ANTICS Merging Science and Art
From the original proposal to TPAC
Antics is a collaborative effort of five long-time SASI members who want to explore the interaction of science, natural history, and visual art. Calling for diverse skills, artists, scientists and craftspeople are working together to create the installation; each person contributing their own aesthetic understanding and experience to the project.
Antics includes mixed media art, photography, performance art and an audience participation activity. The installation focuses on living colonies of several species of local ants (Pheidole rhea, Crematogaster sp., Camponotus festinatus, Aphaenogaster cockerelli, and Aphaenogaster boulderensis) housed in a variety of clear plastic boxes connected by clear tubing. Varying the temperatures, humidity, and light in each box provides the ants with options. Thermometers in each chamber allow the viewer to make observations of ant preferences for different environmental conditions. A metal armature support s each colony at appropriate viewing levels. Different aspects of ant behavior are able to be explored in the foraging arenas. Gelatin silver photographs provide an up-close examination of what viewers can not perceive with the naked eye. Large, colorful vertical banners created from photographs provide a graphic arts dimension. Feeding and checking the colony's health each weekday is a performance aspect of the project. A "laboratory" will include the equipment needed for this activity. The audience participation segment includes an area for viewers to pick up a clipboard and data cards on which to record their observations and thoughts. Completed data cards will accumulate on one wall throughout the exhibition, creating a dialogue about the ants.
The daily performance explores ideas about home, containment, domination, manipulation and human beings' relationship to other species. The feminist critique will examine the matriarchal structure of the colony and the female caretaker. Using the gallery as a scientific laboratory engages the viewer as scientist and will investigate the hierarchy between scientific research and the public. Blurring the boundary of the natural history museum and the art gallery engages a diverse audience and challenges the definitions and limitations of each institution.
Antics is a major production warranting greater exposure than the showing at Tucson/Pima Arts Council. As such, we have applied for a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts for funding to exhibit at other venues. We are also planning to have a least one of the ant colonies on display at the 2000 Invertebrates in Captivity Conference in Rio Rico, August 3-6 since the exhibit components include those manufactured by Conference Sponsors. Janet Bardwell and Steve Prchal plan to give paper presentations about the exhibit at the Conference.
Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute (SASI) is a not-for-profit science and environmental education organization founded in 1986. Its facilities in Tucson Mountain Park include laboratory, classroom, library, synoptic collections, insect gardens and nature trails. SASI is supported by a diverse national membership including teachers, students, professional and amateur entomologists, and a general public interested in natural history and conservation. It is devoted exclusively to research, education, conservation and publications concerning Sonoran Desert arthropods and their relationships with plants, other animals and humans.
SASI provides the general public of all ages with rewarding educational programs both on-site and around southern Arizona. Since 1993, SASI has hosted and organized the Invertebrates in Captivity Conference, attended by invertebrate specialists from the museum, insect zoo, nature center and butterfly house industries. SASI's publications include Butterflies of Southeastern Arizona (1991), Desert Butterfly Gardening (1996) and Butterflies of Coronado National Memorial (1999). Backyard BUGwatching and the instar are SASI member publications. SASI's current research efforts include the Ants of Tucson Mountain Park, a five-year study headed up by the German researcher, Dr. Ingo Hahn. SASI's website, www.SASIonline.org, includes an expanding educational component which explores the natural history of Sonoran Desert arthropods as well as information on the organization and its programs.
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