Monthly Archives: June 2010

National Institute for Experimental Arts presents HotHouse

National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA)

Cultural ecology and sustainable urban environments

Symposium
27-28 July 2010

Sydney Opera House
Utzon Room
http://www.niea.unsw.edu.au

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Symposium 27-28 July 2010, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House (with drinks and project launch: 27 July, 6pm, Opera House Marquee)

Bookings through Sydney Opera House http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com.

Updates and blogs: http://www.niea.unsw.edu.au. Pre and post HotHouse events can be followed on a dedicated HotHouse website to be launched in July 2010.

HotHouse brings together a diverse group of creative thinkers, each with visionary ideas for transforming urban environments. It seeks to cultivate a new cultural ecology in which the arts play a key role, working with the planners and users of city spaces to address urgent environmental problems.

HotHouse advances the proposal that we no longer curate art but curate space. Taking the city as a venue it replaces the traditional idea of ‘exhibiting’ art with a practical vision of art as a catalyst for social and environmental change.

The guiding principle of HotHouse is that of micro-change and universal, networked participation. Micro-change does not mean small change but networked or interconnected change with vast potential for expansion. The HotHousing process is designed to stimulate new projects, connections and local/transnational community collaboration.

Participants in HotHouse include design thinkers such as Bruce Mau who has spearheaded community-driven projects for large-scale sustainable change in both North and South America, Tony Fry, Director of Team D/E/S and founder of the EcoDesign Foundation, and Adrian Parr (University of Cincinnati); artists/designers Janet Laurence, Dan Hill, Allan Giddy, Mathieu Gallois, David Trubridge, Carbon Arts, Makeshift and Digital Eskimo; new media writers such as Mark Pesce, one of the early pioneers in Virtual Reality and co-inventor of VRML; and international curators such as Hou Hanru (San Francisco Art Institute), pioneer of exhibitions that operate in everyday city spaces, and Michaela Crimmin (former director of the UK RSA, Art & Ecology Centre) leading international environmental art curator.

HotHouse is an initiative of the National Institute for Experimental Arts [NIEA] at UNSW (Director, Jill Bennett; Chief Curator, Felicity Fenner) in association with Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design and the City of Sydney.

Rock the Bike at Sunday Streets Mission | Soundwave Festival ((4)) Green Sound » June 20

Featuring the rockabilly acoustic punk sounds of Kemo Sabe (mandolin, guitar, upright bass)

Soundwave partners with Rock the Bike for this incredible free environmental music event. Rock the Bike is group that has created a pedal-powered stage, using off-the-grid electricity in the form of bike pedaling human energy to power amps, mics and instruments.

Pedal power is not only environmental but also community-building: an ice-breaking, fresh social activity that connects strangers in an electrifying new way: working shoulder to shoulder, rocking the party as a team. The musicians and Rock the Bike crew magically arrive on cargo bikes loaded with sound equipment, set those same bikes up to power the sound system, then load the bikes back up and vanish, all without consuming any fossil fuels.

Green Sound rocks Sunday Streets with the wicked sounds of Kemo Sabe on the Rock the Bike Stage. Come down and watch the spectacle, or help power the performance by pedaling away.

Soundwave Festival ((4)) Green Sound » June 20.

Art From The Ashes

UPCOMING EXHIBITION: ART from the ashes is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization of independent artists and volunteers who contribute their talent, time and energy to create art for resource. Artwork is crafted from materials collected from fire site locations after personal items have been removed. Debris that would otherwise be cleared and dumped into landfill is gathered and transfigured into one-of-a-kind works of art through the unique vision of each artist. ART from the ashes then hosts a charity exhibition showcasing the art that has been created from the reclaimed fire site materials. A portion of the proceeds from each exhibition is donated to a local or national charity chosen by the business or individuals impacted by the fire.

In the ART from the ashes spirit of “Support. Inspire. Create. Renew”, scrap metal becomes jewelry or sculpture, wood becomes a canvas for painting and ash creates glaze for ceramics. Every piece takes on a new life in celebration of a place that is rich with history. These materials carry the legacy of their former home and by transforming them into a new shape; they become a wonderful physical memory. There is also a generous heart in every one of the artists who donate their time and talent to participate. ART from the ashes is grateful and proud to be a portal for their work.

Mission Statement:
ART from the ashes is about transformation. Our goal is to provide a cathartic avenue to communities affected by wildfire by transfiguring fire site debris into beautiful works of art. By using reclaimed materials as our medium, we hope to inspire & support the heart, mind and planet.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, its what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

About the Founder, Joy Feuer
On October 24th, 2007, Joy Feuer was driving on the highway listening to NPR’s All Things Considered. California was in the midst of one of the most devastating fire seasons in our history. NPR’s Michele Norris was interviewing Captain Martin Johnson as he shared what it was like to be on the front lines fighting a fire. Their exchange would become the catalyst for Joy to create Art From The Ashes.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=15604130

Opening June 19, 2010
ART from the Ashes Gallery
216 S. Brand Blvd
Glendale, CA 91204
Click here for more info

via Art From The Ashes.

Design Walks – 2nd Sustainable Summer School

The “2nd Sustainable Summer School” for design students from all around the world starts on August 30 and ends September 4, 2010.

It will take place in Jüchen, near the city of Cologne (Germany).

Creative ideas for a sustainable design of our daily life will again be in the spotlight, this year by looking at “Societies, Systems and Swarms”. Introduced to the subject by a public expert day, the students will work together for several days in inspiring workshops conducted by well known institutions.

The “2nd Sustainable Summer School” offered students from all over the world the unique possibility to design and to shape the future lifestyle in a sustainable way.

Information and Registration:

http://www.designwalks.org/

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Expert day on August 30, 2010

(ecosign – Academy for Design, Cologne)

9.30 Session 1

- Prof. Uwe Schneidewind, Director of the Wuppertal Institute: Swarm Economy
Are economic swarm phenomena part of the problem or part of the solution regaring sustainable development?

- Prof. Jens Krause:  Swarm Models
To which extent can scientific swarm studies develop models for society and design?

13.00 Session 2

- Prof. Johannes Weyer: Swarm Technology - New Modes of Governance of Complex Systems in the Era of Autonomous Technology
What are risks and opportunities of swarm structures for the human-technological interface?

- Prof. Harald Welzer: Swarm sociality
What are immanent values, dynamics, and obstacles of climate cultures?

17.00 Public Panel Discussion
– Swarms, Societies, Sustainable Development
Diverse Perspectives on the Future of Sustainable Development and the Role of Design

Adaptation: Between Species / e-flux

Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Cory Arcangel, John Bock, Olaf Breuning, Marcus Coates, Robyn Cumming, Mark Dion, FASTWÜRMS, Shaun Gladwell, Lucy Gunning, Nina Katchadourian, Louise Lawler, Hanna Liden, Hew Locke, Sandra Meigs, Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, Jeff Sonhouse, Javier Téllez , Michelle Williams Gamaker

Curator: Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs

Civilization notwithstanding, we live with and among nature and animals. Cultural followers such as pigeons, rats, foxes, and – in Canada – bears, live off our refuse, while bacteria reside in our guts. The industrial world eats further into natural habitats, but micro-environments flourish in urban and exurban sites. Responding to the contemporary desire to go “back to nature,” The Power Plant’s summer group exhibition ‘Adaptation: Between Species’ explores interspecies encounters. What happens when humans, animals and the natural world meet? What forms of communication, miscommunication, intimacy, and exchange ensue?

While species live in ever closer proximity, many people feel profoundly cut off both from natural environments and from their own animal natures. Our deep longing to connect with non-human life forms is reflected in contemporary phenomena ranging from the boom in pet ownership and the widespread anthropomorphism in popular culture to the upsurge in vacations that promise to transport us to unspoiled lands.

However, despite this deep-seated sense of alienation from nature, the species are in fact closely related. For instance, as Donna Haraway notes in her book When Species Meet, 90 percent of human cells are filled with the genomes of bacteria, fungi, protists, and such, with only 10 percent comprising human genomes. ‘Adaptation’ explores this commonality between the species and considers the various forms of intelligence and knowledge they share. It also asks what our interactions with other species reveal about our human as well as our animal natures. Highlighting the urge to observe, touch, live with, and mimic other species, the exhibition delves into the intimate and, at times, uncanny fusions that result. Many of the artworks hover between seriousness and absurdity, embracing the potential for fantasy, childish antics and regression at the core of human/non-human relations, and reveling in the transgression of both social acceptability and human identity that interspecies encounters can engender.

Coinciding with the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, the exhibition considers how adaptation functions as a form of biological and cultural survival. It also takes a realistic view of human/non-human dynamics, acknowledging the unbalanced and exploitative power relations that too often characterize our society’s attitudes toward other life forms.

What do we learn by sharing our lives and this planet with other species? Impersonating and identifying with the natural world and the animal kingdom might contain the seeds for radical change, as we affirm our links with other species, recognize our animal natures and experience the liberation of feeling wild at heart.

A publication together with an extensive program of public events accompanies the exhibition. Highlights include a DJ Set and SKRY-POD public tarot reading by Ontario artists FASTWÃœRMS, a film screening ‘Animal Drag Kingdom’ with works by Guy Ben-Ner, Douglas Gordon, Kathy High, Kristin Lucas, and Steve Reinke and Jessie Mott, a children’s workshop on animal language, and free gallery tours every weekend at 2pm.

SUPPORT DONOR: The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation

The Power Plant offers free gallery admission all summer thanks to the support of the Hal Jackman Foundation and Media Partner NOW Magazine.

via Adaptation: Between Species / e-flux.

AN INTERNATIONAL SUMMER “ECO-FESTIVAL” AT EXIT ART: SEA presents ECOAESTHETIC and CONSUME



Edward Burtynsky, Oil Fields #13, Taft, California, USA, 2002

Sze Tsung Leong, Beizhuanzi II, Siming District, Xiamen, 2004

ECOAESTHETIC and CONSUME

June 18 – August 28, 2010
Opening Friday, June 18, 7-10pm

NEW YORK – ECOAESTHETIC is the first exhibition of SEA to be mounted in Exit Art’s main gallery. In keeping with SEA’s mission to present artworks that address socio-environmental concerns – and to unite artists, scholars, scientists and the public in discussion on these issues – ECOAESTHETIC, through the work of nine international photographers, approaches the mystery of beauty in the natural and built environment, which can be destructive or utopian.

ECOAESTHETIC will focus on photography of land where the tragedy of the image becomes the aesthetic of the environment, and not just the beauty of the landscape. The artists in this exhibition do not have a passive engagement with the environment; rather, they seek out beautiful and tragic images to emphasize the human impact on fragile ecosystems, to elucidate our relationship to nature, and to visualize the violence of natural disasters.

In conjunction with ECOAESTHETIC, Exit Art will also create a collective “artists terrarium” in its two ground floor windows facing 36th Street and 10th Avenue. For this project, artists have been invited to bring a plant and a photo of themselves with the plant to Exit Art, in order to contribute to a communal garden that gives a presence to the local environmental movement.

ECOAESTHETIC curated by Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo with Herb Tam and Lauren Rosati.

Susannah Sayler, Cordillera Blanca, Peru, 2008

David Maisel, American Mine (Nevada 1), 2007

The artists in ECOAESTHETIC are: Edward Burtynsky (Canada); Mitch Epstein (USA); Anthony Hamboussi (USA); Chris Jordan (USA); Christopher LaMarca (USA); Sze Tsung Leong (USA); David Maisel (USA); Susannah Sayler/The Canary Project (USA) and Jo Syz (UK).

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Consume, a project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics), is a multimedia group exhibition and event series that investigates the world’s systems of food production, distribution, consumption and waste. Consumewill be exhibited concurrently with ECOAESTHETIC, establishing a summer “eco-festival” on two floors of exhibition space.

With fuel prices fluctuating and climate change causing monumental shifts in weather patterns, we have been forced to rethink our methods of food production and distribution. Natural disasters have wiped out entire crop cycles (the rice supply in Burma and the wheat harvest in Australia) and experts are saying that a global food shortage is imminent. The prices for wheat, corn, rice and other grains have steadily increased since 2005, causing food riots and hoarding from Morocco to Yemen to Hong Kong. The New York Times recently reported an estimate that Americans waste 27% of the food available for consumption. What are some possible solutions to these mammoth problems?

Robin Lasser, Dining in the Dump, 2003

As more people change their habits, and as the government ratifies new regulations, we can make significant progress in the fight for food. The American public has shown awareness that the industrial-food system is deeply flawed. Expanded recycling and composting programs – as well as the growing local, organic and free-range movements – are indicative of a profound shift in the way we think about food. Consume will also include a series of public talks, screenings and workshops that confront and take up diverse food-related issues.

Jon Feinstein, Fast Food: 8 Grams, 2008

Uli Westphal, image of a lemon from the Mutatoes series, 2006-2010

Consume includes projects by Prayas Abhinav (India); Elizabeth Demaray (USA); Jon Feinstein (USA); Jordan Geiger / Ga-Ga and Virginia San Fratello / Rael-San Fratello Architects (USA); Sara Heitlinger and Franc Purg (UK/Slovenia); Manny Howard (USA); Miwa Koizumi (USA); Tamara Kostianovsky (USA); Robin Lasser (USA); Lenore Malen (USA); Mark Lawrence Stafford (USA); Laurie Sumiye (USA); Andreas Templin (Germany); and Uli Westphal (Germany).

Consume curated by Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo with Herb Tam and Lauren Rosati.

EVENTS
Wednesday, June 23 / 7-9pm

Raw Food Demonstration and Tasting: $20
Seema Shah – chef, health coach and chocolatier – will demonstrate how to prepare five local, seasonal and healthy raw food dishes for summer. She will also talk about her experiences with community supported agriculture and show us how to make more environmentally informed decisions about what we eat.
On the menu: Fresh Gazpacho, Colorful Kale Salad, Almond Butter Nori Wraps, Avocado Orange Salsa and Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. Cash bar. To learn more about Shah, visit www.simplyseema.com.

Thursday, July 22, 2010 / 7-9pm
Media That Matters presents GOOD FOOD, a collection of short films and animations about food and sustainability. Q and A to follow with filmmakers and representatives of Media That Matters. $5 suggested donation. Cash bar.

Thursday, July 29, 2010 / 7-9pm
Community Food Access with presentations by Just Food, Center for Urban Pedagogy and Green My Bodega, featuring information on CSAs, food justice, and increasing access to healthy food in underserved areas. $5 suggested donation. Cash bar.

Date TBA
SEA Poetry Series, No. 4
Organized by EJ McAdams of The Nature Conservancy. $5 suggested donation. Cash bar.

SEA (Social-Environmental Aesthetics)
SEA is a unique endeavor that presents a diverse multimedia exhibition program and permanent archive of artworks that address social and environmental concerns. SEA will assemble artists, activists, scientists and scholars to address environmental issues through presentations of visual art, performances, panels and lecture series that will communicate international activities concerning environmental and social activism. SEA will occupy a permanent space in Exit Underground, a 3000 square-foot, multi-media performance, film and exhibition venue underneath Exit Art’s main gallery space. The SEA archive will be a permanent archive of information, images and videos that will be a continuous source for upcoming exhibitions and projects. Central to SEA’s mission is to provide a vehicle through which the public can be made aware of socially- and environmentally-engaged work, and to provide a forum for collaboration between artists, scientists, activists, scholars and the public. SE A functions as an initiative where individuals can join together in dialogue about issues that affect our daily lives.

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Announcing a solo exhibition by performance artist Rafael Sanchez,
winner of the 2008 Ida Applebroog Award

Rafael Sanchez:
The Limit as the Body Approaches Zero
June 18 – August 28, 2010

Opening Friday, June 18 / 7-10pm

PERFORMANCES ON SATURDAYS IN JUNE AND JULY. See full schedule below.

Rafael Sanchez, winner of the 2008 Ida Applebroog Award at Exit Art, will present a series of new performance pieces and documentation from the past ten years of his work in Exit Art’s ground floor project space. Sanchez’s performances often bridge the spectacle of street life with the meditative interiority of private rituals. During this exhibition, the artist will stage performances every Saturday that provoke questions about issues as diverse as masculinity, sexuality, gentrification, and bodily limits.

In deceivingly simple gestures and epic endurance feats, Sanchez uses his body to carry ideas about the performative conditions of daily life in the city and how it is inscribed with desire, pain, musical rhythms, absurdity and poetry. Sanchez demands that viewers make a “psycho-educational commitment to enhancing his or her own perception of reality.”

Performances are scheduled for the exhibition opening, on Friday, June 18, on Friday, July 9 and on Saturdays, June 19, July 10, 17, 24, and 31. All performances will be assisted by Jonathan Hyppolite. See the full schedule below for details.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Friday, June 18

URBAN RENEWAL
This piece questions the role of gentrification in impoverished urban environments. Does the process of urban renewal bury a neighborhood’s people along with its past?

OTIS LOTUS (Soundscape One)
Otis Redding’s voice will fill a space over a one-hour period. As the sound unfolds, the audience is asked to question the boundaries between harmony disharmony, order and chaos.

SAG THEM DRAWS FOR WHOSE APPLAUSE
A performance designed to question a certain phenomenon of street fashion.

Saturday, June 19 / 1-7pm
NTU THE STAGE (Part Two)
A celebration and invocation ceremony. Music by Kris Flowers of Flowers in the Attic and DJ Porkchop of SSPS and Excepter. Food provided by Verettables catering.

Friday, July 9 / 12pm – Saturday, July 10 / 12pm
SWIMMING IN THE CREEK
This performance uses interviews with over a dozen fathers and husbands to question the notion of masculinity as it changes with age. The artist will recreate the gestation stage of human development as portions of the interviews play.

Saturday, July 10 / 12-6pm
DANIEL GIVENS DAY
The artist pays homage to one of his creative mentors as Daniel Givens (poet, DJ, photographer and producer) restructures the performance space with collages, videos, and music.

Saturday, July 17 / 12-4pm
DILL PICKLE
In an allegory for sexual fantasy and voyeurism, the artist will climb a ladder and periodically slice cucumbers into a big tub placed under the ladder. During this process, music and soundscapes from pornographic films will play.

MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME
The artist will recreate 21 years of orgasms and the visual, auditory, and sensual stimuli that made these moments possible.

ROCK ME
A performance addressing the sexuality of the body as separate from sensation.

Saturday, July 24 / 12-6pm
SPEAK BOLDLY
A performance to honor the life of Julius Eastman, a minimalist African-American composer, pianist, vocalist and dancer.

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN
A visualization of this physical and social law.

KANDINSKY’S PAINTED ON BOTH SIDES
Comparing process versus product, the artist becomes the canvas.

BEING AND NOTHINGNESS / MILK BATH
Using literature from the Négritude movement and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Black Orpheus, the artist questions the subject and objectivity of blackness.

Saturday, July 31 / 12-6pm
CAN’T KEEP RUNNING AWAY
A performance piece about the defense mechanism of “avoidance coping.”

BAD BRAINS RE-ENACTMENT
Using performance footage of the Washington D.C. hardcore punk group Bad Brains, the artist mimics lead singer H.R.’s movements to bring immediate presence to vicarious memory.

HABIBI ABID
The artist will sit in a plexi-glass box, from which Sudanese wedding music will play. Sand will fill the box as the music plays and becomes louder. Once the sand reaches his neck, honey and ants will be poured over his head. While the ants wander through the honey, the music will become less audible and the sound of shifting sand will replace the music of celebration.

PERFORMANCE FOR THOSE LOVED
The artist will choose four people from various spheres of his life and create a performance as a gift to them.

DIAMOND SEA (Part Two)
A performance about Sonic Youth’s Diamond Sea.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rafael Sanchez (b. Newark, New Jersey, 1978) is a performance artist who often takes his work to the streets and other unconventional spaces. In his performances, Sanchez frequently subjects his body to extreme stress and pain to materialize ideas of memory, spirituality and endurance. In an early work titled Back to Africa(2000), Sanchez wandered around New Jersey in white face, carrying a suitcase and waiting for a bus that never arrived. In a more recent work, Calienté/Frio (2007) the artist traced the migration process of two women from Cuba to America during the 1960s. The artist, dressed in a light colored suit and hat and carrying a packed suitcase, submerged himself in a tub of water that alternated between near boiling and below freezing as interviews with the two Cuban women played in the background.

ABOUT THE IDA APPLEBROOG AWARD
The Ida Applebroog Award at Exit Art was established by Richard Massey, art collector and Exit Art board member, and Ida Applebroog, artist and Exit Art board member, to nurture outstanding artists at critical points in their careers. This biennial award was named after Ida Applebroog to convey both the spirit of her work and Exit Art’s mission, and to honor her for her accomplishments. For more than 25 years, Exit Art’s mission has been to support under recognized artists that consistently challenge cultural and artistic conventions. By establishing this award at Exit Art, Ida Applebroog wished to further that mission by providing a substantial monetary award to support such artists. The award includes a $10,000 unrestricted grant and a solo exhibition at Exit Art.

ABOUT EXIT ART
Exit Art is an independent vision of contemporary culture. We are prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives. We do experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues. We absorb cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions. We are a center for multiple disciplines. Exit Art is a 25 year old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and artist Papo Colo, that has grown from a pioneering alternative art space, into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness and consistent ability to anticipate the newest trends in the culture. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art is always changing.

EXHIBITION SUPPORT
General exhibition support for all Summer 2010 exhibitions provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Bloomberg LP; Jerome Foundation; Lambent Foundation; Pollock-Krasner Foundation; public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; Exit Art’s Board of Directors and our members.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Exit Art is located at 475 Tenth Avenue, corner of 36th Street. Hours: Tues. – Thurs., 10am – 6pm; Fri., 10am – 8pm; and Sat., noon – 8pm. Closed Sun. and Mon. There is a suggested donation of $5. For more information please call 212-966-7745 or visit www.exitart.org.

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Evergreen Brick Works is looking for the best short videos from across Canada!

Evergreen, a national charity, has transformed the former Don Valley Brick Works from a collection of deteriorating heritage buildings into an international showcase for urban sustainability and green design. Evergreen Brick Works is open year-round, and includes permanent and temporary art installations responding to the site’s geological and industrial heritage. A looped compilation of videos is part of the new media program that will introduce a wide range of environmental issues.

Independent filmmakers, animators and video artists are invited to submit works that deal with environmental issues such as climate change, water, food, transportation, waste, energy, sustainable development, etc.

deadline: June 15th, 2010

Artist fees will be paid for videos that are chosen to be included in the compilation.

We accept submissions via YOUTUBE, VIMEO or your own website.

Submit: Name/contact, your bio, brief synopsis, length of video, and link to your video to: kmcbride@evergreen.ca In the subject line please put: Evergreen Video Art Submission

via Contingent Ecologies » Blog Archive » call for submissions: eco-art video.

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts to Present Award for Sustainable Production at Hollywood and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) announces the inaugural Fringe Festival Award for Sustainable Production, debuting at the Hollywood Fringe Festival June 17th – 27th. The CSPA Fringe Festival Award for Sustainable Production is designed to reward ecologically sustainable practice in the production of a fringe show. The winner will be announced at the Fringe Awards Ceremony on June 27th at 7:00pm, and will receive a plaque and a feature article in an upcoming edition of the CSPA Quarterly, the CSPA’s print publication highlighting the most exciting work being done in sustainability and the arts.

The award will be adjudicated by the CSPA Directors, Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright, along with a number of CSPA affiliates. It will be looking at public communication and education, resource use and transportation in support of presenting a fringe show based on methodology developed by the CSPA itself and San Diego’s Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, who has created a comprehensive Green Theater Choices Toolkit with a generous grant from the Theater Communications Group.

While debuting at the Hollywood Fringe, the CSPA Fringe Festival Award for Sustainable Production will also be offered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August, where the CSPA will be presenting a panel on sustainability in theater at Fringe Central in Edinburgh on Monday Morning, August the 16th.

“We’ve been working since we started the CSPA on how to provide resources and guidelines for sustainable production to the theatrical community. Both Miranda and myself come from theatrical backgrounds and it is important to us. The fringe festival model provides an ideal platform to introduce these ideas and the award due to the expectations and scale of the shows. It is easier to start the conversation at a fringe level of production than Broadway. By starting with the Hollywood Fringe, our local and the newest fringe festival, and immediately moving to the Edinburgh Fringe, the largest and oldest fringe in the world, we are looking to create the greatest visibility and excitement around the introduction of ideas of sustainability to the largest number of theater artists at home and away,” says Executive Director Ian Garrett.

To be considered for the award, a production fills out an online questionnaire. Questions range from an inventory of materials used to what public transportation lines run close to venues to how themes about sustainability are addressed in their shows. Because venues vary so greatly, various sections may not be included in a single evaluation to provide equal footing for the shows on a case by case basis. Shows are encouraged, but not required to provide a CSPA affiliate with tickets to their production to allow a trained eye to look at shows and projects as they exist in the real world.

As an independent producer and designer, outside of the CSPA, Garrett is also involved in bringing shows to both the Hollywood and Edinburgh festivals. He will be designing for the Rogue Artist Ensemble’s ‘Hyperbole: Origins’ workshop at Art\Works Theater on Santa Monica for the Hollywood Fringe (To be premiered in full production at Inside the Ford this Fall) and is the conceiver and producer for the devised physical theater piece on memory, aging and identity ‘At Sundown’, which will be at the Edinburgh Fringe at Venue 13. Garrett also serves as the Festival Producer for CalArts Festival Theater, a program of California Institute of the Arts’ School of Theater that enables students and alumni to bring work to the Edinburgh Fringe, now in it’s 7th year. In the interest of fairness, these shows will not be eligible for the CSPA’s award.

“Even more so than we want someone to score perfectly on the questionnaire we use to evaluate shows, we want theater artists to look at the questions and think about how it helps to guide their thinking about sustainability in the their art. There may be questions asked in ways they hadn’t thought, and we hope they ask these questions of their next project and the project after that.”

To apply, fringe show producers can head over to the CSPA’s website at http://www.sustainablepractice.com/fringe or email fringe@sustainablepractice.org. Applications for evaluation will be taken up until the end of the festival, though it is encouraged to apply while it is still possible for a CSPA affiliate to view the show. All questions regarding the award by also be be directed to fringe@sustainablepractice.org.

The CSPA was founded by Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright in early 2008 after individually working on each of the programs that now make up the multi-faceted approach to sustainability separately. It provides a network of resources to arts organizations, which enables them to be ecologically and economically sustainable while maintaining artistic excellence. We support the infrastructure of this network by supplying artists with the information, education and intellectual community they need to make the best choices for their sustainability. We do this through three independent programs: CSPA Online Resources, annual CSPA convergence and the CSPA Institute’s curriculum building. We extend these efforts with key partnerships with like minded organizations. Past and Present partnerships have included the University of Oregon, Ashden Directory, Arcola Theater, Diverseworks Artspace, Indy Convergence, York University, LA Stage Alliance and others. Under the umbrella of the CSPA, each program and partnership uses different tactics with their own mission to create a comprehensive and cooperative synthesis in artistic sustainability.

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Future of Urban Agriculture in Rooftop Farms and Natalie Jeremijenko on Popularmechanics.com

Natalie Jeremijenko, an aerospace engineer and environmental health professor at New York University, came up with a rooftop design to solve these common problems for urban farming. Her fixtures may be more economical than other urban farm concepts because they take up real estate that otherwise goes unused, and unlike other urban farm designs, they can pack in the plants, because everything, from the integrated systems to their bubble shape, is a slave to efficiency.

Natalie Jeremijenko (born 1966) is an artist and engineer whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. She is an active member of the net.art movement, and her work primarily explores the interface between society, the environment and technology. She is currently an Associate Professor at NYU in the Visual Art Department, and has affiliated faculty appointments in Computer Science and Environmental Studies.

Check out the full article here:

Future of Urban Agriculture in Rooftop Farms – Vertical and Rooftop Agriculture – Popularmechanics.com.

CSPA QUARTERLY: Call for Submissions on Digital Work

The summer edition of the CSPA Quarterly is now open for submissions!  The issue will go to print late August. 

For this issue, we’re interested in exploring the sustainability of digital work.  What is the life-cycle of digital art?  How can digital media impact performance?  Is digital art-making “green?”  What is lost when work is in the digital realm?  And, what is gained?  What happens when technology advances?  And, as always, what is being sustained (the earth, the artist, the community)? 

The CSPA Quarterly explores sustainable arts practices in all genres, and views sustainability in the arts through environmentalism, economic stability, and cultural infrastructure.  The periodical provides a formal terrain for discussion, and seeks to elevate diverse points of view.

Please send your opinion articles, project case studies, researched essays, and photos to: Miranda@SustainablePractice.org.  The deadline for consideration is July 9, 2010.