Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored

Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored is a fully illustrated collection of essays on individual paintings drawn from his Great Works column in The Independent that ran from 2005 - 2010. As literary executor for the estate of Tom Lubbock I facilitated the production of Great Works together with Andrew Dunn from Frances Lincoln: proofing, editing, image calibration, working from the essay schedule set by the author

Introduction

Introduction to the memoir Until Further Notice, I am Alive, by Tom Lubbock, art critic of the Independent. The work is a record of two years following diagnosis of a brain tumour. It is a meditation on language and mortality and was published by Granta in 2012 to great acclaim. I wrote the 2200 word introduction, giving the text the contextual framework of an experience both of us lived through

Reading Columns

Reading Columns are twin permanent public sculptures commissioned as part of a £245m scheme for the redevelopment of the Chatham Place area in Reading. Dimensions: 3.5m high x 1.3m diameter each Field of knowledge: The work consists of twin bespoke columns of stainless steel and glass over digital colour transparencies. The piece revisits and reworks the idea of the Morris Column, a 19th C feature characteristic of major European metropolitan centres. A wraparound image on each of the columns represents an imaginary collection of archive posters, flyers and other ephemera specific to the locality. It is a digital collage on a transparency - the columns are illuminated internally at night - and no paper posters are used. The piece plays on the nature of ephemera, collapsing historical styles and emphasising the fluidity of the historical record, built up through layers and memories of events. Methodology: In 2006 I was appointed in 2006 as lead artist on the project. The brief was twofold: to work with the design teams and make proposals for all phases of the extensive Chatham Place Development and to create a permanent public work. The Columns were developed in collaboration with architects Cartwright Pickard and Woodhouse plc. I paid particular attention to ephemera highlighting the agricultural and marginal heritage of the area; to original imagery or graphics, posters around major events in the life of the town or printed material from unofficial sources. The piece uses as its medium the typography, colour and graphics of the existing material. It collapses chronology, styles and modes into one work. All images were sourced over an 18-month research period with the support and cooperation of archives in Reading, in particular the Museum of Reading, the Museum of English Rural Life, the Typography Department at Reading University, and the Local History Department of Reading Library

1d for Abroad

1d for Abroad is one of four linked postcard shows on in London this Spring; The World Exists To Be Put On A Postcard: artists' postcards from 1960 to now at the British Museum; Jeremy Cooper and kennardphillipp at Danielle Arnaud Gallery; and Political Postcards of the 1980s and 1990s at Bookartbookshop. Much has been written about the cheap accessibility, and compact democratic ubiquity of the postcard – and as the other shows testify, the postcard has provided a rich springboard for artists to re-invent, radicalise and appropriate the postcard form. Jeremy Cooper asserts that “Artists’ work with postcards from the 1960s onwards is a concealed element in the history of contemporary art.” Unlike the other exhibitions, Tintype’s 1d for Abroad does not solely present postcards. Roughly three-quarters of the work has been made specifically for the show and includes film, sculpture, print, painting, photographs, a wall-text, embroidery, collections, posters, drawings – and postcards. With thirty-one artists participating, 1d for Abroad is a playful postcardian offering – a response to the role postcards play in people’s lives; an experiment with the formal elements of a simple postcard; postcards as documenters and disseminators of fugitive events; postcards as significant visual markers or references

Modernism’s Chronic Conditions Temporality, Medicine, and Disorders of the Self

Modernism’s Chronic Conditions Temporality, Medicine, and Disorders of the Self Modernism’s Chronic Conditions Temporality, Medicine, and Disorders of the Self Friday 17th April, 2015 SPEAKERS Marion Coutts, author of The Iceberg (Goldsmiths) Prof Lois Oppenheim (Montclair State University) Dr Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck) Prof Jeremy Holmes (University of Exeter) Jonathan Heron (University of Warwick) Dr Kirsty Martin (University of Exeter) Prof Zoe Playdon (University of London) RESPONDENTS Prof Alan Bleakley (University of Falmouth) Prof Chris Code (University of Exeter) Prof Paul Dieppe (Exeter Medical School) Dr Joanne Winning (Birkbeck) ABOUT THE EVENT This workshop brings together scholars, creative practitioners, medical educators, and clinicians concerned with disorders of the embodied mind, to consider how artistic modernism might offer specific resources for understanding what it means to live with conditions which resist narrative shapes of closure and completion. This workshop is the first event organized by the AHRC funded network ‘Modernism, Medicine and the Embodied Mind: Investigating Disorders of the Sel

Empathy and Ethics at the End of Life Perspectives from the Medical Humanities: workshop

Basel, 20 June 2017 Empathy and Ethics at the End of Life Perspectives from the Medical Humanities A day-long workshop for doctoral candidates, jointly organised by the Institute for Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine (University of Zurich) and the Department of English (University of Basel), within the framework of the SLSAeu Conference EMPATHIES (www.empathies2017.com) Convenors: Anna Elsner, Franziska Gygax and Manuela Rossini SPECIAL GUESTS Ivan Callus (literature/theory) and Marion Coutts (author/artist) Anne Hudson Jones (literature & medicine) and Seamus O’Mahony (physician

Twenty Six Things

Twenty Six Things is a 16mm film commissioned by the Wellcome Collection. Twenty Six Things is based on a memory game. The film is a series of static long shots, showing a formation of 26 mysterious objects - all artefacts drawn from the Wellcome Collection - laid out against darkness. Between each shot is an interval of black. During each blackout, the configuration is marginally changed. Twenty Six Things is a study in forms of attention. It is a filmic still life, a classic tabletop, emphasizing the tactility and luminosity of its objects. It uses strictly analogue means – film, light, objects, table – and through the suppression of other information, creates a shift between analogue and digital representation. Pattern recognition, naming the unfamiliar, visualization, sleight of hand - all come into play. The film is accompanied by a suite of notes suggestive of notes played on the rims of musical glasses, and referencing another (unseen) set of objects activated by touch, their differences audible in pitch and timbre. The audio was made digitally in collaboration with the Amsterdam based composer Andy Moor. Methodology: The piece grew of an invited period of research into the Wellcome archive and mines the richness of the collection. Archives function through taxonomy: their objects delineated by type. In Twenty Six Things, the objects are unidentified, linked only by their presence in this highly miscellaneous collection, and selected for physical presence, tactility, texture and shape. All the objects can be held in the hand. An archive operates when everything is known and catalogued. It requires things to stay in place. The objects in Twenty Six Things are both static and mobile. Their movement is covert. They bide their time and, in darkness, slip their places. The film was shot on colour 16mm, transferred onto DVD, looped. Filming took place at the Wellcome Trust depository, Blythe House in London on 10th and 12th March 2008. The DOP was Belinda Parsons, director Marion Coutts, assisted by the curator Lucy Shanahan who was responsible for handling the objects. The work was presented as a single-screen projection in a self-contained, purpose built room within the Wellcome Collection Gallery

Effects of Monobutyl and Di(n-butyl) Phthalate in Vitro on Steroidogenesis and Leydig Cell Aggregation in Fetal Testis Explants from the Rat: Comparison with Effects in Vivo in the Fetal Rat and Neonatal Marmoset and in Vitro in the Human

BACKGROUND: Certain phthalates can impair Leydig cell distribution and steroidogenesis in the fetal rat in utero, but it is unknown whether similar effects might occur in the human. OBJECTIVES: Our aim in this study was to investigate the effects of di(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP), or its metabolite monobutyl phthalate (MBP), on testosterone production and Leydig cell aggregation (LCA) in fetal testis explants from the rat and human, and to compare the results with in vivo findings for DBP-exposed rats. We also wanted to determine if DBP/MBP affects testosterone production in vivo in the neonatal male marmoset. METHODS: Fetal testis explants obtained from the rat [gestation day (GD)19.5] and from the human (15–19 weeks of gestation) were cultured for 24–48 hr with or without human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) or 22R-hydroxycholesterol (22R-OH), and with or without DBP/MBP. Pregnant rats and neonatal male marmosets were dosed with 500 mg/kg/day DBP or MBP. RESULTS: Exposure of rats in utero to DBP (500 mg/kg/day) for 48 hr before GD21.5 induced major suppression of intratesticular testosterone levels and cytochrome P450 side chain cleavage enzyme (P450scc) expression; this short-term treatment induced LCA, but was less marked than longer term (GD13.5–20.5) DBP treatment. In vitro, MBP (10(−3) M) did not affect basal or 22R-OH-stimulated testosterone production by fetal rat testis explants but slightly attenuated hCG-stimulated steroidogenesis; MBP induced minor LCA in vitro. None of these parameters were affected in human fetal testis explants cultured with 10(−3) M MBP for up to 48 hr. Because the in vivo effects of DBP/MBP were not reproduced in vitro in the rat, the absence of MBP effects in vitro on fetal human testes is inconclusive. In newborn (Day 2–7) marmosets, administration of a single dose of 500 mg/kg MBP significantly (p = 0.019) suppressed blood testosterone levels 5 hr later. Similar treatment of newborn co-twin male marmosets for 14 days resulted in increased Leydig cell volume per testis (p = 0.011), compared with co-twin controls; this is consistent with MBP-induced inhibition of steroidogenesis followed by compensatory Leydig cell hyperplasia/hypertrophy. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that MBP/DBP suppresses steroidogenesis by fetal-type Leydig cells in primates as in rodents, but this cannot be studied in vitro

Mechanisms Underlying Metabolic and Neural Defects in Zebrafish and Human Multiple Acyl-CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency (MADD)

In humans, mutations in electron transfer flavoprotein (ETF) or electron transfer flavoprotein dehydrogenase (ETFDH) lead to MADD/glutaric aciduria type II, an autosomal recessively inherited disorder characterized by a broad spectrum of devastating neurological, systemic and metabolic symptoms. We show that a zebrafish mutant in ETFDH, xavier, and fibroblast cells from MADD patients demonstrate similar mitochondrial and metabolic abnormalities, including reduced oxidative phosphorylation, increased aerobic glycolysis, and upregulation of the PPARG-ERK pathway. This metabolic dysfunction is associated with aberrant neural proliferation in xav, in addition to other neural phenotypes and paralysis. Strikingly, a PPARG antagonist attenuates aberrant neural proliferation and alleviates paralysis in xav, while PPARG agonists increase neural proliferation in wild type embryos. These results show that mitochondrial dysfunction, leading to an increase in aerobic glycolysis, affects neurogenesis through the PPARG-ERK pathway, a potential target for therapeutic intervention

The novel p53 target gene IRF2BP2 participates in cell survival during the p53 stress response

The tumor suppressor p53 contributes to the cellular fate after genotoxic insults, mainly through the regulation of target genes, thereby allowing e.g. repair mechanisms resulting in cell survival or inducing apoptosis. Unresolved so far is the issue, which exact mechanisms lead to one or the other cellular outcome. Here, we describe the interferon regulatory factor-2-binding protein-2 (IRF2BP2) as a new direct target gene of p53, influencing the p53-mediated cellular decision. We show that upregulation of IRF2BP2 after treatment with actinomycin D (Act.D) is dependent on functional p53 in different cell lines. This occurs in parallel with the down-regulation of the interacting partner of IRF2BP2, the interferon regulatory factor-2 (IRF2), which is known to positively influence cell growth. Analyzing the molecular functions of IRF2BP2, it appears to be able to impede on the p53-mediated transactivation of the p21- and the Bax-gene. We show here that overexpressed IRF2BP2 has an impact on the cellular stress response after Act.D treatment and that it diminishes the induction of apoptosis after doxorubicin treatment. Furthermore, the knockdown of IRF2BP2 leads to an upregulation of p21 and faster induction of apoptosis after doxorubicin as well as Act.D treatment