[-empyre-] Eco Art - prescriptive vs personal

[rebecca b]

Thank you for you comment Tim.

Yes, definitely - our project is very much about ongoing engagement with
systems that are often either taken for granted or thought of as beyond our
control. I do think that the enormous popular focus on sustainability owes
much to the flowering of the age of information and participatory media. The
environmental problems have been around for a long time - they are not new.
What is new is a better sense of personal control over larger systems and
technologies that seemed out of reach, or in the realm of experts in the
past.

For the next iteration of the project, we are looking into creating a
functional system:  a bathroom that actually links the toilet and water
fountain through a series of cleaning systems. This would take the piece
into a more interventionist realm.

I love the idea that artists may be increasingly involved in large
infrastructure issues. I wonder if anyone out there has had experience with
larger institutions or governments instituting infrastructure changes based
on artists' work. I know of wastewater treatment systems designed by artists
in park areas, such as the work of Jackie Brookner, but I'm wondering about
internal building infrastructures or city-wide planning.

Rebecca


On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Timothy Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> Thanks, Britta and Rebecca, for introducing us to your art.  One of the
> > things that struck me and Renate about your installation currently up at
> > Eyebeam in New York  is its blend of didacticism and interactive openness.
> >  We appreciated how  both the design of the piece and the various ecosystems
> > it links together mimed the precariousness of interlinked technological
> > systems and the variability of interactive participation.  In this case,
> > users are required to move through, lean under, bend around various tubes,
> > screens, tanks, and systems in order to experience the piece, as if a
> > materialization of the online linkages we navigate daily.
> >
>
> I'd welcome hearing more of your thoughts about the interrelation of
> technology and systems in your work that's so provocatively reflexive about
> sustainability.
>
> Best,
>
> Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>  Hello, This is Rebecca Bray, one of the Empyre guests for the month. I am
> > one half of the team, along with Britta Riley, who created an installation
> > that is currently on display at Eyebeam in New York. The piece deals with
> > questions of how our bodies relate to wider ecosystems. More specifically,
> > how our waste - our urine - effects the ecosystem and then eventually comes
> > back into our bodies. The installation is accompanied by a DIY kit that
> > allows people to transform their own urine into fertilizer.
> >
> > Over the course of developing the exhibition, Britta and I had many
> > conversations about how to express these concepts without being overly
> > didactic or prescriptive. Our other work together involves creating
> > interactive media strategies for science museums, so we spend a lot of time
> > working on creating meaningful educational opportunities around ecology
> > issues. The context of art installation versus science museum is an
> > interesting contrast. The art installation allows for a less formal
> > experience. We created the installation with the intention of provoking more
> > question-asking than providing answers. And, we exposed our own narrative
> > voices. It was also important to both of us that while we talk very clearly
> > about problems - in this case water pollution - we also talk about solutions
> > that are actionable.
> >
> > Art that is about or approaching sustainability issues tends to appeal
> > to me more when it is more personal - when it is clearly driven by a unique
> > passionate perspective. I also feel that inducing guilt is problematic and
> > am more drawn to pieces that create a sense of possibility. Some of the work
> > I'm thinking of includes Nils Norman's intervention art, Edible Estates,
> > SEED Collective and others who are creating work aimed at personal action.
> > This is not to say that work which is exposing large systemic problems is
> > not extraordinarily valuable.
> >
> > Looking forward to a discussion with all of you,
> > Rebecca
> >
> > --
> > ______________
> > Rebecca Bray
> > Co-Founder, Submersible Design
> > <http://submersibledesign.com>submersibledesign.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
>
>
> --
> Timothy Murray
> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
> Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
> http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
> Director of Graduate Studies in Comparative Literature
> Director of Graduate Studies in Film and Video
> 285 Goldwin Smith Hall
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York 14853
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>
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