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DESCRIPTION:Often found hip-deep in Madagascar mud, Dr. Brian Fisher is a modern day 
 explorer who has devoted his life to the study and conservation of ants and 
 biodiversity around the world. His research sends him through the last 
 remote rainforests and deserts of Madagascar and Africa in search of ants. 
 Although his subjects may be small in stature, they make a huge impact on 
 their ecosystems. And what they lack in size, they more than make up for in 
 numbers.\n\nBy documenting the species diversity and distribution of this 
 “invisible majority,” Dr. Fisher is helping to establish conservation 
 priorities for Madagascar, identifying areas that should be set aside to 
 protect the highest number of species. Along the way, he has discovered 
 100’s of new species of ants. He created the annual Ant Course in 2001, 
 AntWeb in 2002, and the Madagascar Biodiversity Center in 2004. He has 
 published over 90 peer reviewed articles including the “Ants of North 
 America” with Stefan Cover. Every year, Dr. Fisher trains dozens of 
 international graduate students in the taxonomy and natural history of 
 ants, providing them with skills to use ants as an important indicator of 
 biodiversity across the globe. He is currently Associate Curator of 
 Entomology at the California Academy of Sciences and adjunct professor of 
 biology at both the University of California at Berkeley and at San 
 Francisco State University. He has appeared in a number of BBC, Discovery 
 Channel, and National Geographic films and has been profiled in Newsweek 
 and Discover magazine.\n\nThis talk is held in conjunction with\nAnts in 
 the City\nApril 10 – May 25, 2013\n\nIntersection for the Arts presents 
 Ants in the City, a solo exhibition project by San Francisco-based artist 
 Su-Chen Hung. 18th Century British poet William Blake wrote, “To see a 
 world from a grain of sand,” and so Hung examines our world from the 
 perspective of ants through three related video works and installations: 
 Ants in the City; Kiss you, Honey; and Red Corner. Working with light, 
 space, sound, movement, and stillness, Hung’s work is simple and elegant, 
 accessible and contemplative. She has utilized a variety of media in both 
 installation and performance contexts to investigate a diversity of social, 
 cultural, and environmental concerns, and viewers often become performers 
 in her work, intentionally or otherwise.\n\nIn the immersive video 
 installation Ants in the City, Hung used a macro lens over a 38-hour span 
 to document an ant colony as they slowly devoured red stained sugar and 
 relayed it back to their home. Scurrying about and emitting specific 
 phermones and antennae signals to communicate with one another, we might 
 observe the ants displaying frustration, anger, and even gluttony – acts 
 compatible with our own behavior. There are more than 10,000 known ant 
 species around the world, and over 100 species native to the Bay Area. Some 
 early myrmecologists – scientists who study ants – considered ant 
 society as an ideal social system, and sought to find solutions to human 
 problems by studying them. There is a hierarchy within the ant world: a 
 queen, male ants (which are only around for reproduction), soldiers, and 
 workers. Whether protecting the nest, foraging for food, or procreating, 
 each ant serves a particular function within the colony. Reflecting on our 
 own human existence, Hung questions the relationships formed between humans 
 within our larger urban environment. Do we function as part of a larger, 
 structured system like an ant colony, or are we individuals working 
 together for a cause? As ants divide into castes of labor and occupy one 
 role their whole life, are our social positions stratified this way as 
 well?\n\nThis exhibition is supported in part by the San Francisco Arts 
 Commission Cultural Equity Grants program. Visual technology for the 
 project provided by Optoma Technology, Inc., with generous support provided 
 by Wade Chang, Mills Chen, Jon Grodem, Vincent Huang, Joshi Hsieh, Teddy 
 Jung, Arun Kanuga, Nick Liang, TI Lin, Felix Pimentel, Andy Wang, Hans 
 Wang, and Shen Wang.  Additional thanks for assistance on this project to 
 Bamboo Curtain Studio, Coretronic Culture and Arts Foundation, Yung-Ta 
 Chang, Wei Ching, Terence Lee, Christian Rice, and Perngjuh Shyong.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/25/18735824.php
SUMMARY:Ants: The Invisible Majority
LOCATION:925 Mission St. \nSan Francisco, CA\n94103
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/25/18735824.php
DTSTART:20130516T020000Z
DTEND:20130516T040000Z
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