Fieldwork: Art and Science on the Isles of Scilly 2013

Careful observation and recording of flora and fauna are important skills for both artists and scientists studying the natural world.

  The traditions of recording: enquiry, careful observation, patience and arduous experimentation, perseverance in the face of monsoons and parasites (or massive arts cuts!) are shared by artists and scientists. Fieldwork mixes scientific pursuits with exposure to new terrain, languages and peoples and has an inseparable aspect of adventure, from which a narrative of the field has also emerged.

  I have previously participated in this narrative as artist-in-residence in the Galapagos Islands, Poustinia Jungle Park (Belize) and rural Japan, where I practiced the field methods of exploration, collection, observation and recording, although the selection criteria and motivations differ considerably to those of the scientists.

  Although the focus of my artwork is the morphology of species in the specific location, my approach to the ‘field’ equally values observing and interacting with the people, so culture is just as important. My artistic practice is also a part of this narrative and asks questions about natural form and morphology. Isomorphology is the study of the shared forms of animal, mineral and vegetable species through drawing practice. As part of this research I have been working with Natural History Museum scientists and collections since 2005.

  Documenting the art of natural history

  Fieldwork is important because of the immeasurable diversity of life, but also because of the human experiences that inevitably arise through study, adventure, and sightings that take place in the field. Record-keeping and field notes exist as a critical component of the study and experience of the field.

  I will be emphasizing the role of drawing within these practices, both as a way of recording memories and as a way of experiencing the natural world. The act of drawing can heighten our awareness and sensitivity to the natural environment, changing the way that we see and feel the world around us. Seeing the natural wealth in our environment and our relation to it, can enrich the quality of our lives.

Fieldwork: Art and Science on the Isles of Scilly

Arrival

  It is wet and windy and the rain soaks the decks of the Scillonian 3 as it departs Penzance for St. Mary’s. After a bumpy ride with many tales of seasickness, we arrive into a foggy and rainy St. Mary’s to begin the Museum’s August fieldwork trip. We are assured that the weather will get better tomorrow!

  Artist on a scientific fieldwork trip?

  Artists and scientists are interested in how Earth has been shaped by the forces of nature, and my research addresses how we engage with and observe the natural world. I am here to observe the scientists’ field methods, and to explore possible ways of constructing records across scientific disciplines.

 The ‘field’ can be anywhere, it has no geographical or physical bounds; it is defined by those who go there to investigate, study or commune with nature. In this case the field is the islands of St. Marys and St. Agnes, and the people are botanists, entomologists and an artist.

Rapid protoypes of calabi-yau forms, in preparation for investment cast process. 

Operating on some Knotty DNA topology!

Presenting : Drawing in Mathematics: Geometry, Reasoning, Language and Form with Tom Coates (Geometer, Imperial College), Dorothy Buck (Topologist, Imperial College) and Alessio Corti (Geometer, Imperial College) at ' Drawing in STEAM' Conference, Wimbledon College of Art, 2012- http://drawingandcognition.pressible.org/

Having fun with Radiolaria: from the Miocene Barbados Mari. Material loaned from the Natural History Museum 2012. Thin section created and viewed at Cambourne School of Mines, (Cornwall)

Radiolarians (also Radiolaria) are amoeboid protozoa (diameter 0.1-0.2 mm) that produce intricate mineral skeletons, typically with a central capsule dividing the cell into inner and outer portions, called endoplasm and ectoplasm. They are found as zooplankton throughout the ocean, and their skeletal remains cover large portions of the ocean bottom as radiolarian ooze. Due to their rapid turn-over of species, they represent an important diagnostic fossil found from the Cambrian onwards

more to follow soon...

THE ARTIST CREATES ORDER

My own taxonomic principles of classification; applied through the process of drawing to ‘Rashleigh’s mineral nicknames’.

  1.              The specimen resembles another object.

2.              The specimen drawn has the quality of illusion

3.              The specimen is ‘anamorphic’

4.              The specimen’s form suggests playfulness

5                The specimen is a paradox of classification

6.              The system of order is both discovered and invented

7.              The organizing principle is one of analogy- drawing upon resemblances of morphologies in    diverse organisms.

8.              The classification depends on real objective properties of the objects

  Aims of these principles

To playfully displace the object from conventional models of classification and to disrupt established perceptions of the object.

To allow wonder to flow not from the artist’s unfathomable fantasia, but rather from nature's anticipation of art.

“ Their can be no signature without a resemblance and no resemblance without a signature"

(Foucault).

clinoclase or ‘beetle ore’

1.     Emulation

The principle of emulation is more to do with reflection and mirroring and can be applied to the Rashleigh Collection in the sense that one specimen may mirror or reflect another almost like a puzzle or question and answer. Paracelsus compares this fundamental duplication of the world into pairs to the image of two twins “who resemble one another completely, without it being possible for anyone to say which of them brought its similitude to the other" (Paracelsus , liber paramirum. Trans, grillot de grivy, Paris, 1913, page 3). With this in mind, wood tin and knot wood can be thought of as a pair emulating a series of concentric circles reflecting and rivaling one another.

This work demands the observation of each specimen, involving permission and appointments to draw at the Royal Cornwall Museum, The Natural History Museum, Camborne School of Mines, Kew gardens and Courtenay Smayle’s private collection.(Thanks to Sara Chambers, Peter Tandy, Mark Nesbitt and Courtenay Smayle)

I have used drawing to evidence the signatures and resemblances perceived in the Rashleigh Collection of minerals. In the etching, specimens are drawn composed on the basis of their resemblances, each specimen poses as the object it resembles; forms are reassembled, classified and the mineral material of the specimen may not be perceived by the viewer. Together the minerals form a landscape of resemblance. This work creates an instinctive order for the specimens.

chalcedony or ‘griffin ore’, drawn from Williams’s mineral collection, Castle Caerhay's, Cornwall.(thanks to courtenay smayle)

Philip Rashleigh (1725 – 1811) collected Cornish minerals throughout his life. His collection, housed at the Royal Cornwall Museum is known both for the quality of the specimens and for the quality of Rashleigh’s system of cataloging.

The catalogues where compiled between 1800 and 1810, a time when there where no systematic scientific names for these minerals, therefore a useful nmemonic device was the association of the mineral forms to familiar objects. Although it may seem unscientific to refer to minerals using nicknames, the use of resemblance to name, remember, and describe scientific objects of the animal, mineral, and vegetables kingdoms has a rich history. Many of the minerals hidden in the depths of mines like Wheal Gunner and Wheal Towan (wheal being the Cornish name for mine) were mysterious objects, which had not been observed before. The miners projected meaning and identity on to these unknowns by association of colour, lustre or shape based on the miners local knowledge of Cornish Nature.

 In October 2011, I visited the Courtney library at the Royal Cornwall Museum to consult Rashleigh’s catalogue.  When reading, it was interesting to discover how frequently the descriptions involved the term ‘resemblance’, for example the cassiterite specimen the miners nicknamed ‘wood tin’ is described as; “Plate one, wood like tin ore (tinners’ term), with fibrous or radiated texture, forming concentric circles like wood, resembling the colour and appearance of wood cut from a knotted tree" (Rashleigh 1797). Although, when observing the minerals in the collection, I discovered that iron ore was much more wood like than cassiterite and authored my own nickname of ‘wood knot ore’ to  the specimen. Rashleigh described a number of specimens using the term ‘resemblance’ and he noted the nicknames invented and used by the miners as he found them interesting: others include ‘beetle ore’ and ‘blister copper’

 With the introduction of scientific names by the Mineralogical Association in the second half of the 19th century, mineral nicknames fell out of use and their documentation discontinued.  Aside from the nicknames given by the miners other minerals in the Rashleigh Collection could be said to joke and play in a way that inspired both myself and mineralogist Courtenay Smayle to create our own mineral nicknames. For example I have nicknamed this flint specimen (Fig. 2) ‘mollusc ore’ and Courtenay nicknamed this chalcedony specimen from the Williams Mineral Collection at Caerhay’s Castle ‘Griffin ore’ (Fig.3). Courtenay and I perceived these resemblances but it is only through drawing that the nature of these resemblances can be effectively communicated to others.

 RASHLEIGH'S MINERAL NICKNAMES

In the catalogues of the Rashleigh Mineral Collection at the Royal Cornwall Museum (Truro), I discovered a curious blend of poetic fiction and scientific fact;  a number of mineral specimens, which have been given playful nicknames by Cornish miners (1800's)

The SEM at Camborne School of mines is normally used for inorganic mineral analysis, although it can be used to analyze organic plant material if the plant specimen is prepared thoroughly. Here is the silica structure and the data showing the presence of silica in the equisetum specimen.

The SEM can be used to examine chemistry and surface texture and can produce digital photomicrographs (features of around 1μm can be distinguished in backscatter mode and less than 1μm in secondary mode). The low vacuum facility means that objects can be placed into the chamber with little or no preparation; in low vacuum mode ‘the gas molecules surrounding the electron beam are ionized, and the electric charge on the specimen surface is neutralized, thus allowing even non-conductive specimens to be observed without coating” (JEOL manual 1989). However, chemical analysis of a sample is generally restricted to inorganic material such as soils and rocks, because the lower element detection limit is carbon; elements with atomic numbers less than 6 cannot be detected. Although not necessary for low vacuum mode (but a requirement for high vacuum mode), samples can be coated with carbon to improve imagery. Samples that can be examined include rock fragments, powders or soils mounted in resin blocks or on an aluminium stub, polished thin-sections, smear mounts, filter papers or any solid organic or inorganic material that is stable under vacuum.

Two Images I made with the SEM, Febuary, 2012, of the silica structure of the fern equisetum.

The low vacuum SEM (scanning electron microscope) uses an electron beam to examine a sample. The instrument consists of an X-ray EDS (Energy    Dispersive    Spectrometer) detector and a backscatter/secondary electron detector that are used in combination to evaluate a sample. The backscatter /secondary detector records electrons emitted from a sample and the X-ray EDS detector records X-rays to enable qualitative and semi-quantitative chemical analysis (around 2 % accuracy). The instrument can be operated in either low vacuum (high pressure, 10 to 140 Pa, adjustable with a variable leak valve) or high vacuum (low pressure, ultimate pressure 7x10-4 Pa, 5 x10-6 torr) mode; there are different pumping systems for each mode. The chamber is 150 mm3 but the actual specimen size that can be examined is restricted by stage movement and internal sensor geometry, thus is approximately limited to 90 mm2 with a vertical height of around 50 mm.