Garrett

Inhabitat Interview – Ian Garrett Reports on COP15 and the Arts #COP15

Moe Beitiks of Inhabitat (amongst other things) conducted an email interview with CSPA Executive Director, Ian Garrett (Me).  You can see the whole things here:

INTERVIEW: Ian Garrett Reports on COP15 and the Arts | Inhabitat.

Some Excerpts:

INHABITAT: What were your cultural expectations for Copenhagen?

GARRETT: At this point, I don’t know what my expectations are. I’m a big fan of the idea that if you get a lot of people together in one spot, talking about a thing, things can happen. The feeling I have from the news out of here and being in the streets is that there is going to be more civilian change out of this than there will be government change. My hope is that, with this many people of divergent origins, with the efforts being made from a cultural end, that it will reify something at the grassroots level. I can only hope that it makes it upwards, because that doesn’t seem like the case at the Bella Center.

INHABITAT: What have been some standout experiences thus far? What artworks have struck a chord, and why?

GARRETT: It’s hard to tell right now, there is so much more to see in this next week, but if I chose now my vote is in for wooloo.org’s efforts and partnerships. They’ve got Superflex’s sustainable burial contracts, the Yes Men’s Coca-Cola Pledge and New Life Copenhagen. Everything they are doing is very much in the spirit of unity and many people doing small things towards a bigger goal. I think that’s a message in and of itself. And since all three of the projects I mentioned rely on documentation and masses of people as the documenters I think that it’s got the potential to show the most real human aspects of the issues being discussed and the opportunities to work together.

There is the common thread these days of “Changing light bulbs won’t save the world.” Which is true, but you know, ultimately if everyone change all light bulbs, sure it would do something about energy use. The point being that lots of people making small efforts aren’t to be scoffed at. It’s those sort of efforts, that when combined, lead to tipping points. We just aren’t there yet, and light bulbs have no future as a tipping point for the climate.

MAMMUT MAGAZINE #4 :: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

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MAMMUT MAGAZINE #4 :: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

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WORKING TITLE: Solastalgia

What happens when the climate changes around you but you are still in the same location?

The fourth issue of Mammut Magazine will investigate the effects of climate change on the human psyche, focusing on a new definition of sadness called “solastalgia.” Coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, it refers to a form of homesickness felt while still at home, particularly as it refers to the perceived change in one’s home environment caused by climate change. A parallel of sorts to nostalgia, solastalgia was created by combining the Latin words solacium, meaning comfort, and algia, meaning pain.

Albrecht created the term in 2003 after interviewing scores of Australians, many of whom noted that they felt a deep sense of loss as the landscape changed around them and familiar plants and animals were gone. “They no longer feel like they know the place they’ve lived for decades,” Albrecht said in a 2007 Wired interview.

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Mammut Magazine is looking for essays and artwork that:

>>> deals with, affirms or denies the idea of solastalgia

>>> investigates how we define our sense of belonging through our environment

>>> confronts how we are (or will be) affected individually and collectively by these changes.

We welcome contributions from all fields, while keeping in mind the magazine’s general focus on art and the environment.

The fourth issue of Mammut is being guest edited by Ian Garrett, the executive director of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. https://www.sustainablepractice.org

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IMPORTANT DATES

>>> Proposal deadline: January 15, 2010

Please send a short outline of your project and/or images to mammutmag@gmail.com

>>> If chosen, the final submission deadline will be March 1, 2010

>>> Anticipated release date: late April / Early May 2010

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For more about Mammut Magazine, please visit http://www.mammutmagazine.org

CSPA December 09 Newsletter

cpslogocolorOn Friday we both head to Copenhagen for the New Life Copenhagen Festival, the arts festival surrounding COP15, which began on Monday. During our stay in Europe, we’ll also be checking in on Future Arcola and a project for the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. December will be a very exciting, if not a bit chilly, month. We also have open calls for the next edition of the Quarterly and Mammut, which will be guest edited by the CSPA. As we approach the New Year, we hope that your winter is cozy (for the right reasons) and that we’ll be seeing you often in 2010!

Ian Garrett & Miranda Wright

CSPA Directors

CSPA December 09 Newsletter.

CSPA October 09 Newsletter

Newsletter #3 is here! The quarterly is on its way out the door as well. Weve got a couple of very important events coming up as well and I hope youll join us for them. For those in technical theater, were helping Showman Fabricators with their Green Day 2009 at this years LDI conference in Orlando. And if that wasnt big enough news, well also have people on the ground in Copenhagen for COP15 and Wooloo.orgs New Life Festival.

All of the information on these developments is below as well. With all of this going on, wouldnt you considering joining the CSPA?

Ian Garrett & Miranda Wright
CSPA Directors

CSPA October 09 Newsletter.

CSPA September 09 Newsletter

We invite you to view our second newsletter. As you read this, we’re hard at work on compiling our first issue of the CSPA Quarterly, which we will be releasing at the end of the month. We’re also working on bulstering our Wiki, which hasa lot of great information, but there is so much more to get in there. If you’re interested in helping, we welcome volunteers to contribute as well. It is free to join and post. If that wasn’t enough exciting news, the cat is out of the bag that we’ve been working with LA Stage Alliance on developing a plan for physical materials reuse infrastructure in Los Angeles AND we’re gearing up to start our certification initiative in the new year! There is just so much going on, and we thank you all for your continued support of the CSPA!

Ian Garrett & Miranda Wright

CSPA Directors

Check it out here: CSPA September 09 Newsletter.

Video | Feral trade cafe: buying a narrative with your coffee.

Feral Trade Cafe, London from RSA Arts & Ecology on Vimeo.
A Flip camera video.

It’s interesting to see how the best media art moved on from the idea of creating networks in the virtual world, to seeing how those networks could affect the real world. Early net communities were full of idealism; how far does that ability to change the way we interact with each other spill over into the physical?

Earlier this year I talked to Amy Francheschini about the way ideas from her art practice asFuturefarmers informed the creation of Victory Gardens 2008+ in San Francisco. On Friday I dropped into North London’s HTTP Gallery, where media artists/gallerists Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett have created the Feral Trade Cafe implemeting artist Kate Rich’s Feral Tradenetwork in their gallery space.

The cafe is sourced by real personal trade networks – artists bringing back Turkish Delight from Montenegro or discovering a source of honey in Rotherhithe. By using virtual space to record each trade route, every item you consume in the cafe comes with a  narrative. the bland, impersonal act of trade can suddenly come alive with stories, showing us how the items we buy under the normal rules of trade disconnect us from the world in which we live.

Read Ruth Catlow discussing Catlow and Garrett’s we won’t fly for art at the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Mammut Reading – Ari Kletzky

 [display_podcast]

FROM ISSUE #2 SPRING 2009: LIVING WITH THE CITY
As the world’s population is increasingly concentrated in urban centers, how we choose to interact, develop and live in these cities will only become more important. With a variety of perspectives but by no means comprehensive, we hope this issue offers new ideas, directions and ways of understanding urban life.

Featuring contributions by Nicholas Bauch, Maya Brym, Ian Garrett, Charlie Grosso, Teira Johnson, Ari Kletzsky, Gerard Olson, Camilo Ontiveros, Nick Romaniak, David Snyder, Ashwani Vasishth, and Sue Yank. Cover design by Teira Johnson.

To Purchase a Print Copy or Download a PDF for Free visit:

http://www.mammutmagazine.org/

Mammut Readings – Sue Yank

 [display_podcast]

FROM ISSUE #2 SPRING 2009: LIVING WITH THE CITY
As the world’s population is increasingly concentrated in urban centers, how we choose to interact, develop and live in these cities will only become more important. With a variety of perspectives but by no means comprehensive, we hope this issue offers new ideas, directions and ways of understanding urban life.

Featuring contributions by Nicholas Bauch, Maya Brym, Ian Garrett, Charlie Grosso, Teira Johnson, Ari Kletzsky, Gerard Olson, Camilo Ontiveros, Nick Romaniak, David Snyder, Ashwani Vasishth, and Sue Yank. Cover design by Teira Johnson.

To Purchase a Print Copy or Download a PDF for Free visit:

http://www.mammutmagazine.org/

Mammut Readings – David Snyder

 [display_podcast]

FROM ISSUE #2 SPRING 2009: LIVING WITH THE CITY
As the world’s population is increasingly concentrated in urban centers, how we choose to interact, develop and live in these cities will only become more important. With a variety of perspectives but by no means comprehensive, we hope this issue offers new ideas, directions and ways of understanding urban life.

Featuring contributions by Nicholas Bauch, Maya Brym, Ian Garrett, Charlie Grosso, Teira Johnson, Ari Kletzsky, Gerard Olson, Camilo Ontiveros, Nick Romaniak, David Snyder, Ashwani Vasishth, and Sue Yank. Cover design by Teira Johnson.

Theater Matters – notes from EMOS 2009 Part III

Today has been a bit slow at EMOS for me. I did attend the 2pm matinee of the University of Oregon’s student production of Metamorphoses in the Robinson Theatre, however, and even though I happened to see the Tony-award winning Broadway production in 2002, I was mightily impressed with the production here. It helps, of course, when the show is lined with a cast of beautiful teens and twenty-somethings. (makes even a late thirties [nameless]theater artist and blogger feel old!)

I sat with Moe Beitiks of the Green Museum Blog for the performance, and you may or may not be happy to hear that prior to the show she convinced me why she thought ecoTheater remained valuable to the ongoing “green art” discourse. Thanks, Moe: after some thought, I’ve realized that I needed to hear that — especially in the way you put it.

Speaking of which…

It’s been nothing short of a pleasure to have met and spent time with both Ian Garrett of the CSPA and Moe. I’ve corresponded and followed their work closely over the last two or three years, and though their reputations preceed them, they have been entirely pleasant, and wonderful, articulate, honest sounding boards. Artists in America — indeed, across the globe — are lucky to have them working so tirelessly.

I’m sure I’ll have yet more to say tomorrow about my entire, albeit abbreviated, EMOS experience as I travel back to the Midwest. Until then… 

Go to EcoTheater