Rheinfall - Host, Noise, Parasite

Photo essay series exploring found photography and themes drawn from the post humanities based around 12 postcards of Rheinfall, Switzerland.  Appended texts are drawn from fragments of literary responses by Goethe and Mary Shelley with conceptual approaches inspired by the the philosophical writings of Michel Serres. “The parasite intervenes, enters the system as an element of fluctuation. It excites [the system] or incites it; it puts into motion, or it paralyses it. It changes it's state, changes it's energetic stance, it's displacements and condensations” Rheinfall - Host, Noise, Parasite uses found materials and abstract approaches in combining images and text captions to explore themes of synchronicity and drift

Tremorings

Photographic essay series depicting in-vitro genetically mutated zebrafish embryos with under captions. This work offers expanded readings of the archive video works, Tremor and Cocoon. Both installations explored the themes of heredity, genetics & bioengineering produced for Genesis – The Art of Creation, an international exhibition at Paul Klee Museum in Bern, Switzerland and encompassed within the COSMOPOLITICAL FUTURES - FATE MAPS – COCOON video installation exhibitions presented within international Bioart contexts - documented elsewhere

Cosmopolitical Futures: Fate Maps – Black Lace: scanning electron microscope narratives

The Fate Maps - Black Lace series consists of 16 images that explore the cultural associations of lace in scientific contexts. The work explores the visual resemblance of Chantilly lace to a photographic negative, the quantum processes underlying the operation of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the intrinsic mystery of metamorphosis and the co-alliances of humans and animals in social, cultural, economic and bioscientific domains. The scanning electron microscopy method to produce the work in this series is sometimes poetically referred to as dark space imaging. The image maginification in the SEM is not a function of the power of an optical lens, but a fine pencil beam of electrons that moves like a TV scan to pencil out an image over time as the electrons scatter off target from the surface features of an object. The electrons travel in a vacuum and since a vacuum cannot support life, the system can only provide a view of dead structures. These fossil-like readings have a wonderfully vivid depth of focus brought about by the submicron fineness of the electron beam. In the SEM, electrons interact with the atoms of an object to produce deflection signals that contain information about its surface topography, physical composition and electrical conductivity. The information is blind and resonant like musical scores written in Braille. The underlying conceptual form of the work is based on theoretical work and ethical frame-working of philosopher of science, Karen Barad. To create the work, an antique Chantilly (black) lace sample indexed amongst Lady Cadbury's donations to the Birmingham Museum lace collection was meticulously prepared for microscopic imaging much like a biological specimen. Chantilly black lace importantly provided a number of culturally evocative metaphors. I was particularly interested in the national origins of the silk, the protein fibers excreted from the larval silkworm and how these creatives traces might be entangled

STEM

Prof. Rogers he has been developing her most recent artworks on an EPRSC funded, Pathways to Impact (PiA) residency in the School of Medicine on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine exploring the use of stem cells in the area of Bone and Joint research. Her research engages with contemporary debates in biotechnology and stem cell research. She develops works through art and science collaboration that contribute to public critical understanding and discussion of these domains. Engendering public engagement with biotechnological, stem cell and regenerative medicine research, her work engages with the impact of these life sciences on human identity, culture and society. She has harnessed elements regenerative medicine space to create a new body of research, developing her most recent artworks on an EPRSC funded, Pathways to Impact (PiA) residency in the School of Medicine on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine exploring the use of stem cells in the area of Bone and Joint research

Cocoon

The work developed for 'Crossing over: exchanges in art and biotechnologies' further explores the themes developed in Tremor using video microscopy of artificially mutated zebra fish embryos to portray a multi-layered repertoire of living in-vitro scenarios. The catalogue 'Crossing over: exchanges in art and biotechnologies' was published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name shown at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2 October 2008 – 21 November 2008

The Changing Meaning of the Transi Tomb in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Europe

Introduction Traditionally, medieval tomb imagery was concerned with the expression of hope for the salvation of the deceased. Tomb figures of the 13th and 14th centuries in Northern Europe portrayed the deceased in a state of ideal beauty. The hands were folded in prayer, the eyes open, and the face calm, expressing confidence in God\u27s mercy and in salvation... In the last years of the 14th century, a new and strikingly different type of sepulchral monument, the transi tomb, appeared in several places in Northern Europe. On these tombs the traditional idealized portrayal of the deceased was replaced by a gruesome depiction of the physical ravages of death..

Family, property, and negotiations of authority: Francoise Brulart and the estate management of noble women in early modern Burgundy

There is no question that early modern France was a patriarchal society. In fact, during this period, there was an increase in legislation further subordinating women under the authority of their fathers and then of their husbands. The legal identities of women as daughters and wives was officially negligible. However, this dissertation argues that in practice, family needs trumped the constricting legal prescriptions placed upon women. In examining the estate accounts, contracts, and family papers of the Saulx-Tavanes, Brulart, Le Goux, Joly, Marmier, and Baissey families, it is abundantly clear that women of both the noblesse de robe and noblesse d\u27épée were actively engaged in estate management which required negotiations of the legal hurdles placed in front of them. At least unofficially noblemen expected their wives to enter marriage armed with a cadre of managerial skills to be employed for the good of the family during their marriage and if necessary after. Furthermore, noble husbands, many of whom were legists themselves, seemed to have fully embraced women\u27s negotiations of familial authority as commonplace. ^ Françoise Brulart was a member of the noblesse de robe in Burgundy, albeit of the highest echelon, who married a prominent member of the noblesse d\u27épée, Claude de Saulx-Tavanes. From the onset of their marriage, Françoise and Claude worked together in a sort of collaborative partnership, one in which he clearly depended on her to take an active role in co-managing the estate and family economy. Upon his death, rather than naming a male relative as the trustee over his properties, he left Françoise in charge. In her viduity, she increased her assiduous estate administration while successfully continuing to promote and defend the family rights and assets. Françoise\u27s experiences and agency were far from singular. Through the analysis of documents involving not only Françoise Brulart, but also those of Louise Joly, Anne de Marmier and Anne de Baissey, it is clear that both in marriage and in widowhood, family success and advancement relied on the ability of noble women to administer the estates frugally, and to sustain, and if possible to grow, the family assets

Microlensing Constraints on Broad Absorption and Emission Line Flows in the Quasar H1413+117

We present new integral field spectroscopy of the gravitationally lensed broad absorption line (BAL) quasar H1413+117, covering the ultraviolet to visible rest-frame spectral range. We observe strong microlensing signatures in lensed image D, and we use this microlensing to simultaneously constrain both the broad emission and broad absorption line gas. By modeling the lens system over the range of probable lensing galaxy redshifts and using on a new argument based on the wavelength-independence of the broad line lensing magnifications, we determine that there is no significant broad line emission from smaller than ~20 light days. We also perform spectral decomposition to derive the intrinsic broad emission line (BEL) and continuum spectrum, subject to BAL absorption. We also reconstruct the intrinsic BAL absorption profile, whose features allow us to constrain outflow kinematics in the context of a disk-wind model. We find a very sharp, blueshifted onset of absorption of 1,500 km/s in both C IV and N V that may correspond to an inner edge of a disk-wind's radial outflow. The lower ionization Si IV and Al III have higher-velocity absorption onsets, consistent with a decreasing ionization parameter with radius in an accelerating outflow. There is evidence of strong absorption in the BEL component which indicates a high covering factor for absorption over two orders of magnitude in outflow radius.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figure

Matrem

Matrem is a photo essay series with captions offering conceptual and philosophical meditation on the rarely documented field of fetal stem cell research exploring their utilization as powerful vibrant matter and bringing attention to complex issues of motherhood in the post human context. Matrem, offers an intensely poetic reflection on ethically controversial area of stem cell research within regenerative medicine that uses fetal tissue as a source of stem cells. Fetal stem cells allow for the study of pluripotent cell phenomena at a very basic level. The fetal research field is riven with controversy, particularly in countries where abortion and artificial reproductive technology is less widely accepted. The series comprises of micro-photographic studies of a human donor excised in-vitro fetal umbilical cord. The photographs sensitively and respectfully portray the fetal tissue bridge as a ghostly orphaned and sensory subject in a series of evolving spectral images. Image captions are used to expand potential philosophical and psychological readings and are taken from Luce Irigaray’s interpretative text of Plato’s Hystera. The work pays homage to Irigaray’s critical analysis of the ideological and philosophical appropriations of the Platonic metaphors of the cave, the womb and the passage womb to trace how woman came to be excluded from the production of dominant western philosophical and cultural discourse. The photo and caption juxtapositions conceptually and philosophically echo and explore the framing of female absence and raise questions about the political and ethical status of the orphaned ethereal subject. The series conveys respectful readings of the unknowable reality of human origination in the trans human context