Pteropod Adagio

You can see the Pterpod at Gallery Adagio. Sound: Jack Colwell.

Celebrate a new art space in Sydney.
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Join us for drinks and to meet the artists in celebrating the Grand Opening of

GALLERY ADAGIO

at 91 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
Sydney

on Friday 26th October 2007

6pm – 8pm

Ph. 02 9552 2833

The exhibition will continue until 14th November

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Why would a Pteropod sound sad?

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The Sea butterfly is under threat from excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This gas, when dissolved in sea-water, forms an acid that can eat away the animal’s shell. This is also true for other marine life that has carbonate scales or shells. These tiny animals play a critical role in keeping our climate stable by aiding the burial of greenhouse gases from our air to the deep-sea.

Karin Beaumont , Tasmania

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And what might explain those mysterious colours in Karin Beaumont’s Threatened Treasure?:

She writes:

I used the textile technique of weaving to simulate the faceted nature of the shell, and coloured titanium to simulate the blue of the ocean that is seen through the mostly transparent body.

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Here is something interesting about the colour of the shell, too:

… a sea snail shell is made of calcium salts which have the property to polarize light. Using crossed polarizing filters, (one on the condenser (polariser) and the other on the eyepiece (analyser), you can observe all the rainbow colors in the shell.

Jean-Marie Cavanihac, France

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I’m applying for funding for the air fare to Buenos Ares, to be part an exhibition celebrating the IPY (International Polar Year) – March-April 2008 – and can see the Pteropod Adagio and some Perspex objects fitting in well there now.

I’ve ordered a bunch of Perspex blocks to etch Pteropods into, and colour. They will look like frames from the animation, suspended in water. Lots of them, wafting listlessly. But looking like they’re dead at the same time (archived in Perspex, like specimens)
So simple really.

Aaah. At last. Something good happening: ideas materializing from a long series of chance events.

Reading bits of Andre Breton’s Nadja again (in French) and thinking of Carolin Huf’s Flaneuring. Art making as a chancy thing.