Titian painted Sacred and Profane Love in honor of the marriage of Niccolo Aurelio and Laura Bagarotto. Art Historian, Walter Friedlaender suggests Titian not only commemorates the special occasion but also represents a scene from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. In contrast, Erwin Panofsky suggests that this painting represents Marsilio Ficino’s Neoplatonist views of love. This viewpoint is further reflected in its name, Sacred and Profane Love. More recently, Rona Goffen proposes the women represent more than idealized forms of Venus. In this paper, I explore how these scholars come to their analyses and how together they provide a fuller interpretation of the painting. In doing so, I link opposing theories on iconography and gender studies.

In this essay, I explore the political context surrounding Botticelli's decision to render The Calumny of Apelles. My aim is to address the Renaissance artist’s attraction to such an old tale. He takes the subject matter of his painting from Alberti’s written description of Apelles’ autobiographical painting, but adds a twist. Apelles was a prominent painter around the year 350 B.C.E., when the Egyptian king Ptolemy abruptly sentenced him to death. Botticelli transforms Apelles' portrayal of the evil king into a contemporaneous depiction—the ruler of Florence, Piero de’ Medici. In doing so, Botticelli transforms the original subject matter into a modern political context. Like Apelles, Botticelli paints an autobiographical scene. He depicts a young man, wearing only a cloth, being dragged into a royal chamber. Darkly clothed cohorts attempt to convince the Medici prince, sitting on the throne, of the dragged-in figure’s guilt. All the while, the female figure carrying the prone nude form into court bears a cold ominous expression. I use scholarship from Herbert Horne, Giorgio Vasari, and Rudolph Altrocchi to lay out the historical events associated with Botticelli's The Calumny of Apelles. My purpose is to highlight Botticelli's political commentary and the complexities of Piero de’ Medici’s court.

William Eggleston is sometimes called “the father of color photography.” While his subject matter is banal, all his images contain very strong formal elements of line and shape. More to the point, they all emphasize saturated hues. In this paper I look at his dye transfer photographs and the quality of their color, which is unsurpassed by anyone in the medium even today. Primarily though, I focus on his most famous image Greenwood, Mississippi, commonly referred to as “The Red Ceiling,” which is known for its overwhelming, spectrally brilliant red tone. In my research, I look at Eggleston’s work from formalist and iconographic perspectives to see what it is that makes his images, which are devoid of traditional subject matter, so captivating. To do so, I compare “The Red Ceiling” and other Eggleston works to Ernst Haas’s formalist compositions. I compare each artist’s use of color and form to understand the different functions of each artists work. I argue that Eggleston’s images are not subjectless or banal, but that they are in fact heavily steeped in symbolism and comment on American urbanization and social dynamics.

This presentation examines the architectural design of the Jefferson County Museum of Art and History in Port Townsend, Washington. It address how the industrial boom of the 1890's shaped the city’s architectural environment and we look at how the building functioned within the community. With the use of historical photographs, first hand accounts and economic know-how, I seek to examine the environment that built this impressive structure only to leave it to crumble a few decades later. After falling into disrepair in the forties, the building in question was decapitated, leaving an incomplete image of a time bygone. Square pseudo-classical columns with sandstone Corinthian capitals add a touch of grace to its current stout silhouette, but it was meant to be so much more. This elegant imagery signifies what Port Townsend was intended to be: a vibrant port town in competition with Seattle. I seek to compare the Romanesque façade of the Jefferson County Museum of Art and History to the similarly styled Pioneer building in downtown Seattle, Washington. I discuss how the similarities in architectural choice reflect their competitive status for primary port town in the region and the cultural legacies they represent. By looking at the consequences of drastic spending in an inflated economy, I hope to look towards the future by recognizing the posthumous signs of economic collapse and how this past applies to our future.

Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is an important signaling molecule in humans, however the mechanisms behind H₂S signaling and its toxicity, which is thought to be similar to hydrogen cyanide (HCN), are poorly understood. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a convenient model to study exposure to H₂S and HCN as the proteins that mediate the organismal responses are highly conserved. Our previous work has shown that low levels of H₂S can increase thermotolerance and lifespans in C. elegans, but at high levels H₂S has toxic effects. The disparate effects of signaling and toxicity of H₂S on C. elegans led us to ask how the response to HCN compares to that of H₂S. To investigate this, we exposed different C. elegans strains to gaseous H₂S and HCN in sealed chambers and scored the survival rates between the two gases. We see that while both H₂S and HCN are toxic to C. elegans, HCN leads to death at lower concentrations, suggesting different modes of toxicity. We confirmed that HIF-1, a key transcription factor in the response to both H₂S and HCN, is necessary for survival in both H₂S and HCN. To determine if there are mechanistic similarities between the responses to these gases we exposed mutants that suppress hif-1 lethality in H₂S to both H₂S and HCN, and found that mutants that increased survival in H₂S did not necessarily increase resistance to HCN. This allows us to identify proteins that play a role in the response to H₂S. Understanding the proteins which differentially mediate toxicity in H₂S versus HCN will help us better understand the signaling roles of H₂S.

Since its introduction in the 1980’s, digital artists have adopted the animated GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) as a means for artistic production, turning it into an internet mainstay. GIF’s afford artists the ability to connect and communicate with their viewers in a way that is unique to other forms of visual communication. Los Angeles based digital artist Kristyn Janae Solie (aka kyttenjanae) creates perplexing GIF-art that is comprised of glistening, highly affective forms. In Too Much, Not Enough (2015) and It’s Never Cathartic When You Want It to Be (2015), for example, she digitally fabricates vacant, mannequin-esque human figures. She then alters her figures, manipulating their anatomical structure, pulling and pushing their features to create distorted, otherworldly bodies. In other works such as Overstimulated (2015) Solie focuses on just a head; its bulbous shape dominates the frame and seems to undulate in a wavelike fashion, as goo pours from its mouth. She alters the figures in her work just enough to create a sense of discomfort in the viewer. Using Brian Massumi’s affect theory I will evaluate the ways in which the work of Solie is successful in eliciting an unsettling response and how she uses digitally altered forms to speak to the human condition associated with our physical senses.

This essay explores the work of new media artist, Tony Oursler. Beginning his career in video art during the seventies and eighties, his work has evolved into a mashup of techniques and mediums. He uses digital imagery, project, sound, paint and photography to create his provactively orchestrated scenes. For example, in his installation Face to Face (2012), Oursler displays twenty works in which each character of his creation consists of mismatched faces, distorted heads, and alien-like features.Additionally, the mutated forms spew moronic babble broadcasting senseless chatter through their unnerving glistening smiles and disconcerting puckered lips. Intent on tempting us, illuminating our vulnerabilities and desires for affection, the characters in Face to Face utlimately enterain us with their humorous antics. However, further scrutiny shows that Oursler's humor is a tool that unmasks discomfort. In the majority of his artwork, Oursler criticallly, paradoxically and humorously explores the connection between human and machine. In "Oursler's Laughing Machine," I compare his work to other digital artists' installations in order to deconstruct how Oursler uses altered forms of language, babbe and laughter, to elicit a diversity of emotive and highly fabricated states in the minds of his prospective viewers.

In this paper, I explore transgenic art created by SymbioticA co-founders Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, and transgenic/bio artist Eduardo Kac. I begin with a discussion on Catts and Zurr’s biological art project Tissue Culture & Art, which deals with semi-living cells. Their central approach is through the use of tissue technologies and how tissues can be used as a medium for artistic expression. Catts and Zurr depict transgenic art as a complex organism that can live as something outside of the body. They emphasize an interest “in the new discourses and new ethics/epistemologies that surround issues of partial life and the contestable future scenarios they offer” from something being seen as semi-living. In comparison, I look at some of Eduardo Kac’s genetically modified transgenic pieces, in particular his work Edunia. In this transgenic work, Kac presents a genetically engineered flower that is a hybrid of himself and a petunia. Exploring the idea of what it means when a work is defined as semi-living, I present various criticisms. I focus on bioethics and controversy regarding of what can be defined as a bioethical practice of art.

In Life of Phyllis (1979), video installation artist Tony Oursler uses a low-tech and “home-made” recording style. Emulating the “accidental” aesthetics of reality television, the artist includes his shadow, his hand, the camera and, even, a microphone. Oursler, however, is critical of this popular genre. His miniaturized set is constructed with everyday objects such as toys, strings and various craft supplies. And the camera awkwardly moves across his subject — a doll ironically meant to represent comedian and TV personality Phyllis Diller. The doll acts out horrific and grotesque news headlines. His 55-minute candid video acts as a hysterical response to and raging critique against reality television and the media personalities it produces. Referencing Baudrillard’s “Ecstasy of Communication,” I use a comparative and historical analysis to argue that advancements in technology have transformed our society into an invasive and penetrating screen in which celebrities unflatteringly act out their daily routines and relationships. In particular, I use Baudrillard’s ideas to comment on the presentation of virtual celebrities, from Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian to the spate of other such Instagram and Snapchat personalities. My research highlights the degree to which social media and commodity culture invade everyday life, transforming our social interactions into reality-like programs. Maybe not as viciously and exaggeratedly as Oursler has it, but nonetheless we become “overexposed,” or as Baudrillard states, “switching center[s] for all the networks of influence.”

The human Tumor Suppressing Subtransferable Candidate 1 (TSSC1) gene was first discovered in 1997 as a gene whose likely location was within a chromosomal region that suppressed tumor growth. A recent study reported that decreased TSSC1 gene expression results in increased metastasis of breast cancer cells to bone. However, the underlying mechanism by which the TSSC1 protein acts in cancer cells remains unknown. Interestingly, TSSC1 is a highly conserved protein among eukaryotes. We are using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to define the normal function of TSSC1. Previously, our lab showed that the Drosophila protein, dTSSC1, localizes near Trans-Golgi Network (TGN), the region of the Golgi that sorts and packages membrane and secreted proteins into vesicles for transport to post-Golgi destinations. We have also isolated two mutations in dTSSC1 and observed that they cause defective formation of the acrosome, a Golgi-derived organelle that is localized to the apical tip of mature sperm and is required for fertilization. Based on these observations, we propose that dTSSC1 acts in spermatids to regulate acrosomal protein and vesicular trafficking. We are expressing tagged membrane proteins to ask whether dTSSC1 is required specifically for trafficking of acrosomal proteins or if it has a more general impact on membrane protein trafficking. These studies use expression in the male germ line. Notably, dTSSC1 is expressed in many tissue types, similar to its counterpart in humans. Therefore, we are also investigating whether dTSSC1 mutations have effects on protein trafficking in somatic cells. Our results should define the normal cellular role of dTSSC1 in Drosophila and may also provide insight into the role of the human protein in normal and cancer cells.

Cryopreservation is a technique that uses very low temperatures in order to store and preserve biological material for an extended period of time without deterioration. With the use of cryoprotectants, a substance that prevents the damage of freezing, cells are protected from the normally lethal effects of freezing. In order to understand the effects of cryopreservation in marine microorganisms, we are developing this technique with Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a marine pennate diatom with a sturdy body type. Diatoms are important drivers for biogeochemical cycles and the versatility of Phaeodactylum tricornutum in different environments allow it to be used as a model organism in studies about global phytoplankton primary production. By using a cryoprotectant such as DMSO, and a two-step freezing protocol, we allow the cells to experience freezing at a gradual rate giving it as stress-free of an environment as possible. Once frozen, the Phaeodactylum will be preserved until the thawing process begins, using a protocol that allows the rate of thawing to be gradual as well. This technique could allow for successful preservation and could be applied to many aspects of biology, in our case a laboratory model for ecological work.