Art

Math Cats

In search of my next mathematics topics, I stumbled upon the Math Cats, a site that uses cats to explore a variety of mathematical topics, from the very basic to the more esoteric. The emphasis is really on “exploration” rather than a series of lessons or tutorials, though there is a collection of resources for teachers and parents. Beyond the basics, the attic is full of facts and definitions, some of which are quite sophisticated (for example, do you remember exactly what a geodesic is, and who doesn’t want to forget avoirdupois weights). Sadly, I could not make the “Animal Math” link work. I was particularly fond of the virtual mobile, which also introduces viewers to the work of Alexander Calder. There is also a visit to a more recent geometric artist George Hart. Indeed his art studio looks a bit like the music studio here at CatSynth HQ, festooned with stuffed cats.

Among the shapes the Hart uses in his work are the regular polyhedra, but also Archimedean solids, such as the truncated icosohedron, or “buckyball.” You can see an example here, as well as some of the more esoteric shapes.

This of course ties into our discussion of the 13 Archimedean solids at the last Carnival of Mathematics, and we at CatSynth of course like to see our mathematical discussions interconnect.

And who can go wrong with the intersection of cats, mathematics and art?


Gilbert and George, and the End of the Heatwave

Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to the Gilbert and George retrospective at the de Young Museum here in San Francisco. They started out as performance artists, including themselves in their work as “living sculptures,” usually well groomed and well dressed in business suits. In addition to their live performances, they also made films such as Gordon’s Makes Us Drunk (basically, the pair getting drunk on Gordon’s gin).

Their most well-known works are their photo-montages, and these made up most of the exhibition. These are large scale works (measured in meters), with photos and graphics. It seems they always include themselves somewhere within the piece, along with both Christian and sexual symbolism. Some more basic, with black-and-white photos or subtle colors, such as England, 1980, while others, such as Death, from Death Hope Life Fear, are quite garish in their colors and graphics. You can see some examples here.

Although in most of the photo-montages it is easy to pick out the pair, in a couple it was more subtle, and one can play a kind of “Where’s Waldo” game. Indeed, one of my favorites was a wall of London street names, I could not find them anywhere in it, but I know they must be there somewhere.

I actually heard about Gilbert and George first in 2004. I had begun a collaborative art project and my partner gave be a book to read about artistic collaborations, focusing on conceptual art and performance art in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was an era and style of art I often overlooked, and since then I’ve been more open to conceptual art, especially those based on words and text, but also in those that focus on the body. Needless to say, that collaborative art project never came to fruition.

The building in which the de Young Museum resides is itself a work of art. I have several pictures from past visits that will be subject of future “Wordless Wednesdays.” The architecture is characterized by grids of holes in the walls, some of which one can see through. There is also a tower with an observation deck, offering views of Golden Gate Park and the city. On this particular visit, one could see the fog rolling in from the west over the park and the outer districts:

The fog represented the end to the heatwave we experienced two weeks ago in San Francisco.

Weekend events in San Francisco (Music, Art and Cats)

Another busy weekend, especially with the number of things going on. We only have time for a partial review…

First, there a quick stop at downtown pub to see some friends/colleagues. Then a rush to BART to get across the bay to Berkeley and my old stomping ground, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT).

I was a few minutes late, but still had plenty of time to hear Joker Neils and Gino Robair performing a improvised duet. Robair has an amazing talent for getting electronic-like sounds out of acoustic percussion instruments, and did so again on this evening. Neils was primarily using custom synthesizers, both professional instruments as well as circuit-bent toys. We have discussed circuit bending previously here at CatSynth. He brought several well-crafted examples, including Suziki Omnichords with contact-resistance interfaces; and he also brought a tremendous enthusiasm to his performance and to his discussion of circuit bending in between sets.

Also presenting was Rob Hordijk, who designs custom synthesizers (or “works of art” as he described them). Among the technologies he employed in the “Blippobox” that he presented were chaotic oscillator pairs, where two oscillators feed back into one another to create non-linear modulation, and a filter that he called the “twin peaks” filter (presumably because it has two resonant peaks).

Amy X Newburg lent her vocal and electronic-music talents during the presentation and in the second half of the show – readers may remember her from a a recent music festival that we reviewed.

I had some interesting conversions with both Amy X Newburg and Joker Neils following the performances, which is always a nice coda to a concert.

It was another exceptionally warm weekend in San Francisco (I wouldn’t mind it becoming less exceptional), so more opportunities for walking events. First off I finally made the trip to the San Francisco SPCA to inquire about volunteer opportunities and see their much touted adoption center. The cat area featured large rooms, “kitty condos” as well as comfy areas to hide – it actually seemed on par with the “cat resorts” where I looked into boarding Luna. The SPCA is actually a short work away from CatSynth HQ (well, it’s at least short from my perspective).

Another short walk in the opposite direction from CatSynth HQ led to the Yerba Buena Gallery Walk. Open studios and gallery events are pretty regular occurrences, even within walking distance. Plus, there’s often free food and drink. I didn’t see too many things that truly interested me, except for some abstract paintings at 111 Minna that I had already seen during the first Thursday earlier this month. But that doesn’t mean the afternoon wasn’t without its attractions. Some of the galleries, such as Varnish, were in very interesting spaces, such as converted industrial buildings from the early 20th century. A view of Varnish is in the photo to the left. Additionally, some of the sights on a gallery tour aren’t the works of art, but the people viewing them – and this is even more true on a warm sunny day. Finally, I did have a delightful conversation with Jesse Allen at Chandler Fine Art – his very psychedelic/natural works aren’t what I am usually drawn to, but some of them did include abstract representations of cats and other animals and one “wild cat” in particular caught my attention.

More art on Sunday, this time photography. This Sunday was “Pinhole Photography Day” (who knew?) and the RayKo Photo center featured an exhibit, demonstrations, and most notably a ride on the Bus Obscura a school bus converted into a large camera obscura.

The bus obscura toured our South-of-Market neighborhood, providing a unique view via the pinhole-camera images. Small dots of blurry light would suddenly come into focus as a sidewalk or car or storefront.

Because the image were so localized, it wasn’t always clear exactly where the bus was, though every so often a familiar landmark would emerge. The ride was accompanied by live acoustic and electronic music, adding to the experience and making it different from the regular “tours” of our neighborhood.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Luna and Geometry

Cats, geometry, mathematics and art have been a theme of late here at CatSynth.

Remember this photo of Luna next to one of our geometric glass tables? Well, Luna seems to quite enjoy spending time in and around it. So there is now quite a collection of photos contrasting her organic shapes with the linear geometry of her surroundings:

We had some more surreal green kitties this past Wednesday. And Luna gets into the “green theme” as well:

And with Earth Day approaching, “green” seems quite appropriate. Of course, it's always green here at CatSynth with Luna's emerald eyes.

Weekend Cat Blogging #150 is being hosted by Mog, Meowza and Cece at Mind of Mog.

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos will be held at the Cat Blogosphere.

This Sunday, the Carnival of the Cats will be hosted by Aloyisius at Catymology.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

First Thursday San Francisco

A number of downtown galleries in San Francisco stay open late on the first Thursday of the month, an event I have known about for a while (and even attended occasionally before moving to the city). Here are a few of notable items from the most recent “First Thursday”:

Now that I have large walls, I am actually looking for large abstract pieces, like the works of Ricardo Mazal at Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery. Several of these would have worked quite well. Unfortunately, these “monumental paintings” come with “monumental prices.” I’m not one to put down all high-priced art automatically, but I do sometimes find the pricing of art to be a bit of a mystery.

Sometimes abstract is “too abstract,” even for unapologetic modernists. Such were the large monochromatic and gradient works of Ruth Pastine. These could actually work quite well, on large bare white walls, but they would get lost in an environment with other activity and texture. Such stark paintings need space to themselves.

More down-to-earth are the offerings of the Hang Gallery, from which I have acquired some artworks in the past. This months show at the Annex, called “Give and Take”, was one of the better ones I have seen in the while. It featured more traditionally abstract paintings (Hang often seems to feature contemporary mixed-media works in the Annex), such as the work of Phillip Hua. Although not as large as some of the others featured in this article, I could definitely see one of Hua’s paintings hanging in CatSynth HQ. His work is an interesting mixture of abstraction and “industrial grit”, with moments that seem recognizable.

One “recognizable” image was Back Up by Carolyn Meyer, also at Hang. I’m pretty sure this is yet another view of the I-80 freeway through my neighborhood, as I have describes in previous articles such as the recent March “walking tour” and our highway underpass photographs. But what does it mean to see a similar scene so “painted”? It’s something entirely different from the photos, or real life.

And of course, we could not go without mentioning this delightful feline-themed work Spell by Ulrike Palmbach at the Stephen Wirtz Gallery:

It always comes back to cats here at CatSynth, doesn’t it?

This article was included in the April 9 Carnival of Cities.