Research

Report: Farther, Faster, Together.

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Helicon’s new report, developed in partnership with ArtPlace America and informed by conversations: Farther, Faster, Together: How Arts and Culture Can Accelerate Environmental Progress. For this research, they delved deeply into energy, water, land, waste, toxic pollution, and climate resilience and adaptation. Across the board, Helicon heard about five things that environmental sector leaders believe we need to do in order to secure a sustainable future:

  • Spark public demand
  •  Build community capacity and agency
  •  Bridge scales
  •  Enrich and activate the built environment
  •  Nurture sustainable economies

This report explores how arts and cultural approaches amplify and accelerate progress in these five areas, and shares examples of bright spots doing this work.

Environmental sustainability is at its root about the health and integrity of our natural ecosystems the places where we all live, work, and play.This report lays out a framework for understanding how place-based arts and cultural interventions are advancing sustainability outcomes for communities.

Click The article cover below to start reading below and share!

Follow their innitiatives:   ArtPlace blog, Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter.

 

 

York University seeks Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Information Design, Advocacy and the Environment

news, Open Calls, Research

york_logo_hi_resThe School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD), formerly known as the Faculty of Fine Arts, at York University is seeking an outstanding researcher to be nominated for a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in the area of Information Design, Advocacy and the Environment. The successful candidate will be appointed to a tenure track position in AMPD at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. One of North America’s leading schools for the arts, AMPD offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Dance, Design, Digital Media, Film, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies, Theatre and Performance Studies.

This pan-faculty position will attract a strong, well-established, hybrid research-practitioner with an innovative and stellar programme of research, creative practice and significant scholarship in the areas of information design, advocacy and the environment. The successful candidate will participate across the knowledge domains of the visual arts, media, performance and design and often engage collaborations with environmental studies, health, computer science and engineering. We invite applications from candidates with demonstrable expertise in one or more of the following: graphical strategies for information design, development of tools and methodologies for data exploration, design-driven social advocacy, dynamic visualizations of live systems, interface design, design for virtual environments and massive multi—user systems, HCI, and strong cross-disciplinary approaches to information design.

The appointment is linked to the new University Strategic Research Plan, which identifies Digital Cultures as a compelling opportunity for development in the next five years by pushing “technological boundaries while critically investigating the social and cultural impacts” of new technologies on human activity and interaction. The successful candidate will play a strong role in Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology Research, a catalyst for new ideas and experimentation. <finearts.yorku.ca/sensorium/> Based in AMPD the Centre supports cross-disciplinary work in application and content creation, artistic and scientific inquiry, design practice and methodologies, policy development and critical discourse in digital media arts.<finearts.yorku.ca>

The successful candidate will have a PhD or equivalent in the areas of Digital Media, Design, Interactive Arts, Computer Science or a closely related field, an outstanding research record, experience working with undergraduate and graduate students, and must be eligible for prompt appointment to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. The successful candidate must demonstrate excellence or promise of excellence in teaching and scholarly research. The candidate is expected to provide leadership by fostering collaborative research, securing external funding, making links across art, design, health, computer science and engineering, supervising graduate students, and generating national and international academic, community and industry partnerships. The Chairholder will be placed in a Department or Departments most closely reflecting his or her experience and that best supports institutional priorities.

This appointment is subject to approval by the CRC program review process. The Canada Research Chairs program was established by the Government of Canada to enable Canadian universities to achieve the highest levels of research excellence in the global, knowledge—based economy. Tier 2 Chairs have five—year terms, once renewable, and are intended for exceptional emerging researchers (less than 10 years post terminal degree) who have the acknowledged potential to lead their field of research. Information about the CRC program can be found at

York University is an Affirmative Action (AA) employer and strongly values diversity, including gender and sexual diversity, within its community. The AA Program, which applies to Aboriginal people, visible minorities, people with disabilities, and women, can be found at www.yorku.ca/acadjobs or by calling the AA office at 416-736-5713. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and Permanent Residents will be given priority.

This position, subject to budgetary approval, will commence July 1, 2015. Applicants should submit a detailed CV, statement of contribution to research and teaching, links to scholarly and/or creative work, and three letters of reference.

<www.chairs.gc.ca>.

Applications should be sent by December 5, 2014 to:

Jim Fenton

York University

Faculty of Fine Arts, GCFA 201 4700 Keele Street

Toronto, ON M3J 1P3

Tel: +1 416 736—2100 x 20033

Email: jfenton@yorku.ca

‘Eco-sustainable public art’ mapped in new database

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

curating-cities_entri590With searchable artwork themes such as ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Energy’, ‘Renewal & Regeneration’, and ‘Waste, Recycling, Consumption’, a new ‘Curating Cities’ database was launched on 30 August 2013. It maps “the increasingly important and emerging field of eco-sustainable public art.”

The ‘Curating Cities’ database is developed as a resource for researchers, academics, artists, curators, educators, commissioning agencies and sponsors working in the field as well as those interested in promoting sustainability via public art.

In addition to descriptive information, the database evaluates the aims and outcomes of each project as well as the external constraints (and subsequent negotiations) that influence the production of public artworks.

Curating Cities is an Australian Research Council funded Linkage project led by Professors Jill Bennett and Richard Goodwin, and Chief Curator Felicity Fenner of the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA) at the University of New South Wales’ College of Fine Arts.

Linkage Partners: City of Sydney, Object: Australian Centre for Design, Carbon Arts, University of Cincinnati.

Research Team: Jill Bennett, Felicity Fenner, Richard Goodwin, Jodi Newcombe, Adrian Parr, Margaret Farmer and Kerry Thomas.

curating-cities_scrdmp

curatingcities.org

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures

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We’ve got a new video to support the CSPA’s PQ Convergence on Waste and Reuse, can you support us?

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[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/23782360?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 500 375]

The campaign lives here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/CSPA-Prague-Convergence-Reduce-Waste-at-the-Prague-Quadrennial

We are looking for $4,000 in additional funding to supplement travel for our team, and to provide resources and tools for distributing materials and documenting this project.

We promise to give you what we get: INFORMATION! We’ll be documenting this project, and will gladly share our findings with you. Other perks include copies of the CSPA Quarterly, a publication dedicated to sustainable practices in all creative areas, CSPA membership, and special tokens from the PQ!

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

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Christine and Margaret Wertheim’s Coral Reef Project is another one of the CSPA’s favorites to date. It combines creative endeavors seamlessly with scientific thought and a social initiative. It brings to light issues of global warming and ecological sustainability without being didactic.

If you’re in New York city, you have a month left to view it at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. That exhibition closes in early January.

If you are in Washington DC, please visit the temporary exhibit on the the First Floor of the Sant Ocean Hall, OCean Focus Gallery at the National Museum of Natural History. It is on display through April 24th of next year 2011.

Margaret Wetheim’s TED Talk

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGEDHMF4rLI

At The Science Gallery in Dublin

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsKhi0x4Ni41

A recent interview with Margaret Wertheim

View the video at Smithsonian.com

More information

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef
The Institute for Figuring

For the end of the Edinburgh Festivals – Scottish Researchers Turn Whiskey into Fuel

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Don’t drink and drive, but feel free to let your car party all it wants! After two years and $400,000, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland have successfully turned whiskey into fuel. The researchers were provided with the general products needed to make whiskey as well as the byproducts that typically result from production of the alcohol. They found they were able to make a form of biobutanol — which is 30% more efficient than ethanol — with two whiskey byproducts – pot ale and draff. Finally, a discovery worthy of a toast!

via Scottish Researchers Turn Whiskey into Fuel | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.

Design Walks – 2nd Sustainable Summer School

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The “2nd Sustainable Summer School” for design students from all around the world starts on August 30 and ends September 4, 2010.

It will take place in Jüchen, near the city of Cologne (Germany).

Creative ideas for a sustainable design of our daily life will again be in the spotlight, this year by looking at “Societies, Systems and Swarms”. Introduced to the subject by a public expert day, the students will work together for several days in inspiring workshops conducted by well known institutions.

The “2nd Sustainable Summer School” offered students from all over the world the unique possibility to design and to shape the future lifestyle in a sustainable way.

Information and Registration:

http://www.designwalks.org/

———————-

Expert day on August 30, 2010

(ecosign – Academy for Design, Cologne)

9.30 Session 1

- Prof. Uwe Schneidewind, Director of the Wuppertal Institute: Swarm Economy
Are economic swarm phenomena part of the problem or part of the solution regaring sustainable development?

- Prof. Jens Krause:  Swarm Models
To which extent can scientific swarm studies develop models for society and design?

13.00 Session 2

- Prof. Johannes Weyer: Swarm Technology - New Modes of Governance of Complex Systems in the Era of Autonomous Technology
What are risks and opportunities of swarm structures for the human-technological interface?

- Prof. Harald Welzer: Swarm sociality
What are immanent values, dynamics, and obstacles of climate cultures?

17.00 Public Panel Discussion
– Swarms, Societies, Sustainable Development
Diverse Perspectives on the Future of Sustainable Development and the Role of Design

Aesth/Ethics in Environmental Change, transdisciplinary workshop, May 2010, Germany

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Aesth/Ethics in Environmental Change
Invitation to a transdisciplinary workshop about the aesthetics, ethics, art, religion and ecology of the environment

Arranged by the European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment, Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Biological Station of Hiddensee, University of Greifswald, Environmental Ethics, University of Greifswald

Hiddensee, 24-28 May 2010

Aesth/Ethics in Environmental Change is an international workshop joining ethics, arts, religion and science in an attempt to reach a combined and deeper insight in nature, landscape and its changes. We invite scholars from different disciplines to participate in this workshop on the beautiful island of Hiddensee!

The following questions will be addressed:

  • What does the perception and awareness of the environment and ourselves within it contribute to our understanding of and dealing with nature? How can arts widen our perception of nature?
  • How are aesthetics and ethics connected to each other in habitats, places and spaces? Can both be entangled into an integrated “aesth/ethics”? Can such a view be incorporated in the aims of nature conservation?
  • How and where to seek, find and express the Sacred in nature? How are worldviews, values, rituals, visons, belief systems and ideologies at work within the human ecology?
  • How can humans in general encounter an accelerating and expanding environmental (incl. climatic) change? How can they perceive, experience, reflect and adapt to it?
  • How can aesthetics, ethics, religion and ecology transcend contemporary political modes of environmental protection? How could they catalyze a truly transdisciplinary environmental science?

Schedule:

The workshop will alternate between lectures, seminaries, discussions, practical art work and excursions,and it will offer varying options to let the  island itself intervene. Scholars and postgraduate students from all faculties and regions around the world are welcome to attend the workshop, and we expect all to stay during the whole workshop. The numbers of participants is limited to 30 persons. The early bird catches the worm:

Please register as soon as possible, using the registration form at: http://www.hf.ntnu.no/relnateur/

Basic accommodation will be provided to every accepted participant.

Island of Hiddensee

The island of Hiddensee is situated west of the island of Ru:gen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Hiddensee is about 19 km2 in size with around 1,100 inhabitants. The island is completely situated within the Nationalpark Vorpommersche Boddenku:ste. Its beautiful nature including shorelines and shallow water, coastal dunes, heathlands, coastal meadows, dry grasslands and forests, attracks not only tourists, but also biologists!

Keynote speakers:

  • Sigurd Bergmann, Religious Studies/Theology, Trondheim, Norway
  • Irmgard Blindow, Ecology, Hiddensee, Germany
  • Emily Brady, Geography, Edinburgh, UK
  • Forrest Clingerman, Theology, Ohio, USA
  • Celia Deane Drummond, Theology and Religious Studies, Chester, UK
  • Thomas Jaspert, LandArt artist, Bokel, Germany
  • Konrad Ott, Environmental Ethics, Greifswald, Germany
  • Thomas Potthast, Ethics in Science, Tu:bingen, Germany
  • George Steinmann, Artist, Bern, Switzerland
  • Heike Strelow, Curator, Writer and Art Historian, Frankfurt/M., Germany

Call for papers:

Oral presentations (15 min) and posters are invited on the conference theme.  Abstracts (no more than 200 words) should be sent by 15 February of 2010 by e-mail.

Sigurd Bergmann, prof. dr.theol.
Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NO – 7491 Trondheim
NORWAY
Institutt for arkeologi og religionsvitenskap
Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU)
NO – 7491 Trondheim
Phone:  +47-73 59 65 87, +47-73 91 97 07
Skype:  sigurdbergmann
Fax:    +47-73 59 14 64

http://www.ntnu.no/arv/english/staff/sb
http://www.hf.ntnu.no/relnateur/

An invitation to the conference: “The Spirit of Place”

Announcements, Research, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

http://www.councilforecophilosophy.com/wips/501591427/

August 1-3, 2010

Sami cultural heritage center – Arran, Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway

www.Tysfjord.kommune.no – www.arran.no

We would like to invite you to attend our upcoming conference, “The Spirit of Place”. The conference is happening in conjunction with the project, “Stetind Declaration”. The key topics for the conference, as expressed in “Stetind Declaration” include:

  • Nature friendly living in the coming society
  • How to foster a nature friendly way of living

You are invited to present a paper at the conference, and take part in conference discussions. We encourage you to write your paper in one of the following languages:
German, English, French, Spanish.

Please note, however, that the discussions at the conference will be in English.

If you intend to present a paper, please send us its title by March 1, 2010.
Final sign up for the conference is June 1.
The same date is the deadline for sending a complete paper.
Please use one of these mail addresses:

Borge.Dahle@nih.no or Aage.Jensen@hint.no

Received titles pr. December 1:

  • Kazushi Maeda, Japan: “Traditional local cultures for our future”
  • Andy Thompson, New Zealand: “What were Amundsen and Scott really doing in Antartica?”
  • Anna Thompson, New Zealand: “Aoraki Mt Cook – cultural icon or tourist “object”
  • Jana Hoffmannova & Ludek Sebek, Czech republic: “Transforming Cultural landscapes”
  • Torbjorn Ydegaard, Denmark: “Culture as learning, learning from culture”
  • Seaton Baxter, Scotland: “Natures Contribution to the Spirits in the Sand”
  • Trond Jakobsen, Norway: “From Science to Human and Eco- Emancipation”
  • Kumanga Andrahennadi, Sri Lanka: “Water; The Essential Spirit of Place”

The conference is based on self accommodation but the main meals can be bought at Arran. The conference fee is set to 1000,- NOK.

Please check our website regularly for further information about the conference.

Related events

There are a number of related events planned for the week prior to the conference that you may also wish to attend:

Wednesday July 28 – Friday July 30: “Peach March for Nature”

A hike that follows an old trail from Gällivarre (Sweden) to Tysfjord (Norway)

Friday July 30, 2010: Anniversary dinner, 100 years since the mountain of Stetind was climbed for the first time

Information about Stetind, its history and surrounding local communities:

For instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stetind or google “Stetind”

Saturday July 31, 2010:

A good day to visit Stetind or some of the local Sami communities in the area.

We hope you will seriously consider joining us at the “The Spirit of Place” conference and contributing to the realization of the “Stetind Declaration”. We look forward to hearing from you soon with a proposed paper presentation!

Nasca Lines: The Buried Secrets on National Geographic

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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSuTravSzsI

An exciting production from Edge West http://www.edgewest.com/

In southern Peru lies one of mankind’s greatest mysteries – 1000’s of giant shapes etched into the desert sands. We reveal who made them and why.

Produced & Directed by Philip J Day
Edge West Productions
for National Geographic
Nasca Lines: The Buried Secrets on National Geographic

Etched, as if by giants, onto the arid moonscape of Peru’s southern desert lies one of man’s greatest mysteries; the Nasca Lines. More than 15,000 geometric and animal-like patterns have been discovered criss-crossing the pampas like a vast puzzle. Who built them and what was their purpose? Ancient racetracks, landing strips for aliens, or perhaps a giant astronomical calendar? And are the Lines connected to the gruesome discovery of large cache’s of severed human heads. Now, after decades of misunderstanding, modern archaeology may finally have the answer.

Excavations in the surrounding mountains are uncovering extraordinary clues about the people who made them and why. A long since vanished people, called the Nasca, flourished here between 200BC and 700AD. But the harsh environment led them to extreme measures in order to survive.

Archaeologist Christina Conlee recently made an extraordinary find: the skeleton of a young male, ceremonially buried but showing gruesome evidence of decapitation. In place of the missing human head, a ceramic “head jar” decorated with a striking image of a decapitated head with a tree sprouting from its skull.

Conlee wonders who this person was? Why was he beheaded and yet buried with honor. Was he a captive taken in battle, or could he have been a willing sacrifice? And did his decapitation have anything to do with the lines? The discovery of large caches of human heads adds grisly weight to Conlee’s theories and helps unravel on of man’s great mysteries.