EMBRYONIC LANDSCAPES
English and Spanish editions
85 photographs and 23 texts
Published by ACTAR, 2001
ACTAR
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08023 Barcelona
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Distributed in the U.S.A. through D.A.P.
"Embryonic Landscapes is Ariel Ruiz
i Altabas remarkable, surprising, intelligent and deeply
moving photographic collection produced over the last fifteen
years of his career as scientist and photographer. In these
images he has captured the essence and external forms of developing
embryos and embryonic forms in photographs that recall a recapitulation
of art history: From the walls of Lascaux, to arid African
landscapes, goyesque images and the paintings of Motherwell,
Pollock and Miró.
In an era when the secrets of the human genome
are beginning to be unraveled, Embryonic Landscapes
presents images revealing critical morphologies and molecular
patterns of gene expression in different species that share
common developmental mechanisms with man, making of this work
an introspective exploration of our very essence. But far
from being documents from a scientific point of view, the
images in Embryonic Landscapes were composed for their
aesthetic value. The solid scientific knowledge combined with
the tense sense of aesthetics with which he approaches the
subjects conveys reverence and awe. And yet every image reveals
the possibilities of worlds at different scales in which the
raising of questions is the aim rather than the search of
suitable answers.
Embryonic Landscapes also presents original
essays by active scientists, painters, photographers, writers
and philosophers. These texts address questions concerning
the photographs themselves, the similarities and differences
of art and science, the metaphors and realities of the photographic
image, the individuality of the artist versus the anonymity
of the scientist, the poetry of embryogenesis and the aesthetics
of development through a literary approach among other subjects.
Thus, this is as much a book about Nature as it is about us".
With the collaboration of John Berger, Lewis
Wolpert, Joan Fontcuberta, Alain Prochiantz, Lennart Philipson,
Víctor Molina, Kate Breakey, Cristian Ruiz i Altaba,
Deborah Treisman, Carter Hodgkin, Tracy Handel, , Eulàlia
Bosch, Tamara Gurbis, Antonio García-Bellido, David
Kimelman, Dolors Altaba-Artal, Xavier Rubert de Ventós,
Elena Alvarez-Buylla, Jon Weider, Cécile Gulbert, Jessica
Treisman, William Vollmann and Lawrence Weschler.
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