Life Sculpted

Life Sculpted PDF Author: Anthony J. Martin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022681050X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
"There is much to love between this book’s covers. . . . There are many eureka moments in Life Sculpted—and some truly beautiful ones."—Eugenia Bone, Wall Street Journal Meet the menagerie of lifeforms that dig, crunch, bore, and otherwise reshape our planet. Did you know elephants dig ballroom-sized caves alongside volcanoes? Or that parrotfish chew coral reefs and poop sandy beaches? Or that our planet once hosted a five-ton dinosaur-crunching alligator cousin? In fact, almost since its fascinating start, life was boring. Billions of years ago bacteria, algae, and fungi began breaking down rocks in oceans, a role they still perform today. About a half-billion years ago, animal ancestors began drilling, scraping, gnawing, or breaking rocky seascapes. In turn, their descendants crunched through the materials of life itself—shells, wood, and bones. Today, such “bioeroders” continue to shape our planet—from the bacteria that devour our teeth to the mighty moon snail, always hunting for food, as evidenced by tiny snail-made boreholes in clams and other moon snails. There is no better guide to these lifeforms than Anthony J. Martin, a popular science author, paleontologist, and co-discoverer of the first known burrowing dinosaur. Following the crumbs of lichens, sponges, worms, clams, snails, octopi, barnacles, sea urchins, termites, beetles, fishes, dinosaurs, crocodilians, birds, elephants, and (of course) humans, Life Sculpted reveals how bioerosion expanded with the tree of life, becoming an essential part of how ecosystems function while reshaping the face of our planet. With vast knowledge and no small amount of whimsy, Martin uses paleontology, biology, and geology to reveal the awesome power of life’s chewing force. He provokes us to think deeply about the past and present of bioerosion, while also considering how knowledge of this history might aid us in mitigating and adapting to climate change in the future. Yes, Martin concedes, sometimes life can be hard—but life also makes everything less hard every day.

Life Sculpted

Life Sculpted PDF Author: Anthony J. Martin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022681050X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book Here

Book Description
"There is much to love between this book’s covers. . . . There are many eureka moments in Life Sculpted—and some truly beautiful ones."—Eugenia Bone, Wall Street Journal Meet the menagerie of lifeforms that dig, crunch, bore, and otherwise reshape our planet. Did you know elephants dig ballroom-sized caves alongside volcanoes? Or that parrotfish chew coral reefs and poop sandy beaches? Or that our planet once hosted a five-ton dinosaur-crunching alligator cousin? In fact, almost since its fascinating start, life was boring. Billions of years ago bacteria, algae, and fungi began breaking down rocks in oceans, a role they still perform today. About a half-billion years ago, animal ancestors began drilling, scraping, gnawing, or breaking rocky seascapes. In turn, their descendants crunched through the materials of life itself—shells, wood, and bones. Today, such “bioeroders” continue to shape our planet—from the bacteria that devour our teeth to the mighty moon snail, always hunting for food, as evidenced by tiny snail-made boreholes in clams and other moon snails. There is no better guide to these lifeforms than Anthony J. Martin, a popular science author, paleontologist, and co-discoverer of the first known burrowing dinosaur. Following the crumbs of lichens, sponges, worms, clams, snails, octopi, barnacles, sea urchins, termites, beetles, fishes, dinosaurs, crocodilians, birds, elephants, and (of course) humans, Life Sculpted reveals how bioerosion expanded with the tree of life, becoming an essential part of how ecosystems function while reshaping the face of our planet. With vast knowledge and no small amount of whimsy, Martin uses paleontology, biology, and geology to reveal the awesome power of life’s chewing force. He provokes us to think deeply about the past and present of bioerosion, while also considering how knowledge of this history might aid us in mitigating and adapting to climate change in the future. Yes, Martin concedes, sometimes life can be hard—but life also makes everything less hard every day.

Art Made from Books

Art Made from Books PDF Author:
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452129460
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Artists around the world have lately been turning to their bookshelves for more than just a good read, opting to cut, paint, carve, stitch or otherwise transform the printed page into whole new beautiful, thought-provoking works of art. Art Made from Books is the definitive guide to this compelling art form, showcasing groundbreaking work by today's most showstopping practitioners. From Su Blackwell's whimsical pop-up landscapes to the stacked-book sculptures of Kylie Stillman, each portfolio celebrates the incredible creative diversity of the medium. A preface by pioneering artist Brian Dettmer and an introduction by design critic Alyson Kuhn round out the collection.

Sculpting a Life

Sculpting a Life PDF Author: Paula Birnbaum
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1684581133
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
"The first biography of sculptor Chana Orloff, and the first to include stories from her unpublished "memoir," which focus on the artist's early life in Ukraine, her family's move to Palestine and Orloff's life there (1905-1910), and her subsequent years between Paris and Tel Aviv"--

Like Life

Like Life PDF Author: Luke Syson
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588396444
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Since before the myth of Pygmalion bringing a statue to life through desire, artists have used sculpture to explore the physical materiality of the body. This groundbreaking volume examines key sculptural works from thirteenth-century Europe to the global present, revealing new insights into the strategies artists deploy to blur the distinction between art and life. Three-dimensional renderings of the human figure are presented here in numerous manifestations, created by artists ranging from Donatello and Edgar Degas to Kiki Smith and Jeff Koons. Featuring works created in media both traditional and unexpected—such as glass, leather, and blood—Like Life presents sculpture by turns conventional and shocking, including effigies, dolls, mannequins, automata, waxworks, and anatomical models. Texts by curators and cultural historians as well as contemporary artists complete this provocative exploration of realistic representations of the human body. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}

The Evolution Underground

The Evolution Underground PDF Author: Anthony J Martin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681773759
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Humans have "gone underground" for survival for thousands of years, from underground cities in Turkey to Cold War-era bunkers. But our burrowing roots go back to the very beginnings of animal life on Earth. Many animal lineages alive now—including our own—only survived a cataclysmic meteorite strike 65 million years ago because they went underground.On a grander scale, the chemistry of the planet itself had already been transformed many millions of years earlier by the first animal burrows which altered whole ecosystems. Every day we walk on an earth filled with an underground wilderness teeming with life. Most of this life stays hidden, yet these animals and their subterranean homes are ubiquitous, ranging from the deep sea to mountains, from the equator to the poles. Burrows are a refuge from predators, a safe home for raising young, or a tool to ambush prey. Burrows also protect animals against all types of natural disasters. Filled with spectacularly diverse fauna, acclaimed paleontologist and ichnologist Anthony Martin reveals this fascinating, hidden world that will continue to influence and transform life on this planet.

The Sculpted Ear

The Sculpted Ear PDF Author: Ryan McCormack
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271087498
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Sound and statuary have had a complicated relationship in Western aesthetic thought since antiquity. Taking as its focus the sounding statue—a type of anthropocentric statue that invites the viewer to imagine sounds the statue might make—The Sculpted Ear rethinks this relationship in light of discourses on aurality emerging within the field of sound studies. Ryan McCormack argues that the sounding statue is best thought of not as an aesthetic object but as an event heard by people and subsequently conceptualized into being through acts of writing and performance. Constructing a history in which hearing plays an integral role in ideas about anthropocentric statuary, McCormack begins with the ancient sculpture of Laocoön before moving to a discussion of the early modern automaton known as Tipu’s Tiger and the statue of the Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Finally, he examines statues of people from the present and the past, including the singer Josephine Baker, the violinist Aleksandar Nikolov, and the actor Bob Newhart—with each case touching on some of the issues that have historically plagued the aesthetic viability of the sounding statue. McCormack convincingly demonstrates how sounding statues have served as important precursors and continuing contributors to modern ideas about the ontology of sound, technologies of sound reproduction, and performance practices blurring traditional divides between music, sculpture, and the other arts. A compelling narrative that illuminates the stories of individual sculptural objects and the audiences that hear them, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the connections between aurality and statues in the Western world, in particular scholars and students of sound studies and sensory history.

The Hand-sculpted House

The Hand-sculpted House PDF Author: Ianto Evans
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1890132349
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Cob, a structural composite of earth, water, straw, clay, and sand, has been used for centuries, in virtually all parts of the world, to create homes ranging from mud huts in Africa to lavish adobe haciendas in Latin America. This practical and inspiring hands-on guide teaches anyone to build a cob dwelling.

Sculpture

Sculpture PDF Author: Philip Rawson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512805556
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Philip Rawson, a distinguished academic and author, practiced as a sculptor all of his life. Sculpture, his final book, completes the trilogy begun with his classic works, Drawing and Ceramics. As in those earlier volumes, Rawson provides a clear, factual description of the underlying principles and structural techniques of the art. Although Rawson discusses sculptures from many places and periods—including Africa, Asia, Greece, Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and twentieth-century Europe and America—Sculpture is not a history as such. Rather, it is an original analysis of sculpture as a fundamental and integral form of human "language" capable of conveying a variety of different insights, offering a wealth of cultural and symbolic meaning. In the course of this analysis, Sculpture explores the full range of expressive techniques available to the sculptor today. Rawson's intent is to reveal possible modes of sculptural thought for practitioners and to enable the nonexpert to better understand and appreciate the emotional and intellectual content of any work.

Dinosaur Sculpting

Dinosaur Sculpting PDF Author: Allen A. Debus
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786472057
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This new book, greatly expanded from the 1995 first edition, describes detailed, step-by-step procedures for sculpting, molding and painting original prehistoric animals. It emphasizes the use of relatively inexpensive materials including oven-hardening polymer clay and wire. Additional tips are offered on how to build distinctive dino-dioramas and scenes involving one's own original sculptures that you will learn how to conceive and build. This book will appeal to a new generation who would like to break into the industry of paleosculpture. Techniques range from "basic" to "advanced." The authors also discuss what it means to be a "paleoartist."

Before the Fall

Before the Fall PDF Author: Anna Lawton
Publisher: New Acdemia+ORM
ISBN: 1122848501
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
An expanded edition of Kinoglasnost that examines the fascinating world of Soviet cinema during the yeas of glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s. In Before the Fall, Anna Lawton shows how the reforms that shook the foundations of the Bolshevik state and affected economic and social structures have been reflected in the film industry. A new added chapter provides a commentary on the dramatic changes that marked the beginning of democracy in Russia. Soviet cinema has always been closely connected with national political reality, challenging the conventions of bourgeois society and educating the people. In this pioneering study, Lawton discusses the restructuring of the main institutions governing the industry; the abolition of censorship; the emergence of independent production and distribution systems; the dismantling of the old bureaucratic structures and the implementation of new initiatives. She also surveys the films that remained unscreened for decades for political reasons, films of the new wave that look at the past to search out the truth, and those that record current social ills or conjure up a disquieting image of the future. “What makes Kinoglasnost pre-eminent among current studies of the subject is that sustained attention Lawton pays to changes in the formal organization of Soviet cinema and in the cinema industry.” —Julian Graffy, Sight and Sound “The author constructs a complex, multilayered narrative of a steady and significant movement toward radical change in Soviet society, an account of the growing anxiety and the hope experienced by Russian filmmakers and the intelligentsia.” —Ludmila Z. Pruner, Slavic and East European Journal