This event explores the “mixed-media” foundations of modern camouflage. Protective coloration in nature motivated Thayer’s media experiments in science and illusion, concealment and revelation. Artist and historian Hanna Rose Shell focuses the story on artist, naturalist and media innovator Abbott Handerson Thayer (1854-1921).
In 1896, he first articulated his laws of “obliterative coloration” and “disruptive patterning.” Over the next fifteen years, Thayer attempted scientific proof of his laws through the production, dissemination, and demonstration of three-dimensional models and stencils.
Hanna Rose Shell’s talk is based on HIDE AND SEEK (Zone Books) a forthcoming book that examines how, why and to what effect camouflage emerged in the twentieth century. This is the first of three events Machine will be hosting on the topic.