September 6, 2014

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The 11-Foot Long Neuron

Eleven feet of cement and doll hair, Spike by Julia Buntaine is not only an idea, but an idea conductor writ large. By forcing visitors to walk around an art object so huge and heavy, to take in its undeniable presence, Buntaine creates a proportional importance in space as the neuron does in our lives.

By Glendon Mellow

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Eleven feet of cement and doll hair, Spike by Julia Buntaine is not only an idea, but an idea conductor writ large. By forcing visitors to walk around an art object so huge and heavy, to take in its undeniable presence, Buntaine creates a proportional importance in space as the neuron does in our lives.

Making ideas tangible and proportionately significant seems to drive Julia Buntaine: last year she founded the excellent SciArt in America magazine. The magazine is free and available digitally, and I was tremendously excited to see its impact as further evidence that a sciart movement is real and thriving. Buntaine and her team then created a physical space in New York for sciart to have a presence as well: the SciArt Center.

Both for her artistic creations and for her artistic activism, Julia Buntaine is going to continue to be someone we should all be paying a lot of attention to in the coming years.

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Big, energy-conducting ideas made manifest. Yes.

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Links

For the third year running, we are turning September into a month-long celebration of science artists by delivering new sciart to invade your eyeballs. The SciArt Blitz! Can’t get enough? Check out what was previously featured on this day.

 

2013: If Anime Can Save Science Outreach, It Will Look Like This - art by Wenquing Yan

 

 

2012: Cuckoos, Nightjars, Pootoos...yes, Pootoos! - art by Roger Tory Peterson

 

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