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Lovely Weather in Inishowen, Ireland: what is climate art?

This post comes to you from An Arts and Ecology Notebook

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“how does data feel, taste, sound, look, smell?” Roger Malina, Leonardo, keynote speaker, Lovely Weather art and climate change conference, LetterKenny RCC, Nov 2010

I was briefly in Oxford this week and I had a little time to pass so I wandered into one of the oldest Museums of the History  of Science in the world. They had a display of early Islamic scientific instruments, many were for searching and understanding the skies. They were astonishingly beautiful as well as functional and were later adopted and developed through the middle ages and renaissance in Europe. Many instruments made for understanding the heavens were made in metal, some in ivory (couldn’t help thinking they looked like antique iphones as some were a similar shape, colour and size to our recent technology). The  industry and intent to know the world by all methods has long been with us.  I was thinking about this in reference to a recent Lovely Weather Culture and Climate Change conference that I attended in north-west Donegal last November. An excellent 2 day event celebrated the Lovely Weather climate artists residency project; an innovative Per Cent for Art Irish Public Art programme across 5 electoral areas, co-led by the local Donegal County Arts Office and the Letterkenny Regional Culture Centre  and co-curated by Roger Malina and Annick Bureaud of the long established Art & Science publication, LEONARDO/Olats. This was to my knowledge the first substantial culture and climate event in Ireland and the projects were in the main very thought-provoking and detailed (a catalogue of the projects can be obtained from the Donegal Arts Office).

Roger Malina, editor of Leonardo, was the keynote speaker. Roger is also an astronomer and Director of Astronomy Centre in Marseille, France. A point he made in his talk, while referencing his own experience in astronomy which has seen an explosion in technical instrument development, data production, now further accelerating with the sharing of online data networks, is that over the centuries,  scientists no longer use their senses but their instruments  to understand the world. He argued that in reference to climate change, that artists have such an important role… ‘in making science intimate….not just translating science  or making science pretty.’ He spoke of many artists who were attempting to engage with science, from many diverse practices, who were taking scientific data  and using it in their creative practices. He now sees that we are moving from a world of ‘data scarcity to data plenty but today, while we are data rich, we are meaning poor’. He described this as an epistemological (a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge) inversion. I was particularly interested how Roger described that we are in a ‘data flood… but artists can work successfully embedded in data, where data becomes an element (material) to use.” He concluded by asking us, “how does data feel, taste, sound, look, smell?”

There was an excellent example of data embedded centrally in one of the Lovely Weather residencies. Carbon Footprint is a multi-disciplinary work by Canadian born (now settled in Ireland) artist in residence Seema Goel. The piece uses local wool, spinning and knitting as a metaphor to explore climate change, carbon capture, and micro-economies in Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland. This project worked on many levels – making hurricane data intimate in the creation of knitted items (see the knitted hat above that relates to hurricane weather data), bringing together local people of all ages to use local materials and forgotten skills (a working example of ’social sculpture’), making visible the loss of  previous local industries to global, unsustainable supply chains (while Donegal has a rich history in wool products,  this has almost entirely disappeared and local wool items are surprisingly imported from afar – this a surprise to many Irish in the audience as Donegal is famed for its fibre heritage), and creating a legacy of community craft activities in the region. It’s delightful to think of the climate data discussions, mixing with knitting patterns discussions and cups of tea (it reminded me of the global crochet coral reef project that came to Ireland’s Science gallery that I discussed last year  – both show the huge upsurge in local materials and fibre craft and just a reminder: this is also the international year of craft, as well as forests). The success in this project are the climate conversations made tangible in the community and unlike many ‘climate  and art and science projects that I’ve encountered, the legacy of the project continues:  knitting and spinning workshops continue for every skill level, from people with an interest that want to get started to those who want to share skills. For more information please contact mccartney.ruth@gmail.com

To follow is a guest post by Margaret Mc Laughlin on another of the Lovely Weather residency projects – all about dead zones (Marbh Chrios) off the coast of Ireland – a fantastic audiovisual, data come community sound project.

 

An Arts & Ecology Notebook, by Cathy Fitzgerald, whose work exists as ongoing research and is continually inspired to create short films, photographic documentation, and writings. While she interacts with foresters, scientists, and communities, she aims to create a sense of a personal possibility, responsibility and engagement in her local environment that also connects to global environmental concerns.
Go to An Arts and Ecology Notebook

Back to the Future: The NEA Survey on Arts Participation

FROM THE GREEN ROOM: Dance/USA’s e-Journal

By Marc Kirschner

The ultimate conclusion of the National Endowment for the Art’s Audience 2.0 survey, that “Arts participation through media appears to encourage – rather than replace – live arts attendance,” is neither a surprise, nor news. It’s not the first study to come to that conclusion, and, in fact, any other outcome would have flown in the face of conventional wisdom. That said, for the NEA to supplement its 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts with an edition focused purely on media is an important first step in changing the dialogue, and putting to rest some basic fears that have impeded real progress in the performing arts.

The NEA survey’s primary function is to serve as a snapshot: here is the state of the art at this particular time. It serves this function well. But it’s not enough, nor does the NEA claim it to be. Whereas the survey provides a valuable data point that can kick-start forward-thinking dialogue, the practical impact of the survey is limited by the rapid rate of innovation that has taken place over the past few years. Since the beginning of the May 2007 survey period:

• Facebook’s user base has grown from 20 million to 400 million users

• The entire book publishing industry has been turned upside down by e-readers, such as the Kindle, Nook and iPad

• Millions of set-top boxes, Blu-ray DVD and home theater PCs have connected televisions to broadband Internet

• Hulu launched its online video service to the public

• More than 300,000 people viewed simulcasts and encores of the Metropolitan Opera’s Carmen

• The first 3-D network began broadcasting

• Four generations of iPhones have been released

Three vital audience behaviors – seeking, browsing, and consuming content and information – have changed dramatically over the past few years and are going to continue to evolve with new technology. The most popular technologies now in wide use are not the latest fads to hit the market – they are in their second, third and fourth generations. New business models have emerged, failed, succeeded, been modified, adapted, discarded and improved in real time over just three years.

There is value to all organizations in being able to recognize how out of date the research contained in this report is.

While some dance companies are still wondering what to do about YouTube and Facebook, and continue to take a “wait and see” attitude toward more intensive and productive uses of technology, other organizations and artists are taking risks and challenging long-held assumptions. The UK’s National Theatre (NT) released a report earlier this month about the impact of satellite cinema broadcasts of Phedre on its audiences. Dance can learn from this survey not because cinema audiences “reported higher levels of emotional engagement” than live audiences, but because the NT has already implemented the findings into its strategic plan.

Which raises another key issue: Once a dance company has actionable information and presumably wants to act, can it?

A general consensus throughout many dance company boards maintains that risk should be avoided, instead of managed. Progressive initiatives are stalled because decision-makers are unfamiliar, don’t understand, condescend toward or don’t even use the new technologies. A few months ago, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts President Michael Kaiser wrote in The Huffington Post:

“… the biggest problem we face in the arts is a lack of trained arts managers and board members. One can trace the demise of virtually every bankrupt arts organization to a lack of competent staff and/or board leadership.”

Understanding these new technologies has to be included in the definition of organizational competency. Funders need to be a part of the process. They need to share in the risk and mandate progress by funding short-term technology-rich projects capable of returning incremental and current knowledge and experience. Failure should be viewed as being as valuable as success. Instead of funding a few massive multiyear programs where, by the time targets are defined, funds are awarded, data is analyzed and findings are shared, all of the basic assumptions have changed, let’s put future funding resources into smaller, faster, more nimble projects.

Fail. Fail again. Succeed. Build on that success. Move forward.

We can’t wait for long-range studies to tell us that three years ago data showed engagement via electronic media encouraged arts participation. We can’t wait for studies to tell us, three years from now, what is happening today.

Marc Kirschner is the founder and general manager of TenduTV. TenduTV aggregates and distributes dance-related programming through its network of more than 70 digital platforms capable of reaching over half a billion devices in ten countries. He currently serves on the Dance/NYC advisory committee.

via Back to the Future: The NEA Survey on Arts Participation — FROM THE GREEN ROOM: Dance/USA’s e-Journal.