Urban Living

Open source city: Vancouver

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Focus on the  Zen question: “What can we not do?” Not cut down weeds, not tidy up derelict ground, not plan, organise, manage and control parts of our cities.  Asking how an open source ethos might affect urban living. Read the rest of the article in the Vancouver Observer here.

Oliver Kellhammer is leading a week-long investigation into some of these topics entitled Open Source City: Field Study at Emily Carr University from June 20-24th. It’s part of the Continuing Studies Program and there is still space available. More info here: http://www.ecuad.ca/programs/courses/CESE/355/SU01

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

Green Stage Scratch Night Part of the Branching Out festival (also actors needed)

@ Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington

November 28th, 7:30pm

Calling actors and directors:

We are looking for actors interested in participating in the a night of rehearsed reading for 3 exciting new plays!

We are also looking for one director who is interested in directing one of the plays.

Green Stage is an exciting new theatre project that plants sustainability at the heart of the creative process and at the root of new works themselves. Over the past 7 months they have devised original work inspired by environmental debates and interesting green spaces. Their short play Unplugged imagined how London would respond to a week long power cut and was performed at Spitalfields City Farm and Camden Green Fair. An interactive piece called Forest Trails & Urban Tales, inspired by King Henry’s Walk community garden, gave audiences a chance to reconnect with the forest through encounters with creatures both mythical and real. Now they venture inside a theatre building, with excerpts from 3 intriguing new plays tackling themes of activism, energy production and the frenzied detachment of urban living.

About the plays:

Good Fix by Meghan Moe Beitiks

A radical do-gooder art collective’s converted warehouse: a world of miso soup, grant applications, drunken hysteria and toxic sludge.
A play about the high we get from ‘right’ actions, the difficulty of pursuing lasting solutions, and the danger of defining ‘good’ too narrowly.

Cogent Park by Ian Lane

There is C. There is P. Together they make CHP.
P does the pacing. H hitches a ride.
P makes things happen. H makes things the happenings more bearable.
An absurdist physical theatre piece about the relationship between heat and power, and the benefits of cogeneration.

Hollow Glass by Lara Stavrinou

“The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital”—Bookchin, Murray, Post Scarcity Anarchism
Witness the dysfunctional social arrangements of six twenty-somethings as they struggle to accustom themselves to life in the city. Activism, vintage shoes and microwave brownies provide instant gratification, but in the midst of rising crime and distrust, can they find the space and time to relate to one another?

Rehearsals:

Thursday, Nov. 25th 6:30-9:30pm
Sunday, Nov. 28th 10:00 – performance at 7:30pm.

Unfortunately this is an unpaid opportunity but your travel expenses will be covered.

Please email: greenstageuk@gmail.com if you are interested and available for the rehearsals.