Becoming your Meaning

Becoming Your Meaning

            The propensity of the cuttlefish to adjust shape, color, and physical behavior depending on its mood and its interaction with other organisms was a jumping-off point for our imaginations with this project. By studying the way that they communicate visually, we thought that we might be able to apply certain concepts from their interactions into the realm of human fashion (seeing as how we do not currently possess the technology to change our skin).  Our goal was to look into the possibility of creating a language that is not limited by words and definitions – allowing for creative expression that can connect us beyond a systematic rhetoric (a preconceived notion that is handed down without allowing for one to come up with their own interpretation of existence) Within these thoughts is the possibility of a world with more options for communication – options that we can create for ourselves. So we tried to translate the (possibly unconscious) behavior of the cuttlefish into practical motions and symbols for intentional human use.

            As humans we to have a way of communicating with each other through the way we present ourselves. When we see a man in a suit with trimmed hair and a suitcase and compare him to a young man with shaggy hair, ripped jeans and a can of red bull, we automatically understand certain things about each individual. The associations that come with brand names of clothing and products such as red bull are a marketed language. There are certain feelings associated with appearance that are inherent to human nature: a frown and down cast eyes imply different kinds of sadness; a smile, a wrinkled forehead, etc. all have a group of feelings they can be associated with and understood across cultural boundaries. The cuttlefish also sends out universal signifiers to animals of different species, whether it is to defend itself or attract – the language is there.

Cephalopod skin

            We first studied chromatophores in great detail to get a better understanding of exactly what is going on beneath the surface of the cuttlefish’s skin. These chromatophores are a combination of pigment-containing and light-reflecting cells in cephalopods and other animals, which are connected to muscles that expand and contract according to neural impulses. Interestingly, this action is based on visual cues, and (seeing as how the fish themselves are colorblind) also is meant mostly for interspecies communication and interaction.

Chromatophore diagram

            Although we know that there is no evidence that cuttlefish possess Theory of Mind, they are still able to communicate effectively with this visual language. If they can do this without the ability to even understanding the concept of understanding, then perhaps there is a way humans can implement similar techniques in order to better understand each other. Since there is no single language that all people understand, perhaps we could form a series of motions and colors that express not words, but emotions and thoughts – like a less conversation-oriented sign language.

            We thought about the ways that both cuttlefish and humans deal with the same situations and how those ideas could help us form this language. Probably most importantly is camouflage. The fish will blend in to its surroundings nearly perfectly to wait for prey or to avoid predators. When this fails, it will do a large, bold contrast display of color. We looked for similar behaviors in humans and found the natural inclination to blend in when uncomfortable in a situation and then reacting strongly when your cover is blown – like blushing when you are called out in an unforgiving crowd. In mating, the cuttlefish use their colors and displays to attract attention. Humans might wear certain clothes that are flashy, clothes that would imply an extroverted character, or one who is confident enough to make a scene (like Lady Gaga) – potentially implying that they know best. Clothing used to be a class signifier, separating the royals from the peasants from the indentured servants. Even among a class one might be able to tell whose house someone worked in because the only clothes they owned were of the colors of their masters house. This idea has evolved into clothing as an indicator of social identity, although it still can signify economic status.

Nick Cave "Soundsuits"

            There has been in-depth research and experimentation into several of the concepts that we have been exploring, yet no projects that really combine them all. For instance, the engineers and scientists have been looking at cuttlefish camouflage technique and the practical, strategic applications for imitation skin technology. The Noun Project is an online database making an attempt to create a visual universal language through symbols and shapes that describe very specific items and circumstances. Some of the symbols are universal and some are very culturally specific, but they all cross the language boundary as long as you have come into contact with that object before. Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits” implement clothing as a medium like ours. In speaking of his work, he says that they allow people to express themselves and move in new and much more freeing ways, literally erasing the visual cultural boundaries at the same time by disguising race beneath a common and changeable visual form. He is aiding in the creation of a new medium through which to “speak” without any words. Also very relevant to our work, Susanne K. Langer has some interesting thoughts on the matter of “connotational semantics” in terms of music, which has the ability to communicate thoughts and feelings without actually correlating to any type of representational language. This is basically where we ended up in our project.

            The fabric costume was designed with spandex in the colors that occur in cuttlefish skin: black, white, yellow, and iridescent blue and pink. Since the purpose of this project was to introduce this concept, we wanted to start off somewhere simple. We tried to keep our “visual language” relevant to signs and actions that are relevant to all humans across cultural borders while incorporating the color and shape-changing ability of the fabric. The motion for “hunger” for instance, incorporated the white rectangle that we saw in the experiments with cuttlefish on checkerboards and we placed it on the stomach to be expanded when hungry. “Anger” involved fast, aggressive movements incorporating the iridescent blue on the back in reference to the cuttlefish  “spaceship” light display when hunting prey. Sadness was pretty self-explanatory – the blending in with black coloration and quite literally retreating into oneself. And then of course there was the interest in a mate or the “courtship dance,” which basically just involved the most outrageous and bold movements and colors possible to achieve.

            In the future, this project might be expanded further to encompass more styles of animal visual communication to see just how far studying animals can help us to understand our own limited communication. At the moment, the only way we can “speak” with them is by training them to respond to our language, whereas animals can communicate across species with relative ease. With better funding and more time, we could improve the technology, size, and shape of the garment, streamlining the gestures, and perhaps even implement it in a way that allows for not only cross-cultural but cross-species communication.

Bibliography

Anthes, Emily. "Cuttlefish Provide Smart Fashion Tips." BBC Future. September 11, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120907-smart-fashion-tips-by-cuttlefish.

            - Research into cuttlefish skin technology

Barbosa, A., L. Litman, and RT. Hanlon. "Changeable Cuttlefish Camouflage Is Influenced by Horizontal and Vertical Aspects of the Visual Background." PubMed 194, no. 4 (2008): 405-13. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/pubmed/18188570.

            -  Studying the visual stimuli aspect of a cuttlefish’s camouflage process

            - Found to be combining different elements the from environment when deciding which                          tactic to use

Barbosa, A., J. J. Allen, L. M. Mathger, and R. T. Hanlon. "Cuttlefish Use Visual Cues To Determine Arm Postures For Camouflage." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2011, 84-90. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://rspb.royalsociety publishing.org/content/early/2011/05/10/rspb.2011.0196.

            - Positional behavior in relation to camouflage

            - Arm postures and attempts to blend in with entire body, not just color

Boal, J.G. "Social Recognition: A Top Down View of Cephalopod Behavior." Vie Et Millieu - Life & Environment 56, no. 2 (2006): 69-79. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JnzQlAX-yPQJ:www.millersville.edu/biology/faculty/boal-pdf/5.boal_vie_milieu_2006.pdf &cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.

            - Jean Boal’s research on social recognition and interactions within the cephalopod                                 communities

Brown, C., M. P. Garwood, and J. E. Williamson. "It Pays to Cheat: Tactical Deception in a Cephalopod Social Signalling System." Biology Letters 11, no. 4 (2012): 729-32. Accessed May 1, 2015. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early /2012/06/26/rsbl.2012.0435.short.

            - Deceptive signaling and communication in mating

Chiao, C.-C., J. K. Wickiser, J. J. Allen, B. Genter, and R. T. Hanlon. "Hyperspectral Imaging Of Cuttlefish Camouflage Indicates Good Color Match In The Eyes Of   Fish Predators."Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, no. 22 (2015): 9148-153. Accessed May 1, 2015. http://www.pnas.org/content/108/22/9148.full.

            - Study of cuttlefish color matching from the eyes of their predators

"Exposing the Seabed Surprise / David Gallo." Love of Learning. July 8, 2014. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.20187.org.tw/ai-de-xue-xi/ying-yin-xue-xi/ying-yin-xue-xi/jieluhaidijingqidavidgallo.

              - Cuttlefish exploration

              - Source for our working title

Hanlon, Roger T., Anya C. Watson, and Alexandra Barbosa. "A “Mimic Octopus” in the Atlantic: Flatfish Mimicry and Camouflage by Macrotritopus Defilippi." Marine Biological Laboratory 218, no. 1 (2010): 15-24. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.biolbull.org/content/218/1/15.long.

            - Studying other kinds of camouflage and environment-affected behavior

Hanlon, Roger. "Cephalopod Dynamic Camouflage." Current Biology 17, no. 11 (2007): R400-404. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(07)01138-4.

            - Research and experimentation with visual patterning in cuttlefish

            - Colorblindness test – it perceived only wavelengths

            - Uniform, mottle, and disruptive camouflage theory

Kamea, Tala. "Words: Sound as Signifier: Communication and Expression Through the Sound of Clothing." Talakamea.com. January 1, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://talakamea.com/filter/cuttlefish/Words

            - Exploration of the connection between fashion and communication

            - Susanne K. Langer’s discussion of music and connotational language

            - Nick Cave “soundsuits” and thoughts on breaking cultural boundaries

"Kings of Camouflage." YouTube. Accessed April 29, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgdVVU8tBTQ.

            - Exploration into camouflage techniques

            - Decision-making process for light displays

            - Visual research into colors and shapes

Lynch, E.D.W. "The Noun Project, A Global Visual Language of Open Source Icons." Laughing Squid. October 9, 2013. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://laughingsquid.com/the-noun-project-a-global-visual-language-of-open-source-icons/.

            - Description and video of the Noun Project’s goals and basis

Parker, G. H. "Animal Color Changes and Their Neurohumors." The Quarterly Review of Biology 18, no. 3 (1943): 205. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2808996?uid=3739656&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106634317603.

            - Neurological control of chromatophores

            - Changing color with life cycles

Stuart-Fox, Devi, and Adnan Moussalli. "Camouflage, Communication And Thermoregulation: Lessons From Colour Changing Organisms." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, no. 1516 (2009):   463-70. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19000973.

            - Three camouflage/ anti-predator behaviors

            - Sexual and social signaling

            - Evolution of color change - advantages in communication

            - Possible thermoregulation uses

Wood, Dr. James, and Kelsie Jackson. "How Cephalopods Change Color." The Cephalopod Page. September 16, 2004. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/cephschool/HowCephalopodsChangeColor.pdf           

            - Describing the layers of chromatophores and their individual functions

            - Process involved in color changing

-Kaleigh Moynihan
-Connie West

Being Your Meaning (Cuttlefish Fashioning)

Here is Connie and Kaleigh's cuttlefish performance at Sector 2337 - I recorded it for the visuals, not focusing on the audio, so Connie's narration is a little hard to hear, but the shape of the whole thing comes through clearly.

So long and thanks for all the fish

Language is a big part of human communication. We speak to each other; write to each other about what is going on in our life all the time. And sometimes we get a chance to learn different language other than the mother tongue and that somehow broaden our range of communication. The first step of evolution of human language that made everything possible is thought that humans being capable of imitating sound and adding it to their repertoire. This process is known as vocal learning.

A lot of animals communicate acoustically and mainly they use innate repertoire of sounds. But there are some other animals that are capable of vocal learning. 

And there is a research that Killer whales are capable of cross-species vocal learning, published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

Researchers found that after Killer whales were kept in the same tank with Bottlenose dolphins, their sound pattern has changed significantly. Killer whales’ vocalization mainly has three patterns: pulsed calls as a dominant pattern, clicks and whistles. However, researchers found out that their pattern started to mimic that of Bottlenose dolphins after they became tank mates. They were emitting far more clicks and whistles than the usual Killer whales that only have been with other Killer whales. According to the research, they consider that the Killer whales tend to match the vocalization with other social associates. Similarly, There has been a study over bottlenose dolphins mimicking humpback whale song in 2011. 

So if the Killer whales are capable of vocal learning, and they are also capable cross-species vocal learning, would it feel like they’re learning second language? After I came to America 3 years ago, I have confronted interesting situation with languages. First friends that I met here, all most all of them are Chinese and I was often stuck with a lot of people only speaking Chinese and after a while, I was guessing what they were talking about and slowly started to mimic them. That happened to other friend who is Bhutanese, stuck with bunch of Koreans. However, as geographical reasons, there are some similarities between those Asian languages. My question is, pretend as if we’re in Killer whales’ situation, how long does it take to understand meaning of what the other person is saying without any means to explain other than the language itself that you don’t understand? What if the other language is not from your cultural boundary? 

So I would like to present a short video of people who uses different language trying to have conversation and see if they can actually communicate.

There will be two people participating in each conversation: person A(wearing dolphin head) and B(wearing orca head). There would be few topics written on the paper that A chooses randomly. Then A will start the conversation with the short sentence that is related to the topic. Then B will try to answer and continue conversation as he or she guesses what it means. During this whole process, A and B will strictly use their own language and there will not be any topic that they can directly explain with body language. Both A and B should not be able to speak each other’s languages.

So in the video, there is case A and B. In case A, Meimei(dolphin) speaks Cantonese and Ray(killer whale) speaks Shanghainese. Usually they talk to each other in Mandarin or English. Cantonese and Shanghainese are both dialects of Chinese. However, Chinese dialects are famous for being unintelligible even among Chinese people. Killer whale is called Killer ‘Whale’ but it is kind of a dolphin. It is oceanic dolphin; Delphinidae but are commonly called whales rather than dolphins. So would it be possible that their languages are like unintelligible dialects? 

In case B, Dechen(dolphin) speaks Bhutanese and Sam(killer whale) speaks Cantonese. Usually they talk to each other only in English. Bhutanese and Cantonese both came from Sino-Tibetian languages. However, they are two completely different languages, just like Icelandic and German belong to Germanic language family but they are two different languages. So the question was that Killer whales and Dolphins are both Cetaceans. But the probably use completely different languages?

If I could have more time and funding to do this project, I will probably try to find more diversity in languages. I wish it would move on to two people who are from totally different cultural area. For example, A would be speaking Korean or Chinese and B would be speaking French or English. Considering that it is almost impossible to find someone who is not entirely exposed to English here in US, if English speaker participates in this project, he or she is likely to be person B, who has to guess during the conversation. 

This project has its point of trying to put us in those Killer whales’ position where they have taught who to speak bottlenose dolphins when they have no textbooks or dictionary to figure out what they are talking about.

Annotated Bibliography

Whitney B. Musser, Ann E. Browles, Dawn M. Grebner, Jessica L. Carance, Differences in acoustic features of vocalization produced by killer whales cross-socialized with bottlenose dolphins, print,  The Journal of Acoustic Society of America, Aug, 2014

Original research that the project is based on

Gabriella Cowperthwaite, Blacfish, Documentary film, Jul, 2013
Great film by itself, and it rises question about the SeaWorld aquarium, which is related to one of the researchers mentioned before. 

James Vincent, Scientists working on human-to-dolphin translator report first succesful interaction, Web, Apr, 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-working-on-humantodolphin-translator-report-first-successful-interaction-9228552.html

Introduction to scientific research of Human-Dolphin cross species communication

Denise Herzing, TED:Could we speak language of dolphin?, Web, TED TALK, Feb, 2013

http://on.ted.com/Herzing

Dr Herzing, introducing 'dolphin translator' and further research on Human-Dolphin cross-species communication

Denise Herzing, Chat : Is it a dolphin translator or an interface?, Web, Mar, 2014

http://www.wilddolphinproject.org/uncategorized/chat-is-it-a-dolphin-translator-or-an-interface/

Dr Herzing 's article on more information about the dolphin translator, CHAT

David Kirby, Captive Killer Whales Learn to Speak Dophin, Web, Oct, 2014

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/10/09/killer-whale-learns-speak-dolphin

Briefly introduce the research and touches over issues along with the aquarium situation for dolphins and killer whales

Manon Verchot, Killer Whale learn to speak dolphin-with an accent, Web, Oct, 2014

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/killer-whales-learn-speak-dolphin.html

Briefly introduce the research and covers specific traits of the vocal patterns.

Dorothee Kremers, Margarita Briseno Jaramaillo, Martin Boye, Albaln Lemasson and Martine Hausberger, Do dolphins rehearse show-stimuli when at rest? Delayed matching auditory memory, Dec, 2011

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00386/full

Dolphins mimicking whale sound. More information about vocal learing

Justine Alford, Captive Orcas Learn to speak Dolphin, Web, Oct 2014

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/captive-orcas-learn-communicate-their-dolphin-mates

Briefly goes over the research

Seriously Science, Killer whales can learn to speak 'dolphin', Web, Nov, 2013

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/11/06/killer-whales-can-learn-speak-dolphin/

Discussion among people goes on below the article.

List of varieties of Chinese Dialects, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_varieties_of_Chinese

More information on the languages mentioned in the project

Sino-tibetan languages family, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages

More information on the languages mentioned in the project

Isabella Steger, Do you Dare try the Devil-Language? China's 10 Hardest Dialects, Web, May 2013

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/21/do-you-dare-try-the-devil-language-chinas-10-hardest-dialects/

More information on the languages mentioned in the project

Dzongkha(Bhutanese), Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzongkha

More information on the language mentioned in the project

Cantonese, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese

More information on the language mentioned in the project

Shanghainese, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghainese

More information on the language mentioned in the project

Form Follows Function (Ryer & Maddie)

Form Follows Function: Biomimicry in Architecture

When humans replicate animal behaviors, in actions and construction they are participating in Biomimicry. The intent of these actions is not only to replicate the visual aesthetics of what animals create but also mimic the actions of these creations and hopefully reap the same benefits. The attraction to Biomimicry comes as both the members of our group are fascinated by the action of “making” and both of our portfolios reflect this, with emphasis on construction and the relationship of form to function. We came to understand that in the animal world, forum almost always follows function and in hindsight, this is rather obvious. Both our time in the biosemiotics class and observation of animal activity would show that most animals have no concern for the looks of their creations. Termites take no pride in the shape of their mounds and obtain no benefit from its physical appearance but rather its ability to hold a constant temperature by holding onto the heat of the sun or the cool of the night. In a similar fashion a family of beavers is not seeking to make a statement by building their dams or the consequential lakes that build behind them, their only hope is for the provision of housing and a place to keep food for the months when it would become unavailable.

The bowerbird however, is a much more vain creature, one that builds only for visual benefit; the male collects objects of various colors and textures and arranges them in a specific fashion in order to attract a female. For many of our design choices, humans are closer to the bowerbird. We choose colors based on what we find most attractive, and a majority of us will choose to live in a space that we find beautiful, even if it isn’t amazingly functional. For both humans and the bowerbird forum is most revered. Biomimicry however, introduces the mentality of other animals to our construction. How can we lessen the workload of our structures? How can we live more cleanly? Can we be more efficient in out day-to-day life? The answers to many of these questions have already been answered by the animals around us and biomimicry introduces these concepts to modern human construction.

This information could easily be presented in a standard lecture with a corresponding slideshow format, however our group is not one that is entirely comfortable directly in front of a group and, being that our work focus more on construction rather than conceptual ideas we felt that we could not accurately portray our information with some abstract style of performance. Being that it is an accessible yet still follows a unique fashion we supposed a puppet show style performance would be a way of conveying our information in a manner that was again, accessible but also comfortable. It also allowed us to present our information in a similar fashion to a lecture yet with a whimsical and interesting twist. Indeed this was also our main goal; we hoped to be able to create a fun presentation where we could confidently show off the information and what we had learned. We also wanted to show examples of biomimicry in our performance that may have been less obvious than what was expected was well as show the difference between strong and weak examples of biomimicry. 

This presentation focused more on the relation of animal construction to that of humans and if given more time there is plenty of room for subtopics such as a more in depth look at the biosemiotic relations of animal to their constructions. More visual aids could have been utilized as well to aid in the depiction of animals and their making. Although the characters themselves were strong in their construction and visually, our group is very new to video recording and editing. This is something neither of us have really worked with in the past, and the final work would be much stronger both with more time taken in the care of recording and if this had been lead by someone more competent in that field. Our script did a fine enough job at getting across the information we hopped to portray, however their were elements that were clunky and again we believe that with more time and maybe the addition of a group member who was more skilled a writing these wrinkles may have been ironed out.

In conclusion, we were pleased with the final outcome of our presentation, as with any there are areas that could be expanded and with a topic as broad as biomimicry there is infinite room for this expansion.  

FormFunction1 from Madeline Vaccaro on Vimeo.

 

Annotated Bibliography

Aguilar, Javier Senosiain. Bio-Architecture. Oxford: Architectural, 2003. Print.

Aguilar’s book breaks down bio-architecture into ways we can see it functioning in nature, and how space, structure, and shape can each be analyzed to help us understand its importance. This was an early research tool in which we found helped us begin to think about our topic more thoroughly.

Aldersey-Williams, Hugh. Zoomorphic: New Animal Architecture. London: Laurence King Pub. in Association with Harper Design International, 2003. Print.

Zoomorphis provided us with some initial points of reference into architecture that mimicks nature merely at a surface level. However, we did not utilized any information directly from this source.

Benyus, Janine. "Janine Benyus: Biomimicry's Surprising Lessons From Nature's Engineers." TED. TED Conferences, LLC, Feb. 2005. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs>.

Benyus explores biomimicry’s potentials to help us design a better and more ecologically friendly world in this TED Talk. This served as a nice way to frame other methods of applying concepts of biomimicry to the world in addition to architecture.

"Biomimetic Architecture." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomimetic_architecture>

This Wikipedia page served as a good and brief primer on Biomimetic Architecture and its history. It also served as a lead into other points of research to develop our topics of discussion such as architect Antoni Gaudi, the different types of biomimetic architecture, as well as other concrete architecture examples to research.

"Eastgate Centre, Harare." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastgate_Centre,_Harare>.

This Wikipedia page served to give us a primer on the Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe. It allowed us to gain a general understanding of what the building is, as well as to provide a simplified and concise example of how the passive cooling system in the centre works.

"Fooled by Nature - Beaver Dams." YouTube, Sept. 2008. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na2HYq11yuM>.

This video about beaver dams provides a great insight and understanding into the topic of beaver dams. It was mainly utilized as a source for visuals when presenting our ideas about beaver dams.

"Funny Flying Machines.mp4." YouTube, Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAfERVvGqco>.

This video brings brief information on early flying machines to its viewers as well as the amazing footage of the many attempted machines. We used the footage of some of the more bird-like machines in our presentation.

Hancocks, David. Animals and Architecture. New York: Praeger, 1971. Print.

Hancocks book goes into much detail about animals and their architect-like behaviors, and more so gets into animals’ relationships with that of humans. This was an early source in our research and we did not directly pull information from it, however it provides great context for situating and differentiating animal behavior with its own architecture versus that of humans.

"MTV CRIBS PRICIEST PADS." YouTube, Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk1l4DoxBcg>.

Small sections were taken from this video of the television show MTV Cribs in order to illustrate our points when talking about the bowers made by bower birds.

NatGeo Wild. "World's Weirdest - Bowerbird Woos Female with Ring." YouTube, June 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U89tw093s_Y>.

This video provided our presentation with footage of bowerbirds collecting items for and building their bowers. It does have a great amount of information concerning bowerbirds and their bowers.

"Renaissance Da Vinci Flying Machine." YouTube, Aug. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugVB9ih9boQ>.

We originally wanted to use this video for it’s footage of Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings of flying machines, but we decided to instead look to it for information.

"The History of the Hoover Dam." YouTube, Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl678len3aY>.

This Youtube video provides a comprehensive guide to the history of the Hoover Dam, from which we pulled some information as well as footage of the dam itself.

"Termite World - Life in the Undergrowth - BBC Attenborough." YouTube, Nov. 2008. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGaT0B__2DM>.

This BBC video narrated by David Attenborough proved to be useful in it’s discussion of the sizely termite mounds in Zimbabwe. It also provided our presentation with detailed footage of the termite mounds themselves.

Vierra, Stephanie. "Biomimicry: Designing to Model Nature." Biomimicry: Designing to Model Nature. National Institute of Building Sciences, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.

Vierra’s writing provided us with more concrete examples of biomimicry. It also goes into detail about different projects that use concepts of biomimicry in order to better the world. It gets pretty in-depth into the topic, but we used it as a way to begin to understand the concept of biomimicry better but decided not to use the more hyper-specifics that this article provides.

"Vogelkop Bowerbird, Hüttengärtner." YouTube, Oct. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08xZeU6Aksc>.

This video provided better footage of bowerbirds and more detailed images of the birds building their bowers and attracting a mate.