Longlisted for the Historians of British Art (HBA) Book Prize 2022
Scottish zoologist DArcy Wentworth Thompsons visionary ideas in On Growth and Form continue to evolve a century after its publication, aligning it with current developments in art and science. Practitioners, theorists, and historians from art, science, and design reflect on his ongoing influence. Overall, the anthology links evolutionary theory to form generation in both scientific and cultural domains. It offers a close look at the ways cells, organisms, and rules become generative in fields often otherwise disconnected.
United by Thompsons original exploration of how physical forces propel and shape living and nonliving forms, essays range from art, art history, and neuroscience to architecture, design, and biology. Contributors explore how translations are made from the discipline of biology to the cultural arena. They reflect on how Thompsons study relates to the current sciences of epigenesis, self-organization, biological complex systems, and the expanded evolutionary synthesis. Cross-disciplinary contributors explore the wide-ranging aesthetic ramifications of these sciences. A timeline links the history of evolutionary theory with cultural achievements, providing the reader with a valuable resource.
Arvustused
DArcy Wentworth Thompsons Generative Influences in Art, Design, and Architecture offers a significant contribution in its explication of the interrelationships between art, architecture, design, and biology and in situating Thompsons biological model within a broad cultural frame. * Woman's Art Journal * DArcy Wentworth Thompson, in his beautifully written book, On Growth and Form, describes how if artists wanted to look for beauty in nature, they would have to turn to science. The present new volume is a fitting tribute to this accomplished thinker. * Arthur I. Miller, Emeritus Professor of History & Philosophy of Science, University College London, UK and author of "The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity" * The life and work of DArcy Wentworth Thompson is a reminder of what can be achieved when we remove the silos into which so many academic disciplines have been confined. By revealing Thompsons immense influence, this book offers a profound argument for the interdependence of art, science and technology. * Eleanor Heartney, Contributing Editor, Art in America and Artpress, USA *
Muu info
Practitioners, theorists, and historians engaging organic forms creatively build on the ideas proposed in 1917 by Scottish zoologist DArcy Wentworth Thompson.
List of Plates
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgments
Timeline
Introduction, Ellen K. Levy (Artist and Independent Scholar, USA) and
Charissa N. Terranova (University of Texas at Dallas, USA)
1. Are All Fish the Same if You Stretch Them? The Victorian Tale of On Growth
and Form, Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Research, USA)
2. Physics in Biology Has DArcy Wentworth Thompson Been Vindicated? Evelyn
Fox Keller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
3. On the Beauty of the Metacarpal, Hadas A. Steiner (State University of New
York at Buffalo, USA)
4. Drawn from structures living and dead Collections and Connections,
Growing and Forming, Matthew Jarron (University of Dundee Museum Collections,
Scotland)
5. DArcy Wentworth Thompson and Dorothy Wrinch: A Friendship, 19181948,
Marjorie Senechal (Smith College, USA)
6. DArcy Wentworth Thompsons Surrealism, Brandon Taylor (University of
Southampton, UK and Oxford University, UK)
7. Structures of Light as An Ethnologists Jewels: DArcy Wentworth
Thompson, The Independent Group and Montage, Assimina Kaniari (Athens School
of Fine Arts, Greece)
8. Exhibition as Extended Organism: The Evolutionary Agency of Richard
Hamiltons Growth and Form, Charissa N. Terranova (University of Texas at
Dallas, USA)
9. The Invisible Motives of Growth and Form, Caroline ODonnell (CODA, USA)
10. Diagrams of Entropic Forces: New Growth and Form, Philip Beesley
(University of Waterloo, Canada)
11. Tracing Threads of the Living Organism, Ellen K. Levy (Artist and
Independent Scholar, USA)
12. The Growth and Form of ArtNano Innovations: Inspirations from DArcy
Wentworth Thompsons On Growth and Form, Todd Siler (Artist, USA)
13. On Growth and Form and Lightweight Structures, Sarah Bonnemaison
(Dalhousie University, Canada)
14. DArcy Wentworth Thompson Going Forward
Between Chance and Necessity, Philip Ball (Independent Scholar, UK)
Image as Argument: D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson and Contemporary Scientific
Discourse, Justine Kupferman (Kallyope, Inc., USA)
Reflections on Influence, Carolee Schneemann (Artist, USA, d. 2019)
DArcy Wentworth Thompson and Polycrystalline Pattern Formation, Bart Kahr
(New York University, USA)
Conversations with DArcy Wentworth Thompson, Ellen K. Levy (Artist and
Independent Scholar, USA)
The Vortex and DArcy Wentworth Thompson, Meredith Tromble (Artist and
Independent Scholar, USA)
Deployable and Other Structural Forms, Henry Petroski (Duke University, USA)
Index
Ellen K. Levy, a past president of the College Art Association, has exhibited her art internationally and at NASA and has published widely on art and evolution. Before earning her doctorate in art and neuroscience in 2012 from the University of Plymouth, UK, she was Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Arts & Sciences at Skidmore College, USA. She guest-edited Art Journals special issue, Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code (1996), the first in-depth academic publication about genomics and art.
Charissa N. Terranova is Professor of Aesthetic Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA. She researches the relationship between culture and science, focusing on the history of evolutionary theory and biology in art and architecture. She is author of Art as Organism: Biology and the Evolution of the Digital Image (2016) and Automotive Prosthetic: Technological Mediation and the Car in Conceptual Art (2014), and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture (2016) with Meredith Tromble.
