We interview Deanne LaRue and Scott Mason today. They are both working on the CO2 Cube by the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen. We’re saving the INterview for later, but here is some footage as it was getting dark about then once the sun is nowhere to be seen.
Monthly Archives: December 2009
My Copenhagen hosts…
I met the family who have agreed to host my brief stay in Copenhagen. They were warm, and extremely welcoming. If the idea behind wooloo.org’s New Life Copenhagen initiative – which matches visitors to host families – is to embody the a new openness, then it may well be working. They are not the sort of people whose paths would normally cross with mine; Lars is involved in local politics as a right-wing politician. Gitte, his partner, says the Danish rarely invite people into their homes. But that is the point. Last night, over tea, we talked, all thoroughly enjoying the strangeness of it.
I wonder if we will get around to completing the questions in the New Life Copenhagen Guest/Host book that was left by my bed for us all to fill inF?
Would you describe yourself as an argumentative person?
Have you ever discriminated against somebody?
Have you ever been a victim of war?
Find an item in the home of your host that you find strange.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
The Story of Cap and Trade
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM
Free Rage Studios recently released the sequel to their viral Story of Stuff video: The Story of Cap and Trade. Just in time for COP15. The premise is that the details of cap and trade need to be examined to ensure they don’t preserve (polluting, exploitative) business as usual.
This is especially timely given the first-day fracas of the climate talks thus far, including a series of emails “covering up†information refuting climate change– now termed ClimateGate– and a leaked “Danish text†which positions solutions in drastic favor of first-world, industrial, polluting countries.With this new video, Annie Leonard again tackles an emotional, important and complicated subject with straight talk and humor.
Go to the Green Museum
Live from Copenhagen
Perhaps “Live” is a bit misused here, but we are in Copenhagen right now. I got in yesterday morning and Miranda, after some delays, made it last night. My host, Sara Vilslev, and I made it to Downtown Hopenhagen and met the Wooloo.org/New Life Copenhagen Guys. We also saw a number of pavilions promoting greening living in creative ways.
We’re about to head out for a fullday, but I wanted to share some pictures from our night before we get to far along!
Bikes are the standard in Copenhagen.
Downtown Hopenhagen lit up
Martin from Wooloo.org records pledges to never drink Coca-Cola again for the Yes Men.
Bike power Disco.
My contract for a sustainable burial, should I die during COP15.
That is not Brad Pitt on stage at Hopenhagen.
the nytheatre i: Kickoff! — Stolen Chair Theatre’s Community Supported Theatre
Here’s the first dispatch from Jo Ann Rosen, nytheatre.com’s “embedded journalist” with the Stolen Chair Theatre’s Community Supported Theatre program.
*****
November 22, 2009
Even before President Obama urged educators to concentrate their efforts on math and science, Stolen Chair Theatre co-artistic directors Jon Stancato and Kiran Rikhye were reaching for the stars. Last night, they launched the pilot program of their Community Sponsored Theatre (CST) that introduced friends, family and, most importantly, the new CST members to this year’s theatrical theme: Quantum Poetics: A Science Experiment for the Stage.
The evening, divided into two parts, began with a slide presentation by Jon, also the resident director, explaining the CST concept, which he hopes will solidify a long-term relationship between the theater group and its membership. The plan is to update and educate the members monthly on the creative process. Kiran, Stolen Chair’s resident playwright, focused on their mission statement: to create “playfully intellectual, wickedly irreverent and exuberantly athletic original works.†Aviva Meyer, the communications director, explained how they intend to increase awareness through telephone interviews that will become pod casts and through their online social network, The Chaise Lounge, where subsequent CST events and other related activities, will be posted.
But it was the second part of the evening that delivered on the CST concept; that is, they shared the result of their first steps in the dynamic process of creating a play. Seven actors re-enacted exercises developed during a recent creative retreat. To prepare for the retreat, each actor received a 211-page compilation of articles and books on a wide variety of scientific subjects, including theoretical physics and neuroscience. They also received books by Bertolt Brecht, Aristotle, and Richard Schechner, who, in Jon’s words, “approach theater with the same sort of empirical rigor as scientists.†During the retreat, ideas percolated and Jon added requirements and boundaries to the concepts. The actors interpreted and enacted them. The best of the compositions were presented at the kickoff.
Performances represented the personification of five theories: chaos, gravity, memory, evolution, and synethesia (senses crossing from one part of the brain to another, as from brain damage or drugs). The first exercise, made up of all seven actors, reflected an imaginative interpretation of a human collider creating new matter. The group, held tightly together by a hula hoop, moved slowly to center stage. Once the plastic ring dropped, each burst from the whole with great energy. Another performance related the story of The Three Little Pigs to represent three gravity-defining moments; a third showed the daily routine of two people that could easily have doubled for two rats in a maze. All were big scientific ideas applied to every day life. They were made comprehensible and whimsical by this very clever group.
Kiran, who will be giving shape to the final play, knows there will be lots of changes during this year-long collaboration. The final version may include parts of the exercises, maybe only a gesture, or none of it. But, what the charter members saw last night was the first spark of a new play – Quantum Poetics: A Science Experiment for the Stage. The next event is on Sunday, December 13. They will be screening clips from movies that explore scientific themes. Membership is still open.
*****
via the nytheatre i: Kickoff! — Stolen Chair Theatre’s Community Supported Theatre.
Copenhagen and radical cycle culture
At Culture|Futures listening to the architect Jan Gehl talking about how bicycles have humanised Copenhagen, and how crucial they will be to the new urbanism.
Interesting how many hits this YouTube video has been getting in the last few days.
The boggling incredulity with which the video’s American viewers seem to greet the vision of bicyclists (“LOL socialism in action.Europe will soon be going back to the stone age. The sooner, the betterâ€) is a great reminder of a how wide the cultural gulf is, sometimes.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
Climate changes: Steve Waters interview
Many had considered climate change an impossible subject to dramatise. But two new plays that opened at the Bush in May proved them wrong.
Steve Waters talks to Robert Butler about ‘The Contingency Plan’, his double-bill of plays about climate change, and how they were inspired by James Lovelock, the 1953 floods, and the Transition Town Handbook.
http://www.ashdendirectory.org.uk/featuresView.asp?pageIdentifier=2009122_59406680&view=
To coincide with the UN Conference in Copenhagen, Radio 3 also broadcasts a version of ‘The Contingency Plan’ (this Sunday, 8pm) and two readings of the play, with the original cast, will be produced at the Bush on 15 and 18 December.
etIntersection: Scenography Expanding
etIntersection
Scenography Expanding
Symposia 1-3
Riga – Belgrade – Evora 2010
www.intersection.cz
Scenography Expanding
Invitation and Call for Papers
Throughout the past decade, scenographic practice and performance design have continuously moved beyond the black box of the theatre toward a hybrid terrain located at the intersections of theatre, architecture, exhibition, visual arts, and media. This terrain and its spaces are constructed from action and interaction. They are defined by individual and group behavior, and are contrasted by distinct behavioral patterns.
It is proposed here that spaces that are staged in such a way – spaces that are at the same time hybrid, mediated, narrative, and transformative – result from a trans-disciplinary understanding of space and a distinct awareness of social agency. These two factors of “expansion†are seen as the central driving forces in contemporary scenographic practice and thought.
|
|
With the aim of initiating and hosting an active and trans-disciplinary discourse on the notion of an expanding scenography, the Prague Quadrennial for Performance Design and Space issues an invitation for participation and a Call for Papers for the symposia and workshop sessions, Scenography Expanding 1-3 in 2010. Grouped under the overriding and programmatic title of Scenography Expanding, invited academic papers, artist’s presentations and expert workshop sessions will be looking to engage with notions of spectatorship, artists/authors, and curating in relation to the diverse artistic positions in contemporary spatial design.
In preparation for the Intersection Project of the Prague Quadrennial in June, 2011, we invite researchers in practice and theory (artists, curators, programers, directors, dramaturgs, critics, and theorists) to participate in 3 international scenography symposia held in Riga, Belgrade and Évora during 2010. The overall aim of these symposia is to unfold the wide range of disciplines, genres, theoretical, and artistic positions that comprise the relationships between spectator, artist/author and curator in contemporary scenographic/performance design practice.
Scenography Expanding 1-3 will be followed up by a peer-reviewed publication comprised of selected speakers` contributions in the form of academic papers and visual essays. Guidelines for authors will be available shortly via download from www.intersection.cz.
Scenography Expanding 1: On Spectatorship
February 25 – 27, 2010
New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
Speaker presentations, panel discussions, and workshop sessions engage with effects of the proposed “scenographic turn†on notions of spectatorship in performance design and space.
How are contemporary theories of spectatorship expanding by the increasingly hybrid spaces that we inhabit – in theatre (performance), architecture, exhibition, and media?  Is “space†becoming a governing factor in the negotiation between performers and spectators?
Do hybrid spaces invite new agendas to be explored, performed, exhibited, and constructed? Does an expanding notion of scenography challenge/confirm established notions of live-ness and re-mediation?
Deadline for registration and submission of abstracts (please download the application form at ww.intersection.cz): 15.12.2009
Scenography Expanding 2: On Artists/Authors
July 9 – 11, 2010
BELEF Center and Festival, Belgrade, Serbia
Speaker presentations, panel discussions, and workshop sessions investigate the question of the identity of the artist/author in the conceptualization, construction and participation in hybrid scenographic and performance design spaces.
Who are the artists and teams responsible for creating contemporary scenographies in theatre, performance, architecture, exhibition, installation, and media? Is and/or how is the trans-disciplinary nature of scenographic teams reflected in the theoretical discourse on scenography? When does audience become a co-creator? When does a curator become a co-creator?
Deadline for registration and submission of abstracts (please download the application form at www.intersection.cz): 15.3.2010
Scenography Expanding 3: On Curating
September 27 – 29, 2010
Festival Escrita na Paisagem and Centro de História da Arte e Investigação ArtÃstica (CHAIA), Évora, Portugal
Speaker presentations, panel discussions, and workshop sessions are concerned with the complex role of the curator in exhibiting spatial practice. A range of models, examples, and future perspectives are introduced and discussed. How is scenographic practice in theatre (performance), architecture, exhibition, installation, and media framed in order to curate, program, communicate, display and reflect? When does an artist become a curator? Who is the author of the space? What are contemporary perspectives on the display of ephemeral practice? Between Badious’ call for “decidedness†(2005) and Bourriauds’ relational aesthetics (2002) – where do we stand?
Deadline for registration and submission of abstracts (please download the application form at www.intersection.cz): 15.6.2010
Symposia Conveners
Sodja Lotker, Prague Quadrennial Artistic Director
Thea Brejzek, Prague Quadrennial Curator for Theory
Please send abstracts of 300 words max, and a short bio to: sodja.lotker@pq.cz and thea.brejzek@zhdk.ch (please download the application form at www.intersection.cz).
We will inform you within two weeks of the submission deadline whether your proposal
has been accepted.
More information, including registration forms and the full program (keynote speakers and speakers, publication details, etc.), will be updated on: www.intersection.cz.
Join our mailing list to get the latest information: pq@pq.cz.
The symposia are part of the Intersection: Intimacy and Spectacle – a special international project of the Prague Quadrennial that explores performance and performativity as important elements of diverse art and cultural disciplines, focusing on performance design and scenography as interdisciplinary fields. Â The project will consist of two central parts: research symposia as well as interactive installations/performance that will take place in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Latvia, Ireland, Great Britain, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Portugal during 2011 and 2012.
Intersection project is organized by the Prague Quadrennial (CZ) in co-operation with the New Theatre Institute of Latvia (LAT); the Irish Theatre Institute (IE); the Victoria and Albert Museum (GB); the BELEF Festival (RS); the Kretakör Theatre Company (HU); the National Theatre Prague (CZ); Ente Teatrale Italiano (IT); Kiasma Theatre, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (FI); as well as the Institute of Design & Technology, Design Department, Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK (CH); the Escrita na Paisagem’s Festival de Performance e Artes da Terra (PT); the Centro de História da Arte e Investigação ArtÃstica (PT).
With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.
The Prague Quadrennial is organized by Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and Arts and Theatre Institute.
MAMMUT MAGAZINE #4 :: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
MAMMUT MAGAZINE #4 :: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
IMPORTANT DATES
>>>Â 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:Â late April / Early May 2010
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
For more about Mammut Magazine, please visit http://www.mammutmagazine.org
Ghost Forest by Angela Palmer, Trafalgar Square
Ghost Forest – London from RSA Arts & Ecology on Vimeo.
It’s an amazing achievement, to unlock this space for this kind of exhibit. The crowds I saw were drawn to the sheer strangeness and hugeness of the shapes of the trees, which are supposed to link the ideas of deforestation and climate change. Angela Palmer has done something remarkable in persuading the Mayor’s office to let her use this space for this work. Its scale and ambition makes the current occupant of the Fourth Plinth look rather irrelevant.
But, being honest, I’m not sure it works that well, either as a polemic or as art; I’m not sure it left people convinced. Palmer had originally envisaged the stumps as standing straight up, which would have made it easier to understand them as the leavings of human greed, rather than the lumber they look like. I’m guessing that it simply wasn’t practical to display the stumps like that. And the huge text billboards seemed to be as much about Palmer’s struggle to realise the work, with Antony Gormley saying “the project can’t be doneâ€, as they were about the issue of deforestation and simply added a level of Fitzcaraldo-in-reverse hubris. (This is like dragging the rainforest to the opera-house rather than vice versa).
When artists create events like this why don’t they let the art speak for itself and instead work closely with an NGO who can make the polemic explicit on site, and far more effectively?
Anyway, please disagree with me.
www.ghostforest.org
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology