{"id":6341,"date":"2011-11-22T22:16:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T02:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=6341"},"modified":"2011-11-22T22:16:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T02:16:07","slug":"aaas-exhibition-captures-an-undersea-world-worth-conserving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/11\/22\/aaas-exhibition-captures-an-undersea-world-worth-conserving\/","title":{"rendered":"AAAS exhibition captures an undersea world worth conserving"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Rachel<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA composer, an artist, a physicist and a philosopher walk into a bar,\u201d said artist Rachel Simmons<\/a>, introducing her work to a crowd at the opening of Beneath the Surface: Rediscovering a World Worth Conserving<\/a><\/em> at the American Association for the Advancement of Science on November 17th<\/sup>. What emerges is a curious combination of sound and graphics interpreting the underwater experience of our noisy marine activities for terrestrial human perception. Noise<\/a> is a problem for whales that communicate by sound.<\/p>\n

\"Rachel<\/a>

Rachel Simmons. Wonders (of the Sea). Credit, Jennifer Riem<\/p><\/div>\n

Simmons teaches at Rollins College near Orlando, and regularly draws on her scientific colleagues for collaboration and inspiration.<\/p>\n

Describing the construction of her ceramic coral reef Courtney Mattison<\/a> said that the corals\u2019 chalky exoskeleton and her artistic medium share base materials\u2014and fragility. Her art is also heavy. Though most of her clay corals are hollow, the wall in the AAAS lobby had to be reinforced to support the weight of the installation.<\/p>\n

Above the artist\u2019s head, bone whites and pale grays replace the vibrant glazes, illustrating the \u201cbleaching<\/a>\u201d of stressed corals that have evicted their photosynthesizing algal cohabitants. Corals are vastly disadvantaged by the loss, usually triggered by changes in water temperature, of their symbionts.<\/p>\n

\"Courtney<\/a>

Courtney Mattison. A Coral Reef Story. Credit, Jennifer Riem<\/p><\/div>\n

The exhibition features seven artists and ranges from descriptive nature photography to overt criticism of modern culture and its discarded byproducts, with Simmons\u2019 and Mattison\u2019s work somewhere in between.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately for me, I don\u2019t have to come to conclusions. I just have to ask questions,\u201d said Simmons. \u201cIt\u2019s the scientists\u2019 job to make conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the public\u2019s job to decide how to use the information, the exhibit\u2019s curators would seem to reply.<\/p>\n

\n

Beneath the Surface<\/em> is on display, and open to the public, at AAAS headquarters in Washington DC until March 2nd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Listen to the art<\/a> at Simmons\u2019 site<\/p>\n

\"Rachel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer \u201cA composer, an artist, a physicist and a philosopher walk into a bar,\u201d said artist Rachel Simmons, introducing her work to a crowd at the opening of Beneath the Surface: Rediscovering a World Worth Conserving at the American Association for the Advancement of Science on November 17th. What emerges is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1114],"tags":[457,657,7,1320,767,17,1019,910,37],"class_list":["post-6341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-about-town","tag-art","tag-communication","tag-conservation","tag-coral","tag-culture","tag-fish","tag-noise","tag-oceans","tag-whales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}