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- Collection of published writings, a few self-published.
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My Academia.edu site
 

ESSays

Exploratory

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IN SEARCH OF MESOAESTHETICS - Exploring the idea of an "aesthetics of the middle" that spans the arts & sciences engaging multi-scale, complexity, and layered context.

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DOUBLE BUBBLE - an essay in the journal Forty-Five on membranes, confinement, transparency, space travel, and more

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TERRA FORMA - A multimedia essay examining tsunami reconstruction in Japan through the lens of landscape gardening for Art Journal Open.

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SNAKE EYES: PICTURING, PERCEPTION, AND THE SERPENTS THAT LURK WITHIN - THE HISOTORY OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SNAKE DE

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AESTHETICS OF HIDDEN ECOLOGIES - What might make an artwork  "ecological"?

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NATURALCULTURAL WONDERS TO ANTHROPOCENE DISASTERS - A Bibliography of "possibilty aesthetics" for Art Journal.

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MAKING ART, BEING NATURE, & THE DISTRIBUTED AGENCY OF CREATURELY CREATION - Is a honeycomb art? Kant didn't think so but we might reconsider.

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PREDATORS, PARASITES & FICKLE FRIENDS - Parasites that menace and our own predatory ways. An ecological view via food.

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NATURALCULTURAL WONDERS TO ANTHROPOCENE DISASTERS - A Bibliography of "possibilty aesthetics" for Art Journal.

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LETTER TO AMERICA - Invited as part of a series started after the 2016 presidential election in Terrain.org.

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LETTING THE CITY BUG YOU - An essay for the book City Creatures on the artistic and ecological virtues of urban insect collecting.

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THE UN(IN)TENDED GARDEN - A short visual essay of gardening weeds published in the The Learned Pig.

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ARTIST-PARENT FLOWCHART (DEAR M.) - Are you an artist considering parenthood, or a parent considering being an artist? A flowchart just for you.

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THESIS : ANTYTHESIS- Considering the use of ants and other social insects. and analogs for sociality in humans and what it means to "participate."

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ANIMAL STORIES & NARRATIVE ZINES - Animals are they icons and avatars of humanity. This essay looks at the representation of animals in mini-zines. 

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ANTHROPOCENE AND OUR POST-NATURAL FUTURE - special issue of the Japanese journal FIVE: Designing Media Ecology on different perspectives on the Anthropocene

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GORILLA TACTICS OF KNOWING / UNKNOWING + IF EVERY BODY WERE EVERYBODY - Short essays  in "Inquiries" for the Spencer Museum of Art.

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FARE ARTE, ESSERE E LA CAPACITA D'AZIONE DIFFUSA DEL CREATO CREATURALE - For the Organismi exhibition catalog, GAM Turin (Italian version of the above)

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UNWAVERING QUAVER - An invited essay for the 14th Istanbul Biennial catalog on the multiform of waves in the universe.

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SYMPTOMS OF (DE)EXTINCTION - An essay for the NIMBY exhibition catalog about the creative potential of obliterating  rocks from space.

Art & Science

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SECOND LAWS, TWO CULTURES, & THE EMERGENCE OF AN ECOSYSTEM AESTHETICS - Entropy as a case study exploring the borderlands of art & science.

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THAT DRUNKEN CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO CULTURES -  A commentary on the "art-science" discourse forthcoming in the journal Leonardo.

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THE ART/SCIENCE INTERFACE - What can be  at stake in how & design interface with bioscience today? What is the possibility of critical interdisciplinarity?

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PLANET-SIZE FACTS - What are the pros and cons of graphical convention in communicating (effectively and affectively) the urgency of global warming?

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THE STARRY SKIES OF ASTROMEDICINE - How can astrophysics & medical imaging collaborate on data visualization?  The "astronomical medicine" experiment.

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"PROGRESS THROUGH NOVELTY" - Reflections on the Art/Science Interface at the Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium, 2013.

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SCIENCE AS A (LIBERAL) ART -A commentary on the contested nature of education in the sciences and why it matters in terms of a "liberal arts" education.

Project Related

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PLACES OF MAYBE - An essay in "Why Look at Plants?" about two projects of plants finding alternative means of dispersal.

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PLANETARY GARDEN AS FANTASY ISLAND -An essay exploring the role of the LA Arboretum as an agent of the Anthropocene in SoCal.

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PRISMISMS - The exhibition essays for "Prismisms" at Roman Susan gallery, April 2018.

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GYMNOCLADUS DIOICUS - A biography of the Kentucky Coffeetree in the book becoming-Botanicals.

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NETWORKS OF THE NATURAL - A text from the Humans-non-Humans symposium on the conundrums urban seed dispersal. This is a draft of the essay that became "Places of Maybe."

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NATURAL HISTORIES OF MULTINATURALISM - A short essay on the IO-OX project for thr Istanbul Biennial in reference in natural history and Smithson's site/nonsite.

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BIOLOGICAL AGENTS - A bio-art exhibition co-curated with Christa Donner  at Gallery 400, Chicago (2008).

Book reviews

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TYRANNY OF PLASTICITY - A review of Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste by Amanda Boetzkes for Art Journal.

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EPIGENETIC LANDSCAPES - A review of Susan Merrill Squier's Epigenetic Landscapes: Drawing as Metaphor for the Journal of the History of Biology.

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DRAWING AS KNOWING - A look at Gemma Anderson's Drawing As A Way of Knowing for SciArt Magazine.

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ANTS: MEDIUM AS MESSAGE - A review of Deborah Gordon's 2010 book Ant Encounters examining current trends and controversies in social insect studies.

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THE EDUCATED EYE - What does the visual culture of biology look like over the past 200 years?  Education, research, museums...Let's take a look.

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ROMANCE OF ANTS - A brief review of an exhibit about biologist Corrie Moreau at the Field Museum, for the American Biology Teacher.

 

INTERVIEWS

(INTERVIEWER)                                            (INTERVIEWEE)

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TIME (AND TIME AGAIN) - An interview with historian of science Lorraine Daston (for Deep Time Chicago).

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ANTHROPOZINE - A zine of interviews & collages on the Anthropocene, not only as a geological epoch but as a manifold metaphor for our planetary concerns.

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ANTHROPOCENE & OUR POST-NATURAL FUTURE - Excerpts from a special issue of FIVE: Designing Media Ecology.

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HENRIK HAKANSSON - A talk with artist Henrik Hakansson in his Berlin studio for Antennae.

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A NODE WITHING A NETWORK OF NETWORKS -An interview for Antennae with Roger Malina, Executive Director of Leonardo.

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OUR ECOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE - An interview by Miranda Trimmier for Terrain.org.

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AN ANTHROPOSCENE - An interview by Giovanni Aloi for Antennae.

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PARTICLES & GALACTIC SHORES - A conversation with Andrew Yang & Nihat Karataşlı for border_less.

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TWO ARTISTS, TWO QUESTIONS - An interview in BANT Magazine by Yetkin Nural, Ekin Sanaç.

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THIRD COAST DISRUPTED - An interview by Kaylee Fowler for the Third Coast Disrupted exhibition.

 

scientific

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ECO-DEVO & DIVISION OF LABOR - The adaptive and developmental trade-offs that manifests in ant colony organization, in Current Biology.

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COLONIES AS SUPERORGANISMS -

An examination on the developmental nature of social insects colonies as biological individuals.

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SEASONALITY, FOOD, AND ANT SOCIAL LIFE -A research paper on the dynamics of division of labor and nutrtional storage in populations in different  climates.

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PHILOSOPHY, BIOLOGY, AND RIVALRY - The tense relationship  between two closely allied, and sometimes dueling, disciplines in the realm of science and the public (by way of Karl Popper).

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SPLIT SEX ANTS - Known as "gynandromorphs," what might these peculiar mutants tell us about evolution? A research paper on these variations in ants.

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BODY PLANS FOR EVOLVING -How might you study if the evolution of possible forms and their diversity may be influenced by the developmental architecture of the body? 

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IS OPRAH ZULU? - Grappling with the complexities of testing for our genetic ancestry, and what that kind of genetic identity might even mean.

 

EDUCATION

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 LEARNING -Seven short essays from an ongoing series of short commentaries on the theme of "learning" for the Japanese media journal FIVE: Designing Media Ecology

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ZINES & PARTICIPATORY SCIENCE LITERACY - How science min-zines can engage scientific understanding and participation in the classroom and beyond.

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WHEN PASSING IS GOOD ENOUGH TO FAIL - A commentary on plagiarism, "pass/fail" and the culture of whateverness that can strike at an elite art school.

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IPCC 2018 -A quick  summary of what the IPCC special report means for our climate, for F News.

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