Monthly Archives: April 2014

Opportunity: Enthograms Micro-Residency

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Ethnograms: A micro-residency for artists, designers, programmers and anthropologists

21st-23rd May, 2014, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh

We welcome applications from artists, designers and programmers to participate in the Ethnograms Micro-Residency; an opportunity to work with a team of anthropologists at the University of Edinburgh to develop new ways of visualising social relationships with diagrams, info-graphics and maps.

Anthropologists Alice Street and Jamie Cross have been working in Papua New Guinea since 2003, exploring the ways in which people mobilise their relationships in order to access healthcare and energy in a place where large-scale, centralised infrastructures such as roads or power-lines are absent. Their current ESRC funded project ‘Off the Grid: Relational Infrastructures for Fragile Futures’ seeks to find new ways of visualising the relational qualities of infrastructure in such off-grid locations by harnessing the simple power of the diagram and bringing it into engagement with new technologies for web-based, interactive infographics and mapping.

Anthropology has a long history of using maps and diagrams to visualise kinship or exchange relationships, but a lack of engagement with the visual and digital arts has meant that the full potential of these visual methodologies has not been realised. Through collaborations with artists, designers and programmers, this exploratory micro-residency aims to develop a new visual form out of the complementary methods, skills, experience and knowledge of social scientists, artists, designers and programmers: the ethno-gram. Artists, designers and programmers will have the opportunity to work closely with the anthropologists and to engage with a large body of ethnographic material from Papua New Guinea.

The micro-residency will culminate in a pop-up exhibition of ‘Ethnograms’ and will feed into a larger scale public exhibition of project outputs in early 2015. Following the residency the University of Edinburgh team are looking to select an artist to collaborate with more closely and to award a £5,000 commission.

The deadline for applications is Tuesday 6th May.

Click here for the application form. Please complete and email to alice.street@ed.ac.uk.

The post Opportunity: Enthograms Micro-Residency appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;

Communicating with their audiences;

Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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The Scarcity Project

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This post comes from Chantal Bilodeau’s Artists and Climate Change Blog

To celebrate the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring when the earth’s 24 hours are split evenly between light and dark, we shared a wonderful find from Brazilian-Italian-currently-based-in-London Paulo Goldstein, a self-described “designer/maker/artist” according to his website. Incredibly talented and original, we would like to add.

So, brew yourself your favorite fair-trade beverage, sit back and let this six-minute video brighten your day.  It is a “joyful celebration of repaired objects, promoting a different narrative to scarcity by exploring and expanding the potential left behind by the anomalies of our consumer culture.”

Our favorite quote from the video:  ”Scarcity is a springboard to creativity.”

We are sure that you’ll never look at discarded rubbish in the same way again!

Thanks to Grist’s Holly Richmond for the lead.  Follow Joan on Twitter @CleanNergyPhoto or her renewable energy photo blog.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog by playwright Chantal Bilodeau that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to Chantal Bilodeau’s Artists and Climate Change Blog

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Reports from Fukushima

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This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

‘Ghost Town’, photo by and copyright Su Grierson

Wallace Heim writes:

Artist Su Grierson has been sending updates to ecoartscotland on her 10-week residency in Kitakata, Fukushima Province, Japan. Su emphasises that she is there as an artist, not a journalist, and she is only able to report what she is told, often through translation, and what she sees herself without external verification.

Su’s reports evoke the everyday life of those living with the continuing effects of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters in stories of rescue, luck and tragedy.

Two excerpts:

19 February
Su visits the Scottish artist Aenaes Wilder and they drive to the coast north from Kitikata, an area decimated by the earthquake and tsunami.

‘Aenaes was keen to revisit the area which still holds horror images and a memory of the smell that he was still needing to come to terms with … He told me the story of how only one small town survived undamaged. Many years ago the Mayor of this town had insisted on building the sea defence wall many meters higher than anywhere else had even considered. He was laughed at and his wall was the subject of jokes throughout his lifetime. After 11 March his town was the only one in the area where not a single person died. The very next day the local people began laying flowers on his grave.’ more…

11 February
The Director of Minamisouma City Museum guides Su and other artists through the area nearest to the nuclear disaster site.

‘We carried radiation monitors in the car (you can buy them in the Home Centre)…
Miles of empty houses including whole villages with cars, lorries and tractors left abandoned because they are too contaminated to be moved. The ghost towns with their traffic lights still working are an eerie and disturbing sight especially in near blizzard conditions. Houses of all sizes are left abandoned with police patrol cars driving round as protection. These black-and-white cars with their silent red rotating beacons add an almost holocaust atmosphere as they glide around the empty roads…

The scale of all this is so huge it is only by seeing it that any idea of scale can really be imagined. I was told that in this Province there are 100,000 refuges and 200,000 in the next Province and there are more in many other areas.’  more…

The residency, involving four artists, is working towards an exhibition with the Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art on the theme Spirit of the North.
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“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.

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New on Ashden Directory’s News Page

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This post comes to you from Ashden Directory


for Burning Ice #6, copyright Sarah Vanagt

Environmental Arts Festival Scotland is calling for projects connected to land, energy, the coast, rural living, Dark Skies, climate change, and more.

Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeis calling for ideas on the theme of Tracing the Tacit, for retreats exploring the underlying ideas, influences and concepts informing artists’ practices.

The work of art in critical times works out on energy, economy and environment at a symposium in Falmouth.

Wasteland Conversations in Nottinghamtake on utopia, community and ecology.

Also in Nottingham, and in London, the vacuum cleaner talks: ‘I Went Mental and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt’ .

And in Brussels, Kaaitheater looks at animals looking back for their Burning Ice #6 Festival.

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“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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EU Climate Action Commissioner on creativity

ecoartscotland,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner of Climate Action speaking on the importance of creative input towards sustainable development solutions in the context of LAGI 2014.

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.
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The 2nd heliocentric revolution

Artists and Climate Change, ,

This post comes from Chantal Bilodeau’s Artists and Climate Change Blog

Melbourne, Australia:  The irreverent and provocative creators of Juice Rap News, Giordano Nanni and Hugo Farrant, have produced an outrageously audacious video spoof à la SNL called The Energy Crisis which, IMHO, could be the climate change communication solution we have all been waiting for.  This dynamic down-under duo has even included a cameo by Nicolaus Copernicus, who gently reminds us that we are “still living in the dark ages” by ignoring the most obvious heliocentric fact:  that the sun, at the center of our universe, should also be at the center of our energy strategies.  By the end of the video, we learn that the 2nd heliocentric energy revolution has already begun… solar energy will dominate our climate change future.

Copernicus heliocentric solar energy renewable climate change

Thanks to Peter Sinclair for the lead.  Follow Joan on Twitter @CleanNergyPhoto  

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog by playwright Chantal Bilodeau that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to Chantal Bilodeau’s Artists and Climate Change Blog

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Visions of Agriculture at Berlinale 2014

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Originally posted on soilarts:

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At the 64th Berlinale there are fertile clumps of earth amongst the glitter. Agriculture in the age of the anthropocene is artfully depicted in a handful of films from around the world, creating a unique eco-cinema niche that spans the gamut from migrant tomato pickers in California  to farmer terrorists in Taipei.

In Nước 2030, which means water in Vietnamese, director Nguyen-Vo Nghiem-Minh tells a story of a land submerged by rising sea levels. The scenery is not the apocalyptic floods of catastrophe films or news reports, but a realistic picture of fields of water dotted with “land for sale” signs floating on buoys and makeshift shacks on stilts. It is the scenery of every day life in a post-inundated world. Food security is an every day reality. The heroine, Sao, played by Quýnh Hoa, investigates the death of her husband on board the sterile decks of a floating farm run by a multi-national genetic engineering company. As Sao dreams of running through rice fields and receding waters, her former lover, a scientist managing one of the floating farms, fears the consequences of a high tech food product he helped engineer. The film combines elements of sci-fi, thriller, and romance genres to bring together a stunning vision of life in the midst of the severest form of climate change, or as the IMDB summarizes, “a near future Vietnam where global warming and rising seawater levels have forced cultivation to be done on floating farms, a strong-willed woman has to make a critical decision about her ex-lover, a suspect of her husband’s murder.”

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.
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Essay Competition 2014 – Leadership

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

Entries are now open for the 2014 WOLFoundation essay competition.

unnamed

Whether it relates to environmental degradation, personal privacy, the functioning, or otherwise, of our democratic processes and many other issues, many people feel that we are suffering from an almost global crisis of leadership. An inability to break out of the status quo to enable societies to address some of the growing social and environmental issues that we all face.

The theme of this year’s competition is: Leadership: What are the characteristics of effective leadership in the 21st century?

Entrants to focus on the nature of leadership itself rather than the specific issues that leaders should be addressing are encouraged.

Visit the Guidelines page for more details about this year’s competition.

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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 rising waters – call for contributions to the Dark Mountain Project

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Do you think about the rising waters?  Do you write about them?  Do they become images in your work? Do overflowing rivers and flooded fields haunt you. They haunt Paul Kingsnorth.

Dark Mountain issue five is currently at the printers, and will be hitting the streets (or our online shop, anyway) in early April. In the meantime, we are putting out a call for writing and art for book 6, which will be published this coming October.

The loose theme this time around is “The Rising of the Waters.” We’re looking for writing and art which seriously engages with the likelihood of a gradual, messy winding-down of everything we take for granted. You can read more about what we’re looking for in this blog entry.

As ever, we welcome submissions from writers and artists both new and established. Please read our submissions guidelines before sending us anything. The deadline for submissions in Sunday 4th May. We look forward to seeing what floats in on the tides.

And the full blog post here.

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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dot.rural internships

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

dot.rural Internship Scheme 2014

dot.rural is one of the three RCUK Digital Economy research hubs and brings together a team of over 80 researchers from a range of academic disciplines to explore the challenges of the rural digital economy. Activities in the Hub are organised around four rural challenges: healthcare, accessibility & mobilities, conservation of natural resources, enterprise & culture. Technology research to meet challenges in these areas is focused around natural language generation and affective communication, mechanisms to support reasoning, coordination and collaboration, intelligent information infrastructures, satellite and wireless communications. More details on the Hub its research activities and projects can be found on the website: http://www.dotrural.ac.uk

Internship Scheme

As part of its wider engagement with the academic community and impact agenda, dot.rural has introduced a summer internship scheme. This is designed to support students from outside dot.rural and the University of Aberdeen to spend time at the Hub. You will join a lively community of 23 PhD students already based in the Hub, working across a range of disciplines.

The duration of an internship is 10 weeks (full-time) and the scheme is aimed at currently registered postgraduate students, particularly PhD students. For PhD students who receive a stipend from their home university during the internship, a bursary of £300 per week will be available. For PhD students who suspend their stipend at their home university’s request, an enhanced bursary of £350 per week will be available. Internships will take place over Summer 2014.

University accommodation is available (at a cost to the intern) but is only available between 23 June and 30 August 2014.

Applications should be submitted by 5pm on 25 April 2014 by filling in the application form and uploading a CV. Applications will be considered by the Hub Directors and relevant other researchers in dot.rural. For queries relating to the scheme contact Dr Jennifer Holden (j.a.holden@abdn.ac.uk, 01224 274238).

Eligibility

Internships are only available to UK or EEA students, i.e. UK nationals at a UK university, EEA nationals at a UK university and EEA nationals at a EEA university. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the scheme and UKBA regulations, students on a Tier 4 visa at UK universities are not eligible to apply for internships.

Due to the nature of the funding for the internship scheme, students registered at the University of Aberdeen are not eligible.

Illustrative Topics

For the 2014 internships we are looking for interns to specify their own 10 week research project related to dot.rural’s current work or future priorities related to the Information Economy. Projects do not need to be rural in their focus and research areas could include (but are not limited to):

  • Social Media – Data Analytics (inc. Text-Mining), Curation
  • Internet of Things
  • Trust, Privacy & Risk
  • Digital Culture
  • Smart Cities
  • Climate Change, Risk & Vulnerability
  • Personal & Pervasive Health
  • Inclusive & Secure Societies

For more background information on the UK Government’s Information Economy strategy, see the report at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/information-economy-strategy

Timetable

  • Deadline for Applications 25 April 2014
  • Decisions Announced 16 May 2014
  • Earliest Internship Start Date 23 June 2014

University Accommodation Available: 23 June to 30 August 2014 (Wavell House £17pppn) 14 July – 30 August (New Carnegie Court en suite £22.50 pppn) contact: hillhead.halls@abdn.ac.uk

Residential Requirement

It is expected that internship students will be physically present in the Hub everyday during the working week, except when they are away on fieldwork and other meetings away from the Hub. Part of the internship is about spending time in a large interdisciplinary Hub and making the most of the networking opportunities and mentoring opportunities from postdoctoral researchers. Short-term accommodation is can be difficult to find in Aberdeen so it is highly recommended that internship students time their internship period with when university vacation accommodation is available.

Selection Criteria

Each application will be considered on its merits, with the following criteria being used to guide the selection process: academic excellence, fit between student and internship topic, potential for impact, and feedback from referees.

To Apply

To apply for a dot.rural internship please complete the online application form at http://www.dotrural.ac.uk/content/applicationinternship. As part of the application process you will be required to upload a 2 page CV (as pdf) and to supply the names for two referees. For PhD students one of these referees should be your lead supervisor. You will also be required to outline a possible internship project including possible academics and researchers you would work with.

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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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