Event 3 - From Forces to Forms Episode 3: Repairing Nature

This weekend, I attended the final part of From Forces to Forms, Episode 3 titled "Repairing Nature.” Presented at the Pratt Institute’s Manhattan Gallery, this episode focused on nature and fighting climate change, which is a very relevant and growing problem in our world (Vesna). Professor Vesna actually presented her own project, titled “Noise Aquarium,” a project that stressed the importance of Earth’s oceans, showing there is a lot of noise and life under the water’s surface.

Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of Victoria Vesna's Noise Aquarium. Manhattan, 16 Apr. 2022.

One of the projects, created by Maria Antonia Valerio, focused on the depiction of the phylogenetic tree of corn. Her project focused on how the genetics of corn was manipulated in order to produce modified corn seeds that were thought to be better for farming. Valerio is actually a philosopher, having graduated from the University of Mexico, where she now teaches, so specifically her project explores the idea of separation between natural and artificial (Valerio). In this case, Valerio took samples of corn from different parts of Mexico. She found that there was contamination of transgenic corn that had invaded many parts of Mexico.


Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of Maria Valerio's Phylogenetic Tree of Maíz. Manhattan, 16 Apr. 2022.

Another project, led by Maria Elena González, used bark to question “what does a tree sound like?” She was inspired by the cylindrical shape of a birch tree and that of a piano (González). González was curious to see what information she could deduce from the cylindrical shapes of trees about their history, the weather, and eventually music. By scanning the bark’s lenticels and converting them to piano rolls, González looked at trees as having encoded information that could be transformed into art. This relates back to the theme of preventing climate change, arguing that trees have historical information that should not be tampered with.

Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of Maria Elena González's birch bark exhibit. Manhattan, 16 Apr. 2022.

Overall, this concludes the three part series of From Forces to Forms. I enjoyed learning about how artists chose to portray the world, and recommend this event to those interested in using art to flaunt science.


Proof of Attendance:
















Works Cited

González, Maria. “Maria Elena González.” MARIA ELENA GONZÁLEZ,San Francisco Art Institue, https://sfai.edu/bios/maria-elena-gonzalez. 

Valerio, María Antonia. “Proyectos/Projects (Sp&En).” MAGV,2016, https://www.magonzalezvalerio.com/proyectosprojects. 

Vesna, Victoria. “Victoria Vesna.”   Noise Aquarium, UCLA Art | Sci Center, 2016, https://victoriavesna.com/index.php?p=projects&item=2. 










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