Yearly Archives: 2009

Video Games + Sustainability

Video games exist for improving brain fitness, financial planning, and learning dance routines, so why not for sustainable living? The field of video games that teach sustainability strategies appears to be slowly blossoming.

  • PowerUp the Game by IBM teaches kids how to save the world by bring clean energy to communities.
  • CO2FX is a web based multi-user educational game which explores the relationship of global warming to economic, political and science policy decisions.
  • Majesco Entertainment’s “Eco-Creatures: Save the Forest” promote awareness of the perils of “…over-industrialization, deforestation, pollution, extinction and global warming.”

Post your favorite environmental video game below.

Go to Eco-Catalysts

APInews: Artists, Scientists Meet in Monson Project

Artists and scientists will explore “Moving Perspectives – approaches to understanding water through geology, environment, art and society” at the Urbana Free Library in Illinois, October 13, 2009. The panel discussion includes George Roadcap, Illinois Water Survey; Cecily Smith, Prairie Rivers Network; Brett Bloom, artist and activist; Brigit Kelly, poet; choreographer Jennifer Monson; and moderator Michael Scoville, an environmental philosopher. The talk is part of Monsons Mahomet Aquifer Project, a series of public dance performances, workshops and a mobile gallery, October 10-18, to inform and engage the communities in East Central Illinois dependent on the aquifer and draw the audience into their own understanding of their relationship to water. Monson intends the iLAND project to “draw connections between our scientific and political relationships to natural resources and the cultural frameworks that shape our perception and relationship to these resources.”

via APInews: Artists, Scientists Meet in Monson Project .

Interspecies – artists collaborating with animals

2-4 October 2009, open 11am-7pm admission and all events free

An exhibition, live event, symposia and family day at

A Foundation London
Rochelle School
Arnold Circus, London, E2 7ES

www.artscatalyst.org for details and booking
This event was also in Manchester in March, see more about that by clicking here.

How do humans and animals relate to each other? In The Arts Catalysts’ Interspecies exhibition and event, seven international artists have created a range of work that explores this complex relationship. From live experiments that allow visitors to communicate with fish to a video work that explores the age-old affiliation between falconer and falcon, Interspecies brings together a number of artists working with animals and explores the boundaries of our interaction. Curious about the animal’s point of view, the artists challenge the dominant human viewpoint and aim to work in collaboration with other species.

The family day on Sunday 4 October will give families a chance to see artists in contact with real animals – like performance artist Kira O’Reilly who will be Falling asleep with a pig, called Deliah, and Antony Hall whose Enki Experiment 4 invites visitors to communicate with an electric fish.  During the afternoon, parents and children can take part in a series of free events.

Interspecies is organised by The Arts Catalyst in partnership with A Foundation.

The Arts Catalyst commissions artists and curates exhibitions which explore contested issues in science and society www.artscatalyst.org

Events

Friday 2 October

6pm, Exhibition tour with curator Rob La Frenais

7–9pm, Symposium: Non-Human Primates with Patrick Munck, collaborator with Nicolas Primat, Rachel Mayeri and Sarah Jane Vick, primatologist. Limited spaces, please book online.

Saturday 3 October

1-3pm and 3.30-5.30pm, Primate Cinema: How To Act Like An Animal. Two workshops with Rachel Mayeri for over 16s exploring the social dynamics of non-human primates through performance.  Limited spaces, please book online.

2pm, Tour of ENKI experiment 4 with Antony Hall

3–6pm, Symposium: Animals, Humans and Power (BSL interpreted) with Antennae editor Giovanni Aloi, Photographer Karen Knorr, Helen Macdonald, writer of Falcon, Ruth Maclennan and Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson. Limited spaces, please book online.

6pm, How to Act Like An Animal performance

Family Day – Sunday 4 October

2–4pm Becoming Bowerbirds. These intriguing birds show unusual creativity – they construct bowers which they decorate with found objects to attract females. Children and parents are invited to be a Bowerbird for the afternoon with artist Sally Hampson.  Advanced booking advisable at www.artscatalyst.org (Children 5yrs or under need to be accompanied)

2pm, 3pm and 4pm, Interspecies Tales by poet and storyteller Shamim Azad.  Shamim’s work uses aspects of the Asian folk and oral traditions, enlivening traditional stories with chant and body movement, poems, percussion instruments, tabla and songs.

4.30pm, Animal Handler’s Tales, broadcaster and trainer of the owls used in the first Harry Potter movie, James Mackay talks about his work as ‘The Animal Man’ with exhibition curator Rob La Frenais.

Admission free to all events. Accompanied children and families welcome. Unfortunately, dogs cannot be permitted.

Physical access to some parts of the exhibition and events is limited; please contact admin@artscatalyst.org for further information

For images and more details, please contact Jo Fells, 07977 226187, jo.fells@artscatalyst.org

Climate camp 2009: Blackheath

climatecamptwitter
This year’s climate camp turns out to be on Blackheath. They’ve been pouring onto the site for the last two hours after the secret location was finally disclosed.  Reading Twitter gives you a great sense of the infectious drama of the moment, and why it has such momentum.

Why Blackheath? Proximity to the city? Joan Ruddock’s constituency – Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department of Climate Change? Or, as the rapidly updated Wikipedia entry for Blackheath suggests, because this was the site of the Peasant’s Revolt. Let’s hope it’s not the latter as that particular popular movement was spectacularly sold down the river.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology