SOPA/PIPA New bills in the US Congress and Senate are attempting to give corporations the ability to censor and shut down websites without due process. Protect non-profit and educational fair use copyright laws. Go to americancensorship.org
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Next time you make travel reservations online, enter your favorite site through this page Hopetels.com Next time you’re buying ANYTHING on Amazon.com, enter through this page We have an exciting conference and art exhibition on mimicry and crypsis planned for fall 2012. Stay tuned for the call for papers. Thanks for supporting Dactyl.
Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her –J. B. S. Haldane Drawing on her experiences as a complexity theorist, novelist and art-theorist, Victoria N. Alexander examines the history and practices of teleology, the study of purpose, in nature as well as in human behavior. She takes us “inside” paradoxically purposeful self-organizing entities (which somehow make themselves without having selves yet to do the making), and she shows us how poetic-like relationships—things coincidentally like each other or metaphoric and things coincidentally near each other or metonymic—help form organization where there was none before. She suggests that it is these chance language-like processes that result in emergent design and selfhood, thereby offering an alternative to postmodern theories that have unfairly snubbed the purposeful artist. Alexander claims that what has been missing from the general discussion of purposefulness is a theory of creativity, without which there can be no purposeful action, only robotic execution of inherited design. Thus revising while reviving teleology, she offers us a secular, non-essentialist conception of selfhood as an achievement that can be more than a momentary stay against the second law. The book includes anecdotes about Dactyl Foundation’s artists and history. All proceeds from book sales will be donated to the foundation to help support educational programs and research in art-science.
What can be learned about human semiosis, interpretation, communication, creativity and meaning-making by studying less complex but analogous phenomena in cellular signaling, chemotaxis, zoosemiotics, embryonic development, or the immune system? Can the pervasive metaphoric usages of chemical “message,” genetic “information,” and ”signaling” in contemporary biology be defined more precisely by taking them literally? While human symbolic representation may be species-specific–or at least unique to unusually big-brained animals–it must have emerged out of less complex semiotic processes and proto-semiotic processes. What are the antecedents of human semiosis? And how can the exploration of these antecedents help bridge the unnatural gap between body and mind that was imposed centuries ago more for religious than scientific reasons? All are welcome to attend. For registration information click here. Want to learn more about Biosemiotics? Visit the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies website, or listen to ISBS Vice-President Don Favareau on BBC radio.
Shadowplay (Ellipsis Press, 137 pages) by Norman Lock is the 2010 Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award recipient. A dense fable, mixing magic realism with self-reflexivity….. See Dactyl Review.
NORMAN LOCK is the author of The King of Sweden (Ravenna Press), Shadowplay (Ellipsis Press), A History of the Imagination (FC2), ‘The Book of Supplemental Diagrams’ for Marco Knauff’s Universe (Ravenna Press), The Long Rowing Unto Morning (Ravenna Press), Two Plays for Radio (Triple Press), and–writing as George Belden–Land of the Snow Men (from Calamari Press and in Japanese from Kawade Shobo). Two short-prose collections – Joseph Cornell’s Operas and Émigrés – were published by Elimae Books and subsequently issued, in Turkish, by an Istanbul publisher as part of its New World Writing series. Together with Grim Tales, they were brought out by Triple Press as Trio. Cirque du Calder, a hand-made artist’s book with afterword by Gordon Lish, was presented by The Rogue Literary Society. [continue...]
November 2010 In her new film El Monte, Yelena Yemchuk’s crisp black-and-white rendering of a feverish dream is reminiscent of Fellini’s 8½, even using a breathless soundtrack in homage to the opening of the Italian director’s autobiographical masterpiece. An elegant, if unsettling, platform to showcase a festival of vintage gowns, El Monte features supermodel Natasa Vojnovic, who gives an accomplished and poetic performance, actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, musician Melissa Auf der Maur and the haunting voice of Elisa Silver. Filmed at Dactyl Foundation for the Arts in New York, with mid-century furniture on loan from Chelsea’s Demisch Danant gallery, the set designed by Ukraine-born Yemchuk could easily be mistaken for a location featured [continue...]
What is Biosemiotics? Listen to philosopher Don Favareau on BBC radio. The call for papers is now closed. [continue...]
For a number of years, publishing has been dominated by commercial fiction. Literary fiction novels and short story collections by small presses or independent authors have little chance of being noticed by reviewers or placed on bookstore shelves. Even the literary fiction written by relatively well-known writers published by big houses has been pushed to the side by pseudo-literary fiction — written and reviewed by those who don’t know the difference between thought and sentimentality, poetry and the use of adjectives — such that the meaning of “literary” is lost. With the way the publishing system is currently organized, books aren’t given much time in front of judges and audiences. Those that don’t make it immediately are tossed in the remaindered bin. A deep pity, as literary fiction is slow-growing and takes time to find its audience. [continue...]
Dactyl Foundation presents work by Judy Glantzman, Sage Vaughn, Neck Face, and Yelena Yemchuk. [continue...]
Featured Guest Nathan Cabot Hale, Sculptor. July 29. Nathan Cabot Hale is a sculptor, painter and author of numerous books on art, including Abstraction in Art and Nature, Creating Welded Sculpture, and Exploring the Roots of Human Emotion in Sculpture. Hale will speak about, among other things, how lines of growth and structure, water and liquid forms, weather and atmospheric patterns, luminosity, earth colors, many other elements are shown to be wellsprings of creative abstraction. [continue...]
The aim of The Cultivator series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts in progress, and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. The Cultivator invites thoughtful experiments with form and language, and encourages spontaneous, organic collaborations between playwrights and performers. Each script presentation will be followed by a salon-style discussion, where participants and audience can talk freely about the work presented, or else consider the broader implications of theater and performance art in our culture. Part of the weekly CompostModern Discussion Forum at Dactyl, this monthly series will follow the forum’s general scope and format. [continue...]
A film presenting the creative experiences of a generation of visual artists in their playground; their field of dreams…Nogales… the city. The one they see and the one they imagine… a bordertown awakened through their work… a journey via their art and testimony… offering an alternative description of a territory that is often misunderstood by both bordering countries. This project was funded by The National Council for the Arts and Culture of Mexico and by the Sonoran Institute of Culture. [continue...]
Laura Otis began her career as a scientist, earning her B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale in 1983 and her M.A. in Neuroscience from the University of California at San Francisco in 1988. Before receiving her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Cornell University in 1991, she worked in labs for eight years. Since 1986, she has been studying and teaching about the [continue...] May 13-24, 2010
Stoltze has visited Rio de Janeiro many times, during the course of which he realized at some point that “there is more going on under the surface of the city than above it.” During his visits, Stoltze became interested in the outer neighborhoods. By pursuing one circumstance after another, he was able to document the secret lives of the people of Rocinha, the sex and drugs, the love and war. Circumstance plays a major part in Stoltze’s photography. The [continue...]
The aim of The Cultivator series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts in progress, and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. The Cultivator invites thoughtful experiments with form and language, and encourages spontaneous, organic collaborations between playwrights and performers. Each script presentation will be followed by a salon-style discussion, where participants and audience can talk freely about the work presented, or else consider the broader implications of theater and performance art in our culture. Part of the weekly CompostModern Discussion Forum at Dactyl, this monthly series will follow the [continue...]
Opening: Saturday, April 17th 6:30-9:00PM
Hosted by Helena Christensen & Neil Grayson. On View April 17 – May 6, Tues – Sat 12-6pm. Slow Road to China is an extraordinary, moving and powerful series of images documenting the people of remote mountain communities in the Humla region of Northwest Nepal.
Victoria Alexander will give a 30 min talk at 5PM
Secular Teleology for the 21st Century In a teleological narrative, all the events depicted, or at least the key ones, are chosen and included because of the way they reflect, refract, or prefigure a general theme of the story or the end of the story, the resolution of a problem. There is usually progression or development. Events exist in the story because of the purpose they serve. Critics of ”teleological” narratives may claim that “realistic” representation should capture a world in [continue...]
March 27, 2010 at 7pm HEAR ME FALL follows a tortured boy as he makes his way back to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment one last time – As he goes over each dark truth in their relationship, we see that the real pain does not come from how much she manipulated him, but from how much he manipulated himself in order to keep her.
The aim of The Cultivator series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts in progress, and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. The Cultivator invites thoughtful experiments with form and language, and encourages spontaneous, organic collaborations between playwrights and performers. Each script presentation will be followed by a salon-style discussion, where participants and audience can talk freely about the work presented, or else consider the broader implications of theater and performance art in our culture. Part of the weekly CompostModern Discussion Forum at Dactyl, this monthly series will follow the forum’s general scope and format. [continue...]  Feb 25, 2010The breakfast of champions
MICHAEL SOFRONSKI
THE ART WORLD IMPRESARIOS: Rie Rasmussen, writer/filmmaker/artist and Neil Grayson, artist/curator, Dactyl Foundation (dactyl.org)
POWER PLAY-BY-PLAY: “I love meeting over meals,” says Rasmussen, who powwowed with Grayson to discuss an upcoming show and screening of her film “Human Zoo,” which opened last year’s Berlin Film Festival, at his SoHo gallery. But since NYC can be a small town, privacy is of the utmost importance. Thankfully, their corner banquette had plenty of it. The food didn’t fail to impress, either, with standouts including ripe papaya cut with lime — enjoyed after the meal as a digestive. And then there was the coffee, which woke up Rasmussen’s inner muse. “It’s excellent coffee for drawing,” she says, dipping a spoon in it to complete a coffee-and-ink sketch.
The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining. We meet every Friday, and at least once or twice a month, we have a featured guest or two. Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of [continue...]  Friday, February 19th, 20104:00-6:00 PM
CompostModern Discussion Forum
Meet the authors of the critically acclaimed Death & Sex
a great excuse to talk about your favorite subjects in public…
Dorion Sagan has written and co-authored twenty-three books on evolution, cooking, and sex, translated into eleven languages. Sagan is the son of astronomer Carl Sagan and biologist Lynn Margulis.
Tyler Volk is a professor of biology at NYU who has written extensively on the Gaia hypothesis and life and death in the ecosystem. He is the author of four books and is affiliated with space life support research at NASA. [continue...]
“The Model” is the first in a play reading series hosted by Dactyl Foundation. The aim of the series is to give breath and voice to dramatic scripts and to act as a seedbed for new dramatic writing. ‘We found her at the corner of Houston and 2nd Avenue, propped against a dumpster and looking a bit lost. She had the long legs and even features typical of her kind, and was dressed in a glamorous evening ensemble that looked rather out of place in the middle of [continue...]
A World Premiere Staged Reading directed by Marc Geller.
Why Are They Fighting? Michael Schippling is an artist who builds robots designed to act creativity. He notes that most independent artists working in robotics have succumbed to building fighting machines for TV audiences. Michael will be a featured guest at our Compost Modern discussion forum, giving us what he calls a “quirky history of Machine Art with a proposal for the future.” [continue...]
$10 donation; wine and hors d’oeuvres
Open to all writers and the general public. Uphook Press is currently accepting submissions for their second anthology of poetry. Come read your work, meet the publishers, listen to the current writers of Uphook Press, and celebrate over four years of Dactyl’s open mic series! [continue...] |
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Copyright © 2012 Dactyl Foundation for the Arts & Humanities - All Rights Reserved |
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Ongoing
The 
Ongoing
Every Thursday 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Friday, June 25, 2010 5-7 pm
Friday, June 4, 2010 4-6PM
Friday May 21, 2010 4-6PM
Jens Stoltze is a professional photographer with a career spanning almost 20 years. Once graduated from the Royal Danish Art School, he found quickly success as a freelance photographer and then in 2005, he founded S Magazine, an international fashion and photography biannual, for which he is now editor-in-chief. He has exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions both in Denmark and the United States.
Friday April 2, 2010, 4-6 PM
