Intersecting Perspectives

"Art and science both search for greater truths and knowledge about who we are, where we come from, where we are going, and why we are here. Focusing on the collective questions we are asking - rather than from which disciplines they are explored - can foster the cross-disciplinary culture and approach our 21st century requires."

Intersecting Perspectives is a web portal that, "features the current cultural and intellectual work of 87 international SciArt Center members."

Natural Discourse: Artists, Architects, Scientists & Poets in the Garden

Jenny Kendler
Bewilder (Deimatic Eyespot Camouflage) 2016-2017

Living Proof: Flora, Fauna & Fossil Fuels
Space 151, San Francisco
Opening January 13, 2018. 5-8pm

"Jenny Kendler has printed wallpaper and fabric composed of thousands of collaged photographs of butterfly and moth eyespots. These bullseyes of color and form are thought to protect winged insects by frightening or confusing predators. In the Bewilder project, this deimatic camouflage becomes something new. Visitors are given eyespot temporary tattoos and invited to pose for a portrait in front of the brilliantly colored pattern. These colored marks confuse the digital gaze — just as butterflies' spots confuse predators — and disrupt facial-recognition software, creating a new type of camouflage for the modern, digital world of privacy loss and online tracking."

‘Natural Discourse: Artists, Architects, Scientists & Poets in the Garden’ is an ongoing series of symposia, publications and site-specific art installations that explore the connections between art, architecture and science within the framework of botanical gardens and natural history museums.

Natural Discourse began as a collaborative project between the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley (UCBG) and a multi-disciplinary group of artists, writers, architects and researchers who were invited to spend time in UCBG’s extraordinary collection of plants, engage with the horticulturalists and develop new site-specific work.  

The resulting exhibit was on view in the garden’s collection from July 2012 to January 2013. From 2012 to 2017 six day long Natural Discourse symposia combining artists and scientists have been held at UCBG, the LA County Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, The LA County Natural History Museum, the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum and the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. In 2016, the exhibit Digital Nature: An evening of Techno-Botanical Art in the Garden was held for two nights at the LA County Arboretum.

CODAworx

"Published 12 times a year through Flipboard, CODAmagazine showcases the best design + art projects from all over the world, highlighting exemplary collaborations between designers, artists, architects, suppliers, fabricators and other industry resources."

Many of these remarkable artworks have scientific themes or inspiration, including many from one emphasis area: Technology + Art.

UNA, for example, is a collaboration between artist Wolfgang Buttress, and astrophysicist Dr. Daniel Bayliss:

Storytelling with Digital Mapping

Ouchhh Creative New Media Agency works at the interface where meaning emerges from data and digital technologies.

In addition to the expected advertising, their work includes performance art created from 3D image tracking and mapping, and inspired by scientific and mathematical topics like light physics, geometry, neuroscience, and particle physics.

Their website includes many compelling projects, including these:

Call for Open Peer Review: An Anthropocene Primer

Version 1.0 of An Anthropocene Primer is hosted by the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute as an open access book. In collaboration with Indiana University Press, we are inviting the public to participate in an open peer review of the volume between October 23, 2017 and February 1, 2018. We will revise the primer in response to the comments and intend to publish the text as an open access book as well as a hard copy volume in 2018.

An Anthropocene Primer is a great example of a project weaving humanities and science together seamlessly to explore a serious current socio-ecological issue. The online Hypothes.is software allows anyone to annotate and contribute to the project.

The primer website and blog also includes references to other interesting and successful art/sci collaborations, papers, and open peer review projects like the Rivers of the Anthropocene, and Environmental Humanities and Climate Change.

Here's how to get involved:

Arts and science are similar in that they are expressions of what it is to be human in this world

This 2011 article by Ariane Koek is an excellent discussion of the potential and pitfalls of art/science collaboration.

=================

Olafur Eliasson's "Your Split Second House",
shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010,
took physics as its jumping-off point.

It is one of the fashionable arts movements of the moment. It is also one of the most troubled because the aesthetic is unsubtle and still evolving. With the seemingly giddy rise of the wonders of science in our culture, epitomised by the boyish Brit physicist Brian Cox's blockbuster TV series, “Wonders of the Universe” on the BBC, arts/science (sometimes called “sciart”) is gaining ascendancy in the 21st century as a movement of influence and power.

Almost every week, across the world, exhibitions are opening that are billed as arts/science to cash in on this emerging trend, which is also driven by new funding possibilities from science in the current arts cash crisis.

But we are in the middle of a crisis of another kind—a reduction in the wonder of creativity itself, and the question of who controls it and how. Creativity, and where it comes from, is one of the last great human frontiers, and one over which we have little control, cash crisis or no cash crisis.

But there is a battle to do just that, and reduce creativity to a systematic formula in our function-obsessed, input-output, application-driven world. Artists are being driven to become scientific, from the moment they fill in a funding application predicting their final production.

Let me explain. I work in arts/science myself. So, you could argue, who I am to talk? After all, I have created an artists’ residency programme at Cern, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and home to the large hadron collider. But it has at its heart the wonder of the creative process. It is not a residency which is process-driven or defined by an outcome; nor does it demand communication about or homage to the science.

I have deliberately set it up to be a laboratory of the imagination, where freeplay can happen. The science and the place are springboards of the imagination for the artists, not the destination, reason, mission or simulacra of production. When they apply, prospective artists may be asked to imagine a project they would like to carry out, but we fully expect that to change completely once they come to Cern—and who knows what will happen then? That’s part of the process.

This goes against the trends that can be seen in the arts/science aesthetic which has emerged from the 20th century, which contains, in my view, three very dangerous strands.

First, art as a communicator of science, where the artist represents the science to the outside world. This is, essentially, art as a publicity and communications tool, and can happen consciously or unconsciously when the artist becomes subsumed in the science. This is becoming critical in the current cash crisis, when artists are seeking new ways of funding their work and science promises new purse-strings.

Second, science as a means of production, where scientific methods, experimentation and technologies become the channel through which art is processed and made, subjugating the imagination to reductive processes.

Third, science as art – for example, when a snapshot of a cell is admired as beautiful or a chemists' laboratory is found in an art gallery. Both instantly become art, “daringly” crossing the threshold of the arts/science boundary, but in reality saying nothing more than that. It is an intervention that leads nowhere.

But there is a fourth, more invisible, strand, where the arts and science are in fluid interchange—just as they were in the time of Leonardo da Vinci, when he moved easily between the two. Here, the disciplines are honoured for their similarities as well as their essential differences.

Let me explain this fourth and more subtle strand in full. Arts and science are similar in that they are expressions of what it is to be human in this world. Both are driven by curiosity, discovery, the aspiration for knowledge of the world or oneself, and perhaps, as the conceptual artist Goshka Macuga said on her recent visit to Cern, a desire for world domination. She was half joking.

But they express themselves in different ways: the arts through the body and mind, often driven by the exploration of the ego, contradictions and the sheer messiness of life; science through equations, directed, collaborative research and experimentation that works in a progressive, linear fashion.

As Dr Michael Doser, the experimental physicist on Cern's cultural board for the arts, says: “What I find wonderful about working with artists is that they are just as fascinated by side routes and diversions as they are by the direction in which they are going. This is what makes artistic work really different from scientific work.”

These oscillations between sameness and differences form what I call the fourth aesthetic—the Leonardo way. Honour the differences and then amazing work, true arts/science work, happens. One example is Olafur Eliasson's Your Split Second House, shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, which took physics as its jumping-off point.

This installation of twirling water-sprays momentarily separated the drops of water under strobe lights. It is a piece about perception, and was inspired by thinking about how long it takes an astronaut to get out of a black hole. The answer is about a day. But to people who are not in the hole, the astronaut takes forever.

Or take the work of Mariko Mori, which is driven by engaging with opposites and the oscillations between the two: reality and fantasy, seriousness and humour, human and machine, technology and nature, science and religion. This is shown very clearly by Wave UFO, which is simultaneously an architectural piece, a scientific experiment in which the visitor’s brain waves become the work of art in a space-age pod, and a temple to meditation.

The piece is fuelled as much by science and technology as it is by Buddhism and an investigation of religion. Critically, Eliasson and Mori are not so enthralled by the wonders of science that their work loses its wonder and integrity.

For nine months, I tracked a very confident young Swiss artist and astrophysicist working together on a residency. For four months, they were equally enthralled by each other. But then there was a turning point. The artist said to me: “The science is so amazing that I have to prove that I understand it and that I too have a brain.”

From that moment, I knew he was lost. The work he did at the end of the residency was at best a communications piece trying to explain what quantum fields were. Now, a year later, he has rediscovered his playfulness by regaining his distance from the all-intoxicating wonder of particle physics, and is starting to create great work again.

I will leave you with two quotes, one from an artist and one from a scientist, in order to practise what I preach: mutual respect, equal exchange and difference.

Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”

Keith Tyson: “If you attempt to marry and equate art with science, then you fail. If you allow what is not similar about art and science, and their different methods and processes, to co-exist and thrive, then a real art/science collaboration and aesthetic will emerge. But at the end of the day, art and science are united by one logic and one impulse—both are attempts to understand what it is to be human and the world around us.”

That’s why I call Collide@Cern, the programme I have created, Cern’s latest great experiment, colliding elements even more elusive than the Higgs boson: namely, human creativity and the imagination. It was founded to honour the creative process, and to keep science and the arts in an equal balance of wonder—and apart, too. Let’s just have spaces for this to happen, and let the magic and the mystery—those chance operations the great John Cage talked about—occur.

The writer is a Clore Fellow and is head of international arts development and the arts programme at Cern. She created Cern's arts policy and its main strategy, the Collide@Cern Artists' Residency programme.

"Art & Science: The Two Cultures Converging" December 1-3 2017, Manhattan

This conference brought together over 36 local innovative experts in the fields of science, art, technology, and education who engaged in a series of roundtable discussions on (1) science-art collaboration, (2) STEAM and the future of education, and (3) the multi-directional relationship between science, art, and society. Each of these topics were specifically addressed two times, creating six roundtables total, with unique participants in each round who built off of the previous conversations of all roundtables. The format of spontaneous and generative dialogue was chosen with the aim to evolve a collective conversation over the course of three days, in attempts to gain intellectual progress on the most difficult, interesting, novel, and complex challenges we face as cross-, multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary practitioners. 

What can art-science-tech collaborations result in? How do we form new educational models for the 21st century? How do we bridge the gulf between art and science, and between art, science, and society? These are only some of the questions that were addressed by the participants and active audience members.

Watch the first video below, and see the conference website for the other 5 videos.

Opening remarks, and "Science-Art Collaboration Roundtable #1": 

Alliance for Watershed Education grants

The Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River (AWE) was formed to create a region-wide constituency of advocates for improved water quality, clean waterways and the preservation of the health of the Delaware River and its tributaries. AWE seeks to commission interdisciplinary high quality original works of art for its network of 23 environmental centers. The art at each center will serve as a focal point to inspire people to explore, enjoy, and engage with the watershed while creating awareness and advocacy for the protection and restoration of the Delaware River Watershed. The outcome centers desire most is that the work highlights the connectivity of the watershed and the 23 centers involved... 

Budget: This application represents the first phase of the commission process with the Request for Qualifications and artist selection. Each finalist artist, or artist team, will be eligible to receive a stipend of $2,000 to develop a thoughtful, creative, environmentally appropriate concept plan and associated budget for the AWE. The intention of the concept plan is to provide a detailed tool for the AWE to seek funding for design development and phased construction implementation, including management of the program in its entirety. The anticipated range for the total project will be $700,000 - 1,000,000 to be determined on successful fundraising.

More info here.

Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity & Symposium

1. Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity

- and -

2. Role/Play: Collaborative Creativity and Creative Collaborations Student Fellows Symposium

National Academy of Sciences; Washington, DC
March 12-14, 2018

This unique interdisciplinary experience is two distinct but related events that include the Student Symposium on March 12 and the Colloquium on March 13-14.

* * *

1. Role/Play: Collaborative Creativity and Creative Collaborations Student Fellows Symposium 

March 12, 2018, Washington D.C.

Supported by the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities and Google, Inc.
Organized by Liese Liann Zahabi and Molly Morin

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - DUE NOVEMBER 15

North American graduate students enrolled in masters and doctoral programs across all disciplines are invited to apply to participate in the Monday, March 12 Student Fellows Symposium and attend the Sackler Colloquium which follows on March 13-14, (please note that the selected students are expected to attend all three days of events). Approximately 50 graduate students will be selected to participate in a series of 15-minute and 6-minute talks and a creative exhibition/poster session that will take place during the Student Fellows Symposium.

Overview:
Scientists thinking like artists—artists thinking like scientists. When these traditionally defined roles mix together, how is the process of making work or conducting research altered? Does the play between disciplines benefit a designer’s practice, an engineer’s output, or a scientist’s data? What are the hazards and opportunities?

There is power in looking past the sometimes narrow confines of one discipline: possibilities emerge, allowing artists/designers/engineers/scientists to ask different questions and create innovations. However, this is difficult work. Navigating uncharted territory compounds the uncertainty and potential for missteps that are already a part of the creative, scientific, and engineering process. Emerging areas of research require academics and practitioners to occupy varied and hybrid roles, and to begin investigations within unmapped spaces of inquiry. How can we build stronger bridges that connect innovations in art and design to those in science and engineering?

This symposium will bring creative and scientific realms together, creating opportunities for thinkers to play within different spaces of inquiry to ask questions about the ways we embark upon this kind of research, to relay techniques and guidelines that have worked in the past, and to explore how we can better support each other in our endeavors. This one-day gathering will give attendees the chance to connect with each other, to create a network of like-minded thinkers, and to share stories of struggle and success. The understandings developed during the Student Fellows Symposium can contribute to the discussions during the March 13-14 Sackler Colloquium.

PLACES FOR EXPLORATION MIGHT INCLUDE:
big-data ... wearables ... ubiquitous computing ... navigation ... education ... medical practice ... health ... serious games ... information design ... ontologies ... cyborgs … actor network theory ... new materialism ... neuroscience ... ethnography ... artificial intelligence ... textiles ... robotics ... product design ... interface design ... biological systems ... sustainability ... tactical media ... cognition … mapping ... genetics ... bio art ... sci-art ... visualization ... molecular modeling ... quantified self ... smart homes ... surveillance ... public policy ... human-centered design ... privacy … generative art/design … cybernetics ... information visualization ... data journalism ... interaction ... immersive experiences ... integration ... social media ... citizen science

Student Fellow Symposium Agenda

Awards:
Awards will include registration for all three days for all awardees (includes some meals during the conference). West coast students will receive $800 in travel subsidy, students traveling from the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast will receive $600 in travel subsidy. Local students in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia will receive registration for all three days, but no travel support.

Submission Instructions: Applications are accepted via email to roleplaysymposium@gmail.com by November 15th at 12 midnight Eastern Time. PDF document must include your name, phone number, email address, the University where you are an enrolled graduate student, and the name and email address of your faculty adviser who supports your application.

A 150-word abstract should indicate one or more of the following types of presentations for which you would like to be considered. The selection committee will then decide which format would work best for the schedule.

1. 15-minute talks: should be accompanied by a visual presentation of some kind, and present a specific project or collaboration. 
2. 6-minute talks: should be accompanied by a visual presentation, and will be an abbreviated format for sharing work; should present a specific project or collaboration. 
3. Creative exhibition/poster session: posters should present a specific project or collaboration and be 24 inches by 36 inches; posters will be exhibited on an easel and the student will be present during the poster session to give quick talks about the work. Pieces for the creative exhibition must either be standalone artifacts, or must be able to be shown in an easel; any artworks that require technology such as a laptop or iPad should be provided by the student for the session; the student will be present during the creative exhibition session to give quick talks about the work.

Selections will be finalized by December 1, 2017 and all applicants notified by email.

* * *

2. Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity

March 13-14, 2018; Washington, D.C.
Organized by Ben Shneiderman, Maneesh Agrawala, Donna Cox, Alyssa Goodman, Youngmoo Kim, and Roger Malina

Colloquium Agenda

Registration - will open in December 2017

Artists in space?

Liquid Gravity, 2013

There's not much that is more tech-y and science-y than a space program. In a way, a spacecraft is the ultimate field station, embedding humans in an undeveloped, hostile natural environment to enable research.

Artist Charles Lindsay has explored the concept of a field station using cast off research apparatus, including space program hardware. Lindsay also started and runs the artist residency program at SETI. NASA and JPL have remarkable art programs. Artist Trevor Paglen has launched photographs into space that will likely outlive human civilization, and the artist will soon launch Orbital Reflector, the first satellite whose sole purpose is to be a work of art.

But has an artist ever actually been sent to space in that capacity? Is physical space a cultural space? The European Space Agency funded the Arts Catalyst program to explore that question from 2005-2009.

Photographer Michael Najjar has been training since 2012 to be the first civilian artist in space. His supporters have funded a seat for him on Virgin Galactic's first flight, which has continually been pushed further out into the future.

Central to outer space is Najjar’s personal experience with space flight and the performative aspect of the exhibited images. As one of the pioneer astronauts of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Najjar has been undergoing an intensive, multistage cosmonaut training in Star City, Russia, since 2012, and is scheduled to board SpaceShipTwo in the near future. The artist uses the actual experience of training (zero-g flight, centrifuge training, stratosphere flight, and underwater space walks, to name a few) to create complex and never-before carried out photos that examine vital connections between humans and technology. Reality and simulation are so intertwined that they become indistinguishable, allowing for novel ways of seeing. Video artworks based on Najjar’s extreme training will be shown as part of the exhibition.

"Scientific Delirium Madness"

This unique residency is a collaborative initiative of Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Empiricism and intuition are not mutually exclusive. The goal of the project is to explore and expand how the creativity of scientists and artists are connected.

ArtSciConverge update from the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest

Kids and Art

Here are a couple of recent articles about how art helps kids adapt to and influence their environment:

• A new study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, shows that music improves kid's brains.
• Kids in India Are Sparking Urban Planning Changes by Mapping Slums

Article from Conservation Biology, and book from Oxford Press

Here's an interesting 2007 article by Jacobson, McDuff and Monroe from the journal Conservation Biology, titled Promoting Conservation through the Arts: Outreach for Hearts and Minds:

Emotions play a central role in the decisions we make. For example, we often make poor investment choices because we are driven by our emotions rather than rational judgment (Tversky & Kahneman 1991). On the positive side, when emotional input is added to learning experiences, it makes them more memorable and exciting. The brain deems the information more important and enhances memory of the event. Presenting facts alone is less likely to result in long-term changes in feelings and behaviors (Sylwester 1994; Weiss 2000; Cable & Ernst 2003). 

The arts offer a way to make an emotional connection to people, and the visual and performing arts can help conservation practitioners reach new audiences. Art can provoke reactions that typical education and outreach methods do not. Art has the potential to inform audiences or participants in a new way about conservation topics, and it can stimulate new dialogues and actions...

---

The essay was based in part on the planning, implementation, and evaluation guidelines for using the arts in conservation, published as a meaty and thought-provoking chapter in Conservation Education and Outreach Techniques, Susan K. Jacobson, Mallory D. McDuff, and Martha C. Monroe.

NEH Collaborative Research Grants

NEH Collaborative Research Grants 

Receipt Deadline: December 6, 2017

Collaborative Research grants support groups of two or more scholars engaging in significant and sustained research in the humanities. The program seeks to encourage interdisciplinary work, both within the humanities and beyond.

Projects that include partnerships with researchers from the natural and social sciences are encouraged, but they must remain firmly rooted in the humanities and must employ humanistic methods.

www.neh.gov/grants/research/collaborative-research-grants

Art program archive guidelines

The Nevada Museum of Art - Center for Art + Environment is a cutting edge operation that is the only permanent art and environment center in the world. NMA-CA+E works closely with UC Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station to develop their artist-in-residency program.

As part of that relationship, the Center permanently archives the process of art production at the field station. In 2017, they produced guidelines for artists and archivists who wish to do the same. You are free to download and use these guidelines for your own program. Please credit the Nevada Museum of Art - Center for Art + Environment in any publications.

Art and Science Collaboration: The Key to a Sustainable Future

This AASHE.org webinar from Nov. 1, 2017 is an excellent justification for art/science collaboration. It includes presentations from Emily Bosanquet, Assistant Professor, Pacific Northwest College of Art; Elizabeth Demaray, Associate Professor of Fine Art, Head of Sculpture Concentration, Rutgers University; and Kim Landsbergen, Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science, Antioch College.

These three academics and practitioners each have dynamic art/sci collaborations, and a lot of interesting things to say about them. The presentation was packed with excellent quotes about why this cross-disciplinary collaboration makes so much sense.

Emily Bosanquet is an interdisciplinary scientist whose "current research interest is in supporting cross disciplinary dialogue between artistic practices and scientific methodologies within a pedagogical framework in order to address social and ecological concerns."

Demaray discussed several of her hilarious and awe-inspiring projects, including PandoraBird, which offers music to wild birds, then generates Pandora radio stations based on their measured listening preferences. Demaray also discussed her FloraBorg project, which robot-izes potted plants and automates moving them to places that better meet their needs, as judged by species-specific programming, internal and environmental sensors, and weather database connections.

Kim Landsbergen is an ecologist. She discussed a project where invasive plants were used to create a journal on invasive plants. The project was received with far more enthusiasm than any scientific paper she has ever passed around.

The video recording, presentation slides, and a compiled document of resources shared during the webinar are available on the Campus Sustainability Hub at: https://hub.aashe.org/browse/video/18115/Art-and-Science-Collaboration-The-Key-to-a-Sustainable-Future

(If you do not have an AASHE login yet, please create a free account here: https://customer2597942ba.portal.membersuite.com/profile/CreateAccount_BasicInfo.aspx)

If you are associated with a university you can use their AASHE membership. Just create your account with your institutional email address.

Environmental Art and Green Economy at COP23 in Bonn

Von: Environment Europe <environment.europe@gmail.com>
An: Climate Change Info Mailing List <climate-l@lists.iisd.ca>
Datum: 29. Oktober 2017 um
Betreff: Environmental Art and Green Economy at COP23 in Bonn

Dear Colleagues,

Environment Europe Ltd is very pleased to announce a Green Economy and Environmental Art focused session at the forthcoming UNFCCC COP23 meeting in Bonn to take place at 15:00 November 17th, [2017] in the Press Conference Room 2 in the Bula Zone.

Environmental art could be a new language to reach the hearts and minds of wider public on the most important issues our planet is facing. The “Magical Realism” series to be exhibited at the forthcoming United Nations UNFCCC COP23 meeting in Bonn is drawing our attention to the importance of ecosystems in everything we do. 'Magical realism' series depicts ecologically sensitive and often protected areas in Latin America. Through his work with International Union for Conservation of Nature, the artist developed a new approach to assess the value of ecosystems, highlighting social, ecological and economic dimensions. By capturing unique and meditative landscapes in most exotic locations, the artist aims to communicate the fragile beauty of nature, something money can’t buy. Ecosystems support life on this planet, regulating water cycles, generating oxygen, capturing CO2, absorbing dust, purifying water and processing organic waste. Ecosystems need to be restored and preserved for other reasons other than economic. What is required seems to be a paradigm shift in economic thinking, that could be inspired by ecological economics, a new interdisciplinary field.

The new series from Colombia, one of the world’s “megadiverse” countries, hosting close to 10% of the planet’s biodiversity according to the Convention on Biological Diversity, includes travel notes from high altitude wax palm forest 'El Bosque la Samaria', a charming coffee-producing town of Salamina, Colombian humming birds, Sumapaz Paramo National Park, the beautiful and colourful Cartagena de Indias, the ancient Spanish port city, which saw violent pirate attacks from Francis Drake, and, finally, Tayrona National Park on the Caribbean coast, where fresh jaguar footprints were found on one of the beaches. A small selection of images from this series, made using Hasselblad medium format film camera and Fuji film will be exhibited at the forthcoming United Nations COP23 meeting in Bonn.

Environmental art can be a powerful language to attract attention to the world’s most important problems: climate change, biodiversity loss, plastics pollution in our oceans, the impact our production activities have on this planet. Following in the footsteps of great environmental artists: Sebastiao Salgado, Edward Burtynsky, James Balog, David Maisel and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Dr Stanislav Shmelev trying to address the issues the world is facing not just through the language of science but the language of art. Engaging the audience’s emotional intelligence and the art historical connotations, his works are aiming to make people pause and think. The most interested viewer could of course read the volumes of theory that Dr Shmelev has edited and written. One of them is called ‘Ecological Economics: Sustainability in Practice’ (2012) and has become a bestseller with over 26000 downloads. The executive education Summer and Winter Schools in Ecological Economics which Dr Shmelev has initiated and run are focusing on inspiring change for sustainability and have already been attended by participants from 52 countries.

The forthcoming session to take place on the 17th of November 2017 will also be a cause for celebration of a new collaborative book that Dr Shmelev has edited. It is entitled 'Green Economy Reader' and is a collection of though provoking articles by the leading sustainability thinkers of our time. State of the art in sustainability thinking, inspired by interdisciplinary ideas of ecological economics, this book is focusing on sustainability pathways, new economic theory, democracy and institutions, multidimensional assessment of sustainability, macroeconomic modelling and policies, climate change and renewable energy, resource flows and circular economy, regenerative cities, environmental conflicts and values. It will be helpful for MSc and PhD students in Economics, Management, Environmental Change, Ecological Economics, Development Economics, Sustainability and practitioners in business, international and nongovernmental organizations, such as UNDP, UNEP, IUCN, OECD. Rich, diverse and thought provoking collection of top level contributions, it will help to facilitate the transition towards sustainability and educational reform.

This is what the endorsements read:

• A fabulous composition of papers by the authors who really count! -- Ernst von Weizsäcker, The Club of Rome
• The authors present a refreshing perspective on the possibilities of human progress in harmony with nature, without the need for economic growth to secure long term human welfare and wise use of nature's services. Extremely relevant. -- Peter May, Past President, International Society for Ecological Economics and Professor, UFRRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• The book goes well beyond the Green Economy, offering arguments and blueprints for a complete makeover of the current economic system. With multi- and interdisciplinary contributions ranging from moderately to fundamentally critical of current economics, it raises fundamental questions of value and power, draws on a wide range of theories, opens the eyes for the historical processes that brought about the current crises and demonstrates the value of ecological, but also classical economic thinking to their solution. If better politics require better theories, this is a must read for academics and decision makers in the time of climate crisis. -- Joachim Spangenberg, Sustainable Europe Research Institute, SERI Germany e.V.

The book could be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Economy-Reader-Ecological-Sustainability/dp/3319389173/

Press inquiries regarding the forthcoming presentation at UNFCCC COP23 meeting in Bonn should be directed to director@environmenteurope.org

Dr Stanislav Shmelev is an award winning British photographer, painter, and ecological economist. Holding PhD in Ecological Economics (2003), a LEAD Europe Fellowship (2007) and named on of top four most promising young economists in the world by the Handelsblatt Newspaper.

Stanislav combines his interest in fine art and sustainability and expresses his admiration for the natural world through oil paintings and photographs, printed on aluminium plates. Passionate about green economy, nature protection and sensitive ecosystems, Stanislav creates evocative environmental landscapes inspired by his travels in Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia, UK, France and the countries of the Mediterranean. Formerly a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, Senior Researcher at the Oxford University, and Visiting Professor at Universities of Geneva, Paris and Versailles.

Stanislav devotes all his energy to the promotion of sustainability ideas both through the language of art and of science. Stanislav has been a Member of the St Ives Arts Club, was represented by DEBUT Contemporary Gallery in Notting Hill (London), had several solo shows at Oxford University, exhibited with the STITCH ‘Art for the Earth’ auction in London alongside Vivienne Westwood and Marc Quinn, STITCH & OCEANA show at PHILLIPS (London), Swiss Cottage Gallery (London), Royal College of Art (London), O3 Gallery (Oxford), OVADA Gallery (Oxford), Studio 44AD (Bath), Prince Galitzine Library (St Petersburg), British Council (St Petersburg), FOTONOVIEMBRE de Tenerife International Photography Festival (Spain), Brighton Photo Biennial 2014 (Brighton), Brighton Photo Fringe 2014 (Brighton), Global Landscapes Forum (Lima, Peru), United Nations (Vienna, Austria) and is selling his work through SAATCHI ART. 

Stanislav is an author ‘Ecological Economics: Sustainability in Practice’ (Springer, 2012) and author and editor of 'Green Economy Reader' (Springer, 2017) and 'Sustainability Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Approach' (Palgrave, 2012). His image ‘Complex Systems. Dorset’ is published by National Geographic in an edited volume.

--

Dr Stanislav E. Shmelev
Director, Environment Europe Ltd,
Oxford, UK

Environment Europe Limited is incorporated in the United Kingdom under the Companies Act 2006 as a private company, Reg. 9328647
Tel: +44(0) 7729 733366
E-mail: director@environmenteurope.org
http://environmenteurope.org/education/7 http://twitter.com/#!/Environment_EU http://twitter.com/#!/Environment_Art http://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentEurope

New article: Shmelev and van den Bergh (2016) Optimal Diversity of Renewable Energy Alternatives under Multiple Criteria: an Application An Application to the UK': http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116001301

New book: Shmelev S.E. (2016) Green Economy Reader: Lectures in Ecological Economics and Sustianability: http://www.springer.com/kr/book/9783319389172 New book: Ecological Economics: Sustainability in Practice (Springer, 2012) http://www.springer.com/economics/book/978-94-007-1971-2

New book: Sustainability Analysis: an Interdisciplinary Approach (Palgrave, 2012) http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=539023

In a Time of Change (ITOC)

The In a Time of Change (ITOC) program is a strong and well-developed model for art/sci collaborations at field stations, marine labs and artist residencies.

ITOC is a large effort that links a cohort of artists with dozens of scientists for over a year; but the model is scalable to smaller programs, shorter time periods and modest exhibitions. ITOC provides a potential partnership opportunity with museums and galleries near your field station, and could be structured as a university semester program linking art and science grad students. Or the program could provide a Broader Impacts opportunity to NSF-funded researchers at your site.

[ITOC] was founded in 2008 by artists and scientists in Fairbanks with support from University of Alaska - Fairbanks and the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research program.

ITOC recognizes that the arts, humanities, and sciences bring different, yet synergistic perspectives and reactions to the natural world. Collaborations between the arts, humanities and sciences engage people at the intellectual, intuitive, and emotional levels, and strengthen their appreciation for the environments and ecosystems in which they live. Combining these diverse perspectives also yields greater success in solving complex environmental problems and promoting outreach and education than science alone. 

ITOC was co-founded and is directed by Mary Beth Leigh, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and Wildlife and the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Leigh is an environmental microbiologist with a background in the fine arts as a dancer, choreographer, and musician. She has a strong interest in fostering collaborative arts-humanities-science activities.

The ITOC programs connect a cohort of artists with numerous scientists over many months. The artists learn about the current project theme in the lab, the classroom and the field: on the UAF campus, the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest and the Toolik Field Station. Artists in the program then develop works inspired by the theme.

Artistic media have included painting, sculpture, tile, printmaking, textiles, artist books, writing and multimedia, The project artworks are presented through gallery exhibits, websites, public readings, and other events. ITOC works have been included in exhibits at the National Science Foundation headquarters in Arlington, VA.

Past ITOC programs were themed on Microbial Worlds (2017),  Trophic Cascades (2013), The Art of Fire (2012), Envisioning the Future (2010), In a Time of Change (2008).

Another model that can be quickly adopted by additional field stations is the Ecological Reflections program at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.

Helicon report on Socially Engaged Artistic Practice

 "A working definition of “socially engaged art” is artistic or creative practice that aims to improve conditions in a particular community or in the world at large"

Strangely, socially engaged art generally doesn't refer to art that addresses environmental issues from an ecological perspective. This kind of art can change policy and effect cultural change around the grand environmental challenges of the 21st century. Environmental issues are at the root of much social injustice.

Nevertheless, this recent report may offer useful insight into artistic practices that could complement and extend the science occurring at field stations and marine labs. More info about the report here:

"Mapping the Landscape of Socially Engaged Artistic Practice" 

Alexis Frasz & Holly Sidford
Helicon Collaborative
#artmakingchange

Alliance of Artist Communities - 2018 Emerging Program Institute, October 13-15, 2018

Field stations and marine labs with a current or proposed artist residency should seriously consider attending this AAC training, which

"...combines best practices from the arts-and-cultural sector with specific, hands-on information about artist residencies."

Held October 13-15, 2018 in Philadelphia, PA, "this training combines best practices from the arts-and-cultural sector with specific, hands-on information about artists' residencies.

Whether you are still in the early dreaming stage of creating an artist colony or working with an established institution that is developing a new residency program, the Emerging Program Institute will offer models for success, a community of peers, and access to residency leaders, funders, and connectors. #aac18epi

Topics include:

• community engagement and the relevance of place 
• building a support base and funding your program 
• equity and access in artist outreach, engagement and selection 
• business planning for artist residencies 
• "ask an expert" panels of residency leaders, artists and government funders 
• case studies, site visits - and more!

PLEASE NOTE: We cap attendance at 50 people to keep the program participatory and accessible. This Institute sells out every year, so we encourage you to register early to secure your spot! Registration opens in June."

Additionally, the training is held just before the 2018 Alliance of Artist Communities annual conference in Philadelphia, so you can plan to attend that event as well, to make connections that will benefit your program.

Such an inspiring panel this morning at the Alliance of Arts Communities conference in Denver this morning. #aac17conf #digitalsketchnotes #digital #sketchnotes #politics #values

A post shared by Heather Leavitt Martinez (@corpgraffitiart) on Oct 4, 2017 at 9:52am PDT

I replaced my Apple Pencil and am back in business! Sketchnoting Evolution of a Board from "The Art of Governance" with Carolyn Love #aac17conf . . #sketchnotes #digital #sketchnoting #applepencil #nonprofit #arts #boarddevelopment #ipadpro #lettering #adobedraw #evolution

A post shared by Heather Leavitt Martinez (@corpgraffitiart) on Oct 3, 2017 at 2:03pm PDT

Learning so much about funding for artists at the Alliance of Arts Communities conference in Denver this morning. #aac17conf #digitalsketchnotes #digital #sketchnotes #politics #values #adobedraw #applepencil #ipadpro #yellow #red #blue #white #digitalink

A post shared by Heather Leavitt Martinez (@corpgraffitiart) on Oct 4, 2017 at 10:37am PDT

While I didn’t finish the first skectchnote (there was so much to learn and it went so fast), here you can see how two of my digital sketchnotes came to be last week at the Alliance of Artist Communities conference in Denver. #aac17conf #digitalsketchnotes #sketchnotes #ipadpro #adobedraw #applepencil #instavideo #videogram #digitaldrawing #timelapse

A post shared by Heather Leavitt Martinez (@corpgraffitiart) on Oct 11, 2017 at 8:28pm PDT

Prix COAL 2017

"The COAL association is pleased to announce the names of the ten finalists of the COAL Art and Environment Prize 2017! 

The 2017 COAL Award will be awarded on 29 November 2017 by the Ministry of Culture during a ceremony organized at the Museum of Hunting and Nature [in Paris]. The event is part of a day dedicated to Art, Culture and Biodiversity organized at the Museum of Hunting and Nature by the Ministry of Culture, the Museum of Hunting and Nature, COAL, the French Center of Funds and Foundations and the French Agency for Biodiversity. 

In seven editions, the COAL Prize has become the international rendezvous for artists who are taking over the main universal issue of our time: ecology. This year again, nearly 350 artists from 66 countries representing the six continents competed as part of an international call for projects. The ten nominated artists were selected for the aesthetic qualities of their proposals, their relevance to environmental issues, their inventiveness, their ability to transmit and transform, and their social and participatory approach. Together, they demonstrate how creation, in its diversity of forms and actions, is a key force in shaping the future of our societies.

The finalist artists of the 8th edition of the COAL Prize are

• Erich Berger and Mari Keto (Austria, Finland) - INHERITANCE - The Ritual of Measurement
• Isabelle Daëron (France) - Topical - unsafe water 
• Abdessamad El Montassir (Morocco) - Resistance to Nature 
• Anne Fischer (France) - Rising from its Ashes 
• The Valley ( France) - Pietra P. 
• Martin The Chevallier (France) - Scheduled obsolescence 
• The New Ministry of Agriculture (France) - New local products. Diamond Gnetton 
• Mendel (South Africa) - Drowning World 
• Afour Rhizome (South Korea) - This wind you are talking about takes us far from ourselves 
• Anaïs Tondeur (France) - Carbon black

The global ecological crisis now affects all societies, territories and activities, whether through climate change, the scarcity of resources, various types of pollution or the erosion of biodiversity. A global crisis that intertwines with its economic and social consequences. But this crisis is also a cultural crisis. The dominant values ​​and representations, our globalized culture, determine our individual and collective behaviors, and ultimately our collective impacts on the planet. Also, the solutions to this crisis cannot only be political and technical. Culture can be a major player. This is what COAL has been promoting since it was founded in 2008. The COAL Award is aimed at all artists who, throughout the world, witness, imagine and experiment with solutions for the transformation of territories, lifestyles and organizations, and modes of production. Together, they are helping to build a new collective narrative, a new imaginary, common heritage under development, a positive, optimistic and necessary framework for everyone to find the means and the motivation to implement the necessary changes towards a more sustainable and just world."

See the winning artists and learn more here.

Thalie Lab grants

"...the foundation invites visual artists, curators, designers and chefs to submit a project on the theme of deceleration, that explores concepts for the collaborative economy (recycling, textiles, 3D creation, food…) and has a social impact."

The two laureates will receive a production grant up to 10,000 euros depending on the project, workspace and residential accommodation at ThalieLab in Brussels.

Public Lab

From Carol Lafayette...

==================

"Public Lab is a community where you can learn how to investigate environmental concerns. Using inexpensive DIY techniques, we seek to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms.

I. The Problem Communities lack access to the tools and techniques needed to participate in decisions being made about their communities, especially when facing environmental hazards.

II. The Collaboration We are an open network of community organizers, educators, technologists and researchers working to create low cost solutions for monitoring air, water and land. Discover, collaborate on, and contribute to locally important matters with the support of a global community.

III. The Solution Join us today, as we work together to build and inspire a community of DIY activists and explorers using simple tools to build a growing body of data about our local environments."

Communicating music

The idea of transcribing music is really interesting if you think about it. It is a translation of the products of one of our senses to another, like trying to translate the visual experience of, say, color into the tactile experience of touch.

But there's more than one way to interpret this task:

"It all started around 840 C.E. when a former monk named Aurelian of Réôme created one of the first examples of Western musical notation."

Read the entire article here.

Beautiful abstractions of complex physics concepts

This work is so interesting: Tufte's ideas and observations at the link are stunning!

"Edward Tufte's wall-mounted sculptures, All Possible Photons,generate an enormous multiplicity of three-dimensional opticalexperiences of line, light, airspace, color, shadow, form.Made from stainless steel and air, the artworks grow outof Richard Feynman's famous diagrams describing Nature'ssubatomic behavior. Feynman diagrams depict the space-timepatterns of particles and waves of quantum electrodynamics.These mathematically derived and empirically verifiedvisualizations represent the space-time paths taken by allsubatomic particles in the universe.The resulting conceptual and cognitive art is both beautifuland true. Along with their art, the stainless steel elementsof All Possible Photons actually represent something: the preciseactivities of Nature at her highest resolution."

The Orchestra as Ecosystem: Symphony Symbiosis

From Carol Lafayette...

==================

2017-2018 Learning in Concert

The Orchestra as Ecosystem: Symphony Symbiosis 

© 2017 Terry Wolkowicz, All rights reserved 

So divinely is the world organized that every one of us, in our place and time, is in balance with everything else. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

Balance is defined as a condition in which various elements are in proper proportion or arrangement. Within an ecosystem, balance is key in maintaining a harmonious interaction among a biological community of interacting organisms and their environment. Balance is also a vital component in music. A composer’s concern for balance can be heard through the manipulation of many musical elements including form, melody, harmony, rhythm and texture.

The 2017-2018 Learning in Concert program will explore the concept of balance in music and ecology. The children will explore various ecosystems to analyze whether it demonstrates elements of stability or imbalance. By focusing on ecological instability threatening salt marshes, rain forests and wetlands, the children will identify specific actions or ideas that could help restore ecological balance to these areas. In music, the children will explore balance in classical music—hear how composers achieve balance through the orchestration of musical parts among musical instruments. They will develop a strong understanding of the various instruments of the orchestra and hear how individual instruments, sections and families interact to achieve balance within a piece of music. Children will analyze balance cross-disciplines by determining niche (the musical part’s role in creating balance within a piece of music and the organism’s role in creating balance within an ecosystem), population (number of the same species within an ecosystem or number of same instruments playing within a piece of music), and biodiversity (how many different musical parts transpire and interact throughout a piece of music or how many different species exist within an ecosystem).

In the classrooms, the children will analyze various ecosystems that are in some state of ecological imbalance. Using a large magnetic “Ecostration” board, animal and plant life magnets and sound recordings of various orchestral instruments as their tools, they will orchestrate a section of music that demonstrates the instability found in their selected environment. The children will first determine what level of stability exists in the base with microbes and represent that stability through the selection and scoring of a bass line for their music. They will then analyze the balance of the plant life in the ecosystem and select supporting harmonic material to represent the plant life’s stability. Lastly, the students will add melodic lines to represent the population and diversity of species within the ecosystem. Through classroom discussions and research, the children will identify potential actions or interventions that might begin to restore balance to this environment. With these actions in mind, the children will adapt and change their orchestration to demonstrate the ecosystem moving from a state of imbalance towards a state of balance.

Students will have also have an opportunity to interact with the NBSO Salt Marsh Model. They will work through several scenarios to explore a salt marsh food web and how development, pollution and tidal restriction effects the balance within a New England salt marsh...

Contact Terry Wolkowicz to bring the “Learning in Concert” program to your school!
email: twolkowicz@nbsymphony.org
phone: 508-493-4288

More...

Art That Raises Awareness of Forest Ecology Issues

LaynaJoy Rivas and Eva Reiska’s “Sysimetsä”, a memorial

for those affected by the fires that destroyed Lake County, as

well as for a beloved art space by the name of

Ravens Landing back in 2015.

1. Trees (and/or forests) are iconic symbols in virtually every culture;
2. Western US forests are in crisis.

Combining or juxtaposing previously unrelated ideas is how humans create new knowledge, whether with art or science. So, how are artists combining these two ideas at Burning Man, one of the country's most controversial art events?

"Ursa Mator," by Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson: a gorgeous
sculpture covered in shimmering, edge-wise pennies takes 
on additional meaning as the Man burns in the background. 
Large wildfire destroys forest ecosystems, including 
iconic wildlife.

Black Rock City--the temporary Nevada city of 70,000 people (including an airport that is the busiest one in Nevada while it lasts!)--displayed numerous tree &/or forest issue themed artworks in 2017.

The most significant of these conceptual artworks was undoubtedly The Temple. Each year, a Temple is constructed as a locus of communal and personal release. People post photos, stories, keepsakes, mementos and messages relating to loved ones they have lost, or issues they are struggling with. The entire Temple is then burned to the ground on the last evening of the weeklong event in a solemn, silent ritual of cleansing and renewal that counters the rowdy, Saturnalian burning of the Man structure on the previous evening.

This year, the Temple architects chose to highlight western forest health problems by using lumber milled from dead salvage logs. This forest health theme is aligned nicely with the purpose and function of both the Temple, and the entire Burning Man ethos, which aims to alter attitudes of citizens in order to address systemic dysfunction in western culture.

More info about the Temple philosophy this year.

* * *

Burning Man is not the only group of artists working on forest issues, of course. Some artists are actively trying to change social policy.

Saving The West (STW) is a UC Santa Cruz-based, artist-led group working to create a new kind of timber industry that can use the small, torchy material that needs to come off of dry western forests in order to restore ecological function and resiliency. Without industry, there is no way to pay for the work that everyone, including loggers and environmentalists, now knows needs to be done. Meanwhile, our precious forests will continue to die off and/or burn. The current timber industry has retracted so far, and is still so focused on large trees--and lucrative salvage logging of the standing dead--that it is not useful at all in addressing this problem. Unfortunately, it's good business to let the forests continue to die.

STW recently received a grant from the US Forest Service to start a bi-state Wood Utilization Team working in California and Nevada in the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Saving the West: A Whole Systems Proposal in Brief from Helen and Newton Harrison on Vimeo.

First Poet in Residence at CCI

"The Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) is a unique collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading internationally-focused biodiversity conservation organisations clustered in and around Cambridge, UK.  

CCI seeks to transform the global understanding and conservation of biodiversity and the natural capital it represents and, through this, secure a sustainable future for all life on Earth. The CCI partners together combine and integrate research, education, policy and practice to create innovative solutions for society and to foster conservation learning and leadership."

Matt Howard from RSPB on sabbatical at CCI as our first Poet in Residence.

Matt works in Fundraising for the RSPB Eastern England team. He will be spending his month of sabbatical time at CCI as our first poet in residence, starting on Monday 14 August.

Part of Matt’s role with RSPB is to explore engagement with the arts and he is the lead on the RSPB / The Rialto Nature and Place poetry competition which now additionally partners with CCI and BirdLife.

Matt’s poetry has been published in leading international magazines and journals such as The Poetry Review, New Statesman and The Dark Horse. His debut pamphlet, The Organ Box, was published in 2014.

Throughout his sabbatical, Matt will be based in the Artist in Residence studio (floor 2M of the East Tower). He will break his time up into one week a month, and he will also be at CCI some Fridays over the next few months.

In addition to providing Matt with time to write and network at CCI, the residency has a number of ambitions, all with the aim to gain a deeper understanding of how creative writing can help provide public engagement opportunities and deliver conservation objectives. Matt will be working to:

• Host poetry events at CCI with leading poets
• Develop the Nature and Place competition to increase its fundraising potential
• Work with Modern Poetry in Translation magazine on an issue of international environmental poetry
• Facilitate opportunities for other early career poets to engage with CCI to produce new work for publication and performance.

Matt will also offer colleagues from CCI member organisations opportunities to engage with the residency. Opportunities include:

• One to ones with people interested in developing their own writing and reading
• Establish a workshop group for those interested in writing new poems
• Joining a mailing list to receive a fortnightly poem from the existing canon on a nature / conservation theme, with an explanatory note by him.

Matt is contactable on matt.howard@rspb.org.uk, please do get in touch if you are interested in getting involved. Information on the intranet can be found here.

The Art of Exoplanets

"...Hurt and Pyle, who render vibrant visualizations based on data from Spitzer and other missions, are hybrids of sorts, blending expertise in both science and art. From squiggles on charts and columns of numbers, they conjure red, blue and green worlds, with half-frozen oceans or bubbling lava...Visualizations based on data can also inform science, leading to genuine scientific insights...For Hurt, the real goal of scientific illustration is to excite the public, engage them in the science, and provide a snapshot of scientific knowledge."

"We kind of cover each other's blind spots a bit"

"...art is as much a historical record of our changing understanding of the universe as the textbooks we write." -- Robert Hurt, IPAC Center

Read article here.