Is it the end of the world? 2012? An optical illusion? Continue reading “House of the Rising Sun”
Price of my time per minute: £0.15
Reward for filling out Cambridge Cycle Challenge survey: Entry in drawing for £40 gift card to Marks & Spencer[1]
Time to fill out survey: 4 minutes
Number of challenge participants: 2422
Maximum number of survey respondents to make it not a waste of time: 67 (2.8%)
NOTES
Yes, my two year old is already a better artist than me, and you, and possibly some of those featured at the Tate Modern (but that could be the fatherhood talking).
As is my wont, I like to highlight examples of art and design that either demonstrate or are inspired by evolutionary theory. While some of the elements of
Nacho Carbonell‘s “Evolution” collection could be interpreted as an expression of abiogenesis, the emergence of biological entities from non-biological chemistry is NOT technically a part of evolutionary theory. Instead, I choose to view these works as an expression of neo-functionalization.
Neo-functionalization describes the process by which a gene stumbles upon a new function that is distinct from its original function. If that new function is beneficial, selection can very rapidly entrench that function in the genetic code.
In much the same way, Nacho Carbonell’s furniture starts as one “non-furniture” shape and discovers a new function, which finds discrete form rapidly.
Lovely. This bench would certainly look better in my garden than a few kilobases of coding DNA.
The Finch and Pea 