Monthly Archives: September 2010

Sustainability | eyebeam.org

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The Eyebeam Sustainability Research Group is comprised of past and present residents, fellows, and staff. Our goals are to improve the internal practices, physical infrastructure and materials used at Eyebeam to create a lab for workable sustainable solutions, to educate ourselves and the public through programs and exhibitions, and to facilitate the creation of sustainability-related projects at and beyond Eyebeam. The main areas of focus for the group have been energy, materials and making, urban sustainability issues, especially transportation and pollution, and green spaces and agriculture.

Check it out:  Sustainability | eyebeam.org.

7 BILLIONTH PERSON PROJECT

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We have roughly 1,000 days before the seventh billion human being joins the rest of us on Planet Earth. We do not know what country she will be born in, or who her family will be, or if she will be a she or a he.  But we do know this being will join the rest of us as a citizen of this world.  Working on a welcome message to our seventh billion fellow human being provides us with a rare but overdue opportunity for introspection as well as a frank accounting of the implicit responsibilities we have toward other human beings and future generations.  What would you like to tell her about this world, about life, about your story?  What would you like to show her about the world? The 7 Billionth Person Project aims to collect creative expressions from citizens from around the world.  Visual submissions are highly encouraged.  All media accepted.

Partners for the exhibition include The Arts Council of New Haven, Proof: Media for Social Justice, the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, and the Yale World Fellows Program.   Website: http://www.collectiveanswers.org.

Questions? Email Valerie Belanger at info@collectiveanswers.org

via WOOLOO.ORG – 7 BILLIONTH PERSON PROJECT.

Art, Environment, and Place

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Many innovative approaches to form and content are evolving in contemporary arts practice that transcend traditional boundaries of art making. Many artists are integrating various field and research strategies borrowed from the natural sciences, geography, and other disciplines to create rich interdisciplinary works of art that are often collaborative and experimental in nature. The interdisciplinary nature of these art works encourages a diverse and varied audience.

This honors seminar course (HONORS 413 Section 02) scheduled for Fall 2010 at San Diego State University will be centered around focused readings, discussions, presentations, screenings, and field trips. Students will conceive and execute a final project proposal that may take the form of a hybrid documentary, temporary site-specific artwork or installation, digital multimedia feature, performance, text, or other work that addresses social, cultural, environmental, geographical, and/or political issues of a local or regional ecology, site, or subject. Special emphasis will be placed on projects that are collaborative, incorporate sustainable design strategies, promote environmental awareness through education, and/or directly encourage audience participation. Projects, possibly collaborative in nature, will be distilled, executed, and documented at the conclusion of the course. A background in art is not required to take this course. Students from all academic and disciplinary areas are encouraged to apply.

The course will culminate in an immersive three-day weekend field study workshop at the Salton Sea scheduled for the weekend of November 19 – 21, 2010. During this workshop students will be able to directly experience and respond to place over an embedded field research period.  Visiting artist/architect,Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, will join us for this weekend field experience. Students will be prepared before embarking on the field trip through readings and presentations on diverse topics related to the site including but not limited to regional water politics, agricultural/real estate economies, local ecologies, military presence, tourism, outsider art, fringe subcultures among others. A culminating art exhibit and publication will be organized to document student interdisciplinary projects resulting from this course and workshop.

This course will meet Wednesdays from 4 to 6:40 pm in PSFA-113 during fall semester 2010..

via Art, Environment, and Place.

John Kay – A good economist knows the true value of the arts

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Activities that are good in themselves are good for the economy, and activities that are bad in themselves are bad for the economy. The only intelligible meaning of “benefit to the economy” is the contribution – direct or indirect – the activity makes to the welfare of ordinary citizens.

Many people underestimate the contribution disease makes to the economy. In Britain, more than a million people are employed to diagnose and treat disease and care for the ill. Thousands of people build hospitals and surgeries, and many small and medium-size enterprises manufacture hospital supplies. Illness contributes about 10 per cent of the UK’s economy: the government does not do enough to promote disease.

Such reasoning is identical to that of studies sitting on my desk that purport to measure the economic contribution of sport, tourism and the arts. These studies point to the number of jobs created, and the ancillary activities needed to make the activities possible. They add up the incomes that result. Reporting the total with pride, the sponsors hope to persuade us not just that sport, tourism and the arts make life better, but that they contribute to something called “the economy”.

READ ON //>  John Kay – A good economist knows the true value of the arts.