Life On Earth

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Re-envisioning Art, Technology and Nature

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Re-envisioning Art, Technology and Nature

516 ARTS announces the extended deadline for proposals to November 15, 2011

In the fall of 2012, a group of New Mexico and regional organizations will present ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness, a symposium and season-long series of public events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art, technology and nature. The prestigious ISEA symposium is held every year in a different location around the world, and it is an international honor for Albuquerque to be selected as the first host city in the U.S. since 2006. This project will draw a wealth of leading creative minds from around the globe, and engage our local community through in-depth partnerships.

CONFERENCE: September 19 – 24, 2012

EXHIBITION: September 20, 2012 – January 6, 2013

REGIONAL COLLABORATION: September – December, 2012

Apply online: www.isea2012.org

Visual & Performing Arts

Artist-Scientist Residencies

Site Projects

Presentations, Panels & Workshops

Youth Programs 

The theme of ISEA2012 – “Machine Wilderness” – references the New Mexico region as an area of rapid growth and technology alongside wide expanses of open land, and aims to present artists’ and technologists’ ideas for a more humane interaction between technology and wilderness in which “machines” can take many forms to support life on Earth.

ISEA International defines “electronic art” as art that cannot be created without electronic means. This includes both visual and performing arts, and it means that technology, such as computer software, the Internet, databases, wireless devices, electronic components or physical computing, has played a role in the creation of the work. This does NOT mean that the work itself must contain a screen, projector, embedded computer or electronic components.

Check out the new opportunity for a Public Art Design Competition for ISEA2012 sponsored by The City of Albuquerque Public Art Program!

Visit www.isea2012.org for submission guidelines and more information about themes and focus days, descriptions of venues, the international conference and the season-long, regional collaboration.

Please direct any questions to: info@isea2012.org

ISEA2012 is organized by 516 ARTS, and hosted with The University of New Mexico, The Albuquerque Museum and 65+ participating organizations including museums, colleges, nonprofit art organizations, environmental organizations and the scientific and technological communities.

For more information about 516 ARTS, please visit www.516arts.org

New metaphors for sustainability: the timeless meal

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This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Carolyn Steel calls herself a ‘food urbanist’, and she brings a notion of the ‘good life’ to our series of New metaphors for sustainability. 

What is it we’re trying to sustain? For me, the meal is the emblematic, wonderful situation that sums up the whole point of sustainability.
I think in metaphor all the time and food has become this way of seeing the world not just in terms of ‘how are we going to feed ourselves in future?’ – this kind of doom and gloom thing – but also in terms of asking ‘what kind of society is it that we are trying to create as well as sustain?’.
When you talk about food, there’s a tendency to talk about ‘how much grain can you produce on that much land with that much water’. That’s very important, but you have to relate every conversation you have about food with the kind of life that you are talking about. It’s about a vision of society, an idea of the good life.
The table is a place where you don’t just share food, but you share ideas, you share love, you share conversation.
It’s a beautiful metaphor of the kinds of things that we’re trying to sustain. It’s society. It’s ‘good life’ in every possible sense – not just good in terms of wonderful food – but also good in terms of the ethics of what you eat. If I am hungry I have a practical problem. If you are hungry, I have an ethical problem.
This business of sitting around a table with other people, the decorum of the table, and the sharing food – it brings the social relevance of sustainability into the conversation.
A timeless meal, a meal that is enjoyed through time that has a past that we all intuitively understand, but a future as well, sums up for me the idea that food is life on earth.
Carolyn is included in our film.
Photo: Feast on the Bridge, 2009, curated by Clare Patey. Photo by Tim Mitchell.

 

 

“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)

The editors are Robert Butler and Wallace Heim. The associate editor is Kellie Gutman. The editorial adviser is Patricia Morison.

Robert Butler’s most recent publication is The Alchemist Exposed (Oberon 2006). From 1995-2000 he was drama critic of the Independent on Sunday. See www.robertbutler.info

Wallace Heim has written on social practice art and the work of PLATFORM, Basia Irland and Shelley Sacks. Her doctorate in philosophy investigated nature and performance. Her previous career was as a set designer for theatre and television/film.

Kellie Gutman worked with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture for twenty years, producing video programmes and slide presentations for both the Aga Khan Foundation and the Award for Architecture.

Patricia Morison is an executive officer of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, a group of grant-making trusts of which the Ashden Trust is one.

Go to The Ashden Directory

ISEA2012 Albuquerque – Machine Wilderness: Re-envisioning Art, Technology and Nature

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SYMPOSIUM + COLLABORATION • Fall 2012 • www.isea2012.org

New Mexico Arts and Technology Symposium with the International Society

for the Electronic Arts (ISEA), hosted by UNM, 516 ARTS and partners

DOWNLOAD PDF

In the fall of 2012, a group of New Mexico arts organizations will present ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness, a symposium and series of events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art and technology, in conjunction with the prestigious International ISEA Conference. Held every year in a different location around the world, ISEA has a 30-year history of significant international acclaim (www.isea-web.org). The symposium will consist of a conference, a series of art exhibitions at various sites, public events, performances, screenings, tutorials and workshops.

The Albuquerque/Santa Fe area is fast becoming a national and international center of media production, visualization and art/science collaboration. However, in the US, New Mexico is geographically isolated, and within the state the many initiatives in the electronic arts are spread out and isolated from each other. ISEA2012 will not only give the region international exposure, but will provide an opportunity for centers of electronic art and media in New Mexico a chance to work together towards a common goal, to build audiences and to help revitalize the urban center of Albuquerque.

The title for the symposium is Machine Wilderness. As part of a region of rapid growth alongside wide expanses of open land, New Mexico presents a microcosm of this theme. Machine Wilderness will present artists’ and technologists’ ideas for a more humane interaction between technology and environment in which “machines” can take many forms to support and sustain life on Earth. The project focuses on creative solutions for how technology and the natural world can co-exist.

Themes for the ISEA2012 collaboration in Albuquerque/Santa Fe include: a bilingual focus, as this project has the potential to draw significant international participation from Latin America; an indigenous thread, focusing on Native American and other indigenous peoples woven into the main symposium; and a focus on land and skyscape. Because of our vast resource of land in New Mexico, proposals from artists will be solicited that take ISEA participants out into the landscape. The Albuquerque Balloon Museum may offer a unique opportunity for artworks to extend into the sky as well. Subthemes of the conference and symposium include: Ancient Cosmologies and Electronic Art; Getting Off the Planet; Land, Energy and Environment; and The Future of Creative Economies.

ISEA2012 EXHIBITION:

The large-scale, multi-site, international exhibition for ISEA2012 Albuquerque will feature artworks that explore perceptions of a larger universe, space travel, and the science of space and the cosmos. Artworks in all media will combine art, science and technology, demonstrating the role art can play in re-envisioning the world.

The exhibition will be curated through a two-part process, with an international call for proposals and works selected by the ISEA Board and selection committee; and a portion of the exhibition titled Getting Off the Planet curated by guest curators Patricia Watts and Jenée Misraje. The exhibition will feature both museum works and commissioned site-specific works located throughout the state, some in collaboration with scientific and technological communities. Albuquerque sites include 516 ARTS and The Albuquerque Museum.

Curators Patricia Watts and Jenée Misraje state, “‘Getting Off the Planet’ is seemingly in our DNA. If where we are now no longer seems suitable, we seek to go elsewhere. As populations rise beyond the Earth’s capacity to sustain us, leaving the planet appears to be the solution. Perhaps this next frontier is where we will find the inspiration needed to continue our existence on Earth with greater insight. The real and imagined prospects of leaving our planet have inspired intriguing works of art.”

LEAD ORGANIZATIONS:

UNM College of Fine Arts – Conference host
ISEA liaison, conference organizing, co-direction of ISEA exhibition
516 ARTS – Leader of community outreach and marketing for fall collaboration
Collaboration coordination, marketing/public relations, publications, co-direction of ISEA exhibition

DATES:

CONFERENCE: September 19 – 24, 2012
COLLABORATION: September – December, 2012

STEERING COMMITTEE:

Sherri Brueggemann, Manager, City of Albuquerque Public Art Program
Regina Chavez, Director, Creative Albuquerque
Andrew Connors, Curator of Art, The Albuquerque Museum
Andrea Polli, Associate Professor, UNM College of Fine Arts and School of Engineering
Suzanne Sbarge, Executive Director, 516 ARTS

PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS TO DATE:

516 ARTS
University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts
The Agora Group/Z-Node
Albuquerque Convention & Visitors Bureau
The Albuquerque Museum
City of Albuquerque Public Art Program
Creative Albuquerque
Currents: Santa Fe Video Festival
ecoartspace
¡Explora!
Film for Change & the Albuquerque International Film Festival
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
Los Alamos National Labs
New Mexico Museum of Natural History
STEM-A

CONTACTS:

Andrea Polli, Artistic Director, ISEA2012
Mesa Del Sol Chair of Digital Media and Associate Professor, Art & Art History and School of Engineering
College of Fine Arts
UNM Center for the Arts, Bldg. 62 MSC04-2570, Albuquerque, NM 87131
w. 505-266-2327, c. 718-909-5607, andrea@andreapolli.com

Suzanne Sbarge, Executive Producer, ISEA2012
Executive Director, 516 ARTS, 516 Central Ave. SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
w. 505-242-1445, c. 505-235-7580, suzanne@516arts.org, ssbarge@swcp.com

Patricia Watts & Jenée Misraje, Guest Curators, Getting Off the Planet, ISEA2012
tricia@ecoartspace.org
jmisraje@gmail.com

Regina Chavez, Director of Economic Development & Outreach, ISEA2012
Executive Director, Creative Albuquerque, P.O. Box 27657, Albuquerque, NM 87125
w. 505.268.1920, regina@creativeabq.org

Jack Ox, Artist/Scientist Coordinator, ISEA2012
Research Assistant Professor, Art and Art History, College of Fine Arts
Associated Faculty Member with the Center for Advanced Research Computing, UNM
t. 505-217-2167, jackox@comcast.net

Mary Tsiongas, UNM Faculty/Student/Alumni Exhibition Coordinator, ISEA2012
Associate Professor Electronic Arts, UNM
tsiongas@unm.edu

Jane daPain, ISEAYouth Program Coordinator, ISEA2012
New Media Artist, STEM-A Founder/Instructor (http://stem-a.org)
jdap.newmedia@gmail.com

The Nature Conservancy

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Enter Our 4th Annual Photo Contest

The Nature Conservancy invites you to enter your stunning nature photos to our 4th annual digital photography competition.

We’re looking for beautiful nature photography representing the diversity of life on Earth. Your original digital images of our lands, waters, plants, animals and people in nature are all eligible for the competition.

We are especially interested in images that showcase the wide range of habitats across our planet, including all types of forests, grasslands, lakes and rivers, deserts and arid lands, rainforests, marine habitats and coral reefs in all seasons and around the world.

The winner’s image will be printed in the 2011 Nature Conservancy calendar – reaching nearly 2 million households worldwide.

The Best Nature Photo winner’s image will be featured on The Nature Conservancy’s website, nature.org, which is visited by more than 3 million people annually.

Find out more on the Nature Conservancy Website

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

The Golden Record

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Dario Robleto’s presentation at the Systems of Sustainabilty Symposium in Houston earlier this year explored extinction through stories and archival sound.  One portion of his presentation has not left my mind: The Golden Record.

The Golden Record

The Golden Record is a phonographic record that was included in the two Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977.  The record was intened to provide insight into life on earth for any extraterrestrial life forms or far future humans who may find it.  In 2008, the Voyagers escaped our solar system.

The Record, for me, represents the sustainability of a life and culture in the form of archive.  At the time of launch, President Jimmy Carter is quoted to have said, “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings.  We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

The Record’s sounds include a message from the Secretary General of the UN at the time, greetings in 55 languages, a lovely track titled ‘The Sounds of Earth,’ and music from around the world.

You can view ‘Images of the Earth’ and listen to all of the tracks at www.goldenrecord.org