Monthly Archives: December 2012

Peace on earth

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Ashden DirectoryKellie Gutman writes: OVERVIEW is a short documentary with near-constant views of the earth from space interspersed with comments form astronauts, philosophers and writers. The word “overview” is used to refer to the astronauts’ views of the earth. It was released December 7th, 2012 and is a prelude to a film in the making, CONTINUUM.  OVERVIEW gives a strong sense of the world being one environment, and a very fragile one, that needs to be protected.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

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Collected Works 2012

From EcoArtScotland/Reblogged from Liberate Tate Blog:
Click to visit the original post

Floe Piece (2012)

Arctic ice, canvas, light, water

“The fact that BP had one major incident in 2010 does not mean we should not be taking support from them.” Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate.

On 14 January 2012 Liberate Tate carried out another unofficial performance highlighting Tate’s complicity in BP’s ongoing controversial oil extraction practices around the world. At 6.30pm at the Occupy London protest camp at St Paul’s Cathedral four veiled figures dressed in black lifted a 55kg chunk of Arctic ice onto a sledge and walked it in procession across the Thames on the Millennium Bridge and into the Tate Modern Turbine Hall.

Read more… 983 more words

 

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

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Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species?

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems Laboratory at the University of Washington, and Patricia H. Hasbach, Licensed Professional Counselor and clinical psychotherapist with a private practice in Eugene, Oregon, and a faculty member at Lewis & Clark College and Antioch University Seattle, have brought together and edited the publication Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species, a collection of essays giving insight on the rather new discipline of Ecopschology.

We need nature for our physical and psychological well-being. Our actions reflect this when we turn to beloved pets for companionship, vacation in spots of natural splendor, or spend time working in the garden. Yet we are also a technological species, and have been since we fashioned tools out of stone. Thus one of the world’s central challenges is to embrace our kinship with a more-than-human world – “our totemic self” – and integrate that kinship with our scientific culture and technological selves.

This book takes on that challenge and proposes a revisioned ecopsychology. Contributors consider such topics as the innate tendency for people to bond with local place; a meaningful nature language; the epidemiological evidence for the health benefits of nature interaction; the theory and practice of ecotherapy; Gaia theory; ecovillages; the neuroscience of perceiving natural beauty; and sacred geography. Taken together, the chapters integrate our totemic sensibilities with science and technology, and offer a vision for human flourishing.

The book can be bought here.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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Art and Awareness – Uranium Film Festival in Berlin

This post comes to you from Cultura21

uranio-a-300x196After taking place twice in Brazil, the International Uranium Film Festival came to Berlin in October 2012. The highlight of the festival was the screening of four movies about the nuclear disaster of Goiânia, 1987, one of them Cesium 137: The Nightmare of Goiânia (1990), a movie by already deceased Roberto Pires which had already won several awards at the 1990 Brasilia Film Festival. The present Brazilian directors Jorge Luiz Eduardo and Angelo Lima as well as producer Laura Pires took this opportunity to speak up against the Brazilian government and lacking response to the disaster.

The International Uranium Film Festival is the only film festival in the world dedicated to films about the whole nuclear fuel chain and radioactivity, from atomic bombs to Fukushima. The show in Berlin, 04-12 October, showcased more than 60 films. Besides the Brazilian, many other directors from other countries were also present and took part in an active discussion with the public. TheYellow Oscar, an award for the best and most important productions, went to Swedish film director Marko Kattilakoski and his crew for the short film Fikapaus (Coffeebreak). The next stop of the festival will be India in January and February 2013 visiting seven different cities.

Call for Entry – Third Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, May 2013

The International Uranium Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro accepts short and feature length films and videos in the following categories: narrative, documentary, experimental, animation for the competitions.
Deadline for the Film Entry: January 31, 2013.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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The Oil Road reviewed

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

PLATFORM have been at the heart of a critique of corporations and carbon for more than twenty years.  They have entered into long term partnerships with environmental ngos, appeared at Glastonbury, commissioned and created artworks, as well as produced books and films.

They have also founded a business that delivers micro renewable solutions for businesses and homes in London.

Their latest book, following on from the hugely important The Next Gulf, is The Oil Road, reviewed recently in the Guardian.  The Next Gulf focused on Shell’s involvement in Nigeria.  The Oil Road is focused on travels that Mika Minio Paluello in particular made along BP’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.  Exploring oil from experience on the ground is always more revealing.  These books are always well researched, historically informed, thoroughly post-colonial and fascinating.

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

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Out Now – CSPA Q9: Science/Art

followOur issue on Science/Art features a preview of the CSPA Fusebox Festival study, writing from Sarah Moon and Alyce Santoro, a report from Moe Beitiks on the first annual Moscow Science Art Conference, and an excerpt from Lina Weintraub’s new book. Through this issue, we explore the connection and complex relationship that exists between science and art.

Includes: Alyce Santoro, Amanda Gartman, Fusebox Festival, Linda Weintraub, Meghan Moe Beitiks,Moscow Science Art Conference, Sarah Moon

Collapse

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Reblogged from CHRIS FREMANTLE:

Billy Klüver reminds us of Jean Tinguely’s work on collapse in Artists, Engineers, and Collaboration Klüver-Billy-Artists-Engineers-and-Collaboration (published in Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, A Manifesto for Cyborgs. Bender, G. and Druckrey, T. (Eds) Dia Center for the Arts, Discussions in Contemporary Culture Number 9. Seattle: Bay Press, 1994).

Jean Tinguely came to New York City in early 1960. On seeing the city for the first time, he decided to build a large machine that would violently destroy itself in front of an audience in a theater, throwing off parts in all directions.

Read more… 260 more words

Speaking of collapse, Unclear Holocaust is a feature-length autopsy of Hollywood’s New York-destruction fantasy, gleaned from over fifty major studio event-movies and detourned into one relentless orgy of representational genocide. It is the unrivaled assembly of the greatest amount of capital and private property heretofore captured in one frame, that, with unfathomable narrative efficacy, suicides itself in an annihilatory flux of fire, water, and aeronautics.

 

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

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Donald Trump links wind farms and the Lockerbie disaster

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

We received this email and thought it was worth highlighting,

Has Donald Trump sunk to a new low? On Friday, he splashed two full-page adverts in Scottish newspapers linking new wind farms to the Lockerbie disaster – and called for people to email Alex Salmond with their opposition. [1]

It’s hard to imagine what was going through his mind when he agreed ads which said:

“Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy! This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi, ‘for humane reasons’ – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

Trump thinks that he can buy opposition to wind farms by flashing his cash to push misleading information. But what if we could turn the tables on Trump and show him that for all his money, he’s no match for people power?

Together we can flood Alex Salmond with messages of support for renewable energy and make sure that Trump’s plan backfires. It takes two minutes to write to Alex Salmond – click here to get started:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c053e8/2d527884/5ea13b2c/4678e28f/236853858/VEsE/

And do you know why Trump is kicking up such a fuss? Because he thinks a new wind turbine test centre will ruin the feel of hisluxury golf course on the Aberdeenshire coast. He’s throwing everything he’s got at trying to stop the planning application from going through.

But there’s huge potential for Scotland to become a world leader in green energy, bringing new jobs for Scots and more investment for the economy. [2]

Click here to tell Alex Salmond to make sure the Scottish Government take up every opportunity to unlock our green potential:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c053e8/2d527884/5ea13b2c/4678e28f/236853858/VEsF/

38 Degrees members have a strong history of standing up to big money. Big companies sponsoring the 2012 Olympics were hoping for a windfall from tax dodging during the Games – until we got them to promise to pay taxes on their Olympic profits.

And we’ve stood up to Trump before. Along with the campaign group Tripping up Trump, we stood shoulder to shoulder with brave local residents when Donald Trump wanted to evict families from their homes in Menie. [3]

Click here to take two minutes to email Alex Salmond now:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c053e8/2d527884/5ea13b2c/4678e28f/236853858/VEsC/

Thanks for being involved,

Marie, Becky, Hannah and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES

[1] Scotsman: Donald Trump ‘sick’ for using Lockerbie in a rant against wind farms http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/donald-trump-sick-for-using-lockerbie-in-a-rant-against-wind-farms-1-2693006

[2] The Paisley Daily Express: Trump links wind farms with megrahi http://www.paisleydailyexpress.co.uk/renfrewshire-news/scottish-news/2012/12/14/trump-links-wind-farms-with-megrahi-87085-32430473/

[3] Read more here: http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/02/22/weve-tripped-up-trump/

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

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Techno-Ecologies – Acoustic Space #11

This post comes to you from Cultura21

The Riga Centre for New Media Culture (RIXC) has published the 11th volume of Acoustic Space:

Techno-Ecologies
edited by Rasa Smite, Eric Kluitenberg and Raitis Smits

The publication takes a different perspective on the value of the relationship between humans, the environment and technology:

We can no longer consider technology as the alienating “other”. The idea is that we “inhabit” technological ecologies emphasises our connectedness to our environment (material, natural, technological) and our dependence on available resources (material, energetic, biological, cultural). Mastering these conditions is vital to our survival on this planet.

This techno-ecological perspective was the topic of the”Techno-Ecologies” conference in Riga November 2011. As such, some of the many contributors were conference participants, but other authors also took part in writing the book.

For more information on the book and how to buy it (or older publications in the series), click here

“Techno-Ecologies” is the 11th issue of Acoustic Space Series. “Acoustic Space” (published since 1998) is a journal for new media culture and creative explorations within digital networked environments and electro-acoustic space. Since 2007 Acoustic Space has come out as a peer-reviewed international journal for transdisciplinary research on art, science, technology and society.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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The tide could turn with ‘Ten Billion’

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory
Wallace Heim writes:

Theatre critic Kate Abbott in today’s Guardian joins Michael Billington in reporting a life-changing experience watching Ten Billion at the Royal Court.

Like the facts that Stephen Emmott presented, Abbott can recite the well-polished instructions to “help us out of this hole”:

“Never buying a car, iPod, or cotton T-shirt again … stopping our addiction to fossil fuels, starting a mass-desalination programme, building green energy power points on every strip of land, harnessing every scrap of wind, and every turn of the tide …”

But one change is missing. What about demanding that theatre itself changes? What about demanding that mainstream theatre no longer turns away from the compelling emotional, moral and intellectual questions of how humans can continue to live in a time of climate instability? Theatre is more than science, more than facts, more than an instruction manual. What about demanding that theatre takes on its full life-changing role, somewhere between fiction and fact, and becomes the place where audiences wrestle with their future?

See ‘Ten Billion’ from another side.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

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