corridors or British parishes, has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting.” From a recent New York Times piece.

You be the curator, option 1: Help commission a work of art with the stunningly simple FEAST MPLS: Attend a (not all that expensive) dinner. Peruse artists’ proposals with your fellow diners. Vote. The winning artist gets the take from the door (minus the dinner cost). Uses money to create proposed work. Shares work at the next FEAST MPLS dinner. Try it out on November 14.

Chief Curator, Darsie Alexander and Curator of the Permanent Collection, Betsy Carpenter, planning upcoming PC exhibiton, Event Horizon, opening November 21, 2009 and running through August 26, 2012, in Galleries 1 and 3.

You be the curator, option 2: Make your own exhibition at the Walker’s After Hours Preview Party on November 20. Select thumbnail images of works from the Walker collection (including photos, videos, films, performances, or sound pieces). Arrange works on a gallery floor plan. Put the works you care about the most in prominent places. (“Curate” comes, after all, from the Latin for “to care”?) Paint the walls of your miniature gallery. Find ideas connecting the works. And finally, title your exhibition. Get tickets to the After Hours Party here.

Dan Graham, New Space for Showing Videos 1995Â T.B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2002

Mirror, Mirror Art project

Hello, I’m Alanna, the new Family Programs intern, assisting with Free First Saturday. I’ll be posting periodically on events relating to Raising Creative Kids, as seen from my behind-the-scenes perspective in the Education and Community Programs Department. For my first blogging assignment I decided to sit down with Ilene Krug Mojsilov, The Walker’s Art Lab Coordinator to see how the upcoming Dan Graham exhibition would be used to fuel a creative art activity that she’s designed for Nov 7^th Free First Saturday.

Dan Graham is a conceptual artist, among many things—a photographer, performer, video artist and critic. He has been working since the 1960’s in New York and is considered a pioneering figure in many modes of art. His retrospective, Dan Graham: Beyond, organized by the Museum of Contemporary art, Los Angeles opens at The Walker on Oct 31.

A lot of Dan Graham’s pieces are works of installation. How do you get kids to understand the concept of an installation?

Well first I get them to define the word “install.” I start out with the question: “Who knows what it means to install something? I liken the idea to a kitchen that needs to be redone and how an object like a stove, fits in the space.

Dan Graham’s work often challenges viewer’s perceptions. He creates environments where the viewers see themselves and are seen by others. Tell me how your art activity relates to this idea of perception.

The activity is called Mirror, Mirror. It is made from human-made materials, different from natural materials. Plastic, glass, lumber, steel, and metal are examples of elements used in architecture. I ask children to manipulate materials like plastic, Mylar, and foam core so that they can envision what a space could be. In this way, the art becomes self-reflective, as they can infuse their own lives in it. I ask the kids to use three different types of surfaces, transparent, meaning material you can see through; translucent, material you can see partially through; and opaque, material you cannot see through.

What are the reasons or intentions behind the project?

I like people to play with the idea of space by using materials that play with light.

We all perceive space differently. Light and shadow are ingredients in this recipe for a space. I also hope that this activity gives participants a way to delineate personal and public space.

How will the kids get this?

I always like to relate an artistic work to their own experience. I tell them, “Think of your bedroom.” In this way, the children are able to use the materials with specific purposes that arise from their own imaginations of familiar places.

Can this work for all ages?

Yes. Older kids can see the project as an interior design project. To younger kids, it can be an outdoor installation. It would be suitable for 3 years olds to teens.

Ilene is giving accessibility to contemporary art. It is a genre I admit I am not familiar with.

This seems to be an experience where the children are introduced to conceptual art without even knowing it. You’re offering an experience where they don’t get bogged down with definitions.

Exactly. They don’t get bogged down with definitions.

We are both smiling

It seems like you enjoy the experiential side of learning.

I like to learn that way…I like when there’s a challenge.

Our conversation dips into discourse about teaching methods. I am beginning to discover Ilene’s passion—her identity as an independent thinker, gutsy, intuitive and someone who discovered her own kinesthetic learning style early in life. She draws on this strength in challenging kids in the creative process.

I want all people to experience the creative process. I do my job because I’m discovering something.

How do you initially think of ideas?

I am inspired by other artists and exhibitions. I think: What could I do with this? What can I take? I borrow from these influences. That’s what makes working in museum education so interesting. There is always something new, a new exhibition…I never get stuck.

Do you ever run out of ideas?

No…like cleaning out my closet. I find new ways of looking at the everyday. That’s always been part of my experience…finding connections to the present.

Using Dan Graham’s exhibit, Mirror Mirror will construct a creative way for children to connect with their present.

How does one prove the Earth is round?

In February of 1966, during an acid trip on a rooftop in San Francisco, Stewart Brand began contemplating the curvature of the Earth. The horizon sloped away from him on either side, buildings refused to stand parallel, and the flat-earth fallacy became viscerally apparent. He was determined to broadcast this feeling, and called for a solution (in the form of a button), demanding, “Why haven’t we seen a photo of the whole earth?” This paranoia-tinged aphorism would lead to the creation of the Whole Earth Catalogue, a highly influential counterculture magazine that described the tools necessary to maintain a sustainable existence.

Two and a half years later, Apollo 8 astronaut William A. Anders captured what has been called “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken,”  an image of the Earth rising from behind the horizon of the moon.(A) Known as “Earthrise,” this photo was taken in a moment of unscripted curiosity, offering not only a view of ourselves, but a view of ourselves from the alien perspective of another world. What started with a serendipitous snapshot, and possibly an LSD trip before that, has become the driving mission of NASA’s Earth Observatory (E.O.) today.

(A)

Exploring the Earth Observatory’s website may be the closest thing to holding a mirror up to the entire world; in the depths of this massive archive, vividly colored and hyper-sharpened satellite imagery portray melting arctic glaciers bumping up against shots of urban expansion next to hurricane data and deforestation patterns. These high-resolution files are precisely annotated and provided free to the public, intended primarily for educational usage. Some images, though, have become ubiquitous in our visual landscape, appearing in commercials, artworks, book covers, billboards, and even the background of your favorite touch-screen phones.

Robert Simmon is the art director of the Earth Observatory, and works for Science Systems and Applications, Inc. under contract to NASA. He and his team are responsible for creating these images, which are often composites of astronaut photography and satellite sensory data. In this interview, Robert discusses true vs. false color, accurate vs. effective data, and the art of designing an image to match what people expect versus designing an image that will change their minds.

*********

TASK — We are interested in the mission of the Earth Observatory, how these images get used in unexpected ways in culture at large, the E.O.’s relationship to the legacy of Earth imagery from space, and even a little about the design process of creating these images.

Robert Simmon — There are a few different missions for the Earth Observatory. The first is simply to make people aware that NASA looks at the Earth (we’re not just astronauts and Mars missions). We’ve also tried to create a site that’s an authoritative source for information about climate change and the environment. Our stories are reviewed by experts, we base the information on peer-reviewed research, etc. We intentionally present a broad overview of remote sensing and Earth science, as a counterpoint to the traditional mission and instrument-based focus of NASA public outreach. Many of our images present the possibility for new interpretations relevant to debates in popular culture, and I personally try to make a “soft sell” instead of beating people over the head with a certain perspective. I present them with something of a neutral tone, hoping that our audience will draw its own conclusions.

(B)

Since our imagery is predominantly free, it gets picked up and used all over the place. Some images are especially contagious, such as the image of cities at night.(B) I’ve seen this image on magazine covers, newspapers, annual reports, web sites, and elsewhere. I was even on a radio morning talk show once to settle a dispute over whether or not the image was a photograph (it’s not, of course). The second most popular are some of the global renderings.(C) I’ve seen these on ads in bus stops, concert venues, and the default boot screen for the iPhone. With both images, I was simply trying to make an image that lines up with our expectations of what the Earth would look like from space. My design process is very much trying to get out of the way of the data. Inspired principally by Edward Tufte, I try to create graphics as close to 100% data as possible. So a lot of my time is spent removing elements (grid lines, shadows, gradients, etc.) from the default designs of Excel. I’m also very careful about color, both in natural- or true-color satellite imagery (images composed of the red, green, and blue wavelengths of visible light), and in maps of data. Our eyes and brains think certain things should look a certain way (clouds should be white, water blue, sand yellow, etc.) so I often need to correct imagery manually. With maps, most of the default color choices, including the very common “rainbow palette,” actually distort relationships between data. Unfortunately, many scientists are used to a certain presentation, so it takes a lot of convincing to get them to approve a change. A side benefit is that many of the more accurate palettes are easier on the eyes, so they invite closer inspection, rather than a cursory overview. I’m also convinced that a very clean, consistent, and polished design is more believable than a disordered and cluttered one, so I spend a lot of time revising designs until they’re just right.

(C)

TASK — When you said that you often try to make a “soft sell,” were you referring to issues such as climate change and environmental abuse?

RS — Yes. It’s a reflection of NASA’s role in setting climate change policy: NASA is not recommending a specific government action, but collecting data and performing analyses so policy leaders can make informed decisions. A good example is our climate change site and Q & A. We try to let the data speak for themselves.

TASK — You seem to suggest that the reason the Cities at Night image and the Blue Marble image are so popular is because they are designed to match our expectations of what they should look like. I would suggest that the fact that they are beautiful goes a long way as well, but this idea of dealing with pre-conceived notions ties in closely with ideas of Mundane Science Fiction, such as the “consensus future” — a mediocre version of what we tend to agree the future will look like (think Star Trek). Do you differentiate between these expectation-meeting images and other more abstract images that might show the data more accurately?

RS — I think this is an answer to a broader question than what you asked, but “confirmation bias” obviously effects how we interpret imagery. Recently, a climate change “skeptic” (denialist or contrarian are better labels) made his point by selecting a series of NASA images that confirm his preconceptions, even though they are at odds with quantitative analyses of the same data. You can see the discussions here. When dealing with images of data, there’s often a tension between people’s expectations — snow should be white, warm things are red — and accurate/effective representations of data. This is complicated by the expectations of the scientists that I work with, who often have been analyzing data for a decade or more, and are used to a specific presentation. So I have to weigh preconceptions, representational accuracy, and aesthetics, all of which influence the ability of people to interpret a figure.

TASK — The Cities at Night page reveals that Japanese cities appear to glow a bluer-green than other cities of the world and I can’t help but want to draw cultural conclusions from that fact, beyond the use of mercury versus sodium vapor lights …

RS — The difference in lighting types is likely a technological and historical accident, not a cultural difference. But culture absolutely influences the Earth’s surface. For example, the damage created by deforestation and farming practices in Bolivia creates a beautiful patchwork quilt pattern.(D)

(D)

TASK — How easy is it for the layperson to interpret true photographs versus manipulated images of the Earth?

RS — Photographs are usually the easiest type of imagery to understand. Compare these images. An oblique photograph from the International Space Station (E) versus a nadir (looking straight down) photograph from the Space Shuttle (F) versus this radar image.(G) The more abstract, the more difficult to interpret. (I tried to find a topographic map of Everest, but they all have hill shading and other visual cues, so they’re easier to interpret than a pure contour or color-coded map.)

(E)(F)(G)

TASK — I’m very curious about this caption I noticed on several images: “The image has also been sharpened using the sensor’s panchromatic band.” Could you explain how this sharpening process works, and what the “panchromatic band” is? As a print designer, I’m used to sharpening through Photoshop, based on aesthetic and printing criteria. Your process sounds like there is another level of data-accuracy embedded in the sharpening process.

RS — Signal to noise ratio is a critical limiting factor in satellite imaging: the Earth’s surface is a few hundred miles away from the sensor, and there’s a thick layer of atmosphere mucking things up in between. To increase the signal, instrument designers often include a high-resolution panchromatic band, which uses a range of wavelengths (often blue through near-infrared [slightly longer wavelengths than red], although some of the newer instruments use just visible wavelengths) to gather more photons without having to build a bigger telescope. The discrete bands (red, green, blue, etc.) on a sensor have a narrow spectral range, but collect light (more appropriately electromagnetic radiation) over a wide area. For example, Landsat has a 15 meter per pixel panchromatic band, and 30 meter per pixel individual bands (red, green, blue, near infrared, and two shortwave infrared) plus a 90 meter per pixel thermal infrared band. The visualizer (me) then combines the individual channels into an RGB composite. If I need better resolution to show small features, I need to add in the panchromatic band: hence “panchromatic sharpening.” One way to do this is to do tonal correction and color balancing on an image, and then convert to L*a*b in Photoshop. Then I would load the panchromatic band and adjust the tonal range to the pan-band to match the luminance channel of the RGB composite. Resample the RGB image to match the resolution of the pan-band, and then copy the pan-band into the luminance channel.

Easy, right?

The problem is that the panchromatic image usually contains near-infrared light. Vegetation is very, very dark in visible light (it’s converting sunlight into energy after all) but very, very reflective in the near infrared —as reflective as snow. Most pan-sharpened images have vegetation that looks seriously awry, so it’s back to the curves dialog to make adjustments. This method gets pretty good — but not perfect — results. Some software uses algorithms based on the specific wavelengths of each band to adjust the pan-sharpened image, but it still seems to take a lot of tinkering, so I don’t mess with it that often. (For example, most of the data in Google Earth is pan-sharpened, and none of it looks quite right). I prefer to stick with RGB imagery, and only do the pan sharpening when it’s absolutely necessary.

TASK — You mentioned that it was sometimes difficult to change the minds of scientists. Do you find that scientists have an easier time understanding the principle of “goodness of fit”?

RS — My entire design career has been at NASA, and my “clients” are scientists, writers, or public affairs staff. The scientists tend to be entrenched with a specific representation that they’ve worked with for years. I usually change their minds when an image becomes popular, or I can point to a scientific study that validates a method of presentation.

TASK — Some of the more abstract images, such as the patterns of deforestation or the fractal-like glaciers, are beautiful simply as compositions. Your primary goal with these images is to accurately present the data, but do you ever consider these compositions you create on a purely aesthetic level?

RS — I’m a bit obsessed with the aesthetics as a way to promote understanding. There’s reasonably good evidence that information that we find attractive is also more credible, so I think if I make beautiful imagery, people will understand it better. I also think people are more likely to take the time to study and learn from attractive images. I try to design on two levels: an instant understanding of the main point, plus a deeper level of understanding revealed on closer inspection. Beauty helps move people from a glancing view to longer study.

The images I make are not a form of personal expression, so I don’t consider what I’m doing to be art: it’s more engineering, which is my academic background. I use a set of rules derived from graphic design and visualization research (alignment, color choice, visual hierarchy, map projections, etc.) to determine each presentation. I guess that if I were an artist, my artistic statement might be “data are beautiful,” but that would be trite. When dealing with images such as these, self-expression can seem overrated. ✕

—

NOTES TO THE INTRO:

Brand/Fuller

Brand had previously attended a lecture by Buckminster Fuller who cited humanity’s belief in a flat, infinite world as the basis of our ignorant behavior. Fuller even coined a term to correct this error, “world-around” instead of “worldwide,” believing that thoughtless use of obsolete scientific terminology only impedes intuition. The modern Flat Earth Society, founded in 1956, still exists today and has made such claims as: the world is a disc, with the north pole at the center; the U.N. logo represents a flat-earth underground movement that almost elected FDR the president of the world; the moon-landing was a hoax based on an Arthur C. Clarke script. Clarke later wrote to NASA’s chief administrator, “Dear Sir, on checking my records, I see that I have never received payment for this work. Could you please look into this matter with some urgency? Otherwise you will be hearing from my solicitors, Messrs Geldsnatch, Geldsnatch and Blubberclutch.”

Proper Attribution

The earthrise photograph has been attributed to both William A. Anders and Frank Borman over the years, both having claimed credit. The general consensus suggests that Borman shot the first “Earthrise” photo in black and white, while Anders shot the more popular color version several seconds later.

“The Most Influential Environmental Photograph Ever Taken”

Galen Rowell, wilderness photographer and climber. The photo (NASA image AS8-14-2383) has been credited with jumpstarting the environmentalism movement and even prompting the creation of Earth Day. Later, Stewart Brand would say, “The photograph of the whole earth from space helped to generate a lot of behavior — the ecology movement, the sense of global politics, the rise of the global economy, and so on. I think all of those phenomena were, in some sense, given permission to occur by the photograph of the earth from space.”

Orientation

Anders shot the original earthrise image in relation to lunar orbit, with the horizon of the moon oriented vertically, and the earth to the left. As the image became popularized, it came to assume a more traditional perspective with the earth rising from a horizontal horizon. See above(A).

***the animated radar data at the top was not created by the E.O.

Photo by k0a1a.net.

Minneapolis-based Northern Lights.mn has announced the second year of Ar(ists) on the Verge:

Northern Lights announces a second round of Art(ists) on the Verge commissions (AOV2). AOV2 is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art,  technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory. AOV2 is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation.

Northern Lights was founded by former Walker New Media Curator Steve Dietz. The grants this year will be juried by Dietz, along with Kathleen Forde, Curator for Time-Based Arts at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY, and the Walker’s chief curator, Darsie Alexander.

The resulting show  show at the Weisman Art Museum from last years grantees was worth checking out. It is good to see work being done to create our own new media art structures here in Minnesota, rather than watching cool things like Eyebeam happen from afar.

And by the way, Northern Lights’ blog, Public Address, has become one of my favorite reads for neat artwork being made around the world. I confess I find a lot of art blogs rather dry and esoteric, but not Public Address. And, this may seem somewhat mundane and obvious, but near every post has an interesting image, which is nice for an art blog.