Nudibranch Fashion, Jellyfish Couture: Marine Invertebrates Do the Oscars

Nudibranch photographed by David Doubilet (via Photoshelter blog)

Recently, I was tickled to read a tweet;

Oh god. Once you compare one dress with a nudibranch, they all look like Nudibranchs.
— Seelix Sparklefists (@seelix) January 12, 2015

For context, the Golden Globes were the previous evening.

Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur (1904),
plate 43: Nudibranchia

A someone who enjoys the most weird and wonderful specimen of the animal kingdom and who has done a lot of fieldwork at sea, I knew instantly what she meant. If you are not familiar with arguably the most weird and wonderful sea creature going, you should watch National Geographic photographer David Doublet introduce the nudibranch. National Geographic calls the short film an introduction to "the glamor slugs of the sea" and Doubilet himself says, “Of all the creatures in the sea, these are the high fashion models.”

Leopold and Rudolf Blashka, glass model of a nudibranch,
late 19th/early 20th century

These spectacular marine invertebrates, are perhaps improbably, mollosks who shed their shells after the larval stage. They are multifarious and come in thousands of species, though they are often confused with sea slugs. You may have seen the illustrations by famed 19th century biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel (whom I've written about previously) or the amazing glass models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. They inhabit the all the oceans of the world. The come in every conceivable colour combination, it seems, a range of improbable shapes and though most are small they can range from roughly 1 to 50 cm in length like the fabulous Spanish Dancers. The name "nudibranch" comes from the Greek for "naked gill", a description of the rosette of branchial plumes protruding from their backs. The tentacles on their heads are sensitive to touch, taste, and smell. They are hermaphrodites, each having both types of sex organs, but they do need two to mate. They may appear harmless, but they are carnivores, and some produce and use toxins defensively. Even cannibalism is not unknown, and they will eat other species of nudibranch.

This marvellous hat is part of Fashion at the Races'
Deep Sea series, and is specifically inspired by the
nudibranch. It is a headpiece which "is hand
sculpted out of hot pink jinsin straw, and it has
battery operated LED lights to mimic the
bioluminesene that many deep sea creatures have."

The tweet sent me down the "nudibranch fashion" rabbithole. These amazing creatures don't merely ressemble the more outré high fashion, they are sometimes their inspiration. Entire seasons for some designers may be inspired by sea creatures like the nudibranch.

Mirella Bruno Print Design Project
Direction Boards SS/2014.
Note that this includes a few nudibranches.

The logical thing to do, of course, is to have a go at it: matching award show gowns to nudibranch species, and see if in fact they do all ressemble nudibranches! I've written previously about how origami has inspired fashion, crystallography has inspired fashion or a wonderful mash-up of dresses and gig posters. So what about a mash-up of fashion and nudibranches? First, I thought to check whether this has been done.  Where I See Fashion,  is a visual feast; fashion student Bianca Luini creates an on-going blog of mash-ups of fashion photography and everything else, from natural history to abstract art, where the everything else echos the lines, patterns, shapes and colours of the fashion. Searching through their images, it seems she has paired fashion imagery with marine invertebrates, but only (as far as I can tell) with jellyfish.

Match #226
Yiqing Yin Fall 2012 | Jellyfishes at the Aquarium of The Bay in San Francisco, CA

Match #157
Jil Sander Spring 2011 | Jellyfish in a tank lit up with coloured lights photographed by pixelmama

Where I See Fashion: Match #1 gown and jellyfish

Where I See Fashion Match #8 photo and bioluminescent jellyfish

So, without further ado, and with thanks to all the people and creatures mentioned for their inspiration, here are my Oscar dress/Nudibranch pairs:

Marion Cottilard attends the 87th Annual Academy Awards, February 22, 2015
(MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images) and dorid nudibranch
Cadlina luteomarginata (Jeff Goddard, Santa Barbara).

Rosamund Pike attends the 87th Annual Academy Awards, February 22, 2015
(Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage) and a spanish dancer nudibranch
off Australia (Photoe by Chris, Underwater Australia)

Emma Stone (Getty) and Manned Nudibranch Aeolidia papillosa
(Photo (c) Luc Gangnon, 2015 Aquatic Biodiversity Monitoring Network)

Blanca Blanco (Getty) and nudibranch (via here)

Scarlett Johansson (Mark Raulston/AFP/Getty) and green nudibranch
(by Saffron on scuba-fish gallery)

Gwenyth Paltrow (Getty) and a Nudibranch egg rosette

Ernst Haeckel & Artforms in Nature

Ernst Haeckel, linocut on kozo, 30.5 cm by 30.5 cm, 2011, by Ele Willoughby

Ernst Haeckel's Artforms in Naure, 1904 can be viewed here

Biologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator par excellence Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – August 9, 1919), and his beautiful and well-known Artforms in Nature can be credited for the fact that people who are not say, marine microbiologists or geostratigraphers or their colleagues, know and are inspired by the extraordinary forms of radiolarians (as I've written about before), or are familiar with any number of exotic marine invertebrates.  Here we have the man himself, surrounded by several of the creatures he depicted. Clockwise from the top we have: rugosa, a foraminifer (or foram), a tubularid hydroid, homo sapiens (Ernst Haeckel), a dinoflagelate, and a sea slug or nudibranch. His was a form of descriptive science, where his art, his depictions of lifeforms was science, or his science was art. As such, he can be seen as a sort of culmination of centuries of work of his predecessors, gathering their cabinets of curiosity, their wunderkammer of creatures, driven almost as much by aesthetics as by exploration of the biosphere. You can trace this sort of scientific collecting from luminaries of the scientific revolution like Robert Hooke who gathered microscopic wunderkammer, and many others throughout the age of exploration, who travelled the world gathering specimen through to the Victorians whose obsession with cabinets of curiosity has been explained as an indication in fact of a morbid fear of death (in Olalquiaga's The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury Of The Kitsch Experience).

His particular presentation of life*, which highlights the inherent patterns and beauty, has long been an influence on artists (myself included). Consider the rococco jellyfish chandeliers of Timothy Horn, a hommage to Haeckel's drawings. Haeckel's influence can also be seen in the surreal and imaginary zoological and botanical style drawings of Katie Scott, or the entire otherworldly visual encyclopedia in an alien language Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini. You can compare his drawings with the glass sculptures of the near contemporary Blaschka father and son, who created fabulous menageries filled with marine invertebrates as well as other creatures and botanicals and whose work likewise straddles art and science and their fertile intersection. His work lead to the incorporation of forms from nature finding their way into everything from furniture to architecture, as well as the more obvious influence on fine art and scientific illustration.

*Sadly, his deep appreciation of life in its many forms did not translate into an enlightened view of his own species. While he did make contributions to evolutionary biology, and was a great popularizer of Darwin's work in Germany, he also used a confused hodgepodge of Darwinian and Lamarkian ideas and far more speculation than a we would consider reasonable in a modern scientific sense. Some of his discredited scientific ideas were in vogue during his lifetime, and his errors should be considered within context. Most disappointing however, were his wrong-headed and repugnant social Darwinist ideas about race and his evolutionary racism which have been linked to the rise of Fascism. I've long enjoyed his extraordinary art/science and was saddened to read that he harboured such ideas, but I think it's important to avoid lionizing people, for instance for their artistic or scientific ideas, and to acknowledge their failings as well as achievements. I can admire his scientific illustration and tireless zoological investigations but still repudiate his ideas about human evolution.

Radiolarians

Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur (1904), plate 31: Cyrtoidea

Radiolarians (or radiolaria) occur as zooplankton throughout the oceans and their tiny skeletal remains can be used as diagnostic fossils to date submarine sediments. Biologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator par excellence Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – August 9, 1919), and his beautiful and well-known Artforms in Nature can be credited for the fact that people who are not say, marine microbiologists or geostratigraphers or their colleagues, know and are inspired by the extraordinary forms of radiolarians. I am, of course, a fan of Haeckel, and he inspired my own prints (see right) of these amoeboid protozoa and their intricate mineral skeletons. I am far from alone in being inspired by radiolarians. I've found examples of their forms making their way into art, architecture, jewellery and even textiles. But first, you can learn everything you might want to know about radiolarians, and Haeckel's obsession with them, from this selection from Proteus a documentary about the life, work, and philosophy of Ernst Haeckel, by David LeBrun.



It should be noted that Haeckel wasn't the only 19th century naturalist to be enthralled. SEED Magazine has a photo gallery of the the collection of Howard Lynk, a hobbyist who researches the microcope slide-makers of the 1840s-1860s, with many radiolarians included, often arranged artistically, like mandalas.

" Radiolarians - In this slide, Amos Topping has arranged the minuscule shells of radiolarians—a kind of protozoa—into a radial pattern reminiscent of a mandala. Looking through a microscope, a mounter would maneuver the diatoms or shells using a boar bristle or a cat’s whisker, trying to keep them all in place long enough for mounting."

Artist Laura Gurton works with resin, and its unpredictable interactions with oil paint to produce her biomorphic images, including these, inspired by radiolarians.

Radiolarians (Marine Protozoa), Zygospyris,2010. Oil, Alkyd, Acrylic, Mica, Cut Board 36" x 24"

Spyridobotrys Trinacria, 2010. Oil, Alkyd, Cut Board on Panel 18" x 24"

A more fanciful image inspired by radiolarians is Queen Radiolaria by Morgainelefee on deviantart.

The wonderful and quixotic Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef ("a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world") includes radiolarians!

Crochet radiolarian, made from mercerized cotton by Sarah Simons.




Quiltmaker and textile artist Jenny Bowker's portfolio of masterful quilts includes "Radiolarian Drift" (cotton homespun hand dyed in Procion dyes, raw silk as a background and wool batting).

The fascinating 3D forms of these creatures of course inspire sculptural and architectural works. Jessica Rosenkrantz of nervous system uses new technologies to reinterpret natural phenomena. The forms radiolarians are evident in a lot of the jewellery she has made (and their titles often indicate the species).


"Bamboo Cuff - sterling silver, lost wax casting from 3d-printed wax, Cell Cycle collection by Nervous System. Inspired by the microscopic glass skeletons of radiolarians."

Nigel Helyer created 'Radiolarians' a public artwork for the Lake MacQuarie City Gallery, installed in February 2011.

'Radiolarians' (2010) Finished construction: corten steel, marine grade stainless steel wire cable, stainless steel.

"The Radiolaria Project is a research and design project at the University of Kassel initiated by Christian Troche and Gregor Zimmermann. It aims to rethink architectural design and manufacturing techniques by exploring the filigree and beautiful skeletons of radiolarians, tiny marine organisms, with their striking hexagonal patterns. This concept is transfered to architectural scale and materialized it in a large scale interior installation by the intensive use of parametric modelling, scripting and CNC-fabrication techniques."

Images of the mesh and design from The Radiolaria Project. Be sure to check out the extensive website for the images and explanations of the evolution of the project (and the work of its participants).

Architect and designer Tomasz Starczewski and his studio produced DIATOM by analysing the siliceous skeletons of radiolarians, and extracting, the "logic of their structure and its application to creations of a new form." He created 3D computer models of a group of radiolarians (Lamprocyclas margatensis), modified the models and then used this to create objects with a 3D printer.

DIATOM by Tomasz Starczewski

Taking the 3D printed radiolarian to an extreme scale, Andrea Morgante of Shiro Studio in collaboration with D-Shape produced the Radiolaria pavilion. The 3 m by 3 m by 3 m structure, printed on the world's largest 3D printer is in fact a mere scale model a final 8-metre tall pavilion being built in Pontedera, Italy (more info at de zeen magazine and images via Shiro Studio). Shiro Studio compares the construction of this model, with its deposition of mineral and siliceous material, in a series of very thin layers to the formation of radiolarian mineral and siliceous skeletons.

You can find other posts tagged Ernst Haeckel here.

Singing about Isostsy, with Stop-Motion and the Baltic Sea

(↬Colossal)

This lovely short stop-motion paper craft video is directed by Vincent Pianina and Lorenzo Papace (May 2012) for Papace's band Ödland, for the song Østersøen on the album Sankta Lucia (October 2011). The music was also written, composed and recorded by Lorenzo Papace. The song tells the story, in French, of dreaming of traveling in bed, moving about a room, aboard a train, which in turn is aboard a ship, which is sailing the Baltic Sea, trying to avoid dangerous islands.

There is a verse about isostacy, which has got to be the most only artistic interpretation of the geophysical concept I've ever seen. It's quite pertinent to the Baltic, due to the post-glacial rebound (or isotatic rebound) of Fennoscandia¹ to the north and east of the sea; basically, the nature and size of the sea depends on its relative height. Imagine all the continents floating on the Earth's mantle (also shown in the video), much like icebergs float in the sea, with a certain proportion above water and the remainder below. Everything will find its equilibrium position. If you drop an ice cube in your glass of water, it may sink initially then float to the surface; isostasy (or with fluids, buoyancy) will push the less dense up so that it can be in gravitational equilibrium. In the case of icebergs, which are only slightly less dense than water, there is 90% below the sea and only 10% above. It is isostasy which determines these proportions, as the song says (the islands like icebergs find the sea surface through the process of isostasy). Thus mountains have 'roots' just like icebergs hide much below the waterline. If you put a large weight on the Earth, it will deform to accommodate this weight like a trampoline. Consider for instance huge glacial ice sheets during ice ages. These pushed the crust downward. Since the removal of that weight and the retreat of the icesheets, the Earth has been rebounding upward to find its new icesheet-less equilibrium. (The Earth, like SillyPutty, is viscoelastic, so it does not respond instantaneously to the removal of the icesheet's mass, but on a longer time scale governed by the nature of the mantle - specifically its viscosity. It's also important to remember that if we think in geological time, units of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years are not that long). Thus vast regions of the Earth near the poles, like Fennoscandia, or Canada's Hudson's Bay are in fact moving and have been moving upward, away from the centre of the planet, since the retreat of the glaciers and the end of the last ice age. In the song, which describes a dream, the process is vastly sped up, and "dangerous islands" pop up through isostasy in a matter of seconds, so the boat must take a circumambulating path to navigate its changing seascape.

Consider the series of shapes needed to show the rise of a single island!

The video uses the plates of Ernst Haeckel² to great effect. I love the spatial context; the bed upon the train upon the ship upon the sea, complete with the multifarious sea life; the sea in turn is shown in context of Northern Europe and earth and the solar system. In the process they built a wonderful orrery (solar system model). How I love orreries. The train furthermore travels an amazing roller coaster-like track, which I'm astounded to learn they built and filmed in only 4 months. It's really quite marvellous.

You can find more about the music, the video, art and process on the blog Le Petit Écho Malade. You can even buy the sheet music. I'm so charmed by this quixotic, anachronistic endeavour. Check it out.

1 Ok, I just wanted to use the word 'Fennoscandia'. It is the geological province which encompasses the entire Scandinavian peninsula and Finnland.

2 You know how I am a raving fan of the wunderkammer collections of nature illustration by Ernst Haeckel.

Haeckelesque & Codex

Several people (i.e. this is a what) have recently posted the wonderous illustrations of Katie Scott, but how could I resist? They remind me of course of botonical and zoological illustrations of Ernst Haeckel, with a modern, magical twist.











Ernst Haekel(February 16, 1834 – August 9, 1919), the famed German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist, whose book "Art Forms in Nature" filled with lovely 19th century scientific illustrations of biology has inspired many of my prints. I've had Haeckel on the brain even more than usual, having completed his portrait this week. So here we have the man himself, surrounded by several of the creatures he depicted. Clockwise from the top we have: rugosa, a foraminifer (or foram), a tubularid hydroid, homo sapiens (Ernst Haeckel), a dinoflagellate, and a sea slug or nudibranch.


Katie Scott's familiar, yet imaginary creatures, also remind me of my favorite book which I've never seen in person*: the Codex Seraphinianus, written and illustrated by Italian architect Luigi Serafini from 1976 to 1978. It's a visual encyclopedia, of a foreign, paradoxical yet familiar, world, complete with its own language and obscure meanings.















There's much more to this publication than I've shown, so do yourself a favour and check out this list where it has been digitized in its surreal entirety! It has been compared to the Voynich Manuscript, a medieval manuscript in an undeciphered script (looks like a combination of roman characters and numbers) with illustrations of a seemingly scientific nature (botanical, astronomical or astrological, pharmaceutical) which has confused cryptologists and medievalists for decades.

*Hint to friends and loved ones: I need this book. Any edition is fine by me!