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

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.