Ann Elias
Biographic Data
| ID | 3721673 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ann Elias |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ann |
| FAMILY NAME | Elias |
| SIGNATURE | ELIAS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5182-3929 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Freak Pictures, Fly Fishers, and Optical Illusions: Historical Antecedents of the Science of Fish Vision
In the early twentieth century, when little was known about the underwater realm, the question of subaquatic vision garnered much interest. Based on human laws of optics in water, observers of the time claimed to show how fish see, and the impact of illusions on fish vision. Addressing fly-fishers in particular, they raised the question of whether fish see “freak pictures” and “monsters.” The present study examines five scientific visualizations …
The eyes of scallops and the creativity of submarine animals: Convergence and conflict in science, philosophy and art
What could be more curious than the eyes of underwater animals? What do they see in their alien, watery world? In the early twentieth century, there was unprecedented observation of underwater life forms using aquariums. Central to this article is an aquarium photograph of a scallop – scientifically known as Pecten – taken by scientist Francis Ward in collaboration with scientist, William Dakin. Through investigation of the image, the article fir…
Aquariums and Human–Animal Relations at the Great Barrier Reef
In the early twentieth century, great delight in the unique tropical beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, coupled with an opportunistic spirit for commercial development, inspired the commission of eye-catching posters and advertisements by Australian tourist organisations. The aim of this article is to discuss a pictorial device that developed alongside the rise of modern tourist advertising images of Great Barrier Reef – a split-level viewpoint th…
Australian colonial newspapers and the sharks of Sydney Harbour
In nineteenth-century Australia, a distinct editorial interest developed for woodcut images in illustrated newspapers depicting sharks attacking people and people attacking sharks in Sydney Harbour. This article argues they were part of a culture of display of the savagery of the frontier that was the British colony. These mass-reproduced images reached a wide public both within and outside Australia. They dramatized settler-colonial life and sha…
Coral Empire: Underwater Oceans, Colonial Tropics, Visual Modernity
From vividly colored underwater photographs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef to life-size dioramas re-creating coral reefs and the bounty of life they sustained, the work of early twentieth-century explorers and photographers fed the public's fascination with reefs. In the 1920s John Ernest Williamson in the Bahamas and Frank Hurley in Australia produced mass-circulated and often highly staged photographs and films that cast corals as industriou…
Alien Harbour: Frank Hurley, Jules Verne, and the Early Dress-divers of Underwater Sydney
The underwater of Sydney Harbour has its own histories, visual and literary representations, and narrators, but its contributions to Australian culture are yet to be fully recognised. Among European narrators were dress-divers whose technologies enabled access to an otherwise alien, inhuman world. This article discusses early dress diving in Sydney Harbour, focusing on an account by the explorer, Frank Hurley (1885–1962), of diving at Shark Islan…
The Black Diamonds of Sydney Harbour
This article explores the case study of a coal mine that was first tunneled under Sydney Harbour in 1897 but closed in 1931. Specifically, it examines how the history of the mine intersects with aesthetics, race, colonialism, and Indigenous dispossession. Centered on the story of an English mining company that first sought a mine site in a pastoral area of the city, but under public pressure was forced to select instead a grimy working class subu…
Camouflage Australia: Art, Nature, Science and War
Relations with natives: Max Dupain, Papua New Guinea, and MoMA
In 1943, during the Pacific War, thousands of Americans and Australians descended on Papua New Guinea. They were issued with pocket-book guides on ‘relations with natives’, but were ill prepared for the encounter. One American asked how much he and other GIs could really learn about the people of the region. Australian modernist, Max Dupain, was stationed on Goodenough Island to advise on camouflage and collaborate with Americans. In addition to …
The ocean in our blood: William Dakin's modern story for ABC radio
Between 1934 and 1944, prominent marine zoologist William John Dakin occupied a public role as an Australian Broadcasting Commission radio commentator. For 10 years during the pioneering days of national radio, he broadcast his opinions, convictions, and idiosyncratic theories about science and society to the Australian public. At a time when the place of the sea in white Australia's history and culture was little-spoken about, Dakin used the inf…
Camouflage Australia: Art, nature, science and war
This book tells a once secret and little known story of how the Australian government accepted the advice of a zoologist and seconded the country's leading artists and designers to deploy optical tricks and illusions to protect the nation
Camouflage and the Half-Hidden History of Max Dupain in War
Max Dupain is Australia's best-known modernist photographer. The least-known period of his working life is the Second World War, when he joined many other Australian artists and served as a camouflage officer for the Department of Home Security, attached to the Royal Australian Airforce. Dupain was trained in aerial photography. He camouflaged airbases in New South Wales and photographed camouflage experiments from the air. When the war moved int…
Art Has no Country’: Hans Heysen and the Consequences of the First World War
The First World War threw Hans Heysen’s life into turmoil, as it did the lives of all German-Australians. Despite his growing prominence in the national school of landscape painting, a racially motivated incident in 1921 caused him to speak out in public in favour of cosmopolitanism over nationalism. The event of the war and its aftermath coincided with Heysen’s developing interest in the genre of still-life, a branch of painting that is associat…
Campaigners for Camouflage: Abbott H. Thayer and William J. Dakin
The author makes a comparative study of American naturalist Abbott H. Thayer and Australian zoologist William J. Dakin, two civilian campaigners for military camouflage in two different wars who nevertheless share strikingly similar stories
William Dakin on camouflage in nature and war
William Dakin, an Australian zoologist and academic, had a wide ranging working life involving public education, health and defence. This article focuses on his contribution to biological and military camouflage and to the Second World War when he was seconded to the Department of Home Security to work as the Technical Director of Camouflage responsible for the Australian mainland and the South West Pacific. My aim is to show how Dakin's theories…
The Black Diamonds of Sydney Harbour
This article explores the case study of a coal mine that was first tunneled under Sydney Harbour in 1897 but closed in 1931. Specifically, it examines how the history of the mine intersects with aesthetics, race, colonialism, and Indigenous dispossession. Centered on the story of an English mining company that first sought a mine site in a pastoral area of the city, but under public pressure was forced to select instead a grimy working class subu…
Campaigners for Camouflage: Abbott H. Thayer and William J. Dakin
The author makes a comparative study of American naturalist Abbott H. Thayer and Australian zoologist William J. Dakin, two civilian campaigners for military camouflage in two different wars who nevertheless share strikingly similar stories
William Dakin on camouflage in nature and war
William Dakin, an Australian zoologist and academic, had a wide ranging working life involving public education, health and defence. This article focuses on his contribution to biological and military camouflage and to the Second World War when he was seconded to the Department of Home Security to work as the Technical Director of Camouflage responsible for the Australian mainland and the South West Pacific. My aim is to show how Dakin's theories…
William Dakin on camouflage in nature and war
William Dakin, an Australian zoologist and academic, had a wide ranging working life involving public education, health and defence. This article focuses on his contribution to biological and military camouflage and to the Second World War when he was seconded to the Department of Home Security to work as the Technical Director of Camouflage responsible for the Australian mainland and the South West Pacific. My aim is to show how Dakin's theories…
Camouflage and the Half-Hidden History of Max Dupain in War
Max Dupain is Australia's best-known modernist photographer. The least-known period of his working life is the Second World War, when he joined many other Australian artists and served as a camouflage officer for the Department of Home Security, attached to the Royal Australian Airforce. Dupain was trained in aerial photography. He camouflaged airbases in New South Wales and photographed camouflage experiments from the air. When the war moved int…
Art Has no Country’: Hans Heysen and the Consequences of the First World War
The First World War threw Hans Heysen’s life into turmoil, as it did the lives of all German-Australians. Despite his growing prominence in the national school of landscape painting, a racially motivated incident in 1921 caused him to speak out in public in favour of cosmopolitanism over nationalism. The event of the war and its aftermath coincided with Heysen’s developing interest in the genre of still-life, a branch of painting that is associat…
Campaigners for Camouflage: Abbott H. Thayer and William J. Dakin
The author makes a comparative study of American naturalist Abbott H. Thayer and Australian zoologist William J. Dakin, two civilian campaigners for military camouflage in two different wars who nevertheless share strikingly similar stories
Camouflage Australia: Art, nature, science and war
This book tells a once secret and little known story of how the Australian government accepted the advice of a zoologist and seconded the country's leading artists and designers to deploy optical tricks and illusions to protect the nation
The ocean in our blood: William Dakin's modern story for ABC radio
Between 1934 and 1944, prominent marine zoologist William John Dakin occupied a public role as an Australian Broadcasting Commission radio commentator. For 10 years during the pioneering days of national radio, he broadcast his opinions, convictions, and idiosyncratic theories about science and society to the Australian public. At a time when the place of the sea in white Australia's history and culture was little-spoken about, Dakin used the inf…
Relations with natives: Max Dupain, Papua New Guinea, and MoMA
In 1943, during the Pacific War, thousands of Americans and Australians descended on Papua New Guinea. They were issued with pocket-book guides on ‘relations with natives’, but were ill prepared for the encounter. One American asked how much he and other GIs could really learn about the people of the region. Australian modernist, Max Dupain, was stationed on Goodenough Island to advise on camouflage and collaborate with Americans. In addition to …
Camouflage Australia: Art, Nature, Science and War
Coral Empire: Underwater Oceans, Colonial Tropics, Visual Modernity
From vividly colored underwater photographs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef to life-size dioramas re-creating coral reefs and the bounty of life they sustained, the work of early twentieth-century explorers and photographers fed the public's fascination with reefs. In the 1920s John Ernest Williamson in the Bahamas and Frank Hurley in Australia produced mass-circulated and often highly staged photographs and films that cast corals as industriou…
Alien Harbour: Frank Hurley, Jules Verne, and the Early Dress-divers of Underwater Sydney
The underwater of Sydney Harbour has its own histories, visual and literary representations, and narrators, but its contributions to Australian culture are yet to be fully recognised. Among European narrators were dress-divers whose technologies enabled access to an otherwise alien, inhuman world. This article discusses early dress diving in Sydney Harbour, focusing on an account by the explorer, Frank Hurley (1885–1962), of diving at Shark Islan…
The Black Diamonds of Sydney Harbour
This article explores the case study of a coal mine that was first tunneled under Sydney Harbour in 1897 but closed in 1931. Specifically, it examines how the history of the mine intersects with aesthetics, race, colonialism, and Indigenous dispossession. Centered on the story of an English mining company that first sought a mine site in a pastoral area of the city, but under public pressure was forced to select instead a grimy working class subu…
Australian colonial newspapers and the sharks of Sydney Harbour
In nineteenth-century Australia, a distinct editorial interest developed for woodcut images in illustrated newspapers depicting sharks attacking people and people attacking sharks in Sydney Harbour. This article argues they were part of a culture of display of the savagery of the frontier that was the British colony. These mass-reproduced images reached a wide public both within and outside Australia. They dramatized settler-colonial life and sha…
Aquariums and Human–Animal Relations at the Great Barrier Reef
In the early twentieth century, great delight in the unique tropical beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, coupled with an opportunistic spirit for commercial development, inspired the commission of eye-catching posters and advertisements by Australian tourist organisations. The aim of this article is to discuss a pictorial device that developed alongside the rise of modern tourist advertising images of Great Barrier Reef – a split-level viewpoint th…
The eyes of scallops and the creativity of submarine animals: Convergence and conflict in science, philosophy and art
What could be more curious than the eyes of underwater animals? What do they see in their alien, watery world? In the early twentieth century, there was unprecedented observation of underwater life forms using aquariums. Central to this article is an aquarium photograph of a scallop – scientifically known as Pecten – taken by scientist Francis Ward in collaboration with scientist, William Dakin. Through investigation of the image, the article fir…
Freak Pictures, Fly Fishers, and Optical Illusions: Historical Antecedents of the Science of Fish Vision
In the early twentieth century, when little was known about the underwater realm, the question of subaquatic vision garnered much interest. Based on human laws of optics in water, observers of the time claimed to show how fish see, and the impact of illusions on fish vision. Addressing fly-fishers in particular, they raised the question of whether fish see “freak pictures” and “monsters.” The present study examines five scientific visualizations …
History (11 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Art (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Art history (6 works) · History (6 works) · Biology (5 works) · Camouflage (5 works)