#intimately interconnected. INESCAPABLY SO. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

acosmiceducation · 10 months ago

Text

The Intimate Connectedness of all Life on Earth

These are the principles for the development of a complete mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science… Realize that everything connects to everything else.

– Leonardo Da Vinci

When I first read Richard Dawkins’ masterful book The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life and learned how every living organism alive today is descended from the same single-celled organism that lived about 3 billion years ago, my reaction was twofold. Firstly, I was in awe of how interconnected life really is; it helped me see life on Earth as one living interconnected organism, as opposed to separate unrelated entities. My second reaction was “well duh, how else do you think life evolved on this planet?”

Why wasn’t it obvious to me? It wasn’t like I was just learning how to walk. I was 25 years old when I read this, fresh from completing a university degree in physics. So why had I literally never once thought, when I looked at another human (anyone will do), that if we both traced our lineage back, eventually, we would hit a common ancestor, making us cousins, usually several times removed? You can take it further. Look at a dog, a cow, or a dragonfly, if you trace all their lineages back, you will eventually converge on a common ancestor. It works with amoebas. It even works with extinct animals. You and a long-extinct T.rex share a common ancestor — seriously.

Is this supposed to be so obvious that no one bothers to talk about it? Is this not talked about because it goes against religious beliefs? Are most people just completely unaware of this? Or is it not discussed much because it leads to a host of conclusions that expose our own hypocrisies and ethical shortcomings? Allow me to entertain some of these ideas and the implications they hold.

First a proof

To prove that humans are at least descended from the same common ancestor is relatively simple. It does not require scientific evidence, only some simple reasoning and acceptance that parents and children are related. This can be proven using the mathematical trick reductio ad absurdum as described by Dawkins below:

Take our imaginary time machine absurdly far back, say 100 million years, to an age when our ancestors resembled shrews or opossums. Somewhere in the world at that ancient date, at least one of my personal ancestors must have been living, or I wouldn’t be here. Let us call this particular mammal Henry (it happens to be a family name). We seek to prove that if Henry is my ancestor he must be yours too. Imagine, for a moment, the contrary: I am descended from Henry and you are not. For this to be so, your lineage and mine would have to have marched, side by side yet never touching, through 100 million years of evolution to the present, never interbreeding yet ending up at the same evolutionary destination — so alike that your relatives are still capable of interbreeding with mine. This reductio is clearly absurd. If Henry is my ancestor he has to be yours too. If not mine, he cannot be yours.

A formal proof that all living organisms on Earth are descended from the same common ancestor requires in-depth DNA analysis. By all means read up on it, or better yet prove it for yourself scientifically. But for the purposes of this article let’s take it as fact (and it is fact) that every animal, plant, fungi, bacteria, archaea and eukaryote are all directly descended from the exact same single-celled organism that existed in the oceans of Earth over 3 billion years ago.

What does this imply?

You’re inbred? Yup. Unless you define an arbitrary number of generations apart disqualifies a conceiving couple from being considered to have interbred. I won’t get into that here. No matter how you look at it, your parents do indeed share a common ancestor (who was human no less). The same goes for your children. It is inescapable.

But interbreeding is possibly the least interesting implication. I want to go a level deeper. Let’s start by meeting the ancestor of all living beings, our collective great, great, great, great… (many million greats later) grandparent. And here it is:

https://i0.wp.com/acosmiceducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cell-copy.png?w=3442&ssl=1

Living somewhere in the oceans of the early Earth, this lone single-celled organism was the true origin of life on Earth — ancient Earth and modern Earth. Remove this one cell and the butterfly effect takes on a whole new meaning. There, in the oceans, an incredibly important event happened. Division! This cell split in two, replicating itself. Then one or both of these replicas split again, and then again, and again and again. These events may have been separated by hundreds of millions of years — but they did happen — and they happened in precisely the way that led to life as we know it today; all life!

I want to entertain the same question I first had when I thought about this: what was the result of that first division? Was it the same cell replicating itself resulting in two copies of the same cell? Or was there one parent cell and one child cell? Or was the result two children cells rendering the original parent dead?

The first possibility is what I find most exciting, but I’ll go into detail on that near the end of this article as it involves some spiritual leaps of faith that may not resonate with some. For now, let’s entertain the other two possibilities.

Obviously, if the cell division led to either a parent and a child, or two children, that implies that the resultant cells were related in much the same way you are related to your family, either your parents or your siblings. And of course, if you extend this to the entire tree of life, that has resulted in all life currently on Earth, every living being is biologically related.

If that’s not enough to get you to deeply contemplate this I don’t know what would be. Let us see some examples now of how this huge family of life functions and is interdependent with one another.

Clownfish and sea anemones

These two animals share a special bond, and not just in the movie Finding Nemo but in real life too! Clownfish benefit from this relationship by having a safe place to hide from predators; clownfish have a coating on their bodies that protects them from being stung by the anemones. Predators of clownfish don’t have this coating, so they generally stay away.

Anemones benefit from this relationship in a whole host of ways. Clownfish pick-off parasites, and the anemones get a free meal from the clownfish’s feces! Other possible ways clownfish may help anemones is by circulating water around the anemone helping them to oxygenate. And the clownfish’s bright colours help lure in small animals that the anemone feeds on.

Woolly bats and Pitcher Plants

Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants and have a slippery coating around the opening so small animals slip and get trapped inside and then get eaten. But woolly bats actually voluntarily allow themselves to get trapped! Pitcher plants do not eat the bats themselves but do love their feces, (I’m sensing a trend). The bats in turn get a safe place to hide from predators for the night. This happy union of defecation and voluntary imprisonment lasts until the bats have had enough and push their way out to get on with their day (or night, actually!).

Don’t let this take your breath away

Billions of years ago, Earth had very little oxygen and a lot of carbon dioxide. If you travelled back in time to Earth 3 billion years ago, you would suffocate to death almost instantly. But for billions of years, tiny single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria breathed in the carbon dioxide and converted it into oxygen allowing the rest of life to evolve. You now breathe the oxygen given to Earth by these bacteria.

The function the cyanobacteria served is now carried out by their descendants, plants. Every out-breath you take is mirrored by an in-breath from a plant, and every in-breath you take is mirrored by an out-breath of a plant. I love this concept! I heard from Tom Chi in a TED Talk which I encourage you to check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPh3c8Sa37M&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

Life from destruction

Destructive processes can sometimes lead to new life and often something even more abundant, than what was there originally, occurs. Here are some ways this can occur:

Dead trees in a forest decompose and form ecosystems of their own. The rotting wood fertilizes the soil and gives new plants and fungi a place to grow.

Forest fires crack open seeds that otherwise wouldn’t make it in an old dense forest (e.g., giant sequoias, etc.).

If an asteroid had not hit Earth 65 million years ago, dinosaurs would probably still be the dominant life form on the planet (I’ll leave it up to you to decide which scenario would have been preferable).

Muscle hypertrophy. Muscles cannot grow without first undergoing small rips. The act of working out your muscles tears them slightly, and in recovery they grow back stronger.

Why isn’t this taught?

Let’s return to the problem I had earlier, which was: why had I never explicitly understood this concept until I read about it in my 20s? And why wasn’t this taught in school? Is it just so obvious that they don’t bother teaching it? I don’t think so. But even if we assume that it is obvious, for a moment, this has got to be one of the most profound discoveries of modern science. It merits much more than mere mention. The implications are too fascinating, too deep.

Does it go against religious beliefs? Are most people just completely unaware of it? Does learning about it expose certain hypocrisies and ethical shortcomings?

There may be some truth in the above questions, but I believe the main reason why life being interconnected isn’t taught in school (and certainly not contemplated deeply), has to do with the values of society today and of the North American education system. Education is still based on economics. It is a system designed to optimize for economic output rather than human happiness, or wisdom, or free thinking or the thriving of Earth. There likely isn’t much money in spending hours studying the interconnectedness of life. I mean maybe there is, and if that is the case great, but money shouldn’t be the reason why it should be taught and studied.

Why can’t school be more about understanding our interconnectedness with all beings and then, also, connecting our life to the world around us? Why can’t school also be more about thinking for yourself and understanding the beauty of nature? The fact that every lifeform on Earth shares a common ancestor has been scientifically proven. Is that not one of the most beautiful examples demonstrating the beauty of reality and science?

That’s why I’m writing this blog — because I didn’t learn everything I wanted to in school — writing about this helps me. And hopefully it will help others as well (when people other than my family start reading this!).

So let’s continue our holistic understanding of the world together…

How Everything is Connected

Let us push beyond life on Earth (as we understand it) and see how everything in the universe is connected.

Stars form and live over millions or billions of years, under conditions of extreme pressure and heat. The lives of stars more massive than our sun end in supernova explosions that can reach over a billion degrees Celsius and affect an area of the universe several light-years across. Under these conditions any lifeform on Earth would be vaporized instantaneously, yet these are also the only conditions under which it is possible to form the element iron — an essential element to keeping you and all you’re dependent on alive. Every beat of your heart carries iron through your bloodstream — iron that was formed in a massive supernova. In fact, every element in your body (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.), other than hydrogen and helium, was formed in the hearts of stars.

Furthermore,

The material that is leftover from dying stars, gas, gets combined with other star remnants. This forms large nebulas that generate new stars.

The water you depend on was carried to Earth by asteroids that bombarded the young planet over 4 billion years ago.

The radio signals we send out every day are sent out into space that may be heard by aliens in the distant future.

Imagine how different our world would be if every human contemplated not just the scale of the universe, but the interconnectedness and interdependence of it all. How much suffering could be averted? How much more meaning would people find in their lives? I don’t know exactly, but I’d be willing to bet our world would be unrecognizable.

How far can this be taken?

The function of education is to help students understand the interconnectedness of all life and develop a sense of ecological responsibility.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti, 20th century spiritual teacher

Let us return to the first thought I had of our collective ancestor dividing for the first time. If indeed the first cell division was our cardinal cell’s way of replicating itself, resulting in two copies, then projecting that idea forward to each subsequent generation until present day (a huge cognitive stretch, I know), this may imply on a certain level, that all life on Earth is the same organism that has just been replicating itself over and over again since time immemorial. Some may think this notion is absurd but bear with me.

Spirituality — not strictly organized religion — but spirituality in a more fundamental sense may have something, perhaps everything, to say about this. Spiritual teachings from the Buddha to Krishnamurti describe the entire universe as a single consciousness. This is the notion that not only is everything in the universe connected but that everything in the universe is one and the same. In perhaps a similar way that the cells and organs, all components, in your body work harmoniously together — everything, on a much grander scale, is doing the same thing.

This — a way of understanding spiritual enlightenment — is the deepest, most fundamental truth one can know. I myself am absolutely not enlightened, there are few who are, but I have yet been given a reason to doubt spiritual enlightenment. In fact, the proven tree of life on Earth, being connected as one biological family, only makes this notion of the entire universe being a single consciousness that much more compelling.

This is where I see science and spirituality begin to merge, two traditionally opposite disciplines, rivals, starting to eerily show parallels. Perhaps the whole purpose of humanity, in all its pursuits, is to realize that science and spirituality are not only similar disciplines but complementary, ultimately leading to the same conclusions, that the entirety of existence itself is a single, infinitely intelligent consciousness whose sole purpose is to understand and love itself.

My pursuit of understanding myself and the universe I live in will inevitably lead to deeper spirituality. I am only in my infancy, so I won’t go deeper on this for now. But, at the very least, I hope I have convinced you somewhat of the importance of learning and appreciating how life on Earth is connected at least. No matter what form you happen to take, learning this and thinking deeply about this should be taught to everyone, because it involves everyone and everything.

Allow me to conclude with a quote from Tom Chi’s TED Talk:.

What does this imply?

https://i0.wp.com/acosmiceducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cell-copy.png?w=3442&ssl=1

Clownfish and sea anemones

Woolly bats and Pitcher Plants

Don’t let this take your breath away

Life from destruction

Destructive processes can sometimes lead to new life and often something even more abundant, than what was there originally, occurs. Here are some ways this can occur:

Dead trees in a forest decompose and form ecosystems of their own. The rotting wood fertilizes the soil and gives new plants and fungi a place to grow.

Forest fires crack open seeds that otherwise wouldn’t make it in an old dense forest (e.g., giant sequoias, etc.).

Muscle hypertrophy. Muscles cannot grow without first undergoing small rips. The act of working out your muscles tears them slightly, and in recovery they grow back stronger.

Why isn’t this taught?

Does it go against religious beliefs? Are most people just completely unaware of it? Does learning about it expose certain hypocrisies and ethical shortcomings?

So let’s continue our holistic understanding of the world together…

How Everything is Connected

Let us push beyond life on Earth (as we understand it) and see how everything in the universe is connected.

Furthermore,

The material that is leftover from dying stars, gas, gets combined with other star remnants. This forms large nebulas that generate new stars.

The water you depend on was carried to Earth by asteroids that bombarded the young planet over 4 billion years ago.

The radio signals we send out every day are sent out into space that may be heard by aliens in the distant future.

How far can this be taken?

The function of education is to help students understand the interconnectedness of all life and develop a sense of ecological responsibility.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti, 20th century spiritual teacher

Allow me to conclude with a quote from Tom Chi’s TED Talk:.

Imagine for a moment you were one of these little organisms two billion years ago (cyanobacteria that gave us oxygen). You might be born, you live a couple weeks, you die and you kind of feel like “nothing really changed. I had no purpose in this life, the world I came to is exactly the same as the world that I left”. But what you wouldn’t have understood is that every breath you took contributed to the possibility of countless lives that came after you. Lives that you would never see; lives that we are all a part of today. And it’s worth thinking that maybe the meaning of our lives are actually not even within the scope of our understanding. Because it is true of every one of these organisms, and it may also be true of us.

Thank you for reading! Please visit my site for more! https://acosmiceducation.com

#connection #interconnectedness #life #unity

0 notes

fatehbaz · 4 years ago

Text

Inescapable urban ecology: Major urban areas as uncontained “entities” affecting matter, life, experience at a planetary scale.

——-

The ecologies of cities flow across border-lines, continents and oceans in ways that confound discourses of territoriality, sovereignty and governance.

Thinking (and visualising) the ways cities mobilise resources, alter weather patterns and serve as attractors of people and things makes it clear that they operate as interconnected entities in an all-encompassing, though discontinuous and uneven, urban system. […]

Today’s cities can no longer be thought about as bounded territories or even volumes at all.

They are entities massively disaggregated and distributed across space and time that generate profoundly different temporalities and scales than the ones we are used to and do not fit neatly into the nested spatial model of contemporary politics. Cities today leak out of all such enclosures. They are what Timothy Morton describes as “viscous,” sticky, oozy; they secrete (toxins, sewage) they belch (pollution), they devour (energy, food, water), they suck in (people, commodities) and spit out (waste) etc.

They simply cannot be thought of as distinctive bounded territories any longer. Put another way, cities are punctuated, discontinuous geographies and exchanges that envelop the planet,and no longer coincide with notions of bounded territory or sovereignty at all, despite the appearance otherwise. […]

[E]ntities of such spatial and temporal dimension […] defy traditional ontology and comprehension by traditional means. They are ‘nonlocal’ […] a technical term […] to describe the entanglement of particles at some distance from one another. Einstein called this “spooky action at a distance.” […] [H]yperobjects cofound the idea of the local, as they only exist as “knotty relationships” between gigantic and intimate scales. (…)

If cities are considered in this way, a blow is dealt to the idea that they, or anything else for that matter, can be considered discrete spatio-temporal objects; instead they are objects massively distributed in space and time with blurred boundaries at scales considerably larger than we used to think. So, for instance, when I turn on a light switch in London, I might tap into the fossilized remains of plants and animals sedimented under the North Sea millions of year ago; the polystyrene cup I drink my morning coffee from is itself a by-product of liquefied dinosaur bones, otherwise known as oil, and will outlive me by 400 years in a distant landfill. (…)

Cities can no longer be thought of as fixed or static, but are complex, flowing, topological eco (-nomic and -logical) systems that ‘slice’ across geopolitical boundaries, invade bodies, disrupt weather and send real estate prices rocketing. The agents and practices that still define cities as entities (administration, city government, city planning etc.) rely on outside inputs, in the form of foreign investment, aid, multinational corporations, distant energy supplies, migrant labour and so on to sustain them. At the same time, the toxins or pollutants they release into the earth, atmosphere, rivers and oceans, disperse around the globe according to any number of planetary logics.

---

Lindsay Bremner. “The Urban Hyperobject.” Geoarchitecture. 24 August 2015.

#couldnt find my original post from last year so here it is again

15 notes · View notes

ollyarchive · 7 years ago

Photo

Olly Alexander on harnessing the power of sexual fantasy in pop

The Years & Years frontman talks about owning his queer sexuality in the mainstream and writing a twisted disco album about ‘holy wood’

Owen Myers

9 March 2018

“It’s like my Rihanna Loud era,” declares Olly Alexander, before breaking into a laugh. The Years & Yearsfrontman is referring to his cropped curly hair, which is freshly coloured to the hue of a nice Merlot. It’s a cold February evening, and he’s puffing on a roll-up while huddled in the fire exit doorway of a Camden venue. His new dye job has to be kept under wraps, he explains, until its official unveiling in the band’s new video. “It’s so stupid,” Olly says with an eye roll. He then flashes me a grin, suggesting that this moment of starry subterfuge is not entirely unwelcome.

Olly Alexander really likes being a pop star. He says that it’s full of “fairytale” moments, like when his Years & Years earnings enabled him to buy his mum a house, or when he and his ex-boyfriend, Neil Milan (formerly of Clean Bandit), became embraced as British pop’s new golden couple. After winning the BBC Sound poll in 2015, Years & Years’ earworm synth pop was everywhere. They had an inescapable number one single, “King”, and their album Communion was the fastest selling debut that year from a signed British band. Olly says that there are downsides to the tabloid headlines and Twitter trolls that come along with being “a public gay man” – a phrase that he puts in self-deprecating air quotes. But right now, those pressures feel far away, as he prepares to change into a bright pink boiler suit and play to a boozed-up Saturday night crowd, at an Annie Mac-curated showcase. Or, as he put it on Twitter earlier today: bring his “gay agenda” to The Roundhouse.

Years & Years’ great new single, “Sanctify”, contrasts lurking vocals with an ecstatic synth-fuelled chorus, and is as unapologetic as any of Olly’s pithy social media posts. He was newly single when he wrote the song, and reading Andrew Holleran’s 1978 chronologue of gay desire, Dancer From the Dance, had got him thinking about a couple of hookups he’d had with straight-identifying men. “It would always be under darkness,” he says. “It had this added layer of eroticism because it was somewhat forbidden. But (being with me) was a window where they could be themselves, and I felt responsible not to fuck them up.” Those conflicting feelings come through in evocative lyrics about obscuring masks and sinful confessions, with a climax that’s about as on-the-nose as chart pop gets. “I sanctify my sins when I pray,” says Olly, quoting the chorus’s payoff. “What do you do what you pray? You get on your knees. So is it a sexual baptism?” He laughs. “I was just like, ‘There’s a lot to work with here.’”

Years & Years are a three-piece, but the other two members, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen, tend to hunker down behind synths and let Olly take centre stage. His soul-searching lyrics give the band’s maximalist pop its heart, with a singing voice that pierces through a constellation of synths. Their videos bring acts which are often shrouded in darkness into the light, showing the singer cruising in a dank car park, or at a pansexual orgy. The new “Sanctify” visual riffs on dom/sub culture, with an elaborate sci-fi plot that is a device for Olly to perform “Slave 4 U”-inspired dance moves to an audience of androids. When he was commissioned to write a song for the Bridget Jones franchise, he made it about bottoming. “I have sex, I enjoy sex,” he says flatly. He’s sitting in his cosy dressing room the Roundhouse, which rumbles with bass as Disclosure and Mabel soundcheck next door. “In the past, I think gay men (in pop) have often shied away from being overtly sexual, or being commanding of their sexuality. But I believe that our sexual fantasies are a big drive for us all. Exploring that side of yourself is super empowering.”

In the past year or so, many well-known LGBTQ artists have begun to bring queerness into their music in sex-positive ways. Pop’s boy-next-door Troye Sivan strapped on Tom Of Finland leathers for a back alley moment with well-fluffed trade, Janelle Monáe caressed women’s bare thighs, Fever Ray returned with a concept album about queer kink. For better or worse, Sam Smith is now calling himself a “dick monster”on primetime telly. “Sometimes seeing a man express themselves in an overtly sexual way, especially a gay man, makes certain conservative people feel a bit uncomfortable,” Olly says. “I always wanna keep people a little uncomfortable.”

“I believe that our sexual fantasies are a big drive for us all. Exploring that side of yourself is super empowering” – Olly Alexander

Years & Years are far from the first mainstream British pop act to proudly put gay sexuality at the centre of their music – that’s a lineage that runs from Will Young to George Michael, Pet Shop Boys to Bronski Beat, and beyond. But Olly’s performances are a reminder that mainstream pop can be open to explicit queerness (at least, when it’s embodied in a handsome white cis man). Olly has faith that you don’t have to be “generic to be palatable,” and that “straight guys can hear a song that I’ve written about being fucked by another guy, but still relate.” LGBTQ+ people like me grew up seeing straight culture pretty much everywhere; seeing more of our community thrive is crucial.

Growing up in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, Olly was a flamboyant kid. That got him bullied at school, called a “batty boy” before he was even aware that he was gay, and meant that he retreated into drama lessons. While acting, he felt it was okay – a good thing, even – to be expressive. He always nurtured a passion for music, too; he taught himself how to play Joni Mitchell songs on piano, and obsessed over “Dirrty”-era Christina Aguilera. An early performance at a year six assembly blended intimate songwriting and outré entertainment: Olly played piano and sang lyrics about lost love, while two of his friends did a dance routine.

In his late teens and early 20s, Olly cropped up in whimsical micro-budget indie films like 2011’s The Dish And The Spoon, alongside Greta Gerwig, as well as Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void, and Skins. But his early experiences at school stayed with him. “Your first encounter with your sexuality is often from people bullying you and calling you the thing that you just pray to god that you won’t be – but deep down suspect you might be,” Olly says. “Well, no wonder we have an incredibly conflicting relationship with our bodies and our sexualities, because we’ve had to experience all of that.”

Reflecting on these difficult early years in his dressing room, Olly speaks openly about his own decade-long experience with depression, and the inadequate NHS provisions for those who are struggling with mental health. LGBTQ+ folks disproportionately struggle with depression and substance abuse, he recognises, and there’s only one UK organisation, London Friend, that caters directly to the specific needs of the queer community. “I’ve been there,” says Olly. “They’re amazing, but they are over-subscribed, with a tiny office, old chairs, and not a lot of money. When you’re seeing that people aren’t getting the help they should be, there’s an issue there.” That’s something he knows from first-hand experience. Last year, Olly fronted a BBC documentary, Growing Up Gay, about young LGBTQ+ people struggling with their mental health. His openness around the subject made him a kind of ambassador for those struggles, and he’s trying to work out how to deal with the “almost daily” DMs he gets from people at their lowest moments. “I feel very privileged that someone is wanting to share that with me, but it’s frightening,” he says. “We’re all in fucking pain, and I don’t know if we’re communicating with each other that well.”

“What do we expect a male pop star to do? As a society, how do we want them to behave or present themselves?” – Olly Alexander

Years & Years’ second album, out later this year, mixes gliding pop melodies with churning bass and twisted disco. The new songs feel more varied and exploratory than Communion, thanks in part to new collaborators like current pop’s minimalist masterminds Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, as well as Greg Kurstin, who co-wrote “Shine”, Years & Years’ best song to date. The album’s centred around a motif of Palo Santo, a healing incense-like wood that you burn and waft around a room. (Olly dramatises this with hand motions as if he’s conducting an invisible orchestra.) Perhaps Palo Santo, with its power to expel evil spirits, could be a metaphor for the songwriting process? Maybe, Olly says. “But (when writing the album) I was angry about loads of things, particularly men. Palo Santo literally means ‘holy wood’ and I was like, ‘This is fucking perfect.’ Like, thinking that your dick is holy? I’ve known guys like that.”

Years & Years’ renewed vision also extends to creating a futuristic universe for their new music to exist in. That’s an idea that Olly’s idols – “Bowie, Prince, and Gaga” – have embraced, and “Sanctify” is the first part of an interconnected series of “weird, wonderful” videos. It marks the next step for a band aiming to join British pop’s pantheon, at a time when Olly, too, has been reflecting on his place in music. “What do we expect a male pop star to do?” he questions. “As a society, how do we want them to behave or present themselves? If I was asking myself, it would be like, ‘Well actually, I’ve always loved this kind of popstar. Maybe I should just be the pop star I want to see in the world.”

#olly alexander #years & years #yearsandyears #articles #interviews #dazed

14 notes · View notes

watchilove · 5 years ago

Text

Swiss Haute Horlogerie Manufacture Audemars Piguet celebrated the unveiling of The Art of Listening: Under Water, a new public site-specific sound composition by Norwegian contemporary artist Jana Winderen during Art Basel in Miami Beach. Located in the Collins Park Rotunda, the installation brings awareness to the ocean’s increasingly fragile ecosystem and represents the artist’s most recent investigation on the environmental impact of human-created sounds on our planet.

Art Basel Jana Winderen

Audemars Piguet marked the celebration of the artwork’s debut in the Collins Park Rotunda with a private press walkthrough and intimate brunch. Led by Susan Simmons, Audemars Piguet Foundation’s General Secretary and Audemars Piguet Associate Curator Denis Pernet, the walkthrough provided guests with an inspiring insight into the Manufacture’s collaboration with Winderen and the latest resultant work, which was completed onsite in Miami by intermixing sounds from local waterways and undersea life. Visitors experienced the work first-hand by listening to the recorded sounds of the oceanic environment and reflecting on the ways in which human activity is constantly interfering with this delicate ecosystem.

Jana Winderen recording

The composition discloses sounds specific to the Miami harbour area, the Barents Sea and the Tropical Oceans exposing the constant presence of human noise that pervades these oceanic environments. The work was produced in conjunction with long-time collaborator Tony Myatt and is free and open to the public throughout Miami Art Week.

Jana Winderen recording

The Art of Listening: Under Water bears strong resonance with a theme present in many of Audemars Piguet’s artistic projects, raising environmental awareness around the world. When asked about her interest in working beneath the surface of the water to source sounds for her compositions, Winderen replied: “I have always been drawn to the underwater environment since I was quite young. There is so much life and activity within it, almost all of which is entirely inaccessible to humans. Recording these sounds offers a way to understand the plants and animals beneath the ocean as well as how these life forms respond to the inescapable human activities which surround them. When you listen to the composition, it’s impossible to decipher the difference between the two, the natural and unnatural, which I hope brings pause and contemplation.”

Jana Winderen

Additionally, Audemars Piguet presented Du Petit Risoud aux profondeurs du Lac de Joux in this year’s Collectors Lounge at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Winderen’s first site-specific commission for Audemars Piguet which followed a two-part residency in the Vallée de Joux in early 2019. The work, which made its debut at Art Basel in Basel (June 2019), also examines the human impact on our environment, bringing listeners on a journey through the unique ecosystem of this remote valley by uncovering the heightened sound of civilisation heard throughout the surrounding forests and the depths of the Lac de Joux.

Jana Winderen

The Lounge also represented the latest chapter in Fernando Mastrangelo’s collaboration with Audemars Piguet. Mastrangelo first unveiled his Lounge design during Art Basel in Hong Kong (March 2019), evolving the project for this year’s edition of Art Basel in Miami Beach by displaying bespoke furniture, design cases and walls inspired by the natural landscape of the Vallée de Joux, precisely crafted after his visit to this mountainous region.

Art Basel Miami Beach Lounge

Both Winderen’s and Mastrangelo’s commissioned works presented in Miami Beach provided viewers with intimate glimpses into the multitude of ways in which artists creatively interpret the world around us.

“To break the rules, you must first master them.”

About Jana Winderen

Jana Winderen

Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen takes her audience on immersive and sensory journeys through our environment. By revealing the small and most inaccessible sounds of our environment, the artist appeals to listeners’ emotions, hoping to gain their interest in and respect for our complex world, while raising ecological awareness. Winderen has graduated from the Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths, University of London and has a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology from the University of Oslo. Since 1992, sound has been at the core of her artistic practice, leading her to travel across Europe, Asia and the Americas to record audio environments and ecosystems hard for humans to access physically and aurally.

Jana Winderen

For the last 14 years, Winderen has used high-precision and high-quality hydrophones, microphones and ultrasound detectors to record sound from fish, crustaceans and mammals, as well as inaudible sounds such as ultrasounds lying above the range of human hearing, gathered in oceans, rivers, lakes or in other environments inaccessible to the human ear. Winderen uses these natural sounds as source material to compose sound collages for immersive multi-channel sound installations, live concerts, as well as soundtracks for film and dance performances. She releases her work on vinyl, CDs, cassettes and as digital downloads.

Jana Winderen

Her sound work has been performed in major institutions and public spaces worldwide. Her current projects include the composition Listening with Carp exhibited at Now is the Time – Wuzhen International Art Exhibition in China, as well as Through the Bones presented at the Thailand International Art Biennale in Krabi (2018–2019).

Jana Winderen

Her multi-channel audio installation Bára, a commission by TBA21–Academy, was shown in 2018 at the exhibition Oceans: Imagining a Tidalectic Worldview, Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art and at Le Fresnoy: Studio national des arts contemporains. It was also presented as part of Tidalectics, Augarten in Vienna in 2017. Other recent work includes Raft of Ice a permanent temperature interactive sound installation for the US Embassy in Oslo (2018); Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone: From the Barents Sea to Lake Ontario for work of WIND AIR LAND SEA in Toronto (2018); Rats – Secret Soundscapes of the City, commissioned by the Munchmuseum on the Move/NyMusikk in Oslo (2017); Transmission, commissioned by the V-A-C Foundation for Geometry of Now, Moscow (2017); and Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone, a commission for the Sonic Acts Festival (2017), among others. The Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo dedicated an important monographic exhibition to Winderen’s research in collaboration with Tony Myatt, Rungrueng Ramanyah and Palin Ansusinha, from June to August 2019.

Winderen was the recipient of the Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica for Digital Musics & Sound Art in 2011. Her work is published by the London-based label Touch, alongside artists including Oren Ambarchi, Fennesz, Phill Niblock, Hildur Gudnadottir. http://www.janawinderen.com/

About Fernando Mastrangelo

Fernando Mastrangelo is a Brooklyn-based, contemporary artist specialising in sculpture, furniture, architecture and interior design. Inspired by landscapes, people and politics, his sculptural work experiments with forms, materials and content to create a universe in which nature, textures and the human condition are layered and interconnected. Seeing his work as a “relic for our time,” Mastrangelo repurposes natural granular materials like sand, salt and silica, while often addressing ecological issues. Each piece’s form is influenced by the material used and its geographic origins.

Art Basel Miami Beach Lounge

Mastrangelo received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 2002 and completed his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 2004 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. After his studies, Mastrangelo worked in collaboration with Matthew Barney, before launching his own design studio, now known as FM/S. Located in Brooklyn, his studio has grown over the years to experiment with painting, sculpture, furniture, architecture and interiors, and presents a variety of mediums and collections.

His group and solo works have been exhibited in numerous art fairs and venues including the Collective Design Fair, NYCxDesign, the Sight Unseen Office, the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Art Genève in Switzerland, Art Basel in Miami Beach, the Brooklyn Museum, the Mendes Wood Gallery, the Mike Weiss Gallery, the Neuberger Museum, and the Rossana Orlandi Gallery in Milan. In 2017, with the next generation of makers in mind, Mastrangelo launched a non-profit organisation, In Good Company, with an annual group exhibition that honours the spirit of creativity by providing a platform for emerging artists and designers to exhibit their work without commercial or creative restraint. To learn more about In Good Company please visit http://www.igc.design.

About Audemars Piguet

Audemars Piguet is the oldest fine watchmaking manufacturer still in the hands of its founding families (Audemars and Piguet). Since 1875, the company has written some of the finest chapters in the history of Haute Horlogerie, including a number of world firsts. In the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, numerous masterpieces are created in limited series embodying a remarkable degree of horological perfection, including daring sporty models, classic and traditional timepieces, splendid ladies’ jewellery-watches, as well as one-of-a-kind creations.

www.audemarspiguet.com

About Audemars Piguet and Art

Pursuing its commitment to craft, creativity and innovation, Audemars Piguet formed a partnership with Art Basel in 2013, supporting the world’s premier contemporary art shows in Hong Kong, Basel and Miami Beach. Since then, Audemars Piguet has presented innovative Lounge concepts and artworks at all three Art Basel shows, inviting artists to creatively interpret its heritage and origins.

Audemars Piguet Innovative Lounges

For Audemars Piguet’s inaugural Art Basel Lounge, French designer Sébastien Leon Agneessens created Between Now and Then, an environment that introduced visitors to Audemars Piguet’s place of origin, Le Brassus. Mathieu Lehanneur’s 2014 Lounge concept Mineral Lab explored the themes of technology versus nature. Starting in 2016, Sebastian Errazuriz’s dynamic, immersive Lounge designs complemented Audemars Piguet’s presentation at each Art Basel show. The trilogy of Lounge concepts were inspired by three core natural materials native to the Vallée de Joux — ice (Ice Cycle, 2016), wood (Second Nature, 2017), and ore (Foundations, 2018).

Origins Projects

Since the formation of the partnership in 2013, Audemars Piguet has developed and presented collaborations with artists and designers in the Manufacture’s Collectors Lounge at all three Art Basel shows. The displayed artworks and the spaces in which they are presented reflect on Audemars Piguet’s sense of deep-rooted history, its connections with nature and commitment to creativity, innovation and independence. Audemars Piguet commissions annual Origins projects whereby artists create works that offer their own, highly personal interpretations of the company’s cultural and geographical origins. These projects testify to the fertile dialogue between two distinct areas of creative endeavour—contemporary art and Haute Horlogerie—and are emblematic of the company’s deeply held values.

Audemars Piguet first commissioned the photographic works by British photographer Dan Holdsworth in 2012. At Art Basel in Hong Kong 2014, Audemars Piguet unveiled a new panoramic film, Measure, by Austrian videographer Kurt Hentschläger. In 2015, Audemars Piguet presented an eco-wall of living moss combined with a sound installation titled Wild Constellations by Geneva-based artist Alexandre Joly. In 2016, Audemars Piguet hosted an exhibition titled To Break the Rules, You Must First Master Them, installed within the Yuz Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai for which French designer Mathieu Lehanneur created a temporary space which explored the rich history of the brand. The exhibition, which featured more than 200 watches, was complemented by an original video-work titled Circadian Rhythm by Chinese artist Cheng Ran. This was subsequently presented at Audemars Piguet’s Lounge at Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2017. Remains: Vallée de Joux, a series of ultra-high resolution prints interpreting Audemars Piguet’s origins, was presented on the Lounge at Art Basel in 2018. For Art Basel in Miami Beach 2018, Quayola also presented Promenade, a film which explores the logic and aesthetics of autonomous vehicle computer-vision systems as a drone flies through the secluded forests of the Vallée de Joux.

The Audemars Piguet Art Commission

At the crux of Audemars Piguet’s involvement with the arts is the Audemars Piguet Art Commission. The Commission, announced in May 2014, draws inspiration from the craftsmanship and technical excellence inherent in Audemars Piguet’s legacy of watchmaking. For each Commission, an artist-curator duo is selected to realise a new artwork which explores complexity and precision, while enlisting contemporary creative practice, complex mechanics, technology and science. By inviting artists to push the limits of technical virtuosity and scientific ingenuity, the Art Commission explores the link between the traditions of Haute Horlogerie and Art. Recipients are given carte blanche to realise their project. Audemars Piguet provides full financial support for each Commission, in addition to the specialised expertise required.

The first Commission, unveiled at Art Basel 2015, was created by Swiss artist and composer Robin Meier and curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Synchronicity explored the underlying mathematical rules of self-organisation among seemingly unrelated components: fireflies, computers, crickets, sounds and electromagnetic pendulums. In 2016, Ruijun Shen curated Chinese artist Sun Xun’s Reconstruction of the Universe, a large-scale immersive bamboo installation and 3D film, comprised of tens of thousands of hand-carved woodblocks, unveiled at Art Basel in Miami Beach. The following year, Los Angeles-based, multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan was selected for the third Art Commission. His large-scale installation Slow-Moving Luminaries, curated by Kathleen Forde, was also presented on the oceanfront at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2017 and explored topics of oscillations, including time, memory and the changing climate. At Art Basel 2018 in Basel, Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) presented HALO, curated by Mónica Bello in collaboration with the CERN. Taking the form of a large cylinder, this work was illuminated and enveloped in the sound produced by data from particle-collision experiments taking place at the CERN.

Art Basel Jana Winderen

Unveiling of The Art of Listening: Under Water. Courtesy of the artist and Audemars Piguet

Art Basel Miami Beach Lounge

Audemars Piguet unveils the latest chapter of an ongoing collaboration with Jana Winderen at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2019 Swiss Haute Horlogerie Manufacture Audemars Piguet celebrated the unveiling of The Art of Listening: Under Water…

#art basel #art basel in miami beach #Audemars Piguet #Audemars Piguet Art Commission #Audemars Piguet Innovative Lounges #Fernando Mastrangelo #Jana Winderen #Origins Projects

0 notes