Yearly Archives: 2012

Four Funded PhD Opportunities

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Tim Collins, Acting Head of Research, recently announced that Glasgow School of Art hasa number of studentships on offer.

There are two Studentships within the School of Fine Art.

Areas of focus could include:

Society and Environmental Art
Prof Timothy Collins [t.collins@gsa.ac.uk)
Additional supervisors include artists Ross Sinclair and Sue Brind, Justin Carter, and Clara Ursitti as well as Dr Ken Neil.

Art and Curatorial Practices
Dr Frances Mckee (francis@cca-glasgow.com}
Additional supervisors offering support in these areas include critics, artists and curators such as John Calcutt, Dr Ross Birrell and Dr Sarah Lowndes.

Photography, Painting
Prof Roger Wilson [r.wilson@gsa.ac.uk] Additional supervisors include artists Prof Thomas Joshua Cooper, Dr Nicky Bird, and Stephanie Smith.

We have one studentship in the School of Design.

Areas of focus could include:

Design and Innovation
Prof Irene McAra McWilliam (I.McAra-McWilliam@gsa.ac.uk)
Additional supervisors offering support include designers Jimmy Stephen-Cran and Paul Stickley, Dr Gordon Hush and Dr Ben Craven.

Design for Health and Care
Prof Alastair Macdonald (a.macdonald@gsa.ac.uk)
Additional supervisors includes Dr Paul Chapman, and Dr David Loudon, there is also co-support available in the MEARU research unit.

We have one studentship in the Mackintosh School of Architecture

Areas of focus could include:

Place, Memory and Practice
Prof Chris Platt (c.platt@gsa.ac.uk)
Additional supervisors include Prof Brian Evans, Prof Thomas Maver, Dr Robert Proctor, Sally Stewart and Prof Florian Urban.

Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit
Reader Tim Sharpe (t.sharpe@gsa.ac.uk)
Additional supervisors include Dr Masa Noguchi Dr. Filbert Musau and Dr Raid Hanna.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

‘The Great Immensity’ does a ‘Greenland’

pic: from left: Rebecca Hart, Dan Domingues, Meghan McGeary and Todd Cerveris in 'The Great Immensity'

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

In the last couple of years a number of plays about climate change have been staged in London from Steve Waters’ The Contingency Plan to the multi-authored Greenland at the National Theatre and Richard Bean’s The Heretic. The Contingency Plan was funny, dramatic and accurate; Greenland was not very dramatic, not very funny and accurate; and The Hereticwas very funny, quite dramatic and fairly inaccurate.

Meanwhile, this blog has been waiting since 2010 for the results of the substantial grant of $750,000 (£470,000) from the US National Science Foundation for a new play about climate change by The Civilians theatre company. The reviews for The Great Immensity are now in. It sounds as if it has made some of the same mistakes as Greenland.

So what happens in The Great Immensity? The set-up is that a character called Phyllis arrives at Barro Colorado Island, a rainforest and research reserve in the middle of the Panama Canal, in search of her twin sister Polly, a filmmaker who has suddenly disappeared. The researchers on the island help Phyllis reconstruct her sister’s last days through flashbacks, video interviews from Polly’s hard drive, and vaudeville musical sketches. Phyllis learns that Polly was engaged in a project to do with the upcoming Auckland Climate Summit. The action then moves to Churchill, Manitoba, where Earth Ambassadors and others disclose what happened to Polly.

Robert Trussell in the Kansas City Star calls it a “risk-taking show”and an “unwieldy cargo container of theatrical virtues and deficiencies”.

“Integrated into the narrative is alarming information about the plight of the planet. I’m not questioning the scientific information that forms this play’s foundation. My concern is how the show works as theatrical entertainment.”

Victor Wishna, in the KCMetropolis, an online journal of the performing arts, takes the viewthat what theatre does best is provoke, rather than educate or entertain. Although well-performed, he finds it a single-issue, educational show, with no subplots or diversions from the message of the irreversible damage that humans have done to the planet.

“Theatre-goers may very well leave The Great Immensity more frustrated and agitated than inspired. Unlike a lecture or even a documentary film, theatre isn’t expected to offer answers but to raise—to provoke—questions, to challenge assumptions, to take us from ‘There’s nothing to be done’ to ‘Isn’t there something we can do?’”

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

2012 iLAND Symposium

This post comes to you from Cultura21

New-York, USA, March 23-24, 2012

Wollman Hall at The New School | 65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor

Tickets: $5 – $25 (Sliding Scale)

The 2012 iLAND Symposium will be entitled: Moving Into the Out There: Indeterminacy and Improvisation in Performance and Environmental Practice. This event is an open forum for exploring new methods of understanding urban ecosystems through innovative collaborations between practitioners of movement, dance, science, and environmental management. iLAND cultivates a deeper engagement with urban environmental issues through its cross-disciplinary approach, and the annual symposium invites the general public to experience and explore recent works emerging from the iLAND community.

Schedule

Friday, March 23

12:00 pm to 3:00 pm:  

Pre-Symposium Workshop: John Cage & The Art of Indeterminacy ;  Presented by:
Ivan Raykoff, Professor, Eugene Lang College ; Philip Silva, Program Director, iLAND

3:15 pm to 4:30 pm:  

Open Space Discussion: Moving Forward with Science + Performance
Moderator: Danielle Goldman, Professor, Eugene Lang College
(By Invitation Only)

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm: 

Plenary: PARK Presentation & the iLANDing Method
Presented by: PARK (2011 iLAB Residents) ; Jennifer Monson, Artistic Director, iLAND ; Members of the iLAND Board of Directors ; Danielle Goldman, Professor, Eugene Lang College

Saturday, March 24

10:00 am to 10:30 am: 

Open Time [Breakfast & Networking]

10:30 am to 12:00 pm:

Panel Discussion: Indeterminacy, Ecology, and Urban Design: The Performance of City Ecosystems
Presented by: Erika Svendsen, US Forest Service ; Victoria Marshall, Professor, Parsons School of Design ; Susan Sgorbati, Choreographer, Professor, Bennington College ; Philip Silva, Program Director, iLAND

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm:    

Thrown Outside – Outdoor Workshops in Research & Movement
Presented by: Liz Barry, Public Laboratory for Open Technology & Science ; Jessica Einhorn, Dancer, Choreographer ; Clarinda Mac Low, Choreographer, new media artist (iLAB 2010) ; E.J. McAdams, iLAND Board

3:00 pm to 4:30 pm:  

Panel Discussion: Performing Queer Ecology
Presented by:  Jennifer Monson, Artistic Director, iLAND ;  Ivan Raykoff, Professor, Eugene Lang College ;  Robert Sember, Professor, Eugene Lang College ;  Philip Silva, Program Director, iLAND

4:30 pm to 6:00 pm: 

Closing Plenary & Open Discussion
Moderator: Kyle De Camp, Director and Performer

6:15 pm to 6:45 pm: 

Dance Performance: Lectures on Weather
Based on a John Cage score from 1975
Created & Presented by: Athena Kokoronis, Choreographer (iLAB 2009)

For more information on the symposium, please visit www.ilandart.org, call (347) 573-5547 or email info [at] ilandart [dot] org

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Climate is culture

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory
Kellie Gutman writes:

The feature article in the March issue of Nature Climate Change is written by Cape Farewell‘s David Buckland, and is titled Climate is Culture.

A pioneering project that was set up to bridge a perceived communication gap between the science of climate change and the deep societal changes required to avoid dangerous impacts is explained by its creator in Nature Climate Change this week.  In 2001, British artist David Buckland founded the Cape Farewell project, which he feels attempts to address one of the most pressing social issues of our time.

Read the full article here.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

ecoartscotland in Tent at ECA – 6-10 March

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

ecoartscotland will be in residence in the Tent space at Edinburgh College of Art, during the week 6-10 March 2012.

Art, Space & Nature students and staff have worked with ecoartscotland to develop a programme of discussions and events during the week:

Tuesday 6 March
16.00-17.30 Discussion on the Ecology of the Body, Healing and the Environment, and Holistic Spirituality with Sandra Long and Betsy Davis.

Wednesday 7 March
10.00-12.30 “What is the ecology of the practices of arts and ecologies: Art, Space & Nature students and members of the ecoartnetwork.

14.00-17.30 CORE Forum (by invitation only)

Thursday 8 March
16.00 Discussion on Translating Spaces with Catriona Gilbert and Laura Trujillo Muñoz.

Fri 9 March
TBC

The Tent Space is in Evolution House at the junction of West Port and Lady Lawson Street.  Opening Hours for ecoartscotland will be 12.00-17.00 Tues, Thurs and Fri or by arrangement

The ecoartscotland library is available for consultation during these hours.

Documentation of the programme will be posted to http://ecoartscotland.net during the week and following

If you’d like to attend a discussion, please contact chris@fremantle.org +44 (0) 7714 203016

PS Thanks to Betsy Davis (Art, Space & Nature) for remixing the ecoartscotland logo.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Between art and environment: Case studies from Thailand, Malaysia and India

This post comes to you from Cultura21

The case studies are part of an Asia-Europe Foundation commissioned research project entitled “Linking the Arts to Environment and Sustainable Development Issues”.

  • Thailand: In Doi Saket, an artists’ residency programme brings together local communities and artists to reflect on diverse facets of everyday life to gain a more open perspective about their positions in the contemporary landscape. Read more on Culture360.org: Click here
  • Mumbai, India: Artist designers Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha break paradigms by denouncing rigidity and embracing fluidity to inspire harmonious postcolonial contemplation on the relationship between land and sea to better plan urban settlements. Read more on Culture360.org: Click here
  • Malaysia: In Tasik Chini, an NGO is building capacity to empower local communities to document their traditional knowledge and actively participate in the management and restoration planning process of their immediate environment. Read more on Culture360.org: Click here

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Urban Furrows

This post comes to you from Cultura21

As part of Maribor 2012, European Capital of Culture, the “Urban Furrows” programme includes several projects such as “Sustainable Local Supply” (promoting short economic circuits between food production and consumption), a seed library for local plant species and the “Rhizome collective” aiming to empower immigrants and jobless workers, among other projects.

Read more on Culture360.org: Click here

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21