Carl Einstein's Negerplastik: early twentieth-century avant-garde encounters between art and ethnography

The thesis focuses on the work of the author and critic Carl Einstein (1885 -1940), a key figure in the history of early twentieth-century art and literature. Introducing new archival material from the Berlin Ethnological Museum, the British Museum and a number of other sources, it offers a thorough re-examination of the circumstances and cultural practices that shaped Einstein's antagonism towards the itinerant `primitivism hubbub' and contemporary prejudice, and retrieves what is his most incisive intervention into the discourse on art and primitivism: his book Negerplastik (1915). Reconnecting Negerplastik to Einstein's early art-criticism in the context of pre-1914 German Kulturpolitik and in the often highly competitive circles of the intellectual avant-garde, the thesis investigates his hitherto neglected role in staging the first two exhibitions in Germany which, during 1913, presented African sculpture alongside avant-garde painting - and Picasso's Cubist work - at the Neue Galerie in Berlin. In what is described as a `visual turn', it analyzes Negerplastik and its audaciously modernist visualization of non-western sculpture, and argues that by making the ethnographic 'curio' an object of theory Einstein, as it were, 'invented' the aesthetic category of African art. The thesis brings together material that, although embedded in the period's documents and chronicles, has largely gone unnoticed. Yet evidence, such as the critical reaction to Einstein's 1913 African exhibitions, his letters to his friends Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Ewald Wasmuth, or the material gathered between 1925 and 1930 for a joint project with the British Museum's keeper Thomas A. Joyce is central to understanding the historical significance of Negerplastik and Einstein's ethnographic encounter. Ethnography provided the basis for some of his most compelling art-critical texts in the journal Documents. It informed the development of his concept of an Ethnologie du blanc which transgressed academic disciplines and epistemic tradition, and engendered a 'visual turn' that, by leaving the images to do the work of language, operated as Einstein's `silent' critique of modernist sculpture. The thesis concludes by contending that, between 1916 and 1918, Negerplastik served as catalyst, and matrix, for a number of avant-garde reconfigurations of African sculpture in which the objects' photographic framing re-confirmed this sculpture as art. It addresses aspects of Einstein's role within the discourse on art and cultural difference, which - despite the now sizeable secondary literature devoted to him - have not been sufficiently examined

Comparative Population Assessments of Nautilus sp. in the Philippines, Australia, Fiji, and American Samoa Using Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems

The extant species of Nautilus and Allonautilus (Cephalopoda) inhabit fore-reef slope environments across a large geographic area of the tropical western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans. While many aspects of their biology and behavior are now well-documented, uncertainties concerning their current populations and ecological role in the deeper, fore-reef slope environments remain. Given the historical to current day presence of nautilus fisheries at various locales across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, a comparative assessment of the current state of nautilus populations is critical to determine whether conservation measures are warranted. We used baited remote underwater video systems (BRUVS) to make quantitative photographic records as a means of estimating population abundance of Nautilus sp. at sites in the Philippine Islands, American Samoa, Fiji, and along an approximately 125 km transect on the fore reef slope of the Great Barrier Reef from east of Cairns to east of Lizard Island, Australia. Each site was selected based on its geography, historical abundance, and the presence (Philippines) or absence (other sites) of Nautilus fisheries The results from these observations indicate that there are significantly fewer nautiluses observable with this method in the Philippine Islands site. While there may be multiple possibilities for this difference, the most parsimonious is that the Philippine Islands population has been reduced due to fishing. When compared to historical trap records from the same site the data suggest there have been far more nautiluses at this site in the past. The BRUVS proved to be a valuable tool to measure Nautilus abundance in the deep sea (300–400 m) while reducing our overall footprint on the environment

SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS OF SWIMMING TRAJECTORIES REVEALS SCALE INVARIANCE AND PROVIDES A MODEL FOR FISH LOCOMOTION

We have questioned whether a complex behavior, such as fish swimming, can be better described quantitatively as a sequence of discrete events or states than with classical kinematic measures which can be compromised by inherent variability. Here, the different states, expressed as combinations of symbols, were defined on the basis of the animal’s location (A: periphery, and B: inner part of the aquarium) and speed (Fast and Slow). We observed that the distributions of time intervals spent in the successive states were not gaussian. Rather, they were fit by power laws associated with an underlying Lévy-like process which has more long intervals, primarily due to prolonged periods of relative inactivity. Furthermore, our data suggest that the swimming behavior can be attributed to interactions between two intrinsic systems. One is represented by the matrix of transition of probabilities between states and controls their sequential organization while the second, which is defined by interval distributions, determines the time spent in each state. This kinetic model detects subtle effects of low doses of neuroactive compounds, and identifies their specific locus of action. We propose that this paradigm can be ‡ Corresponding author. 233 234 P. Faure et al. applied to characterize normal behavior and its modifications by genetic or pharmacological manipulations

The 5-HT5A receptor regulates excitability in the auditory startle circuit: functional implications for sensorimotor gating

Here we applied behavioral testing, pharmacology, and in vivo electrophysiology to determine the function of the serotonin 5-HT5A receptor in goldfish startle plasticity and sensorimotor gating. In an initial series of behavioral experiments, we characterized the effects of a selective 5-HT5A antagonist, SB-699551 (3-cyclopentyl-N-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]-N-[(4 -{[(2-phenylethyl)amino]methyl}-4- biphenylyl)methyl]propanamide dihydrochloride), on prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response. Those experiments showed a dose-dependent decline in startle rates in prepulse conditions. Subsequent behavioral experiments showed that SB-699551 also reduced baseline startle rates (i.e., without prepulse). To determine the cellular mechanisms underlying these behaviors, we tested the effects of two distinct selective 5-HT5A antagonists, SB-699551 and A-843277 (N-(2,6-dimethoxybenzyl)-N [4-(4-fluorophenyl)thiazol- 2-yl]guanidine), on the intrinsic membrane properties and synaptic sound response of the Mauthner cell (M-cell), the decision-making neuron of the startle circuit. Auditory-evoked postsynaptic potentials recorded in the M-cell were similarly attenuated after treatment with either 5-HT5A antagonist (SB-699551, 26.413.98% reduction; A-843277, 17.526.24% reduction). This attenuation was produced by a tonic (intrinsic) reduction in M-cell input resistance, likely mediated by a Cl conductance, that added to the extrinsic inhibition produced by an auditory prepulse. Interestingly,the effector mechanisms underlying neural prepulse inhibition itself were unaffected by antagonist treatment. In summary, these results provide an in vivo electrophysiological characterization of the 5-HT5A receptor and its behavioral relevance and provide a new perspective on the interaction of intrinsic and extrinsic modulatory mechanisms in startle plasticity and sensorimotor gating.Fil: Curtin, Paul C. P.. City University Of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Medan, Violeta. City University Of New York; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Neumeister, Heike. City University Of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Bronson, Daniel R.. City University Of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Preuss, Thomas. City University Of New York; Estados Unido