Orders from the Trump administration affecting science and health in the United States and from there, the world are coming thick and fast, affecting a myriad of institutional and personal decisions that depend on accurate information provided by the U.S. government. This ranges from websites disappearing to the prohibition of dictionary words from federal scientist research papers. Now researchers and data nerds are rushing to preserve this vital information before its lost.Meanwhile, many public communications have been paused as well. For the first time in sixty years, the federal health agency, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has stopped its own publications, including the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). This comes on top of a communications gag order preventing its scientists from sharing any new findings from new insights in cancer treatment to potential new pandemics like Ebola with the public.Additionally, it orders that a list of specific terms be removed from any CDC research manuscript being submitted to, already being considered, or already in press by any scientific or medical journal, with publication paused or retracted until the terms are scrubbed from the work. The terms in question are: Gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, biologically female.RelatedAs Trump escalates war on facts, scientists warn we are going to get screwedA quick search by Salon of PubMed, the National Institutes of Health-run database of academic biomedical and health publications as well as related disciplines like life sciences and chemical sciences, shows that it currently contains 145,340 pages worth of results (1,453,391individual publications) featuring the term gender, and 5,613 publications with the term transexual, with papers dating back to 1903.Since most medical science papers report demographic details, excluding papers that report this information or use this language would mean un-publishing exciting new findings on cancer treatment, or, say, vital information about H5N1 transmission among American farmworkers or the ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City area. The exact implications of President Trumps orders are not entirely clear, so its hard to say exactly what may not be published as a result, but pre-emptive self-censorship is also likely. On Monday, some of the pages had already been restored, according to the New York Times, underscoring the unpredictable status of some federal information."Deleting gobs of public data/resources as well is the digital equivalent of book burning."In the meantime, a general communications gag order bans any CDC scientist from submitting any new scientific findings to the public. As federally-funded health websites and webpages disappear in real time from the Internet, the race is on to preserve vital datasets and formerly public information.Charles Gaba, a health care policy data analyst and web developer, created links on his website to every mirrored copy of the CDCs public facing web pages as they appear on the Internet Archive, a nearly 30-year-old non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the internet from censorship and data decay.These pages and related files are both funded by taxpayers and specifically intended to be for the general public, after all, Gaba told Salon. In quickly indexing every public-facing page on the CDC site in the nick of time, he anticipated what has happened over the past few days, although perhaps not the specifics of Trumps Jan. 29 memo to all federal departments and agencies, outlining an executive order called Defending Women, that seems to have triggered the hasty scrubbing of federally-funded sites.Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.Still, Gaba notes that both the former presidents campaign statements, and language in the policy playbook Project 2025, had promised to purge the federal government of anyone or anything that they see as related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and of purging federal agencies of references and resources to the same.Anyone who was paying attention (far too few, sadly) should have known that this would also include deleting gobs of public data/resources as well, which is the digital equivalent of book burning, Gaba said. Given Trump/MAGAs disdain for science in general and given the recent/ongoing brouhahas over both vaccinations and transgender rights/treatment, CDC data seemed like a likely initial target.Gaba notes that the actual archiving of datasets isnt his work but that of researchers and health care professionals collaborating to save what can be saved. The Association of Healthcare Journalists suggests that journalists back up data they use for ongoing stories and that is still visible on federal health websites. By last Friday, the CDC had removed data on health disparities and health equity, including datasets on HIV. But its not only the CDC that seems to be scrubbing websites.NIH publications and data are also at risk: the organizations Office of Research on Womens Health had also disappeared from the Internet by Friday. So had federal information on climate change."The change in the web since the inauguration has been more than we expected."Another initiative attempting to save the data is the End of Term Archive, a collaboration of institutions that set their automated web harvesting tools to work in September to preserve government website data, performing a second webcrawl that started just after the inauguration so that before and afters can be compared.This isnt just a response to Donald Trump. The EOT Archive updates every four years after U.S. elections to preserve government websites at the end of a presidential administration, after which new administrations typically like to make some changes.I will say that the change in the web since the inauguration has been more than we expected, Mark Phillips, a librarian at the University of North Texas Libraries, said in a video interview with Salon. UNT Libraries is a partner in the EOT Archive, along with the Internet Archive, the Common Crawl Foundation, Webrecorder and others.This year has been a bit more volatile in just the amount of content thats changing, the domains that are going away, or the content that is no longer available that was [there] previous to the inauguration, and so were trying our best to either make sure that we collected it beforehand, Phillips said. Vanished content gets noted as part of the crawling process, which is done with archival practices in mind.And so its information that in the future, as we go through and do analysis, or as a researcher does analysis of this content, theyd be able to say what wasnt available that had been [before], Phillips explained.RelatedAviation expert: "I am embarrassed" that Trump blamed DEI for D.C. air disasterFor example, the EOT Archive has records that the University of North Texas requested a usaid.gov URL on a particular date, and received a 404 error message or another indication that content was no longer available. The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, was issued a stop-work order last month, and on Monday, it was reported that staffers had been told to stay home, and that Trump plans to merge USAID into the U.S. State Department, reducing its workforce and budget in the process. A Salon search for usaid.gov on the same day resulted in a cant find server error message.Phillips suggests that journalists, researchers, community groups or independent citizens should try to safeguard content thats important to them, downloading copies of important information or datasets.The Internet Archive has a utility which you can use to go through and immediately do a capture so that it ends up in the Wayback Machine, Phillips said, referring to the archives 28-year record of over 916 billion web pages captured in time. Its a free service, and they encourage you to do that.And of course the Internet Archive is where you can now see the entire public-facing CDC web as it was just before Jan. 27th. So far the EOT Archive has preserved sites after elections in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. Now its open for public nominations of important sites to preserve from 2024. As well as nominations, which anyone can make, the partners identify large bulk lists in the form of huge spreadsheets of domain names or specific URLs to preserve. Ultimately, they know they will run out of time.We need your help to stay independentSubscribe today to support Salon's progressive journalismGenerally, the size and scale of the federal Web is very large, and so we try to get as much as we can within the kind of time constraints we work under, Phillips said. He noted that theyve been doing this since 2008 but this year was, well, something else.There are some things that we definitely didnt have on our bingo cards, Phillips explained. I expected policies [and] initiatives to change because they did that in 2016, they did that in the Biden transition from Trump, this sort of thing happens. But it has been a very unexpected amount of content changing and either going away or being moved around.Gaba drew parallels with the memory holes in George Orwells 1984, which are incinerator chutes that burn references to the past, allowing the government to rewrite history without leaving a trace of the deception.The Trump/Musk Administration, Gaba told Salon, referring to the presidents close alliance with multi-billionaire Elon Musk, is attempting to rewrite history on the fly. The danger isnt just that theyll purge accurate data from the past but that if and when that data is ever reposted that some of it will be modified with false information. Theres also no way of knowing whether future data [and] reports will ever be published, and if it is, whether it will reflect the true state of affairs.Gaba says he wants people to understand that this is likely just the beginning. 1984 is today.Read moreabout science in the Trump eraBy Carlyn ZwarensteinCarlyn Zwarenstein is the author of On Opium: Pain, Pleasure, and Other Matters of Substance. She's on Twitter at @CarlynZwaren.MORE FROM Carlyn ZwarensteinRelated Topics ------------------------------------------CensorshipInternet ArchivePublic HealthTechTrump Admin

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PlunderfulAs One Piece season 2 finally wraps up production, Netflix offers a first look that probably won't excite you, but you'll at least get to see your favourite live-action pirate crew againYou'll almost certainly have to wait a while longer for a trailer.Image credit: Netflix News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Feb. 4, 2025 Good news, live-action One Piece fans, you're one step closer to watching season 2, even if your first look at it isn't all that exciting.If you can believe it, it'll be two years since the first season of the live-action adaptation of One Piece dropped a bit later this year. I know, isn't the passage of time awful! Like pretty much every TV show under the sun these days, season 2 has been taking quite a while, with production having kicked off back in June last year, but now, more than half a year later, Netflix has shared that filming has officially wrapped on the second season. That's obviously quite a lengthy filming time for one season of television, but it does sound like a jam-packed one, as it's set to cover Loguetown, Reverse Mountain (Twin Capes), Whiskey Peak, Little Island, and Drum Island - as creator Eiichiro Oda said previously, "imagine how much it'll cost!"To see this content please enable targeting cookies. To commemorate the occasion, Netflix released a first look at the second season showing the crew with the caption "Straw Hats, our course is set! Season 2 production has officially wrapped, and the Grand Line is fast approaching! Destiny awaits, are you ready to answer the call?" The photo itself shows off Taz Skylar as Sanji, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Iaki Godoy as Luffy, Emily Rudd as Nami, and Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp in what could be Loguetown, the town seemingly celebrating the 22nd anniversary of Gold Roger's execution, but things could always change for all we know. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Post-production can take a while, so I wouldn't expect the show to come out, or even get a trailer, for quite a while yet. Afterall, Oda also previously noted that "just as with last season, they've gone out of their way to promise that they won't put the show out until I'm satisfied," so he'll have to be happy with everything first. In the meantime you could always, I don't know, rewatch the One Piece anime, it's not that long after all. Or you could wait for the remake from Netflix that's on the way, but there's not been any word on when that might be coming out just yet.

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube795kGosh, Shuhei Yoshida has really brought us the Nintendo goods today, huh? On the latest episode of the Minnmax podcast, the former PlayStation executive began to reminisce about the early days of his time at Sony, recalling the time that he got to play the company's first title for the fabled 'SNES PlayStation' the CD-ROM expansion that never saw the light of day.We're sure you already know the story, but briefly, Nintendo had agreed to work with Sony on the SNES' disk expansion, but the Big N secretly went behind the partner's back and announced its intentions to work with Phillips just moments before Sony would unveil the console. Talk about drama, eh?Before the famous double-crossing could take place, however, Sony was working on games for the collaboration. The first of which, Yoshida recalls, was a space shooter of a similar vein to the SEGA CD shmup Slipheed. According to the former PlayStation exec, the game was "almost finished" and boasted "richer graphics than the standard of that time" thanks to the assets being streamed from the CD.Unfortunately, Yoshida cannot remember the game's title or its development team (not even if it was developed in the US or Japan), though he said that he "wouldn't be surprised" if a copy still existed in the Sony archives. Come on, Sony, have a look will ya?As pointed out by Gameranx, VGDensetsu was able to provide even more specifications on BlueSky, stating that Yoshida's description matches "Fortessa [/Forteza], a shmup produced by Epic Sony and (co-?)developed by System Sacom". It's an obscure shout, we'll admit, but the descriptions certainly seem to match up.The description of the game matches that of Fortessa, a shmup produced by Epic Sony and (co-?)developed by System Sacom. VGDensetsu (@vgdensetsu.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T08:58:35.616ZAccording to a forum post shared on VGDensetsu's Tumblr in 2018, Fortessa was set to be an "exclusive for the SNES CD and be a potential pack in", boasting "FMV backgrounds with overlaid sprite-based graphics". The original forum poster claimed that they were tracking down a video of the game, though the post has since been deleted, so it's unclear whether the tape was ever discovered.Fortessa or not, there's something pretty cool about hearing the former exec. talk about taking the 'SNES PlayStation' for a spin how many people can claim to have done that?For the PlayStation's 30th anniversary last year, former Sony executive Shawn Layden spoke to Eurogamer about the collaboration that never was, describing the double-crossing as Nintendo leaving Sony's Ken Kutaragi "proverbially standing at the altar with his optical disc drive in his hands".An SNES PlayStation prototype was found in the wild back in 2015, assumed to be the last of its kind. The hardware was fixed up and went on to be sold with a huge price tag years later. Now, if Sony could just check the archives then perhaps the buyer would have something to play on the damn thing! PauseStationA monster moveTime ExtensionWe idly speculate on what could have beenHaving heard this, do you wish the 'SNES PlayStation' had materialised? Let us know in the comments.[source youtube.com, via gameranx.com, bsky.app]Share:02 Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related Articles69 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo's 'Supercharge' eShop Sale (North America)Every game we scored 9/10 or higherEx-PlayStation Boss On Switch 2's Name: Nintendo Created So Much "Brand Value""Why would you mess with that?"Random: Local Supermarket Wins Trademark Battle Against NintendoIt didn't expect to beat "such a commercial monster"Japan's Switch eShop Will Soon No Longer Accept Overseas Payment MethodsChange will come into effect in March

Ninjas on standby.Nintendo's president, Shuntaro Furukawa, has stated that the company will "take all possible measures" to help combat scalpers and resellers from impacting the upcoming Switch 2 launch.Speaking with press as Nintendo released its latest financial data, Furukawa was asked how the company would adequately prepare for the Switch 2 launch in light of its predecessor's history with stock shortages and resellers.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Renewables notched another win as Amazon signed contracts to buy 476 megawatts of wind and solar on the Iberian Peninsula.The power purchase agreements with multinational utility Iberdrola should help Amazon feed new data centers it has planned in the region. Last May, the company said it would invest $17 billion in infrastructure projects, including data centers, in Spain.Amazons power bill has been soaring lately as it adds data centers to deal with rising demand for AI and cloud services.One of the projects that Amazon is buying into the Tmega wind farm is being built alongside a massive hydroelectric dam system in Portugal. The complex consists of a total of three dams, one of which is an 880-megawatt pumped-storage dam.Pumped-storage facilities have two reservoirs, one higher in elevation, one lower. When power is needed, water is released from the upper reservoir to spin turbines. When theres excess power, massive pumps shift water from the lower reservoir to the upper one. Pumped storage is, in effect, a massive battery.The 274-megawatts of wind turbines being installed at Tmega will feed power to the grid through the hydro complexs existing connection, and when theres excess, it can be used to pump water to the upper reservoir. Such hybrid installations ensure power can be fed to the grid consistently from otherwise intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar.Amazon is also buying a portion of the power from more typical wind and solar plants in northwestern Spain. Last year, the company was the largest buyer of renewable power.Tech companies have been buying power from renewable projects at a fairly consistent pace, driven in part by how quickly and inexpensively wind, solar, and batteries can be installed.Last month, Meta said that it had signed two large deals for solar power, and Microsoft and Google previously announced that they were each backing multi-billion dollar renewable investments.

A new app called Tapestry, which launched Tuesday, aggregates and organizes information from across the web and social networks in a single place. It is, in some ways, like this generations FriendFeed, for those old enough to remember the earlier attempt from the Web 2.0 era to aggregate feeds and social media updates in a single destination for discovery and discussion.But while FriendFeed encouraged discussions on-site, building a social network of its own and ultimately attracting an acquisition by Facebook Tapestry works better as a reader.The problem the app addresses is one thats becoming more common as the open social web grows: In order to keep up, people have to use tons of services and do so much app-switching.Amid a flurry of development that includes the growing social networks Bluesky and Mastodon, designed to rival the tech giants with open source software and decentralized power structures, there is also the challenge of keeping up with friends and followers who have now scattered across numerous places after leaving Xs and Metas platforms.Image Credits:TapestryAddressing this problem is Tapestrys main draw but this could, for the time being, also limit the apps appeal beyond the early-adopter crowd.A unified appToday, most people already have processes, workflows, and preferred apps they use to keep up with news sites, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos from favorite creators. Tapestry proposes to change that. It offers a single place to check for these updates alongside those from other social networks you may use, like Bluesky, Mastodon, Tumblr, and others.Built by the team that designed one of the original third-party Twitter clients, Twitterrific, Tapestry proposes to introduce a new type of timeline, much like Twitters, where all updates scroll by. There are also additional, more advanced tools you can use to configure that timeline like selecting which content to mute and which to muffle, or collapse so you can opt to view it if desired while limiting screen space.The latter can be used to improve both the aesthetics and the vibe of your timeline. For instance, you may want to muffle political topics so they dont overwhelm your screen as you scroll or muffle spoilers of your favorite TV shows. Image Credits:IconfactoryAfter adding the social accounts, RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, and more that you want to view within Tapestry, you can then set up your timeline, as well as additional timelines, offering a custom view of this information. For instance, you could have a timeline focused only on Apple news, blogs, and podcasts, or one for your social networks, like Bluesky and Mastodon.To get the best use out of Tapestry, youll have to give a lot of thought to the type of information and updates you want to track and how youd like to see them organized. Viewing everything in a single feed can be noisy because of all the social app updates. Your timelines are essentially Tapestrys version of custom feeds (similar to Blueskys feeds, but with the ability to pull from multiple services, not just one). That means youll be in the job of feed creator, not just consumer at least until a more robust developer ecosystem arrives.Feeds and ConnectorsWhile it feels like Tapestry is trying to scratch an itch that open social web early adopters may now have, its aggregation of all your content into timelines can feel overcomplicated at times, and some of its user interface choices need more polish.Opening a Bluesky link in-app before being logged in.Image Credits:IconfactoryFor instance, Tapestry defaults to opening feeds in-app when you choose the option to open original from the more (three-dot) menu on individual posts. Also, tucking away the ability to engage with the original content with an extra tap doesnt make this the best app for people who like to quickly participate in social conversations as they scroll. If you open items in-app, youll need to log in to the social network to engage. Youll likely want to set this to open feeds in Safari so Tapestry opens the associated iOS app directly (like Bluesky) where you can like, reply, or repost.Unfortunately, that means Tapestry isnt really solving the need to maintain multiple accounts across multiple apps.Another design choice that could be confusing involves the apps two sections where you can add sources. One is called Feeds and another is called Connectors. The former lets you add content that appears in your timeline, and the latter is meant to create feeds that populate your timeline. (If youre scratching your head at those descriptions, youre not alone. The app needs to offer more of an explanation.)Tapestrys settings: feeds and connectors.Image Credits:TapestryAs it turns out, Connectors are meant to work more like plug-ins or add-ons. They run in a JavaScript sandbox and will be built by a community of third-party developers who want to extend the Tapestry ecosystem with new feeds of their own. Unfortunately, these Connectors cant include sources like Facebook, Instagram, X, or others that dont offer open feeds.An extensible app is a clever idea but one that could have been pushed further down the projects roadmap. Initially, the team should focus on testing the premise that users want to view information from across the web, not just the social web, as timelines in the first place. Do users want RSS, podcasts, social media, and other services mixed, instead of using separate apps?A transitional step or the future?Tapestry isnt the only one thats thinking about putting users in control of their feeds and sources for news and information.Image Credits:TapestryNewer social apps like Bluesky and even Metas Threads introduced the concept of custom feeds, while startups like Graze offer advanced feed-building tools, and Flipboard introduced a new app called Surf for building custom feeds from across services. Unlike Tapestrys, Surfs user interface lets you view feeds that can be filtered to be viewed in different formats watch, read, or listen or you can opt to see everything combined into one, depending on which tab you select.Other apps like Feeeed and Reeder have also emerged to address similar issues around feed consumption.One problem these solutions aim to address is that todays open social networks work on different protocols. Mastodon, Pixelfed, and others use ActivityPub, and Bluesky and a growing number of clients are building on its underlying protocol, AT Protocol. Meanwhile, older news sites, blogs, and podcasts distribute their updates across the open protocol RSS.Currently, bridges are being built to connect networks like Bluesky and Mastodon, social apps like Threads are integrating with ActivityPub, while WordPress blogs and newsletter platforms like Ghost are working to join the open social web known as the fediverse, via ActivityPub.That leaves us in a transitional period where you cant just pick your preferred app and expect to see it all. Instead, were being given tools to combine feeds and sources however we see fit. But some of these efforts feel like temporary measures as a new, more open internet where everything eventually connects is still being built.

A Chicago-based general contractor part of the Obama Presidential Centers construction team has filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination against Thornton Tomasetti, the office providing structural engineering and protective design services for the high-profile project. II in One Concrete, a subcontractor responsible for laying concrete, is suing Thornton Tomasetti for $40 million. The plaintiff is a minority-owned company thats been in business for more than 40 years. II in One Concrete is arguing that Thornton Tomasetti blamedproject delays and cost overruns as the fault of minority-owned firms.Owners of II in One Concrete, including Robert McGee, claim that actions taken by Thornton Tomasetti have put the minority-owned business on the verge of bankruptcy. McGee and co-owner Oliver Fifer were the victims of racial animus by the defendant, Thornton Tomasetti, the lawsuit said. Both McGee and Fifer are part of Concrete Collective, a joint venture on the project which includes multiple subsidiaries and companies.The lawsuit alleges that Thornton Tomasetti tried to cover up its own performance failures when employees of that company sent a letter to The Obama Foundation indicating that project delays and cost overruns happened thanks to underperformance and inexperience of the concrete sub-contractor. The engineering firm also allegedly said that the contractor and subcontractor firms that were not minority owned could have completed the work without problems.In essence, the lawsuit continues, the defendants told the project owner, falsely, that all of the project delays and cost overruns were the fault of the minority-owned firms, and that more qualified firms (such as the firms that happen not to be owned by racial minorities) would not have required as much assistance or had as many problems. [Parenthesis in original.]Unjustified and Discriminatory ConductThe plaintiffs claim that Thornton Tomasettis conduct is out of step with the projects Diversity and Inclusion Plan, a facet, the lawsuit said, that emphasizes maintaining an environment in which diversity and inclusion are valued and respected in all aspects of its operations as well as the operations of its partners and third-party contractors.The lawsuit singled out Scott Schneider, a co-leader of Thornton Tomasettis Structural Engineering Practice. It claims that Schneider subjected the Plaintiffs to unjustified and discriminatory conduct which directly undermined the Obama Foundations DEI goals and commitments and mission to bring transformative change to the construction industry and local community by providing solutions to barriers that have historically prevented disadvantaged businesses from participating on projects of this magnitude. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff raised II in One Concretes demonstrated experience finishing projects in the Chicago area to a high degree of quality for several decades; the plaintiff dismissed Thornton Tomasettis argument that II in One Concrete had provided subpar services at The Obama Presidential Center, which Thornton Tomasetti alleges led to delays and budgetary issues.In a shocking and disheartening turn of events, the African American owner of a local construction company finds himself and his company on the brink of forced closure because of racial discrimination by the structural engineer of record (Thornton Tomasetti) for the construction of The Obama Presidential Center, the lawsuit said. [Parenthesis in original.]The lawsuit continues that II in One Concrete was subjected to baseless criticisms and defamatory and discriminatory accusations by the Obama Foundations structural engineer, Thornton Tomasetti. It also claims that statements made by Thornton Tomasetti employees came as a shock to II in One and its Owner, Robert J. McGee, Jr., who remains proud of his companys work on a Project intended to honor the legacy of the United States first African American President. Emily Bittner, The Obama Foundations vice president of communications, told AN that if the Foundation believed that any vendor was acting with a racist intent, we would immediately take appropriate action. We have no reason to believe that Thornton Tomasetti acted with racist intent.Bittner added, The Obama Foundation is not a party to this lawsuit, nor will it cause any delays in the concrete work, which has already been largely completed.A spokesperson for Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA), the project designer, said TWBTA has no comment at this time.AN has reached out to Thornton Tomasetti for comment.

Remedios Varo, Tejido espacio-tiempo (Weaving of Space and Time) (1954), oil on Masonite, 32 1/2 x 28 inches. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Artwork 2023 Remedios Varo/Artists Rights Society, New York/VEGAP, Madrid. All images courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, shared with permissionFrom Remedios Varo to Laurie Simmons, a New Exhibition Forwards a Feminist View of the UncannyFebruary 4, 2025Kate MothesIn a 1906 essay, psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch coined the term uncanny, or unheimlich, meaning unhomely or not home-like in German. He defined the psychological phenomenon as the experience of something new or unknown that might initially be interpreted negatively.Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud popularized the word with the publication of his book The Uncanny in 1919, which elaborated on the idea as not just the sensation of the unknown but also something capable of bringing out other hidden or repressed elements. He even went so far as to describe the uncanny as frightening.Mary Ellen Mark, Tashara and Tanesha Reese, Twins Days Festival, Twinsburg, Ohio (1998; printed later), gelatin silver print, 20 x 24 inches. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Image Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark FoundationDuring the 20th century, the Surrealists often turned to the concept to build a sense of mystery or tension in their works. Meret Oppenheim, for instance, famously created a teacup lined with fur, simply titled Object (1936), widely regarded as an iconic example of the movement.Oppenheim is one of more than two dozen artists whose work will appear in the National Museum of Women in the Arts forthcoming exhibition, Uncanny, featuring recent acquisitions and rarely shown pieces in NMWAs collection, plus special loans.More than 60 works by renowned figures of modern art history like Louise Bourgeois, Remedios Varo, and Leonora Carrington will be shown alongside the likes of contemporary artists like Shahzia Sikander, Laurie Simmons, and Gillian Wearing. The large-scale presentation is the first to approach the concept through a feminist lens, organizing works around themes of safety and surreal imaginings.The show also plumbs the phenomenon of the uncanny valley, a term coined by robotics engineer Masahiro Mori in 1970 to describe the apprehension or discomfort one feels when confronted with something that is almost human but not quite, like video game characters that appear realistic yet still somehow seem off.Laurie Simmons, The Music of Regret IV (1994), Cibachrome print, 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches. 2019 Laurie SimmonsIn Laurie Simmons The Music of Regret IV (1994), a female ventriloquist dummy sits in the center of a circle of six male dummy dolls, whose gazes are trained on her as she looked out into the distance. Tapping into a medium that has been used in the horror genre to instill a sense of creepiness or dread, Simmons central character is dramatically spotlit, her smile belying the reality that she is unsettlingly hemmed in.Along the theme of safety, or specifically unsafe spaces, Fabiola Jean-Louiss elaborately staged photographs tell two stories at once. The artist portrays seemingly innocuous portraits of close acquaintances wearing elaborate period costumes typical of upper-class European women, while disturbing images of racial and sexual violence are hidden within the background or details of a dress, reminding the viewer of the lineage of violence, says an exhibition statement.Many works in the show address physical trauma or the bodys relationship to the unknown. Frida Orupabos photographic collages, for example, portray Black figures that evoke colonial histories, critiquing historical violence and injustices through a process of fragmenting, distorting, and multiplying body parts.Orupabos compositions echo the surrealist collaborative practice of cadavre exquis, or exquisite corpse, in which participants add to elements others have drawn without being able to see their work, producing intuitive and peculiar drawings.Frida Orupabo, Two Heads (detail) (2022), framed collage with paper pins, 58 1/4 x 41 1/2 inches. Frida Orupabo, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nordenhake Berlin/Stockholm/Mexico CityThe enigmatic, darkly humorous and psychologically tense artworks inUncannygive form to women artists powerful expressions of existential unease, said NMWA Associate Curator Orin Zahra, who organized the exhibition. She continues:Rather than comfort and soothe, these ghostly and fantastical figures haunt the unconscious. Instead of picturesque images, artists offer disquieting spaces that unsettle the viewer. In focusing on the ambiguity between reality and fiction, artists explore increasingly blurred lines between the artificial and eerily human.Uncanny opens February 28 and continues through August 10 in Washington, D.C., highlighting painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, and video made between1954 and 2022. Learn more and plan your visit on the museums website.Fabiola Jean-Louis, Theyll Say We Enjoyed It from the series Rewriting History (2017), archival pigment print, 33 x 26 inches. Fabiola Jean-Louis, courtesy of the artist and Galerie MyrtisGillian Wearing, Sleeping Mask (for Parkett, no. 70) (2004), wax reinforced with polymer resin, paint, 8 1/4 x 5 5/8 inches. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Artwork Gillian Wearing/Artists Rights Society, New York/DACS, LondonJulie Roberts, Sigmund Freud Study (1998), oil on acrylic ground on cotton duck, 84 x 72 inches. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Artwork Julie Roberts/DACS, LondonGillian Wearing, Me as Mona Lisa (2020), chromogenic print, 24 1/4 x 19 1/8 inches. Gillian Wearing, courtesy of the artist, Maureen Paley, London, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los AngelesLeonora Carrington, The Ship of Cranes (2010), bronze, 26 x 14 x 42 1/2 inches. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Artwork Leonora Carrington/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkRemedios Varo, Fenmeno de ingravidez (Phenomenon of Weightlessness) (1963), oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 19 5/8 inches. 2023 Remedios Varo/Artists Rights Society, New York/VEGAP, MadridPolly Morgan, Receiver (2009), taxidermy quail chicks and Bakelite telephone handset, 9 x 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Artwork Polly MorganNext article

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