Loie Fuller

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Loie Fuller, 1892.
Image courtesy of www.abcgallery.com

Loie Fuller was born in Illinois in 1862. She was a visionary in the field of dance, inventing new ways to create form through movement. Her main canvas was the silk fabric that she wore while dancing, and by holding long poles, she extended the reach of her media. She also introduced electric lighting to change the visual effects of her dance. 

She moved to Paris in the 1890s, where her fluid artforms gained her attention from many artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec and her use of technology caught the eye of revolutionary scientists, such as Marie Curie. 

Fuller's Serpentine Dance is included in the Museum of Modern Art's current exhibition, On Line. With the The Serpentine Dance she manipulated the silk, physically by using the bamboo rods and visually with the light. As noted on the MoMA website, she is widely recognized as having been influential on the Cubists and Futurists for her use of fabric to create movement in three-dimensional space, which they aimed to do through sculpture and painting.

In the late 1800s, Fuller was using fabric to change contemporary ideals in various artforms, including dance, art, film, science and technology. Historically, there are not many individuals who have had that significant of an impact on so many fields simultaneously. 

Knit a Neuron

Anne & Helen

Image courtesy of Knit a Neuron

Knit a Neuron was started by two scientists in England. Anne is a knitter and Helen, a crocheter. They wanted to combine their love of science and fiber arts, and so Knit a Neuron was created. They started a blog and posted a call for knitted entries, for which they provided several patterns for knitting and crocheted neurons. They hoped to collect enough from all over the world to create a large brain sculpture that shows what a brain looks like after having gone through a stroke. They hosted several knitting nights at Science Cafe, which is an informal meeting (at a bar) to discuss emerging technologies and science. Several people, men and women of all ages, joined together to knit and crochet neurons for the project. Aside from these knitting nights, they have used the internet to obtain many of their entries, expanding their project and vision far beyond their local community. Thus the value of the Network Culture has helped them immensely to take their high-tech (neurons & imaging) and low-tech (knitting & crocheting) even further into the realm of high-tech (network society)! 

Even NPR's Robert Krulwich is talking about them! Yesterday, in discussing the possibilities of living clouds and arsenic life, Krulwich says "I don't think these 'brain cells' are even remotely alive – though they are gorgeous – but as Chris Impey says: 'The possibilities may simply be limited by our imaginations.'" Anne and Helen obviously have fantastic imaginations, since their project has been so successful!

Close up of the neurons
Image courtesy of Knit a Neuron

Before permanently installing the piece, it will travel to help fundraise for the "Head Injury Therapy Endowment Fund" They initially planned to install the sculpture in the Clinical Research Imaging Centre in Bristol, England which is opening this Spring, but received so many neurons, that the artwork became too large for the space! They are still trying to decide what to do with it now that they've collected all the neurons. There is no place on their blog that indicates how many neurons they received and from which parts of the world, so hopefully they will put some of that info up in the future!