Buzz Saw Sharks- Leif Tapanila and the art of Roy Troll
Last Friday I attended this talk put on by the UO Museum on Natural and Cultural History. I had seen the exhibit previously so I had some outside knowledge, primarily of the decades of debate that had gone on concerning how exactly a giant whorl of teeth was supposed to fit onto the body of a shark. This talk was primarily focused on looking at the actual fossils upon which our knowledge of these creatures is based. I was interested to learn that the length of the sharks- though they were technically ratfish, as I learned- was all based on ratios of the measurements of the animal’s teeth. Some things I gleaned from this talk that either weren’t in the exhibit or I didn’t remember were:
1) The teeth of the Helicoprion grew successively bigger teeth as it aged. These teeth were then covered in cartilaginous fibre to prevent them from cutting into the sharks mouth as they began to wrap around to form the whorl.
2) All of this animal’s teeth were connected to one root.
3) They could reach sizes of upwards of 25 feet.
I enjoyed learning about how the fossils were measured and analyzed in order to deduce the physical characteristics of the shark. Paleontology has always seemed mysterious to me, so it was very enlightening to hear somehow explain so clearly how one goes about learning from a fossil. Their method involved looking at bumps and other structures on the bones and then comparing those to the physical characteristics of other known creatures and extrapolated how flesh and other tissue would have attached to the jaw bones that were discovered. Also of interest to me, thanks to this class, was the role which the work of the artistRay Troll played in this presentation, and in the wider exhibit. Compared to the standard scientific images one sees, his drawings imparted a refreshingly feeling of life through their thick strokes and subtly blended colors. I also thought about what role they had as signifier and signified. Obviously, the drawings themselves were the signifier, but what was signified was more than just a basic representation of an ancient sea dweller. They imparted more of a narrative structure, which made the history of discovery in this discipline seem more engaging. I attribute this to the idea that we perceive something that has been artfully drawn to contain more of a story than the computer generated graphic image one typically sees in science textbooks. Both are imparting a message, but one expects to get more out of something that has been framed as “art”; one suspects a deeper meaning.
Image from National Geographic
This picture is an excellent example of an illustration that is much more interesting to look at than a similar image which could have been fashioned with a computer. Note the curtains which give the work another layer of meaning, as if all these ideas were performing through the decades across the collective stage of human scientific thought.
These insights further underscored my project’s idea that the attention of the public can sometimes best be captured not with sleek materials and presentations, but with works of art which display the remnants of the work of the artist’s hands. The human-introduced element of roughness is valued in a world of right angles and straight lines. Works that display a sense of playfulness will prove to be the most enduring through time, because they will always remain accessible, being freed from association with a contemporary arts movement.