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Actually, It is Easy Being Green: Apollo Design Technology

From Live Design Online

We asked readers what they’re doing to be green, whether in design, manufacturing, or just life in general.

Here’s what Monty McWilliams at Apollo Design Technology had to say:

“Apollo has obviously gone green in a big way by switching our gobo production process from chemical etching to clean laser technology. Please click this link to view our video on our going green. We are also transitioning into recycled or recyclable packaging for all our gobo products.” 

And Blair Parkin, managing director at Visual Acuity, notes:

“As lead technology consultant on the planetarium, visualization studio, and other technology heavy areas of the new California Academy of Sciences, the world’s largest green building, we have developed new design approaches. These in turn have driven equipment manufacturers to develop their technology with a much greater focus on sustainability.

At the Academy the entire building was designed to LEED platinum status which was a major innovation. The client team are passionate about climate change and biodiversity given the nature of their institution. As such the design team elected to take the sustainable design criteria further than would have been needed to achieve LEED status. The application of LEED principles beyond scoring the necessary points led to a major shift in traditional technology design practice. This, in turn, led to new design processes being evaluated and a number of new technologies applied in a public space that had not been used before. One example would be the wide use of special LED lights developed by Philips. Another example would be the creation by Visual Acuity of a heat and power ‘budget’ for the AV/media/technology systems which was used for planning and vendor selection. In short, it would be fair to state that this project has entirely changed the way Visual Acuity and all the other members of the design team plan, design and build projects.”

via Actually, It is Easy Being Green: Apollo Design Technology.

Taxidermy on Trees


(A deer mount on a tree, by Jim Baughn of Air Capital Taxidermy in Wichita, KS.}


A comment on an older post led me to a site by a Wichita taxidermist with unusual photos of mounts hung on trees. Maybe they are outside for good lighting, but outside is specifically the place we don’t expect to see taxidermy.While I’m not a hunter myself, nor do I have any stuffed animals at home, I am continually fascinated by this practice. Why? Well, a good taxidermy animal allows us the same possibility as a portrait or realistic sculpture of a person, i.e. the chance to get up close and really investigate something that we might not be able to experience in other ways.

Taxidermy is also a way return some dignity to an animal, especially overly numerous animals like deer. I wouldn’t say the same about an endangered animal, like grizzlies or wolves, so it’s sort of shades of gray for me here.


Finally, I’m interested in taxidermy because of the obvious skill and attention it demands as a craft or artform. And understanding the many ways people appreciate wild animals is one way to what I hope is the eventual formation of voting bloc composed of environmentalists, hunters and farmers. I think we all want generally the same thing (preservation of existing species, protection of wild places, good quality of life for humans and animals, etc) so if we can get these groups united, it would be an unstoppable political force.


–> More at aircapitaltaxidermy.wordpress.com

Go to Eco Art Blog

Sci-fi: speculation as art form

Much of the art around climate is about imagining new futures. Rubbing up against visions of the future is a good way to reconsider the present. Sci-fi is the daddy of that concept, so it’s interesting to see EcoGeek doing a series of really excellent in-depth interviews with US sci-fi authors.

No 1 is with Tobias Buckell.

No 2 is with Karl Shroeder.

No 3 is with Paolo Bicigalupi.

I can’t claim to be the greatest science fiction fan, but a) its prophetic role seems ideally suited to a time in which we have to face up to change, and b) the interview with Bicigalupi is a lot of fun:

I’m not interested in PV cells, or solar paint, or zero emissions cars, or any of a zillion other objects that companies want to sell us so that we can feel good about ourselves while we roar off the cliff. If I had to think of […] technologies that I greatly admire, I would say… wool sweaters and long underwear are fabulous.

Photo of TH.2058 by Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, 2008, by abrinsky.

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What is the value of art?

Sometimes it’s worth asking the questions that are so big people people only raise them shortly before last orders. Kudos to Art 21 | blog who have been running a series of what they call “Flash Points” over the last few months. Their topics have included What’s So Shocking About Contemporary Art? and How Can Art Affect Political Change?

They’ve just started a new strand with What Is The Value of Art, introduced by Beth Allen:

The questions of how art is valued and how it is monetized inevitably overlap: artworks perceived as “important” yield high prices at auction; economic development funding goes to out-of-the-way cultural institutions that bring high quality programming and consequently, tourists, to their neighborhoods; exhibitions that push boundaries attract grants from foundations dedicated to promoting free speech; arts education is consistently underfunded… Buried within questions about the economics of art, are assumptions and often, judgments, about its value that beg to be examined: How is the value of an artist’s intellectual versus physical labor calculated? Are collectible works valued differently than ephemeral projects? How does individual “taste” and critical reception affect the value of an artwork, exhibition, or institution? What factors influence the way we value an artistic experience, as individuals and as a society? How do we quantify the intangible benefits that art education provides? How do we talk about the subtle and personal value that art has in our lives?

And, of course, they’re looking for contributors to stir the pot.

Image:  Photo of Fear Eats The Soul [date unknown] by Rirkrit Tiravanija taken at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, November 22 2008 by j-No

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Tidal Elements

{Sample / Laminaria digitata by Deborah Wing-Sproul}

These are beautiful: knitted strands of seaweed and rolled up kelp balls by Deborah Wing-Sproul. Part of an ongoing work since 2004, this investigation into North Atlantic tidal culture takes the form of objects (such as those pictured here) and performances. More at deborahwingsproul.com.

 

{Raw/Laminaria digitata by Deborah Wing-Sproul}

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When artists fail to read the small print

Caleb Klaces makes a point in his review of Marcel Theroux’s new novel, Far North, on the main RSA Arts & Ecology website: the moment when Theroux starts to try and create a plausible scientific scenario for the catastrophic future in which his novel is set is the point where you start going, “Umm. Really?”

It takes a great writer to be able to incorporate research into a novel. Theroux opts to include a character explaining how we got into this mess:

The planet had heated up. They turned off smokestacks and stopped flying. Some, like my [Makepeace’s] parents, altered the way they lived. Factories were shut down […] As it turned out, the smoke from all the furnaces had been working like a sunshade, keeping the world a few degrees cooler than it would have been otherwise. He said that in trying to do the right thing, we had sawed off the branch we were sitting on. The droughts and storms that came in the years after put in motion all the things that followed.

See? It’s not really quite like that, is it?

Read the review here.

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Respond! – or how we can make the most noise

Anyone who’s subscribed to the RSA Arts & Ecology site newsletter will have already had this info, but for those who are not, Arts & Ecology in conjunction with Bash Creations are initiating Respond! as a way of highlighting events thorughout the UK – across all art forms – that deal with ecological issues. By networking us all together the idea is we can create that bigger splash. To wit:

Respond! will celebrate and showcase the achievements and commitment of the arts in addressing environmental issues.  Our aim is to engage and inspire arts audiences through discussion and response to the events, exhibitions, talks, projects and activity happening in June.

Visit here to find out more.

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APInews: Michigan Prisoners Address Climate Crisis

April 8, 2009, is the last day of the 14th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, this year showing works addressing the global climate crisis. The show, presented annually by the Prison Creative Arts Project PCAP, opened March 24 at the Duderstadt Center Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Curated by UM Professors Buzz Alexander, Janie Paul and Jason Wright, it shows 300 works by 200 artists from 40 prisons. Events included a keynote speech by Chicago Citizen of the Year William Ayers, a panel discussion on women and children inside prison, a speak-out by Detroit youth, an artists talkback, a conversation about Michigan Parole and Commutation Board practices, a film about art inside Jackson Prison and release of the first annual Literary Review of Writing by Michigan Prisoners. “Acts of Art,” a PBS documentary about PCAP, was broadcast across Michigan in March and April.

via APInews: Michigan Prisoners Address Climate Crisis .

G20 protests: does the lack of iconography = a lack of vision?

make tea not war Pictures, Images and Photos

Guest blogger Caleb Klaces writes: In Everything that rises: a book of convergences, Lawrence Weschler compares graphic imagery used in Communist-controlled Poland’s Solidarity movement with later social justice movements in the US. He argues that the image of an angry crowd facing directly forwards was instrumental in really bringing people together in both cases. In his view, the image was more powerfully drawn in Poland than the US because the movement itself had more vitality.

The image I remember from the ultimately unsuccessful anti-war in Iraq protests in London is of Tony Blair with a tea cup on his head: “Make tea not war”. The British anti-nuclear movement has long had the circular peace sign, and the Greenpeace dove and rainbow.

The peace sign was still the face-paint of choice at last week’s protests in London around the G20. The symbol has arguably lost some of its import by being employed in support of such a broad spectrum of causes. But I haven’t seen a powerful new image or symbol from the Climate Camp and Put People First protests that the discontented could own and rally around.

Has anyone else located a semiotic centre? If not, what could it be?

Caleb Klaces edits the poetry website likestarlings.com; his review of Far North is on the RSA Arts & Ecology website.

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