StrangeWeather.info

 

via Rhizome.org:

While scientists calculate the long-term prognostics for the health of the planet, artists continue to take the natural world–and its fate–as both a medium and a subject in their work. The Natural World Museum and the United Nations Environment Programme have gathered a group of 79 such examples in the volume Art in Action: Nature, Creativity, and Our Collective Future. Representative projects range from the crowd-pleasing site-specific work of Christo and Jeanne Claude to Olafur Eliasson’s immersive provocations–just in time for a recently-opened mid-career survey of his work at SFMOMA–and the book is separated into sections that track artists rendering nature as everything from a fantasy Eden to a fallen wasteland of unchecked human development. The title makes the book’s overall purpose clear. As much as it documents individual projects that engage with and manipulate ecology, the intent is a cumulative attempt to draw awareness to the ever-more fragile state of the planet.

[Link]

This entry was posted by William Hanley on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 12:45 pm.

Posted by 1stpulse at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grand Unification Theory, Agnes Denes, 2002

Background
SEPTEMBER 14 - DECEMBER 21, 2007 -- "Weather Report: Art and Climate Change" is an exhibition curated by internationally renowned critic, art historian, and writer Lucy R. Lippard. It is presented in collaboration with EcoArts.

This exhibit partners the art and scientific communities to create a visual dialogue surrounding climate change. Historically, visual arts play a central role in attracting, inspiring, educating and motivating audiences. "Weather Report: Art and Climate Change" will exhibit artwork, in the museum and our partnering venues, and in outdoor site specific locations throughout Boulder, that will activate personal and public change.

Our collaborating partner EcoArts is a new effort bringing together scientists, environmentalists, and performing and visual artists - along with producers, presenters, scholars, spiritual leaders, policy makers, educators, businesses, and people from all walks of life - to use the arts to inspire new awareness of, discussion about, and action on environmental issues, with new possibilities for envisioning a sustainable future. Its programming principles are artistic excellence, scientific accuracy, environmental effectiveness, ethical practice, and whenever possible, presenting activities that strive to follow "the middle way" of being either non-partisan or bi-partisan to reach the widest audience possible.

Participating Artists:
Kim Abeles, Lillian Ball, Subhankar Banerjee, Iain Baxter&, Bobbe Besold, Cape Farewell, Mary Ellen Carroll (Precipice Alliance), CLUI (Center for Land Use Interpretation), Brian Collier, Xavier Cortada, Gayle Crites, Agnes Denes, Steven Deo, Rebecca DiDomenico, Future Farmers (Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine), Bill Gilbert, Isabella Gonzales, Green Fabrication (via Rick Sommerfeld, University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Planning), Newton & Helen Harrison, Judit Hersko, Lynne Hull, Pierre Huyghe, Basia Irland, Patricia Johanson, Chris Jordan, Marguerite Kahrl, Janet Koenig & Greg Sholette, Eve Andree Laramee, Learning Site (Cecilia Wendt and Rikke Luther), Ellen Levy, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Patrick Marold, Natasha Mayers, Jane McMahan, Mary Miss, Joan Myers, Beverly Naidus, Chrissie Orr, Melanie Walker & George Peters, Andrea Polli, Marjetica Potrc, Aviva Rahmani, Rapid Response, Buster Simpson, Kristine Smock, Joel Sternfeld, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Ruth Wallen, Sherry Wiggins, The Yes Men, Shai Zakai

PRIMARY EXHIBITION SITE:
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
1750 13th Street, Boulder, 80302
http://bmoca.org
Tuesday-Friday, 11am to 5pm
Saturday during the Boulder County Farmers' Market (through October), 9am to 4pm
Saturday (beginning November), 11am to 5pm
Sunday, 12noon to 3pm

ADDITIONAL INDOOR GALLERY SITES:
Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Blvd.
University of Colorado, Norlin Library Galleries, 1720 Pleasant St.
University of Colorado, ATLAS (exhibit Sept. 13?Oct. 6, 10am to 2pm), 125 Regents Dr.
National Center for Atmospheric Research, (NCAR) Mesa Lab, 1850 Table Mesa Dr.

OUTDOOR SITES:
Boulder Municipal Campus (Along the Boulder Creek to Boulder Public Library)
Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Blvd.
Central Park (park directly west from the museum)
Eben G. Fine Park, 101 Arapahoe Ave.
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Mesa Lab, 1850 Table Mesa Dr.
Twenty Ninth Street (Canyon St. and Broadway)
17th and the Boulder Creek Path

Posted by 1stpulse at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 via NEWSgrist:

SILENT MIGRATION
Brandon Ballengée
The Arsenal Gallery in Central Park
5th Avenue at 64th Street, 3rd Floor

Please join us for the opening of artist Brandon Ballengée's Silent Migration exhibition at the Central Park Arsenal Gallery on Weds March 7th at 6pm. This exhibition is the fourth event of the Human/Nature series, a joint partnership of the organizations Ecoartspace, The Nature Conservancy and New York City Audubon in conjunction with the New York City Department of Parks.
 
Ballengée explores local issues threatening New York City’s bird populations. Over 300 species of birds visit New York City each year. Birds fly from as far away as Patagonia and Greenland to visit our metropolis. NYC is located along the Atlantic Migratory Bird Flyway and during the spring and fall thousands of birds pass through the city. Many species of birds migrate at night, and can be disoriented by illuminated structures—particularly when weather conditions force them to fly at lower altitudes. 

In this exhibition, Ballengée explores to local issues threatening our bird populations. Using actual historic prints by John James Audubon, Ballengée has cut and removed extinct and declining birds. In a photographic series titled Electric Stars at Dawn, the artist will demonstrate the light pollution problem that New York City buildings create for birds. The Great Atlantic Fly-way is a large collaborative artwork generated from hundreds of migratory bird photographs taken by the public throughout the Americas and placed along a painted mural of the Atlantic coastline. In addition the artist has created three tropical dioramas contrasted by video footage of exotic birds attempting to survive in the concrete jungle of New York City.
 
A panel discussion with Brandon Ballengée, Mike Feller, NYC Park's Chief Naturalist; Denise Markonish, Curator, ArtSpace, New Haven and Rebekah Creshkoff, the founder of NYC Audubon's Project SafeFlight program will take place on Tuesday, March 20th at 6pm. The panel discussion will be moderated by Ecoartspace curator, Amy Lipton. 
 
This lecture is free, reservations are not necessary. For additional information, please contact 212-381-2195 or nycevents@tnc.org

more info on Brandon Ballengée:

www.greenmuseum.org/ballengee
www.wavehill.org/arts/brandon_ballengee.html
www.scicult.com/artists/brandonballengee
www.disk-o.com/malamp
http://media.nyas.org/content/podcasts/snc/ballengee.m4b

Posted by 1stpulse at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Queens Museum of Art
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY 11368-3398
718.592.9700
www.queensmuseum.org

Lillian Ball: GO ECO

February 4 - May 27, 2007

GO ECO is an interactive installation that illuminates the different perspectives of several participants involved in a wetland preservation project. The concept is metaphorically based on the ancient Asian game of Go, (originally, one of the Four Arts of China along with music, painting, and poetry) which uses strategies to capture territory through balancing tactics. GO ECO also functions as an informational “serious game” installation of video vignettes. Digitally manipulated images with sound are projected in quadrants on the screen to lead players through to the next move. The final outcome of the game is determined by the teamwork of players making their way toward a solution that enables all sides to win or to lose together. GO ECO allows players of many ages to be empowered and to learn about the issues through an art experience that maps paths of action.

Posted by 1stpulse at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Flood 5, 2006, oil on canvas, 60 x 78 inches

Strange Weather
New Paintings
By Joy Garnett

in two parts:

Part I:
January 15 - April 30, 2007
by appointment,
call (202) 334-2436 
National Academies' Keck Center
550 Fifth Street NW, First Floor Gallery
Washington, DC

Artist's Talk : Thursday Feb 8, 2007, 6 - 8pm

PRESS RELEASE  [PDF]  

An artist's multiple with essays by Lucy R. Lippard and  Andrew C. Revkin is available upon request. 

Part II:
Opens to the Public
May 5 - July 30, 2007
OPENING RECEPTION
Sunday, May 27, 2007, 1 - 3 pm
National Academy of Sciences
2100 C Street NW, Upstairs Gallery
Washington, DC 
Open  weekdays,  9am - 5pm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAS Announces 'Strange Weather: New Paintings by Joy Garnett'

Washington - "Strange Weather," an exhibition of paintings by Joy Garnett depicting environmental and social catastrophes, will be on view by appointment from Jan.15 through April 30 at the National Academies' Keck Center, 500 Fifth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. It will then be placed on public view from May 5 through July 30 at the National Academy of Sciences' headquarters, located at 2100 C St., N.W., Washington, D.C.

Joy Garnett gathers photographs of man-made and natural disasters from the Internet and renders the images as richly textured oil paintings. In the process, she locates tensions between the visceral power of paint and the fleeting nature of images in the mass media, addressing the evolving role of art in an information-saturated society.

Curated for the National Academy of Sciences, the exhibition focuses on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In Strange Weather, Garnett takes widely distributed news images of a devastated New Orleans and recasts them as paintings in which geological, political, and sociological weather are inextricably intertwined.

Based in New York City, Joy Garnett studied painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and received her MFA from the City College of New York. Her paintings were recently exhibited in "Image War," organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art , New York City, and "Run for Your Lives!" at DiverseWorks, Houston. In 2004, she received a grant from the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation. In 2000, she received a commission from the Wellcome Trust to participate along with her father, biochemist Merrill Garnett, in "N01se," a multi-site exhibition about information and transformation at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, and the Wellcome Trust's Two10 Gallery, London. The exhibition was organized by artist Adam Lowe and historian of science Simon Schaffer.

For more than 20 years, the Office of Exhibitions and Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences has sponsored exhibitions, concerts, and other events that explore relationships among the arts and sciences.

Add to del.icio.us 

Posted by 1stpulse at 02:00 PM | Permalink

eft image: ”No Way Back?” poster. Design by César Sesio.
Right image: “Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook” book cover. Design by SMITH. 

via e-flux:

Arts & Ecology announces forthcoming conference and book launch

For more information on these events and the Arts & Ecology programme visit
http://www.rsaartsandecology.org.uk

No Way Back?
A two day international conference at the LSE, London
11 & 12 December 2006
Tickets available here
Book before 10 Nov for a discounted ticket.

Speakers include Maria Thereza Alves, Lara Almárcegui, Jeremy Deller, Andrew Freear, Tue Greenfort, Peter Head, Peter Hewitt, Patrick Holden, Professor Zou Ji, John Jordan, David Lammy MP, Heather & Ivan Morison, Ruth Padel, Marjetica Potrc, Claudio Prado, Ralph Rugoff, Tomás Saraceno, Professor John Schellnhuber, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Matthew Taylor, Klaus Weber, Dr Ken Yeang

No Way Back? is a two day international enquiry organised by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, London, in partnership with Arts Council England and the London School of Economics and Political Science. As part of the Arts & Ecology programme, the conference aims to provide different perspectives on ecological issues from major thinkers of our time. Bringing together artists, geographers, ecologists, economists, sociologists, architects, philosophers, anthropologists and others, it will focus on real places and issues. The exploration will include keynote presentations, workshops, panel discussions, walks, readings, screenings, artists’ interventions and will encourage dialogue with and among the delegates.

LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook
Edited by Max Andrews

Published by the RSA in partnership with Arts Council England.
Designed by SMITH. Distributed worldwide by Cornerhouse Publications and available from http://www.cornerhouse.org/publications
ISBN 0 901469 57 2 / 280pp / Full colour throughout

Publication date: 12 December 2006

Contributions by Lara Almárcegui, Francis Alÿs, Amy Balkin, James Boyle, Fernando Bryce, Susan Canney, Chu Yun, Donna Conlon, Jimmie Durham & Maria Thereza Alves, Feng Yuan, Futurefarmers & Free Soil, Tue Greenfort, Henrik Håkansson, Thomas Hirschhorn, Katie Holten, Marine Hugonnier, Alfredo Jaar, Jiang Jun, Brian Jungen, Jeffrey Kastner, Winona LaDuke, Learning Group, Lucy R. Lippard, Wangari Maathai, Jonathan Meuser, Jason Middlebrook, Aleksandra Mir, Nils Norman, David Naguib Pellow & Lisa Sun-Hee Park, PLATFORM, Richard Prince, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Tomás Saraceno, Paul Schmelzer, Peter Schmelzer, Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus, Cameron Sinclair, Stephanie Smith, Simon Starling, Bruce Sterling, Kirstine Roepstorff, Rirkrit Tiravanija, David Toop, Vitamin Creative Space, Insa Winkler, the Worldwatch Institute and Zheng Guogu.

The RSA and Arts Council England are pleased to announce the publication of LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook. Edited by writer and curator Max Andrews, the book presents a compendium of essays, dialogues and commissioned projects by artists, ecologists, cultural theorists, activists and curators exploring art’s varied modes of response to notions of territory, cultural production and the emergencies of the 21st century. Original contributions from international practitioners as well as reproductions of existing artworks will accompany artists’ on-the-page ‘studio visits’.

In part a genealogy of ‘land’ and what has been understood by ‘the environment’ since the 1960s—with the activities of ‘Land artists’ and the emergence of a popular ‘eco’-consciousness—LAND, ART… proposes and tests if and how our conceptions of art and artists are relevant to a global debate about the future of the planet, and where, how and why art might operate—at the grass roots, at a tangent, as propaganda, activism or as resistance, for example.

About RSA Arts & Ecology
Arts & Ecology was launched by the RSA and Arts Council England in April 2005 to support the work the work of the arts in examining and addressing social and environmental concerns in an interdisciplinary and international arena.

Arts & Ecology consists of a series of initiatives including conferences, networking, ongoing discourse, international research trips, education pilots, artists’ projects and commissions, a website and a publication. Information can be found at http://www.rsaartsandecology.org.uk

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TAVARES STRACHAN
The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project), 2004-06
Preview Date: Dec. 5th, 5–8pm
Dec. 6–10, 2006
(11am–8pm, except Sun, 11am–4pm)
2010 North Miami Ave (between 20th / 21st St)

http://www.distancebetween.org
http://www.pierogi2000.com
http://www.feldmangallery.com
 

via art-agenda:

Pierogi Gallery and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts are pleased to present the exhibition of Tavares Strachan's The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project) in the Wynnwood section of Miami, FL, opening December 5th, 2006 (5-8pm).

In March 2005 Strachan traveled to the Alaskan Arctic in search of a frozen river. Within several days he located one under the Arctic Circle. With the help of a skilled team, he cut into the frozen water to extract a 4.5 ton portion. This block of ice was shipped to Nassau, Bahamas for exhibition in July 2006, an extremely hot summer month in the Bahamas. While on exhibition, the ice sits in a glass freezer, which derives its power from a solar energy system. In effect, the power of the sun keeps this remnant of the Arctic intact, stable, and on view. After the exhibition in Miami the work will travel for further exhibitions.

Strachan's work in general, and the Arctic Ice Project in particular, touches on many different issues: environmental, geographical, social, cultural, and historical. Perhaps the most obvious reference is environmental, relating to global warming and the recent recognition (or denial) of current and potential climactic changes—the reality and the politics of global warming. Geographically and culturally, the work references multiple levels of displacement that draw on human experience. Socially, Strachan has been working to involve communities of school children in the Bahamas through lectures, the tradition of oral story telling, and performances. The act of retracing this expedition is a way of imbedding this arctic experience into the imagination of the community. Using phenomena as a vehicle, this project involves systems of myth, and the products of these experiences are the basis for Strachan’s new works that will be incorporated into later exhibitions.

Continue reading "Tavares Strachan's Arctic Ice Project" »

Posted by 1stpulse at 09:11 AM | Permalink

An 1870 postcard view of the Rhone glacier in Gletsch, Switzerland, contrasted dramatically with the shrinking 21st-century version of it.

via NYTimes:

Frozen in Memories, but Melting Before Their Eyes

By JOHN TAGLIABUE
Published: October 24, 2006

GLETSCH, Switzerland — To hear the locals tell it, you would think they were referring to a loved family member declining in old age.

The New York Times

Experts say the Rhone glacier may melt completely in this century.

"It hurts, it hurts," Philipp Carlen said of his feeling toward the vast Rhone glacier, which once came to the edge of his hotel, but now has receded several hundred yards. The glacier, whose soft contours and dirty gray surface make it resemble some huge sea creature, a whale perhaps, is rapidly shrinking, in the mild autumn weather, by 12 to 15 feet a day.

Eight thousand years ago, Mr. Carlen said, the glacier was the largest in Europe, with arms that reached all the way to Lyon, in France. Indeed, it remains the source of the Rhone River, which flows westward into France and from there into the Mediterranean. Now, however, it is only the fifth largest glacier in Switzerland, and experts foresee the day, probably in this century, when the glacier, all six miles of it, will melt away to nothing.

The shrinkage has consequences for the little village that owes its name — Gletsch means glacier in Swiss German — and its very existence to the icy behemoth.

Continue reading "Melting Before Their Eyes" »

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Alexis Rockman
Carol Selter
Christy Rupp
Free Soil
Free Fruit/Fruta Gratis
JohnKo Systems Unlimited/Old World Productions
Laura Parker
Matthew Moore
Rachel Major
Shada/Jahn
Susan Leibovitz Steinman
Temescal Amity Works
Wowhaus

 

Hybrid Fields is a group exhibition of contemporary artists creating socially engaged art that explores philosophies for growing food, distributing food, and consuming food. Their art inhabits a hybrid space where art and life, art and agriculture, converge. Sonoma County is a unique agricultural community supporting small farmers who have raised livestock and a multitude of crops through the years, including apples, hops, prunes, and increasingly, grapes. As new technologies expand our capacity for producing more food, faster, through mechanization, hybridization, and genetic engineering, questions are being raised as to the environmental and social impact of such practices.

For more information CLICK HERE

Contemporary Project Space

In conjunction with Hybrid Fields, artists Marisa Jahn and Steve Shada of Shada/Jahn present Swan Song, a lyrical contemporary art installation with a live fruit tree and constructed xylophone that renders the sound of falling fruit as a metaphor for the disquieting loss of un-harvested foods.

The Mezzanine: Selections From the Permanent Collection

Fields of Change
Agricultural Highlights from the Permanent Collection

Fields of Change will highlight the objects, stories, and images of Sonoma County’s agricultural past from the Museum’s collection, and provide an opportunity to consider important transitions.

CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE: THE LAND
Selections from the Tom Golden Collection
April 22 - December 2006

Sonoma County Museum is home to one of the largest collections in the nation of works by environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The Land features the preparatory drawings for their large-scale, temporary works envisioned to interact with the land and its inhabitants. Projects include Running Fence, Umbrellas, Surrounded Islands, Valley Curtain, and The Gates.

Posted by 1stpulse at 06:34 PM | Permalink

Image: Michael Kupperman

via NYTimes:
Op-Ed Contributor
Cold, Hard Facts
By PETER DORAN
Published: July 27, 2006

Chicago
IN the debate on global warming, the data on the climate of Antarctica has been distorted, at different times, by both sides. As a polar researcher caught in the middle, I’d like to set the record straight.

In January 2002, a research paper about Antarctic temperatures, of which I was the lead author, appeared in the journal Nature. At the time, the Antarctic Peninsula was warming, and many people assumed that meant the climate on the entire continent was heating up, as the Arctic was. But the Antarctic Peninsula represents only about 15 percent of the continent’s land mass, so it could not tell the whole story of Antarctic climate. Our paper made the continental picture more clear.

My research colleagues and I found that from 1996 to 2000, one small, ice-free area of the Antarctic mainland had actually cooled. Our report also analyzed temperatures for the mainland in such a way as to remove the influence of the peninsula warming and found that, from 1966 to 2000, more of the continent had cooled than had warmed. Our summary statement pointed out how the cooling trend posed challenges to models of Antarctic climate and ecosystem change.

Newspaper and television reports focused on this part of the paper. And many news and opinion writers linked our study with another bit of polar research published that month, in Science, showing that part of Antarctica’s ice sheet had been thickening — and erroneously concluded that the earth was not warming at all. “Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming,” said a headline on an editorial in The San Diego Union-Tribune. One conservative commentator wrote, “It’s ironic that two studies suggesting that a new Ice Age may be under way may end the global warming debate.”

In a rebuttal in The Providence Journal, in Rhode Island, the lead author of the Science paper and I explained that our studies offered no evidence that the earth was cooling. But the misinterpretation had already become legend, and in the four and half years since, it has only grown.

Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.

Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?

Also missing from the skeptics’ arguments is the debate over our conclusions. Another group of researchers who took a different approach found no clear cooling trend in Antarctica. We still stand by our results for the period we analyzed, but unbiased reporting would acknowledge differences of scientific opinion.

The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend.

In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.

Peter Doran is an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Posted by 1stpulse at 06:24 AM | Permalink

C5 Landscape Database API 2.0
An Open Source GIS API for Digital Elevation Model processing and performance
http://www.c5corp.com/research/demtool/index.shtml

C5, in association with Futuresonic 2006, is proud to release the C5
Landscape Database 2.0 API to the public, in celebration of ten years of
Futuresonic!
http://www.futuresonic.com/

*New Release*
C5 Landscape Database API 2.0

New Features in version 2.0:

   * Virtual Hikers
   * Support for GPS data such as track logs and waypoints
   * Ability to image GPS data onto dem data
   * Java3d support
   * Ability to read land use data (CTG files)
   * New analytic capabilities for landscape searching

 Version 1.0.3 features:

   * DEM input packages
   * RDBMS packages for DEM data
   * Support for processing DEM data dynamically
   * Analytic table support for landscape searching
   * Simple GUI (demtool) for viewing DEMs
   * Support for data export and management

(c) C5 corporation 2002-2006, under the GNU Lesser Public License (pre-2.0
libraries) and C5/UCSD AESTHETIC USE LICENCE (2.0 libraries: see source
code for details)

+

Posted by 1stpulse at 01:59 PM | Permalink

Check out Andrea Polli's weblog (recently added to the blogroll).

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via YASMIN:

Dear friends and fellow breathers,
We'd like to invite you to contribute to our breath collection at 'Talking About the Weather' Blog. Is is very easy, just describe your breath in one word or many... More info about the project is below. Or you could visit the Blog and see for yourself...

If you'd like to contribute to our breath collection email us (maria@out-of-sync.com) for the login details.

Thanx
maria + norie
http://www.out-of-sync.com

About the Project:
"The air you just exhaled has already spread far and wide. The CO2 from a breath last week may now be feeding a plant on a distant continent, or plankton in a frozen sea. In a matter of months all of the CO2 you just exhaled will have dispersed around the planet."   -- Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers

Talking About the Weather is an ongoing cross media project exploring our own response to the terrifying spectre of global climate change. Sheer terror at the possibilities that are being talked about led us to 'talking about the weather'. The weather, once a safe way for strangers to connect, is now fraught with an edge of danger as ominous signs of global warming multiply. In this project weathertalk is no longer a banal exchange of local weather forecasts, but instead we ask people to donate their breath - the breath which they would normally use to talk about the weather and the same breath that is spread far and wide as described by Tim Flannery.

Working with breath emphasises the dynamic nature of the atmosphere and our part in its creation and destruction. As Tim Flannery says, every breath you take makes you part of a dynamic system called the atmosphere, or the aerial ocean.

Talking about the Weather involves performative encounters, where we perform two Australian visitors to a foreign place asking for donations to our breath collection (to be the largest in the world) with which we will blow back global warming. These performative encounters continue our work with the "pataphysical mode of an imaginary solution for an actual problem" in this case, global warming.

We have been "documenting" the encounters on video and there is a link to excerpts on the blog.

During our (July 3-17) new media residency in New Zealand (SCANZ), we will be collecting more breath on the streets of New Plymouth. We will be exhibiting the breath collections, including your contributions, at Govett-Brewster Gallery in New Zealand in mid July, so please contribute soon.

http://www.scanz.net.nz/weathertalk/

Out-of-Sync is a collaboration between Australian media artists Maria Miranda and Norie Neumark. For more info see our website:http://www.out-of-sync.com

Posted by 1stpulse at 09:43 AM | Permalink

 
Wandee Sae-hong pays homage June 16, 2006, at a spirit house in front of her home in Baan Nam Kem to victims of the 2004 tsunami that hit her village in southern Thailand. Wandee objected to the making of a BBC/HBO miniseries about the tsunami in her village, which lost about half its 5,000 residents in the disaster. The two-part miniseries is slated to air later this year on BBC2 and HBO. (AP Photo /Sakchai Lalit)

Tsunami miniseries sets off debate (AP)
By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 29, 4:50 PM ET

KHAO LAK, Thailand - Initially, Boonlue Mongkhol objected to his village being used for a TV miniseries about the 2004 tsunami. He lost his loved ones in the disaster and didn't want to relive the tragedy.

But when the British Broadcasting Corp. advertised for extras, the 38-year-old businessman put aside his personal feelings and spent five days portraying a corpse and a body collector — earning $13 a day.

"My father, niece and nephew died there," said Boonlue, who also lost his house, seafood restaurant and mini market when the massive waves hit Khao Lak on Dec. 26, 2004. "I didn't want to do it but there is no other way to earn money."

The filming of "Aftermath" — a two-part miniseries produced by the BBC and HBO, shot along Thailand's tsunami-battered coast — has set off a debate over the merits of bringing the tragedy to the screen so soon after the disaster.

Supporters say it's an important story, touching on universal themes of hope and loss, while many survivors say reviving the tsunami has hit them with more heartache.

Similar debates among survivors have played out in the United States with "United 93," the first big-screen treatment of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and in Australia when there was talk of making a movie about the 2002 Bali bombings, the victims of which were mainly Australians.

"You are exacerbating the healing process," said Anie Kalayjian, whose non-governmental Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention has provided counseling to survivors of the tsunami and last year's Pakistan earthquake.

"On some level, they need to distance themselves from the devastating impact of the event to heal," she said. "Post-trauma means the trauma has to end and you need a certain distance before you can process your feelings and make meaning and sense out of the unimaginable."

Billed as a compelling story of survival and courage, the two-part series to be shown on HBO and BBC Two later this year follows eight characters in the aftermath of the tsunami including a young couple searching for their child, an Englishwoman whose husband and son are missing, and a Thai man who lost his family and village.

 

Continue reading "Tsunami miniseries" »

Posted by 1stpulse at 08:21 AM | Permalink

Point your browsers towards YASMIN where there is a new e-discussion about the "Perception of Climate Change in Contemporary Art". Below you will find the list of the 15 invited respondents. The duiscussion is intended to further our understanding of the nature and quality of our perception of Climate Change...

 via YASMIN:

YASMIN is a network of artists, scientists, engineers, theoreticians and institutions promoting communication and collaboration in art, science and technology around the Mediterranean Rim.

YASMIN welcomes information on events, artists' works, organizations' programmes, projects, initiatives as well as discussions and critical analysis in the field of art, science and technology around the Mediterranean Rim.

YASMIN aims to identify the players and to facilitate cooperation within the Mediterranean Rim.

The list is currently moderated by the following team : Pau Alsina, Neora Berger, Dimitris Charitos, Nina Czegledy, Ahmed Hassounna and Julien Knebusch. They form the "Yasmin Group" together with Roger Malina, Jaco Du Toit, Annick Bureaud and Andreas Giannakoulopoulos.

Regional correspondents of YASMIN are Samirah Al-Khassim in Jordan, Ricardo Mbarak in Lebanon, Oguzhan Ozcan in Turkey, Erika Katalina Pasztor in Hungary and Rui Trindade in Portugal. You may find contact information for both moderators and correspondents in Contact page.

The Yasmin mailing list was made possible thanks to ISOC (Internet Society), The Rockefeller Foundation, Leonardo/Olats, The University of Athens, Artnodes- UOC Barcelona and all the coordinators from the "Yasmin Group". It is co-sponsored by the DigiArts Programme of UNESCO. 

Continue reading "Perception of Climate Change: online discussion @ YASMIN" »

Posted by 1stpulse at 07:42 AM | Permalink

via Arts & Ecology (new to the Blogroll) - http://www.artsandecology.org:

Arts & Ecology is a programme supporting the work of the arts in examining and addressing environmental concerns in an international arena.

Arts & Ecology explores the current practice of artists, writers, architects and film-makers through a series of conferences, publications and projects that looks at local and global projects that attempt to communicate, challenge and sometimes propose solutions to pollution, waste and loss of natural habitats. The issues at stake – from the broad one of climate change to thespecific problems of desertification, waste and dwindling biodiversities- are being examined through artists’ practices, and through interdisciplinary dialogue with scientists, industrialists, government and environmental groups.

A key notion informing the entire project is that of ecology as a study of an individual’s relationship with their cultural, social and economic, as well as natural, environment. As such this is a broad reaching programme and aims to locate the arts as a central player in providing creative, and sometimes radical, insights and solutions to the challenges facing contemporary society. The information hub of this website provides a growing bibliography and directory of the inspirational work of many artists, writers and agencies that is currently taking place across arts forms.

Posted by 1stpulse at 07:46 AM | Permalink

via NYTimes:
Next Victim of Warming: The Beaches
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: June 20, 2006

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. — When scientists consider the possible effects of global warming, there is a lot they don't know. But they can say one thing for sure: sea levels will rise.

This rising water will be felt along the artificially maintained beaches of New Jersey, in the vanishing marshes of Louisiana, even on the ocean bluffs of California. According to a 2000 report by the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, at least a quarter of the houses within 500 feet of the United States coast may be lost to rising seas by 2060. There were 350,000 of these houses when the report was written, but today there are far more.

"If it is as bad as people are saying, at some point it will be a crisis," said Thomas Tomasello of Tallahassee, Fla., a lawyer who represents many owners of coastal property. But he does not dwell on it. "I cannot deal with sea level rise," he said. "That's such a huge issue."

Though most of the country's ocean beaches are eroding, few coastal jurisdictions consider sea level rise in their coastal planning, and still fewer incorporate the fact that the rise is accelerating. Instead, they are sticking with policies that geologists say may help them in the short term but will be untenable or even destructive in the future.

Florida is a good example. To prepare for hurricane season, which began June 1 and has already brought Tropical Storm Alberto, Floridians were still repairing storm damage from 2005 and even 2004, building or repairing walls to shield beachfront buildings.

Until May 1, when turtle nesting season forced them to stop, they were also pumping hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand onto eroded beaches. Florida has relied on this approach for decades, but after the past few storm seasons, there has been an increase in applications for sea wall permits, many from Mr. Tomasello's clients. "If you have a house or a condo that's threatened, it's really the only alternative," he said.

Maintaining eroding beaches with artificial infusions of sand is difficult and costly, and as sea levels rise, it may become economically impractical or even impossible. "The combination of sea walls and rising sea level will accelerate the rate of land loss in front of those sea walls," said Peter Howd, an oceanographer who conducts shoreline research for the United States Geological Survey in St. Petersburg. "So people with a sea wall and a beach in front of it will end up with just a sea wall."

Many people "want to disagree" that global warming is a threat to the coast, said Daniel Trescott, a planner on the staff of the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council, one of 11 such boards in the state. "But the first place you see these impacts is on the beach."

The council is participating in a federal program to map areas that are vulnerable to rising sea levels, identify crucial infrastructure there and assess how much will probably end up protected by armor. Mr. Trescott said he hoped that the effort would put sea levels "on the radar, to start addressing how we are going to respond to this rise."

Elsewhere, scientists are studying data from ancient sediment formations to predict how the barrier islands that form most of the East and Gulf Coasts will respond to rising seas. "As scientists, and especially as federal agency scientists, it's our responsibility to think long term," said S. Jeffress Williams, a coastal geologist at the United States Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Mass., who is organizing a session on sea level rise at a meeting of coastal scientists next year. "What are the cumulative impacts we can expect over the next 50 to 100 years?"

Dr. Williams pointed to a plan by the Army Corps of Engineers for beach maintenance on the South Shore of Long Island, from Fire Island to Montauk Point. The project relies on historical rates of sea level rise, measured by an array of instruments in many locations, rather than on predictions of future acceleration, said Cliff Jones, a project manager for the corps. That is typical of