Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

Antennae

The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

Antennae is currently accepting submissions for publication over the year 2009.
We are looking for work fitting the following topics:

.Mechanical Animals

.Animals and Environmental Issues

.Pig

Submissions are open to visual arts, academic and non academic text.

Download the Journal by clicking on the front cover above

Download a printable version of Antennae Issue 6 Summer 2008 by clicking on the front cover above. If printing Antennae, consider the environment : print on recycled paper and/or back to front.

Antennae Issue 6- Contents

4 Objects of Loss and Remembrance
Rachel Poliquin is currently working on the writing of her forthcoming book: ‘On Taxidermy and Other Objects of Longing’. Here we publish an extract from her second chapter.
Text by Rachel Poliquin

7 Ravishing Beasts
Rachel Poliquin’s interest in taxidermy began as a fascination with both its animal-objects, lingering old and musty beyond their natural course, and her particular interest in the aesthetic side of the natural and unnatural sciences. Today, amongst other things, Poliquin is the Editor of ‘Taxidermy: Ravishing Beast’, the internet’s reference point for cultural taxidermy.
Text by Rachel Poliquin. Interview by Eric Frank

13 Constructed Reality: The Diorama as Art
Diane Fox explores the encounter - the returned animal gaze that holds the viewer in communication. But is communication effectively achieved through the naturalistic artifice of natural history dioramas?
Text by Diane Fox

21   Flat out and Bluesome
‘Nanoq: flat out and bluesome’ is the story of polar bears, the largest land predators on earth, and their journey from the arctic wilderness to the museums and stately homes of the UK. The work documents the histories of each of these bears, the legacies of the hunters who shot them and the skills and expertise of the taxidermists who stuffed them.
Text by Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson and Lucy Byatt

28   Nanoq: in Conversation
We interviewed Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson to discuss ‘Nanoq: flat out and bluesome’, relationships between animals and humans, taxidermy and Damien Hirst.
Interview by Giovanni Aloi

35 Empty Trophy
In the 1990s Jordan Baseman taught himself taxidermy in order to make a number of striking pieces that often used the skins of domestic animals discovered as road-kill outside his studio in east London.
Interview by Shelly Stein

38 Taxidermy Chic
Although Polly Morgan has been working as an artist for only three years, the unnerving tableaux she creates using taxidermied animals, make disquieting observations about beauty and mortality, and have attracted plenty of attention in the celebrity circles.
Interview by Giovanni Aloi

44 Multimedia Taxidermy
Andrea Roe's work uses taxidermy to examine the nature of human and animal biology, behaviour, communication and interaction within specific ecological contexts.
Interview by Eric Frank

51 How to Explain Sculpture to a Dead Owl
Claire Morgan’s work contains the attempt to bring forth and render visible the closed realm of nature. However, in her work this realm is shown as being systematically threatened, and the sculptures present an implicit critique of the contemporary world.
Text by Darren Ambrose

55 In Conversation with Claire Morgan
We met with Claire Morgan to discuss her gravity defying sculptures and the use of taxidermy in her work
Interview by Giovanni Aloi & Eric Frank

65 The Specimen
Mark Fairnington creates photo-real paintings of specimens from zoological collections, including the Natural History Museum’s own. Using high-definition electron microscopes Fairnington captures the minute details of a specimen photographically, before interpreting itin paint on huge canvasses.
Interview by Shelly Stein

Front cover image: The Raft, mark Fairnington, detail, Oil on Canvas, 2006

,,,,In Antennae's Website

The Animal Gaze
20 and 21 November 2008

Symposium: The Animal Gaze: Contemporary Art & Animal/Human Studies

London Metropolitan University (City Campus), Whitechapel, London, U.K.
Thursday 20 and Friday 21 November 2008

Keynote Speakers: Steve Baker, Dario Martinelli, Marcus Coates

The representation of animals in contemporary art has shifted into new
modes over the last 10 years, as animals come to bear different meanings
in Western culture. The aim of 'The Animal Gaze: Contemporary Art &
Animal/Human Studies' is to address such changes - to exhibit recent art
about animals, as well as to discuss it.

'The Animal Gaze: Contemporary Art & Animal/Human Studies' is a two day
symposium in London, seeking to outline those theoretical and practical
meeting-points where contemporary art encounters animals. Scholars and
authors from both inside and outside the art world (such as Steve Baker
and Dario Martinelli) will assess how such art around animals might be
redefined. Artists currently working in this area, such as Marcus Coates
and Snaesbjornsdottir/Wilson, will be interviewed about their practice. UK
conservation and animal welfare organisations will outline actual
scenarios for project workshops.

Part of Steve Baker's argument in his keynote presentation will be that
artists are prepared to admit to not knowing exactly what they are doing
alongside animals, or indeed what their audience will do. Such latitude
has an unusual status in animal/human studies, so that issues around
animals and humans acquire in contemporary art a foreground and immediacy,
to provoke intense and useful debate among artists and scholars.

Alongside the symposium is a contemporary art exhibition, featuring over
40 artists. This group show looks beyond those representations of animals
that regularly appear elsewhere in the visual culture of our own species.
Instead, a neat admixture of less common stances towards animals will be
on display, particularly in video and sound, photography and installation.

For more information about speakers, presentation abstracts and artists at
'The Animal Gaze', including delegate bookings (limited to 90 places
only), please see: http://www.animalgaze.org

MINDING ANIMALS 2009

CONFERENCE

We are delighted to announce that registration and abstracts are now
open for the 2009 International Academic and Community Conference on Animals and Society: Minding Animals. The conference will be held from Monday 13 to Saturday 18 July 2009 at Civic Precinct, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

Webhot registration is open for just 2 months, offering greatly reduced
rates exclusively for those registering online. We have secured some
great rates at a range of hotels in Newcastle just for conference
delegates. We strongly recommend you book early as these will sell out
fast. You can register and book online now at www.mindinganimals.com.

Minding Animals 2009 boasts a distinguished line up of international
speakers, who will be giving keynote addresses and be very much part of
conference proceedings. Delegates will have the choice of attending a
diverse range of concurrent sessions, panel presentations and seminars, as well as a public lecture being held on Friday 17 July.

The conference has some fantastic social events including the Conference Dinner with guest speaker Nobel Laureate Professor JM Coetzee, Visiting Professor of Humanities, University of Adelaide, Australia, and the Seminar Series Dinner with high-profile guest speaker Jill Robinson of the Animals Asia Foundation, China. Captain Paul Watson, Founder, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and Co-Founder, Greenpeace, Canada, had
been scheduled to talk but may be delayed. We may yet be fortunate to
have two dinner speakers!

We also have some great touring options available from whale watching, bird watching and bush walking to visiting our local RSPCA shelter to see new state-of-the-art facilities. Places on our tours are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment.

Abstract submission is also now open; the submission deadline is 30
January 2009. If you wish to submit an abstract for an oral or poster
presentation please visit the website www.mindinganimals.com and follow
the instructions.

Remember, Webhot registration closes on 4 September 2008.

If you have any queries regarding the conference, please don’t hesitate
to contact me or Sarah Mason at the Conference Secretariat.

Kind regards,

Rod Bennison
Conference Co-convenor

Dr Rod Bennison
Conjoint Academic and Lecturer - English Language and Foundation Studies
Centre

Co-convenor 2009 International Academic and Community Conference on
Animals and Society: Minding Animals
School of Environmental and Life Sciences
University of Newcastle
Callaghan NSW 2308
AUSTRALIA