The Crochet Coral Reef installation is over and has been taken down…  good news is it is not over!  Glenys is keeping our Seagardens Aotearoa project alive. 

A bit low res, but here is a photo of the Crochet Coral Reef at the Auckland Museum.  The exhibition will close on the 16th of May so you have a few more weeks to contribute and go and visit, also entry is free until the end of May this year for lucky Aucklanders.

I’m just so excited about this one, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project is at Auckland Museum right now!  This afternoon I dropped in to do some work with the lovely ladies busily hooking away and spreading the stitchy love.  I brought in with me the little one above, I had finished it off today and couldn’t wait to see how the project was growing.

So if you are even slightly crafty and nerdy, or into maths or art, or craftsy community projects, or the environment and ecology (that should actually be all of you) best you get yourself along to the Auckland Museum over the next few weeks to have a look at the crochet coral reef that is growing on a wall in the oceans gallery.  Better yet, take your crochet hook and some fibre and get making!

For a really good clip about this international project (and a much better explanation about the mathematics behind the hyperbolic plane than I can give you!) go to this TED talk.

If you or anyone you know is in Tauranga over the next few weeks go and take a look at this exhibition at The Laundromat Art Project Space.

The exhibition will run from 18^th March 2010 – 6^th April 2010

War 
Installation

‘Aces in the sky, Spitfire and Hurricane,  Fokke-Wulf and Messcherschmidt.

The defining battle of one generation in the western world and we called it a world war.

Vietnam another generation. And the cold war. Goodies and Baddies. Black hats and White. Right and wrong always relative and perspective dependent.

So far its always been just one lot of people vs another lot; battles of willpower, tenacity, inventiveness and technology. There are individual triumphs and tragedies, strategic gains and losses, but it has been the overall massed effect that prevails, numbers, commitment, sacrifice, leadership, working together for a common goal, Oh and maybe some luck? How much have we been prepared to lose to gain victory?

Now its global more than ever, the sides are less defined but the stakes are very high. We could call it the earth war.

 

There are no sidelines, we just think there are.  Our actions are cumulative.

 

Its all of us, but most are sleepers.’

 

- Susan Crow (nee Pickernell)

My Shell Club is hosting the New Zealand Shell Show this weekend, it includes sale tables as well as an auction, fun fun fun!

It is being held at Te Tuhi, Centre for the Arts, 13 Reeves Road, Pakuranga, on 27-29th March 2009. 
A Shell Auction on Saturday, 5 – 7pm is sure to be a highlight with a large number of high quality New Zealand and World Wide shells up for grabs.  The show is open to the public from 10am to 5pm on Saturday and 10am – 4pm on Sunday.

Depending on your timezone, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik was launched by the Soviets fifty years ago today, on October the 4th 1957.

Pretty exciting stuff considering this kicked off the space race, apparently the satellite passed over the USA twice before they were aware of it. Well before I was born people had been to the moon (or had they?) and space travel was not such a new and crazy idea. Interesting to think how this would have gone down in the midst of movies and novels that painted a picture of the future full of interstellar travel and life in colonies on distant planets.y years ago today, on October the 4th 1957.

There’s not much info out there at the moment but it’s still pretty exciting stuff!

It seems that the tenticles were badlyy damaged and the mantle itself is approximately 2 metres long.

On the Reuters website there is a short clip of the animal as it is briefly examined.
And on the News.com.au….

I’m booked in for them all, and I just got home from the first entitled The Eruption of Tarawera by Prof Ron Keam of the University of Auckland. It was cool!

I was particularly interested in this lecture because I have worked with a moody painting entitled The Phantom canoe: a legend of Lake Tarawera, 1888, at the Auckland Art Gallery by a gentleman called Kennett Watkins (New Zealand, b.1847, d.1933) that pictures the phantom waka that was apparently seen in the days before the Eruption of Mt Tarawera and the explosion of Lake Rotamahana. This picture I have borrowed from the gallery website strictly for research and educational purposes…

I really like this story, and it is interesting that not only Maori people saw the waka, but Pakeha people in the area did too, it was even reported in local papers.

Here is the blurb from the gallery website:

Ten days before Mount Tarawera erupted spectacularly in 1886, destroying the famed silica terraces of Rotomhana, a number of people witnessed a disturbing sight – a ghostly, fully-manned waka gliding across Lake Tarawera in the shadow of the mountain. Interpreted as an omen of impending death and disaster, the sighting was reported in local newspapers and after the eruption received much attention from artists and writers. One of the better known representations of the apparition is this grandiose composition by Kennett Watkins, a leading nineteenth century exponent of Mori history painting. Although the spectre was seen in broad daylight, Watkins presents it in a dramatic nocturnal setting illuminated by a full moon amidst billowing clouds, foreshadowing the volcanic blast to come. Conforming to European conventions for the sublime landscape, a lone, fearful spectator in the foreground witnesses the vast canoe passing under the looming peak. More specific sources in European art include representations of Vesuvius in eruption in the Bay of Naples and spectacular Alpine scenes by artists such as J. M. W. Turner. Born in India, Watkins studied art in Switzerland and France before emigrating to New Zealand in 1873. He worked as a photographer and schoolteacher in the Bay of Islands then moved to Auckland where he became principal of the Auckland Free School of Art. (from The Guide, 2001)

I almost missed the news on tv.. but fortunately a friend alerted me to the news that New Zealand fishermen fishing for the Patagonian Toothfish in the waters of the Antarctic were fortunate enough to haul in a Colossal Squid as it was after their catch… so I was able to see a few images on the breakfast news (yes, there is news on early mornings don’t you know..)

So exciting, I just love squid, particularly these mysterious giants that populate the depths of our oceans… it is very sad that we know so little about them and we don’t know whether our destructive fishing methods are causing much damage to their habit or food supplies, let along hooking them up from the depths as they go about their business…

The amazing thing about the Colossal Squid are the swivelling hooks they have on their tentacles, making them a ferocious and truly terrifying hunter – straight out of science fiction stories…

Anyhow, more photos are on the following links, I have borrowed these images one from mongabay.com

www.ctv.ca

www.seattletimes.nwsource.com

You can read more about this awesome creature on the wikipedia

The Green Party are hosting a fund raising preview of Who Killed the Electric Car? at the Academy on Monday at 7:50pm. You are invited to join them for this preview.
Tickets are only available from the Green Party. See below.
The Auckland Green Party is proud to host the environmental documentary film of 2007, directed by Chris Paine. “It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert? WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? Chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business.”

This screening will take place on Monday the 19th of February at 7.50pm at Academy Cinemas, Lorne Street. Tickets cost $15 and are only available from the Auckland Green Party Office, phone (09)303-4143 or email auckland@greens.org.nz.

View the trailer here.