[-empyre-] Week 3: Science, Technology, Art and Fakeness

Sat Jun 24 23:26:43 AEST 2017

I’m just dipping into this important discussion on bioart and changing paradigms. 

Re: this, “How can we as artists, writers, technologists make sense out of the current shift in politics as it reflects on science through our practices and living”

I have been saying for years, that we are witnessing a biological correction on a species problem. In that view, as horrific as I find certain current political realities, they might also be seen as accelerating that inevitable amoral correction on an amoral situation. As an artist, I see that this is a systems problem. What has brought us here- specialization, etc., is what must be deconstructed without losing the bodies of knowledge. One way the danger of specializtion is expressed is in the globalized fragmentation into refugia we are witnessing, whether on the human political or species spectrum. I see that as much here as anyplace else. So the question I see underlying the original question, is if my premise is correct, what kinds of systems change could redirect that biological imperative? I would suggest, straddling a paradox of continued drilling down vertically into knowledge, and horizontal linking and layering between systems.

Which leads to another question. 

My question is about why there seems to be such a huge divide between artists interested in the human body centered epistemologies and those, as myself, who are obsessed with large environmental systemic issues? It seems ironic that most ecological artists are omitted from the aspect of this discussion of climate change and global warming that has asked what might be learned from bioartists, since systems analysis in environmental science is equally biologically based.  At CAA, tho I was very interested in the Bioart panel, I never got there. There’s always that issue at CAA about competing panels, but even so, the audience was clearly a diff audience than a panel I was on (Infiltration Art), which also addressed systems change from the art out.  My hunch is that very few in those audiences overlapped panels.

The three threads I see that relate to the original question are environmental justice (socially-racially-gendered centered), bio-neuro art, and ecological art (looking at large biogeographic relationships). This is a disconnect I’ve observed for years. I see this as a problem that needs some solution. I could speculate about anthropocentric self-centeredness but I’m curious what other explanations people might have? 

“What the world needs is a good housekeeper.”
Aviva Rahmani, PhD
Affiliate INSTAAR, University of CO. at Boulder
https://www.nyfa.org/ArtistDirectory/ShowProject/1446ef3a-0a9d-4449-96be-74023eb9c376
Watch “Blued Trees”:  https://vimeo.com/135290635
www.ghostnets.com <http://www.ghostnets.com/>
www.gulftogulf.org

On 6/19/17, 11:37 AM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Renate Terese Ferro" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of rferro at cornell.edu> wrote:

    ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
    Many thanks to Talan Memmott and Mark Marino for being our guests during Week 2. This week on -empye- I am thrilled to introduce Kevin Hamilton.   Kevin has been a guest moderator and participant for a number of years.  As well as being an artist and writer, Kevin is the editor of Media-N, the journal of the New Media Caucus.  We are currently working on a short publication for that journal that encapsulates a recent panel on Bio-Art that was held at the College Art Association. We thought it might be interesting to consider truth and fiction at the  intersections of Art, Technology and Science.  Within this convened panel issues of politics and ethics were a part of the discussion.  

    Considering world views on climate change, The Environmental Protection Agency has removed all data on global warming from its website a sign of fake news in itself. the US Environmental Protection Agency will experience a budget cut of by 31 percent over 2017, according to records of the Office of Management and Budget.. Cuts in science and medial research, health and welfare will be slashed. More than 50 EPA programs will be impacted. Among them  Energy Star a guide to consumers that  support energy-efficient products (your home appliances) and buildings.  Also affected are  targeted Air Shed Grants (a program that assists in controlling air pollution at the local level); and the medical programs that  screen for endocrine disruptors, such as mercury and BPA that impact humans’ hormone systems.

    I pause here to think about the legacy that Beatriz Da Costa left for us. 
    http://blog.creative-capital.org/2013/01/remembering-beatriz-da-costa-1974-2012/

    How can we as artists, writers, technologists make sense out of the current shift in politics as it relfects on science through our practices and living.  A serious question for the beginning of the week.  
    Here’s Kevin’s bio. 
    Renate.  

    Kevin Hamilton (US)
    is a Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he holds
    appointments in the School of Art and Design and the program in Media and
    Cinema Studies, and serves as Senior Associate Dean in the College of Fine and
    Applied Arts. He works as an artist and scholar to produce artworks, archives,
    and scholarship on such subjects as race and space, public memory, history of
    technology, and state violence. His articles with Ned O’Gorman on Air Force
    film production have appeared in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Visual Culture,
    and Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies. Their book-in-progress and
    accompanying digital archive traces the history of the Air Force’s most famous
    film unit, Lookout Mountain Laboratory, from 1948 through 1969. Kevin’s
    artworks in digital form have appeared in Rhizome, Turbulence, Neural, and the
    ASPECT DVD series.

    Renate Ferro
    Visiting Associate Professor
    Director of Undergraduate Studies
    Department of Art
    Tjaden Hall 306
    rferro at cornell.edu

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