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This past spring, Sarah Muehlbauer began sewing coaster-sized circles of wax paper together in her textile design course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was experimenting with the material’s transparency and sometime thereafter the project took over.

“It kept calling for more and more and more,” says the 24-year-old art student. Eventually, the size of the crinkly quilt suggested to her that it become something wearable, and she fashioned it into a floor-length halter dress, with a scooping back and bell-shaped skirt. But the garment, tailored to fit her petite frame, wasn’t the end of the project. She took the dress past its object phase, as she calls it, to a performance phase, and created a video of her exploring her relationship to it­—twirling in it, and bunching and scrunching the wax-paper fabric. The video (excerpt above), entitled Rustle, earned Muehlbauer the $20,000 grand prize in “Green Light,” the juried exhibit of emerging artists with disabilities that opened last week at the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Center.

Muehlbauer says she was exploring the dress “as an identity, something that inhibits or something that I can use or take control of,” much the way she has probably contemplated her diagnosis with severe Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease. She has taken control of her disease through art, which has helped her stay positive and working toward creative goals.

The prize money, Muehlbauer says, will fund some video equipment of her own (she has borrowed others’ up to this point), materials and further education—she’s three weeks into an MFA program in fiber art at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. And she doesn’t downplay the fact that she can now put the Smithsonian on her resume. “It changes everything,” she says.

“Green Light” is co-sponsored by VSA Arts, an international nonprofit created to promote and showcase artists with disabilities, and Volkswagen of America, Inc. On view through January 4, 2009, the exhibition includes the works of 15 artists between the ages of 16 and 25.

(Image Courtesy of S. Dillon Ripley Center/VSA)

The seaweed may usually look greener on somebody else’s plate, but I’m unconvinced that 3-D movies are going to be better than 2-D, at least not anytime soon. Putting my technologically conservative notions to the test, I was invited to attend a screening of the new IMAX film Deep Sea 3-D.

On entering the theater I was handed a pair of red plastic 3-D glasses with gray lenses. (Apparently the classic kitschy blue and red lenses with white frames have been 86’d. Who called the fashion police?) Being ocularly challenged myself I spent the first ten minutes in my seat trying to figure out which goes on my face first: my corrective lenses or my 3-D ones. The glasses are one-size-fits-all, which is perfectly true if your head is the size of a cantaloupe. While I could physically fit the pliable plastic glasses on my face with ease, the lenses never covered my full range of vision. I had to train my eyes to look through the two-sizes-too-small lenses, which wasn’t hard, but I never have to futz around like this with 2-D movies.

But oh, it was worth it.

Nature films are tailor made for the 3-D IMAX format and Deep Sea 3-D is an eye-popping 41-minute survey of strange and exotic sea life seemingly brought inches in front of your face. It’s one of the few times where the 3-D effect feels like an organic part of the film. The image always has a marvelous illusion of depth and objects are only jumping out at you when it’s appropriate.

Indeed, the idea of three-dimensional movies is part and parcel of the tao of IMAX: to completely immerse the viewer in the film. And I think Deep Sea succeeded in that respect. I sat in my seat grinning like an idiot during the opening shots where a swarm of jellyfish seemingly swam at me from all angles to gently pulse around my head. The corals were also pretty spectacular, as were the fighting squid and screaming sea scallops. Heck, the whole thing was a lot of fun.

As much as I enjoyed the film, I have to say that the 3-D process still needs some work. 2-D movies still provide higher fidelity images. In some of the 3-D shots, there was ghosting and other minor image distortions—technical issues that need to be ironed out if 3-D is to avoid going the way of Cinerama. Oh, and I’m still not cool with the glasses.

Deep Sea 3-D is great family entertainment and should also be of interest to 3-D enthusiasts. (During a post-screening lecture given by film producer Toni Myers, I saw a guy a few rows ahead of me snap a picture of her with a 3-D digital camera. I thought that was pretty awesome.)

Deep Sea 3-D opens to the general public on September 26 at the Johnson IMAX Theater in conjunction with the grand opening of the Natural History Museum’s Sant Ocean Hall.

Where do you think the future of theatrical film presentation is going? Will 3-D save movie theaters from the Internet? Some people have their doubts, like movie critic Roger Ebert in his movie blog. Take our poll or discuss the topic in the comments area below!

Voting starts today for the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s third annual People’s Design Award – a contest that asks the public to nominate and vote for an object or concept that constitutes good design.

So if there’s a product on the market that leaves you spellbound, a new building that you marvel at on your morning commute or an ingenious business model that has you barking, why didn’t I think of that, nominate it. Or just vote for one of the 55-and-counting already on the ballot.

It’s an all-out smack down pitting the SolarTaxi (the first solar-powered car to travel around the world, this past year) against Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest,” the Obama for President logo against the Thigh Master and the futuristic set of NBC’s “Ugly Betty” against windshield wipers (it’s possible that the guy who nominated these had just driven through a wicked storm). The unitard-type swimsuit that contributed to Phelps’s world records and superhero status was even thrown into the mix for design nuts to debate whether it amounted to good design or an unfair advantage. Browsing through the nominees offers an interesting glimpse at the palate of today’s consumer—an environmentally conscious, TV-watching, politically minded adrenaline junkie (or so you surmise if you meld together the kaleidoscope of images that have been uploaded).

Polls will be open until 6 p.m. EST on October 21, with the winner being announced at 10 p.m. EST on October 23. The past two winners—Marianne Cusato’s Katrina Cottage and TOMS Shoes, which for every TOMS shoe bought gave another pair to a child in need—had a philanthropic bent.

But with green being the new black, my wager is on a sustainable product winning top design this year. What’s your bet?

(Images courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)

EHow, a website that claims to teach anything, says that the first step in attending a silent auction is perusing the online catalog. Having scored a ticket to the National Museum of African Art’s first benefit gala (such are the perks of professional journalism), I downloaded the auction catalog and observed the items up for bid: original oil paintings, a basket woven by Rwandan widows, a luxury vacation for two in scenic South Africa.

The Monday night benefit was scheduled to be a smorgasbord of fundraising activity—a silent auction, yes, but also a dance event with live band, and a world-class wine tasting. All proceeds were to go to the museum.

I arrived woefully alone and early (who was it who said you should never come early to a party?), and hid out in the exhibits until the band got going and the museum’s three levels were packed to the windows with people.

I grabbed a fluted plastic cup and stood in line at one of the wine tasting tables. I aimed to try all the wines; I didn’t know then that there were more than 50 of them. The first table yielded my favorite blend of the evening—the Chenin Blanc, a white wine fermented first in a tank and then in a barrel.

Tank fermentation is common in South Africa, and any wine-lover worth his nose will have heard of it. I hadn’t, of course. I hopped from table to table, refilling my cup with generous “pours” of a dizzying array of wines. I tried at least three shades of Pinotage, a South African specialty made from a mixed Pinot Noir/Cinsaut grape.

I cut myself off from samples after a few tables, figuring that no matter how tempting the rest of the wines (and there were many I hadn’t tried), I still had to take the train home later without falling and electrocuting myself on the third rail.

Instead, I sidled up to the tasting tables and asked for advice from other samplers, hoping to make friends. It worked, and within thirty minutes I was chatting with a group about the best wines to pair with spicy sauces (a dilemma for me ever since I matched a fine Merlot with Tandoori chicken and ended up with a mouthful of vinegar).

Soon it was 8:30 and the crowd had peaked. A few couples were swirling to the music on the lower level, and I took my cue to leave. Walking back to the train station in the perfect fall weather we sometimes get in DC, I could see why Bono, the king of conscientious cool, chose this museum to host the upcoming ONE campaign party (The ONE party won’t be a fundraiser—Institution rules say that only Smithsonian museums can raise funds on museum grounds).

The museum, with its three nested floors and taupe and mint interior, is the perfect place for dim orange lights and ultra-tasty wines. I found out later that the event made $40K for the African Art Museum and attracted nearly 400 people (capacity is 700).

And it was a fun, unusual way to see a well-known national museum. I haven’t heard from my newfound friends—to be fair, I gave them my email address on a cocktail napkin—but I did eat, drink and enjoy.

See photos from the auction and the tastings, here.

Image of an Hermes scarf up for bid at the silent auction, © Anika Gupta.

Video artist Bill Viola dropped his notes on his way up to the podium last Wednesday night at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. With a shrug, he joked that his lecture—the pages now scrambled—would lack order. But the traditional organization one expects from a story or a narrative is decidedly not the way Viola likes to convey his message. His works often evoke mood, thought or perception. There is much more to the world than meets the eye, he believes, and his video installations, which have appeared at MOMA, the Whitney and the Getty, capture the invisible images, the themes and mental states that we encounter along the way.

So throughout the lecture, I felt like had I tossed him a theme—love, death, the environment, human nature—he would have happily mused for hours on any one. He carried dossiers for each of his ideas, delivering his melange of thoughts with a tense urgency, as if he were reporting on the week’s financial turmoil in the world markets. But he was talking about things like, solitude.

On technology, he said that never before have we been more empowered by it and yet, more endangered because of it, citing the devastation that could be rendered with the touch of a finger, just one keystroke—be it, the detonation of a bomb or the ruin of a relationship with a ambiguous tone in an email. On solitude, he pondered the harsh punishment of solitary confinement causing, in a few cases, insanity for some prisoners. But self-imposed by the religiously devout, solitude could be the source of newfound wisdom and compassion.

Do we have time for one more, he asked the audience after delivering on several of his themes. When the clock ran out, he decided the lecture would be Part 1, and that he would come back with a sequel. It sure wouldn’t be a Hollywood blockbuster, I thought.

A screening followed of his 2005 video, “Fire Woman,” depicting a woman facing down a raging wall of fire. Over the several minutes of the video, all my thoughts vanished and I slowly succumbed to the fire’s roar. I could feel its heat. This, said Viola afterwards, was the mind’s eye of a dying man.

The image of the fire woman now seared into my mind, I left the lecture a little more enlightened. I decided that Viola’s scrambled collage of meditations had actually rendered for me a brief glimpse into the mind’s eye of an artist. And I thought about the role of an artist—to cast an eye on the confusion and disorder in the world, point out its contradictions, shake things up and get people thinking.

I like to camp. But I’m living in DC, without a car to get me out to the Shenandoah on the weekends. And I’ve always wanted to go on a safari. But my pocket isn’t so deep. So I figured I’d try the next best thing—urban camping in the mock wild, at the Smithsonian National Zoo. Does that sound a bit desperate? A city slicker’s 14-hour Walden.

Maybe a bit creepy? My thoughts went all “Blair Witch Project” on me that night as I anticipated waking to odd snorts and warbles. Or just plain adventurous? You be the judge.

Snore and Roar invites families, adults and scouts to stay the night on the zoo’s lion and tiger hill. There’s an evening tour through an animal house or one of the exhibit areas—from Amazonia to the Asia Trail, Sumatran tigers and African lions to octopus and lobsters. Note to the squeamish: zookeepers feed dead rats to the Komodo dragon and American alligator. It culminates with an eery flashlight tour of the grounds, before lights out at 10 p.m.

(Video by Megan Gambino and Ryan Reese)

This week, the Sackler begins its “Video Art from Asia” series with two short films by Chinese makers: Yang Fudong’s “Liu Lan” and Cao Fei and Ou Ning’s “San Yuan Li.” Both films were made in 2003.

“Liu Lan” is a rustic love story. At the start, a man in an all-white suit meets his girlfriend by the river. Nothing too hot or heavy on this date: the couple share a meal of fish aboard her boat. Then he sits respectfully at her side while she embroiders a piece of lace. It all goes down in black and white, and birds croon in the (imagined) distance. The lovers don’t even talk. As the film ends and the boy steps back on shore, a female singer asks “why are people in love always apart?” On the heels of Fudong’s lovely display, the question leaps out as both physical and metaphysical. How can one unpack the symbolism of the shore, the boat, the swaying reeds, the boy’s fancy suit and the girl’s old-fashioned veil? Perhaps it’s better to leave the film as it is, a stolen moment between a city boy and the girl who reminds him of home.

Meanwhile next door, there’s a whole different show going on. The museum’s other offering, filmed to beat-heavy, fast music is “San Yuan Li,” a video portrait of a town set on the doorstep of upheaval (click for a Youtube preview). The town of San Yuan Li became famous when its residents took up arms against British expeditionary forces in 1841. Now, the village is a relic of the past, existing under the shadow of China’s fast-developing Gangzhou province. The filmmakers play with speed, showing a montage of Gangzhou residents’ morning calisthenics in humorous fast-forward. But they slow down on group shots of San Yuan Li-ites as they laugh, make food and talk on the phone. Whether San Yuan Li will get buoyed up or destroyed by the modernization sweeping the neighboring lands remains a big question at the end.

In a sense, both these films show the rough in-between places where the old and the new rub up against each other. The theme makes sense for China, which has undergone shocking change in just the past decade.

The curators put the films in dark rooms next to each other, setting up a contrast area in advance, a gray zone where the two films’ sound and ethos come together. It’s strange to sit in “Liu Lan,” spellbound by the lovers’ silent drama, while the sound of car horns intrudes from next door. But that’s the point, isn’t it?

Still from “Liu Lan” courtesy of Yang Fudong and the Sackler Gallery of Art. Films on view until November 30, 2008, as part of “Moving Perspectives: Video Art from Asia.”

The most exciting thing about discovering a new species, I always thought, was choosing the name.

In fourth grade I sketched out possible names for new species, on the off-chance that I’d recognize a new breed of worm on my walk home and, unprepared, name it something lame. Anikus Guptus, a rare species of something-or-other, could guarantee my immortality in the world of academia.

The team that found the Olive-backed Forest Robin in the tropical backwoods of Gabon, Africa, might have had less self-aggrandizing goals when they named their newly-discovered species Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus.

According to a study published in the journal Zootaxa, Brian Schmidt, an ornithologist with the National Zoo’s Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program in Gabon, first brought samples of this bird to the United States in 2003. Genetic testing revealed that the 4.5-inch-long forest robins were different from the four species scientists already knew about.

Then the naming. Schmidt adopted the genus name Stiphrornis, common among the four—now five!—species of forest robin. Pyrrholaemus, according to the study, came from the Greek pyrrho, which means “orange-colored” and laemus, meaning “throat.” The English common name, Olive-backed Forest Robin, emphasized the bird’s “distinctive olive back and rump.”

It’s no Aha ha (a wasp), Calponia harrisonfordi (a spider) or Oedipus complex (a snake), but it definitely gets the point across.

Image courtesy of Brian Schmidt