Monthly Archives: August 2014

#GreenFests Highlights: India Street at Gayfield Creative Spaces

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

As a newcomer to the Edinburgh creative crowd, Gayfield Creative Spaces has already made its name known as a leading gallery/studio space/showroom in the city. Their summer creative programme offers proof that there is plenty going on in the green arts world to base an entire season’s programme on these artists and discussions.

Showing in the creative hub’s “Whitespace” gallery, India Street is a multipart exhibition inspired by The Bombay Sample Book held in the National Museum of Scotland’s collection. The Bombay Sample Book contains fabric designs from Scotland’s bygone Turkey red dye industry. The exhibition’s title comes from the India Street in the Vale of Leven, the former location of one of the largest Turkey red dye fabric factories. India was the largest export market for this business, linking the Indian and Scottish markets for many years.

Lokesh Ghai for India Street

The ideas included in the India Street exhibition reflect the social, environmental and political climates from 1800 to modern day. The artists in the exhibition were asked to respond to pieces in The Bombay Sample Book, making modern interpretations of the patterns. The pieces produced in the exhibition range from arrangements of chilli peppers- an essential ingredient in the Indian, and now British, kitchen- to a scene depicting Ghandi’s visit to Darwen in 1931.

The themes discussed at India Street reach beyond environmental sustainability, falling under categories of social and economic sustainability as well. Part Two of India Street will see the artists in the exhibition travelling to India to learn from local producers and craftspeople, eventually culminating work for another textile exhibition. Lokesh Ghai, co-curator of India Street, anticipates the designers will respond differently after learning from the Indian craftspeople, implementing handcraft skills much more than the digital techniques present in Part One of the exhibition.

Aside from the excellent craft displayed at India Steet, the entire Gayfield Creative Spaces venue is an excellent example of sustainability, as ‘upcycling’ and creative reuse are at the core of the creative hub. Gayfield Creative Spaces founder Dr John Ennis converted the former tyre depot building into the multipurpose space that it is today, repurposing much of the material left from the building’s tyre depot days for the current needs of the building. Ennis explained to us that his interest falls within design and well being, using ideas from case studies of creative hubs in Holland and America to shape the space.

Beyond India Street, Gayfield Creative Spaces is also showing work from artist Carol Sinclair in Fragments, as well as Piet Hein Eek, Laura Spring, Geoffrey Mann and Timorous Beasties in Garden Party. The entire Summer 2014 Creative Programme at Gayfield is incredibly rich and shows much promise for the future of this venue.


India Street runs Thursdays to Sundays from 2 August to 11 September 2014. The exhibition is nominated for the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award.

The post #GreenFests Highlights: India Street at Gayfield Creative Spaces appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

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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#GreenFests highlights: Can Festivals Change the World? with Di Robson

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

On 14 August 2014, a room of festival organisers, arts administrators and creatives gathered at Fringe Central to share their insights into the concept of festivals and the role of festivals in today’s society. Festivals Edinburgh and Creative Carbon Scotland hosted the event, attended to maximum occupancy.

First, we heard from Di Robson, who delivered fantastic provocations from her extensive global experience organising festivals. For Di, festivals act to re-enchant audiences with the role of place in our lives. One of many significant points from her experience includes her involvement with Mayfest– a theatre, music, dance, and visual arts festival in Glasgow that celebrated “the vast and glorious cultural riches of Glasgow.” Di asserted that Glasgow’s title of the European Capital of Culture in 1990 changed the city, increasing the relevance of Mayfest and engendering the creative energy emanating from the city today.

Moving onto a strand of much more specific social and economic regeneration in her work, Di spoke of the organisation process of the Jaipur Heritage International Festival in Rajasthan. Many artisans’ livelihoods had recently dried up in the area; the festival helped in making their crafts more relevant to the 21st century. The pleasure for Di came in “watching something so raw and unstructured begin to take shape and have social and economic impact.”

In planning a festival, Di believes it is really important to think clearly through your intentions and implementation. Festivals provide an opportunity for dialogue and community expression, drawing links between divided communities, and often enhancing lives through programming. Di reminded us that when working within the creative sector, we cannot deny art’s ability to “make us look up for a minute” on a social, environmental and creative level.

An important point made by Di was that “we need to preserve resources, not only natural but personal and artistic.” As is often the case for short-lived festivals, one-off festival productions don’t always contribute to a longer lifespan for many projects. This cycle of quick production and short-lived performance doesn’t necessarily benefit creative communities, or promote ideas of fundamental sustainability within the arts. (Temporality versus longevity is a topic we also discussed at our Glasgow Green Tease in July 2014, more reading available here)

After hearing from Di, the conversation opened up to audience participants. The energy in the room brought many profound ideas and questions into discussion. A question that arose was- “Are festivals a function of the society in which they operate?”  It was mentioned that when starting the organisation of a festival, the foundations and reason for the event are pertinent. Building from the grassroots up helps establish the local community’s presence within the festival and vice versa.

DSC01500-webWe heard an inspiring story from Ameena Saiyid OBE about the Pakistani Children’s Literature Festival. The festival, hosted in a location between two communities that have been historically divided, brought children together who wouldn’t have otherwise met. Children played together, as if they were completely unaware of the significance in this act of unity. The festival proved that there are ways to engender social change through the youngest generations, building social acceptance and cooperation for the future.

The discussion turned back to the local context of Edinburgh, of which the point was made that the Edinburgh Festival Fringe began as a very local festival and has since evolved to a major festival with international reach. A key reason for this success lies within the governing structure of the Edinburgh Festivals; through this structure the festivals gain a lot of attention and can be driven towards more progressive goals. In this way, festivals are quite similar to a business in the need for structure and clear objectives. However, as asserted by Marina Salandy-Brown, from the Bocas Literature Festival, “the success of festivals depends on our business acumen, but there’s a danger in there.” Often we can become the victims of our own success; upon becoming widely successful, a festival can lose the ideas and aspirations on which it was founded. The solution to this dilemma lies in balancing social and environmental responsibility with the business and financial aspects.

Bringing in one of the original guiding questions of the event, the group was asked- “What is arts’ role in a changing climate?” Callum Madge from Lung Ha’s Theatre Company explained, “you engage people who aren’t necessarily interested in the subject through artistic means” and that art is a way to mobilise thinking, specifically in regards to environmental sustainability.

The emergent and temporal nature of festivals brought a stimulating perspective to the dialogue. This temporality has proven to be a means for overcoming censorship in countries that may have strict laws regulating the arts and expression through the arts. The point was made that in these countries the only way that people can learn, understand and accept the truth is through festivals. Temporality also lends itself to the experimental nature of work produced and showcased at festivals. Tanja Beer, set and costume designer, mentioned the support she’s received from festivals to try new ideas, including a completely edible and biodegradable set. Tanja’s work  is about celebrating sustainability, changing attitudes that green works and the raising of awareness is “boring” or negative. Tanja has found that people are desperate for this type of celebration; many communities have adapted temporary festival projects into more permanent fixtures within their locality.

The lively discussion at “Can Festivals Change the World?” proved the interest and passion for creating events that operate on levels of social, economic and environmental sustainability. Hearing from such an internationally diverse audience brought many perspectives into the conversation, allowing ideas to be shared between people who otherwise would not have been able engage in this knowledge exchange. Di Robson concluded the session, inspiring those in attendance to embrace the freedom of their dreams and visions. “Vision-space is unregulated. We can dream and make these things a reality, if not for the world, for our worlds.”

The post #GreenFests highlights: Can Festivals Change the World? with Di Robson appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

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 Handlebards: Macbeth/A Comedy of Errors wins 2014 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award

 The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Creative Carbon Scotland, in partnership with the List, presented the Award at Fringe Central on August 22nd.

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The Handlebards

The 2014 Award for Sustainable Practice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was awarded today to the Handlebards for their production of The Comedy of Errors performed at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In a ceremony at Fringe Central on Friday, August 22nd at 4:00 pm, after presentations by Brendan Miles from The List and CSPA Director Ian Garrett, Anthony Alderson, Director of Pleasance Theatre, presented Elinor Gallant, Public Programmes Manager at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, with the 2014 Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on behalf of The Handlebards.

The Handlebards were selected due to their exemplary touring efforts, sustainable set design, and high quality performance. The Handlebards are a four-man, cycle powered, touring Shakespeare company cycling over 2000 miles to perform in almost 50 venues across the United Kingdom this summer whose “set and props used in the productions are restricted only to items that could be found either on a bicycle or in a campsite, with the team’s bikes rigged up to power various mechanical contraptions onstage. The use of bicycles as transport for the escapade will also save 45.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions, as compared to the same adventure undertaken by car.”

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Ching-man Lo and associate whose production “My Luxurious 50 sq Foot Life” was a finalist for the award.

The Fringe Sustainable Practice Award is an annual celebration of performance that is working for an environmentally sustainable world. Open to all Fringe Festival productions by application, the award assesses all aspects of a production’s sustainability, from design to content. This award ceremony recognizes the best in this year’s sustainable productions, alongside inspiring presentations from Creative Carbon Scotland, the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, and The List. The Sustainable Production Award is presented this year in partnership with The List, which is reviewing all shortlist shows and promoting the awards events.

The award is determined by the submission of a questionnaire about how the show was produced, and how environmental and sustainable themes were considered along the way. Assessors selected a short list of 21 productions, which appeared in the July 30th edition of The List. These 21 shows were reviewed based on their questionnaires and the assessment team voted for the production which most aligned with the priorities of the award. Four finalists – India Street, My Luxurious 50 sq. ft. Life, The Worm, and The Handlebards: A Comedy of Errors – were identified as outstanding entries before the winner was selected.

“Even more than we want someone to score perfectly on the questionnaire we use to evaluate shows, we want theater artists to look at the questions and think about how it helps to guide their thinking about sustainability in the their art. There may be questions asked in ways they hadn’t thought, and we hope they ask these questions of their next project and the project after that.” adds CSPA Director Ian Garrett.

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Gordon McCulloch and John Ennis of Gayfield Creative Spaces whose exhibition “India Street” was a finalist for the award

The award for Sustainable Practice on the Fringe was first launched in 2010 at the Hollywood Fringe and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Previous recipients include:  The Pantry Shelf (Edinburgh 2010), produced by Team M&M at Sweet Grassmarket; Presque Pret a Porter (Hollywood 2010), produced by Dreams by Machine; Allotment (Edinburgh 2011), produced by nutshell productions at the Inverleith Allotments in co-production with Assembly; The Man Who Planted Trees (Edinburgh 2012), produced by the Edinburgh’s Puppet State Theatre; How to Occupy an Oil Rig (Edinburgh 2013), by Daniel Bye and Company, produced at Northern Stage.

Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright founded the CSPA in early 2008. The organization provides a network of resources to arts organizations, which enables them to be ecologically and economically sustainable while maintaining artistic excellence. Past and Present partnerships have included the University of Oregon, Ashden Directory, Arcola Theatre, Diverseworks Artspace, Indy Convergence, York University, LA Stage Alliance and others.

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

Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts: https://www.sustainablepractice.org  

Creative Carbon Scotland: http://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/

CSPA Fringe Initiatives: https://www.sustainablepractice.org/programs/fringe/

2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Questionnaire: http://bit.ly/YHmGsA

The List’s Edinburgh Coverage: http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk

Green Arts Initiative Spotlight: Gilded Balloon

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Gilded Balloon has emerged as one of the most popular venues in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For this reason, amongst many others, we feel quite lucky to have the venue as part of the Green Arts Initiative. Creative Carbon Scotland recently heard from Gilded Balloon regarding their thoughts on sustainability.

CCS: What is your most recent action related to sustainable operations or programming?

GB: This year we have converted two of our venues to 100% LED lighting. We have also kicked off a new sustainable build program where we are replacing worn out building materials with more durable materials that have a longer life span.  Part of this program includes making wall units which have a “tool free” build causing less damage to the building materials over time and elongating their life span.

We have also begun a collaboration with our landlord EUSA to expand their year round recycling program through the festival.

CCS: What have you most enjoyed about being a member of the Green Arts Initiative?

GB: We love to have a collaborative group working towards carbon responsible goals.  It’s a great place to find new ideas that we can implement throughout our organization.

CCS: What are you most eager about for the 2014 summer festivals season?

GB: We are very excited to discover our energy savings come the end of the festival fringe, compared to last year.

CCS: Do you have a top tip for new GAI members?

GB: Just get stuck in!  Any first step will do, and it always leads to the second!


Image courtesy Steve Ullathorne and the Gilded Balloon. For the Gilded Balloon Fringe programme, please visit their website.

 

The post Green Arts Initiative Spotlight: Gilded Balloon appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

#GreenFests Highlights: Honey-bee-lujah!

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

As the ‘Fringe of the Fringe’, Forest Fringe Festival, came to a close on August 17th, the activist performance group intermingled music with a ‘sermon’ on reduced consumerism, pro-environmental behaviour and the plight of the threatened honey bee population.

‘Deforestation plus poisoned pollination/ time greedy escalation equals planet devastation’

Reverend Billy, as the Elvis-comparable, evangelistic preacher, leads the audience-congregation within the affirmative traditions of revival meetings, and frequently throughout the audience participated when desired, with the religiously-themed commitments of ‘amen’, ‘awoman’ and ‘praise-bee’. In appropriating this religious style to communicate issues of sustainability, Reverend Billy appeals for the faith and commitment associated with traditional preaching, and mobilises a community: “the Church of Stop Shopping”, regardless of alternative religious beliefs. Programmes are referred to as the ‘Order of Service’ and feature ‘sermons’ on affecting the capitalist system.

Although the Forest Fringe performance displayed a temporarily reduced choir from the New York-based 50-strong grouping, the well-established collective showcased a variety of songs, written by the members, some of which originated for the Occupy movements of 2012. This activist sentiment rings clear throughout the performance, although the focus is shifted to the protection of the honey bee population: natural pollinators which support agriculture and biodiversity. The audience ‘learnt the truth’ about the unique behavioural habits of honeybees and their place in food chain. In the style of the choir too, each element of the environmentalist call-to-action was characterised in Christian doctrine: Monsanto, the agribusiness corporation much-criticised for its pesticide policies was demonised as the ‘Devil’, and blamed for the demise of the bee species.

Most remarkable about this production was the sheer enthusiasm: the energy and passion of the performers were at times almost unbelievable, and this was echoed by the audience, who drove a spontaneous encore and a standing ovation. Fuelled by such revival meetings, the congregation of Reverend Billy will inevitably keep on growing.


Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir performed “Honeybeelujah!” as part of the Forest Fringe 16 & 17 August 2014 at Out of the Blue Drill Hall, a Green Arts Venue. More information about the performance can be found here.

The post #GreenFests Highlights: Honey-bee-lujah! appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

The Content of Nothing :: Part 3 :: On Gaps

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Samantha Clark: ‘Instruments for Observing the Universe  *3 : Gravity Boots’ Allenheads Contemporary Arts, Northumberland August 2013

Samantha Clark: ‘Instruments for Observing the Universe *3 : Gravity Boots’ Allenheads Contemporary Arts, Northumberland August 2013

Samantha Clark: According to astronomers we can only actually perceive about 4.7% of the universe. This is the ‘shiny stuff,’ the atoms and particles that we can actually see, the ‘things’ bit. The rest of it, the ‘nothing’ bit, is made up of ‘dark matter’, which is about 27%, and ‘dark energy’ which makes up about 68%. These percentages are not absolutes, not slices of a finite pie, but expressions of relationship, a ratio between the visible and the invisible. They speak eloquently of the relationship between the material and the ineffable. According to modern physics, the material world is only this 4.7%, a tiny fraction, our only point of contact, the tip of an iceberg, a keyhole to peep through. Behind it lies a vast hinterland of strange, dimly seen, uncanny something-nothingness, which is only seen through the effects it has on see-able matter; through its gravitational effects, in the case of dark matter, and in the accelerating expansion of the universe, possibly caused by dark energy. I took part in a short residency this August at Allenheads Contemporary Arts in Northumberland, and together with a group of a dozen or so other artists we explored this notion of the 95% of the universe which we can’t perceive, and had fascinating conversations with an astroparticle physicist who had also been invited. Particle physicists use non-detection as a means of detection – they look for the gap, the hole, the nothing, and voilà! An invisible particle! It turns out that mass, the very solidity and weight of the material world, is not a property of matter itself but a result of the interaction between matter and Higgs particles. We swim through the Higgs field like fish through the sea (and it through us) and its pull we experience as gravity, a phenomenon that remains a great scientific mystery. For the purposes of this one-week residency I quickly made a series of ‘sketches’ in response to the ideas we explored together – ‘Instruments for Exploring the Universe’ – including these ‘gravity boots’ and accompanying piece of text::

‘Walking up a hill is a good time to remember that gravity is a mystery to science, though knowing this doesn’t help the climb much. How strange it is that this firm press of my two feet upon the ground should be felt so keenly by the body, yet seen so dimly by the mind. They say that cold dark matter, the unseen stuff that makes up most of the universe, trawls through us all the time. Like all of the visible world I am fat with the unseen fullness of empty space. Dark matter, slow, lead-heavy, its dull pull clumps galaxies together like dust seeding rainclouds. Puffing uphill I am clogged with it. I feel my own weight as it leans into me. Yet this whole shining world would drift away without its dark ballast.’

Judy Spark: Gravity, a fundamental element of our own make up, yet we generally talk of it as something separate from us that ‘happens’ when we drop something. I really like the way that what you’ve said here emphasises the relationship we have with this ‘ineffable substance’. This notion of ‘relationship’ is so vital to a fuller appreciation of the things and processes, both natural and technological, that are present or taking place around us. I note that alongside the boots was another Instrument for Observing the Universe in the form of an old valve radio tuned to what’s between stations……

“Listening in the Gap” from Back to the Things Themselves; Judy Spark, The Briggait, Glasgow Festival of Visual Art 2012 (with Lesley Punton)

“Listening in the Gap” from Back to the Things Themselves; Judy Spark, The Briggait, Glasgow Festival of Visual Art 2012 (with Lesley Punton)

This printed and bound text, was exhibited in a two person show Back to the Things Themselves with Lesley Punton in the Briggait in Glasgow as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012. The work consisted of a series of written descriptions detailing what could be heard during a concentrated period of listening in the gaps between broadcasts over the FM spectrum of a Robert’s R25 analogue radio (88 – 108 FM) on the 25th May 2011 between 4.20 and 6.15pm.

The notion that the ‘spaces’ between broadcasts themselves hold ‘content’ is of great interest to me. It seems to say a lot about the presence of what appears, on the surface of things, to be absent, and I’m drawn to the parallels between this and the experience of what is between thoughts, i.e., nothing, the Buddhist conception of ‘pure consciousness’? Again it seems to pertain to the idea of a ‘gap’, a stillness, that quells the chatter about what and how things are, leaving a space for things to be more fully disclosed in different ways. Phenomenology has it that consciousness is always consciousness of something.

It may be something cynical in the quality of my observation but it seems that in our culture, we generally find that we must name what occurs in a gap, rather than simply experiencing the quality of this space itself. An extract from the text pictured above reads,

“102 – 104

Soft hiss, like rain in trees, but at a distance. The spinning high-pitched sound
is there but less keen. The odd crackle, like dust on a record, can be heard.
These sounds play around the edges of deliberately broadcast ones.”

A parallel work Instructions for Creating a Gap, shown in the adjacent room, consisted of a pile of A4 folded sheets of printed instructions. Visitors were encouraged to take a copy away with them that they might try ‘listening in gaps’ themselves at home. Over the course of the exhibition, around 1000 of these texts left the gallery; however I have no information as to whether the exercise was undertaken by anyone who holds a copy.

“The Things Themselves” and “Morning Broadcast” from Back to the Things Themselves GFVA 2012

“The Things Themselves” and “Morning Broadcast” from Back to the Things Themselves GFVA 2012

Still with the notion of radio and ‘gaps’, both these pieces of work used mini FM radio transmitters to transmit sound through radios. In Morning Broadcast, the cynic takes those ‘universe observing tools’ and plugs gaps through which it might be listened to with her own sounds……in this case, birdsong.

(The sound of birdsong in the room in which this discussion was taking place became apparent at the appearance of this slide.)

This ‘confounding’ of the ‘natural’ with the technological is designed to address the ways in which we attend to things. Because of the acoustics of the Briggait it sometimes seemed to gallery visitors as if the sound were coming from outside the building. The Things Themselves consisted of two radios broadcasting a series of softly spoken descriptions, in both male and female voices. The descriptions articulate the natural forms that are the subject of the drawings A Sort of Visual Rhythm (Symphoricarpos) also situated in gallery 1 and Orrery (Galium aparine) in gallery 2. The soundtracks coming from the two radios were slightly out of sync with one another, so that two different voices could be heard at any one time. I think that my interest in this latter radio work, lay in the fact that neither in the reported descriptions, nor in the drawings of the things themselves, could even an approximation of the content of the original experience, that of encountering the forms in the landscape, be made. The real ‘listening’ could only really have taken place within that original experience.

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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#GreenFests highlights: The Evolution Will Be Televised

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Though listed in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme as comedy, performer Kate Smurthwaite admits the production is more a TED-style science talk peppered with some laughs. Smurthwaite is a stand-up comedian and political activist who is as often a guest on debate shows as she is in the comedy clubs. Only one of her three productions at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, The Evolution Will Be Televised is a one-hour show in which Smurthwaite talks the audience through some basic evolution and primatology. Ingeniously drawing parallels between the habits of core primate species and human beings, audience members are invited to admit to habits and behaviours also held by orang-utans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. Audience members with libations in hand were compared to gorillas, a species known to seek out rotting fruit for its alcohol content.

Key points about the species addressed also included information about the dire circumstances of orang-utan existence. Likely to be the first ape to go extinct, the orang-utan species is threatened by the production of palm oil. Smurthwaite explains the complexity of this issue, as unbeknownst to many consumers (myself included) palm oil is a substance used in the manufacture of thousands of everyday items. This makes it difficult to target the issue, and nearly impossible for informed consumers to avoid products with palm oil.

Smurthwaite further develops the argument for environmental sustainability by raising a common question of primatology- what separates humans from the chimps? Tools and language (both of which are flawed but frequent answers to that question) are used by both humans and apes. The key difference, Smurthwaite explains, is that we (humans) aren’t endangered. Smurthwaite left the audience with a provoking thought nearing the end of her act- “we are the only creatures that can give the rest of evolution the chance to survive.”


“The Evolution Will Be Televised” runs from 2-11, 13-23 August 8.20pm at Ciao Roma. The production is a contender for the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award.

The post #GreenFests highlights: The Evolution Will Be Televised 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

Powered by WPeMatico

End of Species at #edfringe

 

This show is part of the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Shortlist – celebrating the greenest and most sustainable shows at the Fringe.

Synopsis: 1Award831 – Charles Darwin goes to Australia on the HMS Beagle to document a world of flora, fauna and primitives. After a four-year journey, he writes On the Origin of Species, shooting humans to the top of the food chain and setting mankind on course to govern nature. 182 years later, faced with a gun-to-the-head climate scenario and unable to justify the 4 tonnes of carbon emissions of a long-haul flight, monologist and theatre director Richard Pettifer (AUS) did the journey over land. He performed in Sydney, Indonesia, India, Iran, and Romania. He was bashed, had his stuff stolen, and slept rough in an Iranian train station. There was no humanity or love. Only military, competition and fear – and no-one seemed to know about global warming.

End of Species is a story of dying optimism in the 21st century.

For more information about the show, and to see the dates and times please click HERE.

Misa Lisin #edfringe

_2014MISALIS_R7This show is part of the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Shortlist – celebrating the greenest and most sustainable shows at the Fringe.

Langasan Theatre derives its name from Cilangasan mountain, and celebrates the remarkable fables and tales of the Cilangasan clan. As an Amis senior aboriginal performer in Taiwan, the founder Adaw Palaf incorporates performance with dancing, singing and story-telling, which combines the aboriginal culture with concepts of modern action art. Misa-Lisin means ceremonies of all seasons. Imagine the blowing wind stirring the grain, the mud wrestling from our childhood memory, the healing received from the ocean… all recollections transform into powerful energy, giving birth to this touchable fable: a performance shaped by the power of humanity and motherland.

For more information about the show or to purchase tickets click HERE.

Upcoming Event: Edinburgh Green Tease

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Our next Edinburgh Green Tease has been announced to be part of the Fringe Reuse and Recycle Days! The Green Tease gathering will be held at Fringe Central Monday, 25th August from 3.00pm-4.00pm, following with drinks at the nearby Dagda Bar.

We have the pleasure of welcoming guest speaker Emily Reid, Director of Eco Drama – a Glasgow-based young people’s theatre company which creates inventive theatre and creative learning projects that embed sustainability and ecology at the heart of the experience. Eco Drama’s biodiesel van was recently featured on our #GreenFests page, and is just one facet of the companies commitment to sustainability.

Thoughts from Emily will be followed by a discussion involving reuse and recycling as part of the artistic production process, with the Reuse and Recycle Days providing an excellent case study! The Fringe Reuse and Recycle Days are an established Edinburgh Festival Fringe initiative, now in its fifth year of implementation. Production companies appearing at the Fringe are invited to bring their unwanted props, costumes, sets and promotional flyers or posters to Fringe Centre for Participants.

For more information, please check the event page. To attend, please RSVP to gemma.lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com by 24th August.

We hope to see you there!

The post Upcoming Event: Edinburgh Green Tease 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.

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