Search Results for: art

Side-tunneling

January 28, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

The small have strategies to ensure that their genetic knowledge on how to be small is preserved. Since smaller size within a species often means the individual lacks the physical strength to power their way into the female’s heart they need to outsmart the strong.…

The Makhunik Ceiling

January 10, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

There are indications in the architecture that 100 years ago the average resident of Makhunik, in eastern Iran, measured just 100cm in height – some 50cm shorter than the average height at the time. Of the roughly 200 stone and clay houses that make up…

The Dehnel Phenomenon

December 31, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

The Dehnel phenomenon, named after its discoverer, Polish zoologist August Dehnel, is the ability of certain species of animals such as shrews and weasels to shrink skull, bones and major organs in order to survive scarce food situations. Interestingly, they shrink in anticipation, before the…

Deaf Fish

December 12, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

A recent study shows that every second farmed salmon we eat is deaf resulting of a deformity in the ear, caused by accelerated growth in aquaculture. The study’s lead author, Ms Tormey Reimer, says when they went looking for the cause of the deformity they…

Vechur A2 Milk

November 27, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

The Incredible Shrinking Man is not big on dairy because it promotes excess growth in the body. But we’ll make an exception for the milk of the tiny Vechur cow originating from the warm and humid climate of the state of Kerala in southern India. According…

From Model Organism to Spirit Animal

November 22, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Evolution is not just a process of change: it’s also a process of holding on to what works. When one species mutates into another, most of it remains the same. We still are to some extent most of the beings we’ve been in the past.…

A Frog’s Patience

November 1, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Bigger males, both human and animal, are generally more successful in attracting and being selected by females. But not in all species. The Incredible Shrinking Man seeks inspiration from those few species where females favour the small, like Agalychnis callidryas, the Red-eyed tree frog. In…

Japanese Miniatures: Cat Maximisation

October 30, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Our series of Japanese Miniatures investigates the specific Japanese sensitivity for small as expressed in their love for things like bonsai, sushi, netsuke, and capsule hotels. Japan ‘knows’ things about shrinking that may help the human species embrace the desire for, or overcome hurdles to, becoming…

Lodan Report: Private to Public

October 19, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Kampung Lodan, Kampung Kerapu and Kampung Tongkol are three villages situated on the banks of the Ciliwung river in the sinking Indonesian city of Jakarta. Because the river beds along the Ciliwung were, and increasingly are, subjected to regular flooding it was never a popular…

Shrink Exercises: A01 to A07

October 15, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

There are BIG things one can do to embrace the idea of shrinking, like finding a short partner, hormone therapy, or gently curbing the excess growth of your children by feeding them growth suppressing foods. And there are SMALL things you can do to embrace…

Studio of Suspended Disbelief

October 9, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Whenever The Incredible Shrinking Man is invited to participate in a public event, such as an exhibition, festival or symposium, we simply pack up the research studio and relocate the investigation to the new space. There we continue reading, writing, discussing and creating new material…

Trans-species Psychology

September 23, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Trans-species psychology re-embeds humans within the larger matrix of the animal kingdom by erasing the notion that humans are substantively cognitively and emotionally different from other species. According to the ecologist/psychologist Gay A. Bradshaw, there is a common model of brain, mind and behaviour for humans and…

Hyperthermal Shrinking

August 28, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Global warming has the potential to shrink the human species. As we’ve discussed before mammals, and many species of birds and fish, shrink when the climate heats up. During the last two hyperthermals, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (55 million years ago) and the Eocene Thermal…

Fear of the Vegetarian

April 13, 2017 By arne hendriks 0

Brian Langerhans and Thomas deWitt of the department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University examined the specificity with which freshwater snails use environmental cues to induce defensive phenotypes such as shrinking. In one environment they introduced a species of sunfish that eats snails, In the…

Shrinking Superheroes

February 9, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Shrinking Violet (Salu Digby):  Violet is from the planet Imsk. Originally, she could only shrink down to subatomic sizes, if necessary. Later she is able to grow to giant sizes as well. The Atom (Ray Palmer): Dr. Raymond Palmer is a physicist and professor specializing in matter compression as a means…

Degrowth: Down to the Kohr

January 31, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Leopold Kohr was an economist and political scientist known for his opposition to the “cult of bigness” in social organisation and the inspiration for Fritz Schumacher’s iconic publication Small is beautiful and the Degrowth movement. Here are two quotes from his 1951 book The Breakdown of Nations. On…

Wadlow’s Curve

January 20, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Measuring 272 cm the American citizen Robert Wadlow was the tallest person in recent history. Wadlow was so tall and heavy he needed braces to walk. Also his limbs had became slightly insensitive at the extremities. When one of the metal straps of his braces…

KancerCel: Dialogues n Malignant Growth

November 23, 2016 By arne hendriks 0

The Incredible Shrinking Man is interested in the relationship between cancer and our society’s obsession with growth. To connect the desire for less with the necessity to overcome our desire for more Arne Hendriks is developing KankerCel (CancerCell). KankerCel merges the languages of cancer research and…

Abundance Fantasies: The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat

November 20, 2016 By arne hendriks 0

Perhaps no Hollywood movie director and choreographer personifies the desire for abundance better than Busby Berkeley. His choreographies were wildly extravagant, the geometric patterns hallucinatory, and the props and costumes beyond anything seen before. His work oozes a profound and limitless desire for excess. And…

Long Legged Risk

October 3, 2016 By arne hendriks 0

Long legs beautiful? Perhaps, but according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting  the long-legged have a 42 percent higher risk of developing bowel cancer. Lead author of the study Guillaume Onyeaghala has two hypotheses that may explain the…