The Arts Catalyst

Biorama 2: troglodites to thrombolites

Peak Cavern, setting for Biorama 2

Having thoroughly decompressed from Eye of the Storm * in my own way, I proceeded to Huddersfield, and thence by swinging careering coach drive across the Pennines to Castleton for the marvelous Biorama 2, a media art event in a cavern, organised by the University of Huddersfield (Derek Hales) and artist Andy Gracie.

* podcasts and documentation of the whole Eye of the Storm event on the way!

Biorama 2 took place in the vast Peak Cavern, the entrance to a 30 km cave system. The event explored the biology of the underground through the notion of ‘umwelt’ through a series of talks, discussions, workshops and expeditions into the cave system. I couldn’t make the workshops which took place in Huddersfield on the Wednesday and Friday, but I joined the group for the outing to Peak Cavern and a terrific day of presentations, performance and cave exploration.

The meeting took place inside the cave,  an AV system set up in this most unlikely setting. The speakers were artists Oron Catts, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Antony Hall and Andy Gracie, curator Ulla Taipale, and microbiologist Paul Humphreys who started the day with a fascinating talk on extremophile bacteria.

Artist Andy Gracie gave the rundown on some historical (and barking mad) theories about the structure of the Earth, as well as Admiral Byrd's speculated 1947 discovery of the entrance at the north poles into the hollow earth. He also explained Jakob von Uexkull's theory of 'umwelt', an organism's perception of its environment, and its influence on the development of biosemiotics by Thomas Sebeok.

Agnes Meyer Brandis introduced some of her recent work. Agnes inhabits a world of enchantment, weaving tales of magic and myth from her journeys and explorations. In her Moon Goose Experiment (2008), Agnes traveled to Siberia for a total solar eclipse to recreate Francis Goodwin’s story of a man who flies to the moon attached to a flock of moon geese. She also spoke about her glacier studies in Argentina and recent meteorite watching event in Russia.

 

Agnes Meyer Brandis, Moon Goose Experiment, 2008

After a short trip from the chilly cave down into the village for coffee and cake and to warm our bones, Oron Catts gave a talk about SymbioticA’s latest project ‘Adaptation’, a developing programme of artist residencies and events opening up discussion around the competing interests surrounding Lake Clifton, home to the largest lake-bound thrombolite reef in the southern hemisphere. Thrombolites, or ‘living rocks’, are built by micro-organisms.

The day finished with a great sound installation by Joe Gilmore in a deep cavern, echoing frequencies bouncing off the cave walls. Left to our own devices by the people who usually police the cavern most contientiously to ensure the safety of visitors, we scrambled up the cavern sides and down tunnels, in unsuitable shoes, trying to avoid the sheer drops.

Nicola Triscott, Director

Audience blog from Eye of the Storm

Nice blogging on our Eye of the Storm conference last weekend at

http://whileyouweresleeping.tumblr.com/

If you were there let us know your thoughts about the talks and debate or send in a link to your own blog.

thanks 

Jo, Head of Marketing & PR

Eye of the Storm Live Blog

Science diplomacy 2: from the High Arctic to central Africa

Day 2 at the Royal Society’s meeting on science democracy.

Finally, the issue of interdisciplinarity was raised by Stephen Hillier from Edinburgh University who sees multidisciplinarity projects as a priority, reflecting the current popularity of cross-department initiatives in HEIs. Director of the British Council, Martin Davidson, didn’t address interdisciplinarity explicitly, but one assumes that links exist across the BC’s arts and science activities. A question from the floor prompted a confession by Mohamed Hassan from the Academy of Sciences that it was extremely difficult to get scientists and social scientists to work together. How much more difficult then to achieve international collaboration between scientists and cultural professionals. No mention of this, of course, but I accept we’re a pretty lonely voice here, although some people in emerging technology sectors, such as nanotech and synthetic biology, are beginning to recognise the potential of incorporating thinking about design, imagination, culture and public engagement with philosophy, ethics and social dynamics as new areas of research and development emerge.

In the afternoon we had two cracking sessions covering specific examples of science diplomacy. ‘Environmental security: Poles apart?’ had a strong line up, including Howard Alper from the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, Canada, and Diana Wallis MEP, who concluded her presentation by observing that our transnational structures of governance and democracy are simply not up to the challenge of climate change in the Arctic. A little liveliness flared in the slightly pissy exchange between one of the Canadian delegation and Wallis, as he pressed her for a ‘definition’ of the Arctic (Canada is really not happy about the EU wanting a seat at the Arctic table). Fascinating and thorough, the session nuclear diplomacy included presentations by two impressive women deeply immersed in arms control and nonproliferation, diplomat Anne Harrington and scientist Arian Pregenzer. Ambassador Tibor Toth gave a riveting talk on the international network of stations set up around the globe to monitor for nuclear detonations, and gave an insight into the unfolding story of detecting the North Korean blast last week.

The day ended with a presentation from Rwanda’s Science Minister, Romain Murenzi, explaining Rwanda’s science policy in biodiversity, energy, climate change and telecoms. He mentioned One Laptop One Child, an idea pioneered by Nicolas Negroponte, as a central policy of his government. Such a window onto the world for the children of Rwanda could help to accelerate the cultural transformation that Rwanda is so desperately trying to affect in a region with a turbulent history of vicious colonialism and bitter civil war. This is a region where the free exchange of knowledge and ideas would surely make a huge contribution to an open, tolerant society, and where finding solutions to social, economic, political and environmental problems through international interdisciplinary collaborations may make a major contribution to achieving peace in the region.

Nicola Triscott, Director

Image: http://www.techdigest.tv/2007/11/rwandan_one_lap.html

 

 

Science diplomacy 1: international cooperation to neo-functionalism

Photo by Carlesmari

This week I’ve been at the Royal Society’s international meeting ‘’ (see my live twitter from the meet).

What is science diplomacy? (Someone asked me on Facebook) Most people here seem to have been discussing it as international collaborations to solve global problems and do joint research, but some have asked during the day whether this habit of cooperation can contribute to better relations between governments.

On Monday (I’ll blog this in two parts), we had perspectives from Europe, Brazil, India, Japan, China and the Islamic world. Some nice stories emerged. Raghunath Mashelkar reminisced about a collaborative agreement signed between India and Pakistan HEI scientists at a time of heightened tensions. Luis Davidovich from the Brazilian Academy of Science told the tale of how the Brazilian Physical Society and the Argentinian Physics Society scuppered any real hope of a nuclear arms race between the two countries by signing a declaration of scientific openness. Less convincingly, James Smith, the Chair of Shell UK, played the big-corporation-contributes-to-solutions-to-climate-change card, but at least didn't pretend Shell is investing in renewables. I felt Smith got off extremely lightly, deflecting most questions by saying Shell has to answer to its shareholders, the government should "cause them to compete", and we should all be looking at carbon absorption. 

In an absorbing session on new partnerships with Islamic countries, Naser Faruqui from the Canadian International Development Research Centre asked whether, in cases when arguments incorporating religious perspectives can carry the day, why not use them when discussing issues of science with imams? He cited the value of incorporate Islam perspectives in discussions about water management and breastfeeding. Razley Mohd Nordon, from the OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference), introduced the term 'neo-functionalism', by which he means the impact of cooperation in 'low politics' (economic, social and cultural) on 'high politics', i.e. relations between governments, and ultimately to a more peaceful world.

Nicola Triscott, Director

From biohacking to biotech porn

Image: Andy Gracie, Small Work for Robot and Insects, 2002-3

Last week, I was at the Waag Society in Amsterdam for its EcoArt lecture event, with Andy Gracie, Brandon Ballengee and Boo Chapple. The lectures were held in a historic anatomy theatre, where autopsies used to take place in front of a public audience, in the extraordinary building the Waag Society occupies, a former weighing station in the heart of Amsterdam.

The delightful Boo Chapple modeled her wearable carbon-offsetting outfit and discussed other personal waste recycling schemes for the environmentally anxious. Andy Gracie explained some of the ideas behind his fascinating ecology-robot systems, including biohacking (which perhaps more aptly describes parasitic activity than the current biopunk usage), artificial ecologies and biosemiotics. He described how his installations - digital artworks that invite technological sytems to dialogue with natural living systems or phenomena - provoke interlinked emergent behaviours in both robots and organisms. Brandon Ballengee, whose book and exhibition of his recent work in the UK will be launched at the Royal Institution in the spring, discussed theories on declining and deformed amphibians, his work as an artist studying these and the alternative theory that he and his scientific collaborator have come up with (a joint scientific paper is being published).

The EcoArts event was organised as part of a residency at Waag by the astonishingly inventive Adam Zaretsky, an artist who can stretch the boundaries of taste in a profession characterized by transgressors (rendering a recent media arts panel almost speechless by starting his presentation with a biotech porn video), whose ability to produce a staggering and apparently endless flow of ideas is second to none. Adam will be speaking at our Eye of the Storm conference at Tate Britain this month. Perhaps we should be hoping there won’t be a repeat of the occasion in our first Eye of the Storm conference 11 years ago, when artist Del LaGrace Volcano scandalised the august Royal Institution by showing a hard porn film.

Nicola Triscott, Director

Eye of the Storm latest

 

Jo from the Arts Catalyst considers the human as storm clouds gather

Hi - I’ve just joined the Arts Catalyst to help bring the team’s work encouraging ‘conversations’ about art, science and society to a broader audience.  And it’s certainly an exciting time to start. The schedule for the Eye of the Storm conference, this time at Tate Britain, just three weeks away (19 & 20 June) is now up here. I’ve been reading up on the last Eye of the Storm, eleven years ago, which was a ground-breaking event sparking lots of interest in the media.

We’ve an international line up of artists and speakers whose work responds to the controversies of today’s scientific world – the Harrisons and their climate change work; Eduardo Kac describing his latest transgenic hybrid, the Edunia which expresses Kac’s DNA taken from his blood in the flower’s red veins, currently on show at the Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis.  Michael Bravo promises to reveal previously undisclosed work on indigenous populations, while Sylvia Nagl will be introducing radical re-definition of the genetic paradigm and exploring the much larger set of design instructions responding to environmental, developmental, nutritional, social and other signals.   There will also be something for those with a passion for space, with Roger Malina whose keynote will focus on Dark Energy and the Ethics of Curiosity.

A few places are still available and can be booked here.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Jo Fells
Head of Marketing and PR

Hacking The Earth

 

Curator Rob La Frenais reading the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in a Manchester street.

To Futuresonic launch in Manchester for a lively selection of new work at the Cube Gallery, including Heather Ackroyd and Daniel Harvey's project growing acorns from Joseph Beuys' 7000 original oaks planted at Documenta 1982, a few years before his death, Andrea Polli's Cloud Car, Hehe's The Wheel, Usman Haque's Natural Fuse and many others. Futuresonic this year also incorporated The Social Technologies summit. Following an excellent live concert by Mark Pilkington and scientist Tim O'Brien direct from Jodrell Bank, the evening keynote 'Hacking The Earth' by Jamais Cascio, advocating geo-engineering to manipulate the process of global warming was noisily disrupted by a climate change denier who had clearly been enthusiastically enjoying Futuresonic's generous hospitality.

It is unlikely that she joined artist Amy Balkin the following morning in a durational four-day reading  of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change This is one of the most important reports ever written, yet it is also one of the least known. While the IPCC’s reports are critical and revealing documents of the intersection of current geopolitics and science about climate change, their length, running to thousands of pages, makes them unlikely to be read by most people. Fuelled by Feral Trade coffee brewed by artist Kate Rich,  Mike Stubbs, Director of FACT and myself took our turn, among many others, at reading the rather indigestible sections of the report, in the tradition of town criers, to the traffic in Manchester's Portland Street.

The full list for the Arts Catalyst's historic Eye of the Storm conference at Tate Britain, London, UK on June 19-20 has today been been announced. The artists, scientists and thinkers taking part are, in alphabetical order: Trish Adams, Michael Bravo, Oron Catts, Martin John Callanan, Norman Cherry, Revital Cohen, Harry Collins, Ania Dabrowska, Rod Dickinson, Paul Dorfman, Helen Evans, Richard Hamblyn, Helen and Newton Mayer Harrison, Stephen Healy, Sheila Jasanoff, Alana Jelinik, Eduardo Kac, Roger Malina, Sylvia Nagl, Kira O’Reilly, Bronwyn Parry, Steven Rose, Janet Smith, Meredith Tromble, Tommaso Venturini, Adam Zaretsky. Chaired by Sian Ede, Roger Malina, Michael Bravo Bernadette Buckley, Oron Catts, Nicola Triscott and Rob La Frenais.

The last Eye of the Storm caused a sensation at London's Royal Institution in 1998. You would have to be living on another planet to miss this one, 11 years later. Book here.

This just in. A Japanese astronaut has just 'borrowed' an idea first done for the Arts Catalyst by the Zero genies, Ansuman Biswas and Jem Finer in 2001 on one of our zero-gravity flight in Russia here. See here for the original flying carpet in space!

Rob La Frenais, Curator

Tehran (Part 2)

 

Tehran blog - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

The other curators went home early on Sunday morning, leaving me with three days to pursue my own interests. They suggested some artists whom they thought I might find interesting to meet - a useful edit function enabled by my late arrival in Tehran.

It was good to spend a few days meeting artists on a 1:1 basis, and I seemed to get around vast, traffic-laden Tehran well enough, flagging down taxis and waving bits of paper with addresses in Farsi at the drivers. I had made my presentation about our work on Saturday evening with some trepidation. Only having been there for two days, I did not know whether the Tehran artistic community would relate to Arts Catalyst’s concerns with science-society issues and to the type of art we commission – often ephemeral and performative, experimental and process-based. But the response was warm, knowledgeable and enthusiastic, both for experimental works (such as Tomas Saraceno’s solar dome) and for relevant themes, like the Nuclear exhibition. Although I was frequently told that there was nothing like our work in Iran, I could clearly see potential for collaborative projects. One artist I met with, for example, did not initially understand why I would be interested in his work, but by the end of our meeting we had found several points of intersection and he showed me some early sketches for machine-works touching on highly controversial themes, including a torture machine and another belching oil.

One of my most interesting meetings was with the architect Kianoosh Vahadi, whose new group IOAA (Interdisciplinary Office of Art & Architecture) is a network of artists, architects, writers and thinkers, developing collaborative projects particularly focusing in issues relating to the urban environment. We discussed the changes that mass communication – the internet, satellite television (although the latter is officially illegal) – has brought to Iran, and our conversation also meandered across science, doubt, prison design, earthquakes and other subjects. Another memorable meeting was with Bita Fayyazi, an established international artist, at her studio. Fayyazi obsessively makes large numbers of objects and beings; famous works include her film Road Kill in which150 terracotta run-over dogs were buried in a mass grave, and installations using 2000 plus ceramic cockroaches that she made.

I spent a lovely evening at the home of the painter Khosrow Hassanzadeh and his wife, the photographer Eugenie Dolberg. Khosrow’s warm gentle nature belies his dramatic biography: from Islamic militant and war soldier to fruit bazaar vendor to an international career in the arts. We spent the evening discussing Tehran life, Iranian politics and art. I was very tempted to go out with Khosrow the following day to his ‘factory’ well outside Tehran where he is building a number of large domes for his latest project, but felt I should stick to my schedule of meeting Tehran artists.

Tehran is a fascinating place, full of contradictions and contrasts. By the end of my stay, I was tired of the pollution and would have loved to have got out to see more of Iran, but it was a first trip and hopefully we will find reason to return, building on the relationships started.

Nicola Triscott
Director

  Road Kill (still), Bita Fayyazi

Tehran (Part 1)

Tehran blog - Friday and Saturday

My Iranian visa came very late, so the others - this is a visit by a group of UK curators - had been here for 3 days by the time I arrived in Tehran. In the two days I've had with them, we have visited a number of small galleries and artists' studios, and attended artists' gatherings and a couple of openings. Tehran is vast and teeming, and the traffic insane, so we seem to be late for everything. Legendary Iranian hospitality shows in the warm welcomes we receive from artists and curators to their homes and studios. The realisation that many such encounters break at least two or three laws highlights the contradictions of modern Iran and the dramatic contrast between public and private space. Of course, for Iranians this is just one of the many stresses of life here.

Additional stress for the artistic community is the new legislation that requires every exhibition (and every single artwork) for public display to be pre-approved by the Ministry of Culture. If an artwork is barred, the artist is summoned to explain their work. If summoned 2 or 3 times, the artist can be permanently banned from exhibiting their work. Artworks for international shows and export also need Ministry approval. One gallery owner mentioned taking work rolled up in tubes in personal luggage, but this is becoming more risky. If an Iranian artist does get unapproved work out or makes the work abroad, representatives from the consulate in that country will often go to see the work. We were told that a couple of artists in the current Saatchi show will need to remain abroad for some time.

Consequently, a lot of the art we have seen has been underground. The spirit of dissent is certainly alive here in the Tehran artists' community. Some artists are explicitly subversive, but even a lot of the shown and approved work is highly coded, masking its criticality. Interpretation and text are conspicuously lacking, and artists will only "own up" to any critical intent in private.

We had dinner one night at the home of B, who screened his new documentary film 'Sculptures of Iran', an extraordinary tale of public sculpture in modern Iran. One story followed the fate of a large abstract figurative sculpture removed from display. The museum director interviewed claimed it had suffered accidental damage being moved. The film the cut to a museum employee (somehow they gained access to the collection now kept in the vaults) unwrapping this sculpture and showing the complete removal of the arms, which would clearly have taken a tool that can cut through inch-thick metal. By contrast, the film also followed the story of a regime-commissioned frieze, a large and hideous public artwork, knocked down to build a metro station, and the poignant anguish of the sculptor as he attempted to find out what had become of it. It was a complex film, full of insight, contradictions, humour and lies, about the profound loss of cultural understanding in the modern Iranian state.

When we visited the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, it was not showing any contemporary art. Its huge collection of international contemporary art is locked in the basement.

We ended our first two days giving individual presentations of our work to a large gathering of artists at a gallery in central Tehran.

Nicola Triscott
Director