Wednesday, March 25, 2020

TOMAS SARACENO: ARACHNOMANCY CARDS


See Tomas Sarceno's Arachnomancy cards here

3 comments:

  1. I am thinking of doing postcards for project 3. I would like them to have a similar kind of visual consistency that Tomas Saraceno has achieved here. It's also interesting to see how he used drawings to explore different ecological issues.

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  2. Tomas Saraceno extensive Arachnophilia website here:
    http://arachnophilia.net/sonifying-the-web

    "The spider’s world is one of vibration. Essentially blind, the web-building spider creates an image of the world through the vibrations it sends and receives through the web, which also functions as an organic and specialised instrument for transmitting these seismic signals. The spider/web is thus considered a material extension of the spider’s own senses, and—some argue—of its mind. The study of the seismic signals produced and received by the spider fall under the relatively new scientific discipline of biotremology: the study of vibrational communication in animals.



    The Spider/Web Research Group’s research into biotremology extends Saraceno’s interest in exploring the possibilities for interspecific communication, and our capacity to communicate with our nonhuman kin, through practices of attuning to and producing vibrational signals. This strand of research is led by in-house Spider/Web Research Group researcher Roland Mühlethaler, and through collaborations with biotremology experts Hannelore Hoch and Andreas Wessel (Museum of Natural History, Berlin), as well as Peggy Hill (University of Tulsa).



    This thread of biotremological research began in 2013 after Saraceno first came into contact with Mühlethaler (then a researcher at the Museum of Natural History Berlin), Hoch and Wessel ’s research into vibrational communications in insects - a meeting mediated by Saraceno’s visiting research colleague, arachnologist Yael Lubin. Following this, Hoch and Mühlethaler returned to Saraceno’s studio with a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (PDV-100), which they used to measure the vibrational signal propagation in a planar Nephila web and the bouncing signals produced by a Cyrtophora spider in its (modified orb) tent web. From this first visit, a mutual collaboration and interest in spider vibrational communication was born, which led to Mühlethaler eventually taking up a position within Saraceno’s Spider/Web Research Group, heading up the bioacoustic experimental research program."

    -Tomas Saraceno

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  3. I love his use of fears and numerology in these cards. I don't mean this in a negative way, but with the words he uses (astral, mediation, life transition, etc), the number of cards (33) and the emphasis placed on the spider (structure of spider webs and the lines in the palm of our hands) this almost felt like a piece that incorporated witchcraft, or at least included the element of outside belief structures and forces. I appreciate the time and truth he put into each card, down to the names of each species he had on the card and what each one meant. This is a super intriguing idea to engage viewers who believe in "luck of the draw" to determine certain truths.

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I'd also like to share my Time-Lapse of plant growth that I made for my thesis exhibition. In order to allow the viewers to observe t...