Pill Art
December 27, 2008 12:06 PM   Subscribe

Anthony Diaz Hope is a modern artist. He photographs a scene, dissects the image into a grid, and inserts pill capsules into each tiny segment.
posted by rageagainsttherobots (21 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Prozart?
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 12:19 PM on December 27, 2008


Terrorists are the new enemy. They could be anybody. Lawless fanatics, they place no value on life, not even their own.
...
Everybody Is Somebody's Terrorist' is a series of hand knit balaclavas representing a 'variety of socio, economic, or political groups that someone might consider terrorist.
posted by ageispolis at 12:28 PM on December 27, 2008


See also "Blood, Money and Tears," his project with fellow artist Laurel Roth:

BLOOD, MONEY AND TEARS

"Blood, Money and Tears is a collaboration between Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth. The artists chose several chandeliers which were then disassembled, chromed at a Harley shop and reassembled with certain key elements upside down to create a mirroring effect. Dripping with hundreds of syringes and garlanded with strings of multicolored pills and Swarovski crystal, the chandelier forms a mandala, becoming a vehicle for the viewer to meditate on their use of drugs and pharmaceuticals to modify behavior, emotion and perception."
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 12:34 PM on December 27, 2008


Blood, Money, and Tears sounds like a better idea than the implementation evidences it to be...
posted by Dysk at 12:45 PM on December 27, 2008


I almost made this point in the Viagra thread, in which Viagra is referred to as a "pill". Viagra is not a pill, it's a tablet.

In this case we are seeing empty capsules, which are usually made of gelatin, but are sometimes made from non animal-based materials.

I speak as a former pharmacist, who had to regularly deal with people's haphazard descriptions of oral medications they had found, taken, seen, or wondered about. I must have asked these folks the question "is it a tablet or a capsule" at the start of the conversation about 10,000 times.

Yes, as far as descriptive language goes, the term "pill" is now a generic term for "tablet or capsule". But historically, the term "pill" has a quite exact meaning, significantly different than today's modern tablets or capsules.

I'll leave it to our friend Wikipedia to argue my case for me:

A pill is a small, round, solid pharmacological oral dosage form in use before the advent of tablets and capsules. Pills were made by mixing the active ingredients with an excipient such as glucose syrup in a mortar and pestle to form a paste, then rolling the mass into a long cylindrical shape (called a "pipe"), and dividing it into equal portions, which were then rolled into balls, and often coated with sugar to make them more palatable.[1]

In colloquial usage, tablets, capsules, and caplets are still often referred to as "pills" collectively.


Yes, I'm one of those anal types who calls the American critter a "bison", not a buffalo, though my great slip-up is that I sometimes call the American once cent piece a "penny".
posted by Tube at 12:51 PM on December 27, 2008 [2 favorites]


OMG. This is awesome, because I love Laurel & Andy's work, but also because Laurel is one of my bestest and oldest friends. The amount of time and thought they put into their work is mind-boggling.

Here's a video of them discussing their Blood, Money & Tears work in their studio in San Francisco. (And you can see my ex-dog, Fargo @ 1:04!)
posted by gofargogo at 12:54 PM on December 27, 2008


PS. it's Andy Diaz Hope, not Anthony.
posted by gofargogo at 12:58 PM on December 27, 2008


inserts pill capsules into each tiny segment

No. He cuts the photo up, and inserts the PHOTO into the capsules. not the capsules into the photo.
posted by rubin at 1:10 PM on December 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


Sorry Tube, but etymology isn't destiny.
posted by dickymilk at 1:28 PM on December 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


Sorry Tube, but etymology isn't destiny.

You hold such opinions because you eat organic food.
posted by Tube at 2:29 PM on December 27, 2008


I'm with Tube. These things are clearly the locus of points equidistant from a line segment.

Although, I'm curious about the penny thing. What else would you call it?
posted by scope the lobe at 2:43 PM on December 27, 2008


I'll state the obvious: this is stupid and pointless.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 2:45 PM on December 27, 2008


You hold such opinions because you eat organic food.

I assume that by "organic" you mean "pertaining to organs," and I must admit that I do enjoy a good pâté on occasion.
posted by dickymilk at 2:48 PM on December 27, 2008


I'm with Turtles. I'm normally a great advocate and defender of modern art, but I am ashamed to say I looked at this and thought "why?" which is a pretty rare response for me. It evoked no emotional response in me whatever, which may of course be my fault.
posted by nthdegx at 2:50 PM on December 27, 2008


dickymilk I think he was referring to the fact that the "organic" qualifier is completely redundant when applied to "food." All food is organic, from a chemist's point of view. It's this noble brand of pedantry.
posted by scope the lobe at 2:59 PM on December 27, 2008


All food is organic, from a chemist's point of view.

Right—and my point was that the "pertaining to organs" meaning of "organic" predates the specialized meaning in chemistry by a couple of hundred years, at least.
posted by dickymilk at 3:10 PM on December 27, 2008


We take a picture, dissect the image into its individual pixels, then insert that pixel into another pixel.

It's really quite incredible. It's almost as if we showed you a completely undoctored image.
posted by An Infinity Of Monkeys at 3:56 PM on December 27, 2008


All food is organic, from a chemist's point of view.

Right—and my point was that the "pertaining to organs" meaning of "organic" predates the specialized meaning in chemistry by a couple of hundred years, at least.


I must confess that I was ignorant that "organic" once meant "pertaining to organs" before I, the noble pedant, used it in its specialized chemist's sense.

In light of this, I intent to return my recently purchased bundle of "organic" carrots purchased from my "locavore" produce vendor on the grounds that they are not, in fact, visceral in nature...

Sorry, I'm singularly responsible for linguistically derailing this thread. As far as the encapsulated art goes, I think it's OK, and kind of interesting.
posted by Tube at 4:52 PM on December 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


I'll state the obvious: this is stupid and pointless.

Totally agree...
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:25 PM on December 27, 2008


I see it as a nicely thought out commentary on pharmaceuticals making up an increasing part of who we are and the landscape we live in. From the website:
"We are no longer a sum of our natural history, but a sum of our natural history plus our self selected recreational and medical regimes."
Village Voice review
posted by lorax at 9:29 AM on December 28, 2008


Thanks for the lesson but pill, tablet, capsule, suppository, whatever -- the work is inspired and brilliant. I am looking forward to purchasing one of the series for my own collection.
posted by m3rabb at 11:33 PM on December 30, 2008


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