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Translating Nature into Art

As an artist, I see myself less so as creator and more so as a translator. I take my direction from the biggest source of  inspiration there is, nature, and try to turn what I see into images that can foster in others just a little bit awe for the natural world. Generally, I work at translating natural design into tattoo design. I am interested in how one can simplify the complexities of natural elements into simple lines, forms, and patterns.  

Before I arrived at Dinacon, I was inspired by photos being posted on the Dinacon social media platforms. I saw photos of plankton collected on the Divamarine lab and I was moved to start translating translucent microscopic creatures into black and white 2-D designs– to make visible the invisible. Once on the island, it was the specimens I encountered there (sometimes literally at my door step) that I drew from. Since Dinacon, I have continued creating designs based on the local flora and fauna of Thailand that touch me with their beauty. 

Below are some tattoo designs (plus one pen and ink sketch and one watercolor drawing) that were motivated by projects of other Dinacon participants as well as the unique outdoor experience of the convention.

-Mari Crook

View of Koh Lon from the Diva marine learning lab
starfish larva
crab larva
jellyfish larva
crab larva
ink and watercolor drawing of specimen found at Dinacon
drawn from a common tree frog found on the walls of the Dinacon lab and maker space
drawn from a common tree frog found on the walls of the Dinacon lab and maker space
baby king cobra
hibiscus
frangipani
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Hannah Wolfe

 

Dates: 06/26/2018-07/07/2018

Project: Island Caterpillar

Bio:  Hannah Wolfe is a media artist and PhD candidate in Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She earned a B.A. in Visual Arts from Bennington College (2009) and both an M.S. in Media Arts and Technology (2016) and an M.S. in Computer Science (2017) from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work has been shown at international art exhibitions and published in academic journals.  Her artwork focuses on the relationship between body and technology, giving computers and robots biological qualities. Her research interests include human robot interaction, affective computing, virtual reality, and computational creativity.

Website

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Isabel Tweedie


Issy Tweedie is a theorist whose work lies at the intersections of psychology, critical theory, feminist theory, and philosophy; her current interests center on altered states of consciousness and feminine subjectivities. She received her Master of Arts in Critical Theory from the University of Kent, where she completed a dissertation on sexuality in feminist science fiction. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College where she developed an interdisciplinary concentration in psychology, philosophy of mind, and psychedelic studies. Issy has presented work at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA) and the Cognitive Development Society, participated in artist residencies at Cultivamos Cultura, and has extensive research experience in developmental psychology labs.   

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Mary Miller

[Dates: May 30-June 13]

Projects:

  • Secret graphic novel project I’ve been working on with Andy and some other folks, which may make its debut at Dinacon
  • Music video for a song called “Robot Language,” on my upcoming E.P. , “Beep Boop.” (I write/perform under the moniker Dezmediah)
  • Short story inspired by what I see at the conference.
  • Collecting soundscapes for my soundscape collection.

Bio:

Writer and activist. I have a Master of Social Work degree, with a Health Policy concentration. I’m interested in system dynamics and how ecology intersects with social justice. I was a cofounder of 350 STL, a local chapter of 350.org, and have experience planning marches, sit-ins, and all sorts of fun stuff like that.

Lately, I’m concentrating more on my writing and will be attending Boston University’s MFA program in Fall 2018. I like to write science-fiction and literary-fiction and have been writing a young adult science-fiction graphic novel series with Andy for the past year.

Although my higher education background is humanities- and social-science-based, I am definitely a biology and science-writing nerd. Would love to geek out with fellow E.O. Wilson and Elizabeth Kolbert fans. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about mushrooms and am looking forward to checking out the fungal life on Koh Lon.

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Update #6 – Wow! Applications over!

That was amazing! We got applications for over 250 people from every continent except antarctica (snubbed by the penguins!). This is such an amazing group of people with such diverse backgrounds and ideas.
The applications are closed now, and we will be going through them and trying to figure out how to accommodate as many people as possible!
Application Rundown
From a quick peek at the application summary, here’s some fun quick stats about people who applied!
Places
We had people from every continent apply! (well except antarctica!) Most applications came from SE Asia, Europe, and North American.
Inline image 2
Genders
108 female-ish identifying applicants
28 non-binary / other
10 unknown
105 male-ish identifying applicants

Types of things you do
This was one of the coolest parts of this conference. We attracted folks with a crazy wide variety of talents and most people spanned multiple aspects of this conference based at intersections between interaction design, field biology, and art.
Over half the people identified as some sort of artist or designer, at least a third each seemed to relate as biologists or some kind of tech folks, and 13 of you were too amazing to be summed up in any of our boxes except that one box 😉
Timings
now this is the trickiest thing for us people running this thing, how can we get as many awesome excited people as possible to join us. Earlier I had joked that i will have to do some heavy logistics in case 100 people signed up to come for one week. uh oH! Currently each of these weeks can only hold 30 people :/
Inline image 1
 
Sponsors
Awesome sponsored raised over $2500 USD! adding to our initial budget of just $6800 for renting out the place

 

This money is helping us out do things like
  • Provide a couple travel stipends to some cool participants from far away!
  • pay some documentarians to help us capture the whole event!
  • Add sustainability measures to our conference (like industrial water purifiers instead of using tons of plastic bottles)
  • and lots more!
Expanders!
–So our conference is free! we got your housing covered, your food covered, and there’s not even “registration” fees. You just have to get there. At this basic level we have a big house we are renting (that can hold 10 people) and a big yard (that can hold 20). As of right now, these are the logistics we are planning for. There are several other cabins at Baan Mai, however that you can rent for ~45$USD per night. We are trying to see if we can rent some of these cabins, or more camping space at a reduced rate, but they can be slow to make deals with. But if you are an applicant interested in paying for their own room/housing while at the conference, please send me a note! This would potentially free up space for more participants to join us in total.
–What happens after Jan 30?
  1. We will look over the applications! My goal is to try to get as many of you here as possible! We had a LOT of folks apply though, so we are rushing to figure out how much we can expand it if possible. Logistics are going to be our big challenge here
  2. Refine dates period- lots of people have asked me about changing dates, we may send out a more refined survey to learn exactly what days everyone is planning on coming
  3. We will send your official acceptances (or waitlistings) in February (will try to make this as soon as possible, but bear with us)
  4. Refine your details period
    1. You will need to fill out a form to make any revisions to your project proposals
    2. You can revise any of your personal details and contact info (we will only use the personal info you give us, so you can make up pseudonyms or whatever you want).
    3. You will also send in a photo you want us to share related to you or your project
    4. you will also send in a SUPER SHORT 3 sentence bio (most node leaders already have this taken care of.
    5. you will select a publication type – see below
  5. Publishing Projects -You will have a choice after you are accepted of how we publish your project on our site (the goal is to connect you all to each other, so we want to get started on that!).
    1. Public-Web / print, Public-Group – This will be the default. We will list your projects and yourselves on our website in a way similar to how we have the node leaders listed at www.dinacon.org/people
    2. Anonymous-Web / print, Public group – If you want, we can leave your personal details or contact information off the website, and still leave up descriptions of your project and the timeframe you are going to be there (so maybe people can coordinate with you). You will still be included internally with our group mailing lists for better coordination.
  6. Waiver-  we will have a basic waiver you need to sign that just says you acknowledge that you are entirely responsible for your own self and safety and such.
  7. Code of Conduct: We will have a code of conduct you need to agree to about how you are required to be nice to your fellow people on the island (or we will literally kick you off the island!)
  8. Deposit – as noted in the FAQ, we want to make sure those people signed up and accepted actually show up to claim the space we reserved for them . http://www.dinacon.org/faq  So we will have you give us a 20$USD deposit that we can give you back on the island (probably in baht).
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Update #3

Time is getting close! Applications only have about a week left! Here’s details on what’s coming up, and 2 incredible opportunities to go hop on a boat!

-Application deadline! Jan 30!

If you have applied yet, please do if you want to come! www.dinacon.org/apply

and help us spread the news for any last minute folks who want to join!

– mid-con sailing adventure! 

– a cool contingent of people including Jan (fellow NUS prof),  Miguel (fellow NUS Prof), and Yasu (Sound artist), are wanting to put together a little local sailing trip

They plan to “block 17-26 June for sailing in Phuket, and plan to sail for 7 days sometime within that time.

We have already 5 of us, so would need just 3 more for an 8-person crew (which I think shld be easy to find, or otherwise we cld get a smaller boat for 6). I am very preliminarily calculating that the bareboat rental would be about 50ish euro per day per person, so about 350ish euro per person per week (but could be a bit more or less, and there might be other hopefully-small expenses, deposit, insurance, beer fund, etc—but that remains to be researched).

http://yachtcharterinasia.com/yachts/isabella/   — maybe something like her.”

If you want to get involved with this mini-expedition, the point person is probably: Jan Mrazek <seajm@nus.edu.sg>   (they are also possibly considering a trip from around singapore to Phuket)

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Update #1 – Free Food!

Some Recent Cool things!

-100 folks! We reached about 100 folks already signed up to come to our awesome conference! That’s really cool! and we expect lots more folks to apply before the deadline Jan 30th!

– People renting their own bungalows- Some folks are renting their own bungalows which expands the conference a bit It looks like at max capacity we will be able to accommodate about 200 people for the 2 months we will be there!

-Free Food! An anonymous sponsor chipped in 1000$USD to help us hire a local chef to provide free vegetarian food for participants (and work with participants doing local-food based projects!) Sort of like we had at Pif.camp

-Other donations- we had about 300$USD worth of other donations people already pitched in to go towards sustainability measures for the conference, travel stipends, and documentation. If you know someone interested in tossing us extra money to sponsor these features for the conferece (or if you know folks who became incredibly rich with crypto currencies over the past couple months) send them over to www.dinacon.org/sponsor

-More node leaders- we have a couple more new node leaders enlisted to do public projects that participants can join in on- check them all out here: www.dinacon.org/people

-Next Steps- After Jan 30th, we will review the applications, and sort logistics, and hopefully send official acceptances a couple weeks after that!

Thank you! and help us keep spreading the word around! Applications are open until Jan 30th, so help share our conference www.dinacon.org
and its informative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sLuYeLH1Ho
and silly videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZArUoSMDk0 with cool people you know!

andy and tasneem!