After the jump: Kaleidoscopic visions, electro magnetic waves and science.

Whorl And Umbel In The Sweet Green Hangout

Homegrown kaleidoscopic projections made from an arsenal of beautiful drawings and expertly scouted source material combined with live ethereal and improvisational music in a man-made greenhouse. Sounds pretty…pretty, eh? That is what artists Kate Abercrombie and Brooke Sietinsons with musicians Tara Burke (Fursaxa) and Helena Espval-Santoleri (Espers) lure you with this evening at the ICA — as yet even more programming around Locally Localized Gravity which closes this month. The ladies promise a floating world evening that is cozy and ornate… and with the promised mulled wine and sweet treats, it should be both swan and siren song.

Sarah Gamble: All Alone In The Electro Magnetic Sphere

If you imagine the way that radio waves from a cell phone call bearing good news might merge with St. Elmo’s Fire and dance in the woods, you can’t escape the feeling that it’s all connected somehow. Imagery that provokes this type of electro-magnetic wondering and wandering is on display in Sarah Gamble’s solo show All Alone in the Electro Magnetic Sphere, opening tomorrow night at Pageant/Soloveev. Addressing various states of human condition through symbols of electromagnetic wave forms, forests, and landscapes, the works portray a recurring set of symbolic narrative images. These images unfold as events akin to those of a dark novella filled with sparse scenery, interrupted by blasts of color. It’s these punctuating bright interludes of hue that lock in the work, bringing it back to earth like a jangling cell phone ring, reminding you you’re not alone if someone’s calling.

Small Worlds Collide

Once, on vacation, while staying in a sandy-floored caba?±a on the Yucatan Peninsula, I was bitten by a baby scorpion. No, seriously, it was a strange, scary trip. Flashing back to it now tells me that these images are what my mind’s eye saw. The Nikon Small World exhibit closing tonight at The Wistar Institute is the leading forum for showcasing the fragile and fractionary worlds of beauty seen through the light microscope and captured as photomicrographs. Scientist and amateur alike microcosmically travel the astral plane each year for Nikon‚Äôs competition, and submit images from under their microscope that are scientifically significant and elevated to an art form based on structure, color, composition and content. With wondrous images of the natural world feeding your head full of layered levels of comprehension and appreciation, they subtly suggest how sublime it can be to dissect and dive deep. [Pictured: Earl K. Nishiguchi, Drosophila virilis (fruit fly) sperm (400x)]

Through The Looking: Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi

Philip Glass paints music out of the extended repetition of brief, elegant, melodic fragments that weave in and out of a complex aural tapestry. Concentrated listening to it compels you to conjure visual accompaniment, which is why filmmakers both talented and mundane have sought his scoring of their work. Screening this month in The Stedman Gallery at Rutgers Camden in celebration of Glass’s 70th birthday is the Qatsi trilogy by Godfrey Reggio. Through layers of slow motion and time-lapse photography, he depicts different aspects of the relationship between man, nature and technology. Native American pictograms, riots after the NYC blackout of 1977 and rockets falling to earth are just some of the exquisite swirling images that swell to the score. Most haunting are scenes in the first and best known cult film, Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, showing the slow descent of people on escalators to the PATH station below the World Trade Center. It’s here that Glass’s score chillingly cuts through the looking.

Turn And Face The Change: Newton’s First Law At Nexus Foundation

In the spirit of change, growth, evolution and moving forward, Nexus announces Newton’s First Law, opening officially March 8 (although we hear they‚Äôll be there tonight too). It’s a group exhibition to help celebrate their new space in the Crane Arts Building. The theme of the exhibit was derived from their excitement of moving forward and continuing to build their gallery, their membership, their community and their audience. Many mediums are represented in their new beautiful space including video art, electronics, sewing, drawing, printmaking, photography, installation art and sculpture. Here‚Äôs to hoping that Newton‚Äôs third law also applies and that their bold move and new actions are embraced by their audience‚Äôs equal and welcoming actions.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm.