Paul Lloyd Sargent’s installation comments on the waterway management policies and practices by the Army Corps of Engineers, the St. Lawrence Seaway Corporation, and other institutions regulating major American rivers. His engagement in this body of water parallels my interest in the Indiana harbor Shipping Canal (IHSC), which feeds into the Great Lakes - not only because of my particular involvement with the IHSC, but also because of the role of the artist and designer in this larger dialogue of the built environment.
This is a time when Artists and designers are exercising strengths in dialogues they were traditionally excluded from - such as in making decisions and designing the built environment. I touched on this topic when I asked about the Artist’s role in urban visualization in my post [ Drawing the Lines ]. Another aspect of the Artist’s role has been to bring into and from (reconfigure and re-equip) our visual culture what was either not seen or only seen peripherally at the margins. Much of this work is coming under a research designation of “Experimental Geography.”
We are at a moment of major change in how we address and prioritize voices in the decision making and design process when it comes to the built environment. We are beginning to see the authority traditionally given over to Architects folded under the the authority of “Landscape Urbanists” (often referred to as Landscape Architects, but I already think this is an arcane title). In this shift in roles we are opening up all sorts of new visual disciplines to re-orientate ourselves toward space and re-organize it in a re-development framework. You can see some of these changes in Urban Lab’s H2O project: [ Growing Water ], Valcent Product’s the [ vertical farming ], and William McDonough & Michael Braungart’s seminal book “Cradle to Cradle / Remaking the Way we Make Things.” Luckily there are so many examples springing up daily.
Aaron Koblin is an an artist specializing in data visualization. His work takes social and infrastructural data and uses it to examine new cultural trends. Aaron’s work has been shown at international festivals including Ars Electronica in Austria, FutureSonic in the UK, Shanghai eArts, and the Japan Media Arts Festival. He received the National Science foundation’s first place award for scientific visualization and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. As Technology Lead of Google’s Creative Lab in San Francisco, Aaron helped to launch Chrome Experiments, a website showcasing JavaScript work from designers around the world.
His work is a view from the mirror looking back in a conspiratorial space. The story: the government looks at us, trevor looks back at them through our stories of them looking at us - conspiracy.
“The Other Night Sky” is a project to track and photograph classified American satellites in Earth orbit, a total of 189 covert spacecraft. March 2009 issue of Art Forum
Via Wikipedia You almost get the sense he wrote this himself.
Trevor Paglen (born in 1974) is an American artist, geographer, and author.
Trevor Paglen is credited with coining the term “Experimental Geography” to describe practices coupling experimental cultural production and art-making with ideas from critical human geography about the production of space, materialism, and praxis. The 2009 bookExperimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism (Melville House, 2009, ISBN 9780091636586) edited by Nato Thompson is largely inspired by Paglen’s work.
Ever since the 1970’s when a certain Spielberg/Lucas genre of film obsessed with ever more convincing special effect depictions of the natural world as a mark of progress I sort of checked out. This video short is a bit more self reflective. It is precisely how you build 3-D forms.
<Looking back at November 2006>This conference occurred more than 2 years ago at Indiana University Northwest. This is the kind of stuff that peeks my interests and tickles my hand. There was great significance to hosting such a conference at this time and place. Northwest Indiana had been looking for strategies to revitalize the region. They had developed the Marquette Plan, the Regional Development Authority, transportation projects, etc. This was in a continuation of efforts to move things along.
This brings to mind two issues.
What is the role of the Artist in urban vitalization?
Too often the artist’s voice in these kinds of discussions are treated like a craft booth artist, pedaling their cute works. Otherwise they are deaf, dumb and blind. Artists are to perform and be quiet. This is what I call the “Dirty Dancing” treatment. I am often embarrassed for Artist who accept such roles.
I believe the Artist needs to step up and contribute their voice to the built environment. I believe that Artist voice should take the leading role more often in civil society.
And what has happened in the last 2-years?
I am not certain anything has happened. I don’t know of any new initiatives or changes in the way the region is approaching revitalization.
It appears to me with the announcement of the BP project the region has actually regressed from advancing such initiatives.
Revitalization of the region reverted back to a reliance on old heavy industry, in this case the refining of the even dirtier fossil fuels - the Alberta tar sand.
The region became ensnarled in a lack of initiative and culture once again. Indiana and regional Leaders approved environmental permitting with out ANY objection. It wasn’t until Illinois voice objection to violating the the Clean water act that the issue was heard. Regional Leaders and the press did not investigate. They promoted the project without investigation. They approved with out reviewing impacts, particularly to initiatives outlined in this conference.
Drawing the Lines: International Perspectives on Urban Renewal through the Arts
This conference promotes conversation about art and urban renewal on the broader international scale alongside more local applications in Northwest Indiana. Drawing the Lines brings together the multiple constituencies whose perspectives are necessary to evaluating the merits of urban revitalization models.
Drawing the lines seeks to:
Explore models of urban renewal through the arts,
Reflect on the impact of renovations efforts in the community,
Understand how government and private markets affect urban change,
Share best practices among community based leaders and scholars, and
Build a coalition to create concrete initiatives for the Northwest Indiana region.
“The Arts Can Define a Region” John M. Cain, South Shore Arts
“Revive: Using Art to Help Heal a Superfund Site” Minda Douglas, Marcia Gillette, and Ann Cameron, Indiana University Kokomo
“The Impact of Visual and Expressive Art on Public Policy and Public Voice” Karen G. Evans, Indiana University Northwest Daniel Lowery, Calumet College of St. Joseph
“Cool Cities” Through Their “Creative Class”: A Model for Revitalizing Indiana’s Essential Cities” Bruce Frankel, Ball State University Deborah Malitz, Indiana City Corp. Larry Francer, Historic Farmland Flo Lapin, Goldspace Theater, Muncie Richard Sowers, Anderson Symphony David Bowdon, Columbus Symphony, Terra Haute Symphony, Carmel Symphony
“The Interstices Between Art and Economic Development” Michelle Golden, Books, Brushes and Bands Mary Kaczka, Hammond Development Corporation John Davies, Woodlands Communications Daniel Lowery, Quality of Life Council
“The Poetics of Space: IU Northwest’s Sculpture Garden” Neil Goodman, Indiana University Northwest
“Available: post-industrial development and design at Lake Calumet” Ellen Grimes, w / M. Powell, A. Kirschner, and M. al Khurasat, University of Illinois at Chicago
“Urban Redevelopment and the Arts: Flagship Cultural Projects in Los Angeles and San Francisco” Carl Grodach, University of Texas at Arlington
“Leveraging Culture to Build a City’s External Brand and Internal Cohesiveness” Tom Jones, Smart City Consulting
“The IU Northwest Klamen Mural Project” David Klamen, Indiana University Northwest
“Art in the Region” Patricia Lundberg, Indiana University Northwest
“Looking at Urban Renewal Trials” Peter Matthews, University of Mar
“Spaces of vernacular creativity” Steve Millington, Manchester Metropolitan University
“The Other City Beautiful: Philadelphia and its Avenue of the Arts” Micheline Nilsen, Indiana University South Bend
“Bilbao: a spectacular but somehow disenchanted city” Antonio Román,, University of Deusto
“The Creative Class and Urban Economic Growth Revisited” Michael Rushton, Indiana University, Bloomington
“Creating A Vision for International Community Development: Indianapolis in 2050” William Plater, Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis
“Projects to Save a City” Sanjit Sethi, Memphis College of Ar
“The ‘Guggenheim Effect’ and the ‘New Bilbao’: On the Social Costs of Bilbao’s Urban Regeneration” Lorenzo Vicario and Manuel Martínez-Monje, University of the Basque Country.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in Mexico City in 1967. In 1989 he received a B.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada.
Electronic artist, develops large-scale interactive installations in public space, usually deploying new technologies and custom-made physical interfaces. Using robotics, projections, sound, internet and cell-phone links, sensors and other devices, his installations aim to provide “temporary antimonuments for alien agency”.
A Post-Modern Media Investigation of Events in Gaza During Israeli Media Blockade.
The cynical self-referential use of the media: story-of-story about the master narrative - power
Question of who’s the Author
Story at margin piercing master narrative: by design in gorilla warfare or result of weakness in fabric of master narrative.
There has been very little discussion or debate in the U.S. about the conflict in Gaza. In general the media is preoccupied with Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, AKA Joe - “media should not report on war” - the - Plumber, reporting for Pajama tv from Israel.
Joe-the-Plumber: the right-wing media remnant of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.
And then there are the images of Israeli citizen’s viewing this tragedy from the relaxed distant hilltops:
1) A view from inside Gaza from a foreign media outlet.
Palestinian Girl Attempts to Stop Israeli Soldiers. I just want to compare her Heroic nature to that of the celebrity of Joe-the-Plumber’s epic of the documentarian on the killing fields.
2) Gaza Doctor’s tragedy caught on live Israeli TV. So human and so tragic. This shows how human complexities and emotions can override systems of power.
Besides sometimes reminding me of my studio, this site reminds me of two of my favorite films by Francis Ford Coppola Koyaanaqatsi - “Life out of Balance”, and Powaaqatsi - “Life in Transformation”
Trailer:
Quality full-length version of Koyaanaqatsi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sps6C9u7ras)
Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), 2008, Installation at MoMA
Like many I have always been interested in the use of projections. After a couple of decades in the public view It is still a promising medium and their are many artist exploring it to various degrees of success. In the next couple of weeks I am going to explore different artists and how they employ this medium, whether in a conference room, an amusement park, an art gallery, or in the streets.
In the last decade Dominik Lejman has received significant international attention for his work combining projections on painted canvases. At times Lejman’s referencing of Art Historical works invokes a haunting response, but unfortunately, more often his use of ghostly projections reminds me of Princess Leia’s holographical projection in Star Wars. Not a positive association.
Pipilotti Rist’s work is a technicolor indulgence in the immersion of the media, in the vein of an omnimax experience.
Graffiti Research Lab (GRL): Coming out of the “Free Culture” movement of the open source software development in the 1990’s, GRL has a lot in common with other cultural movements, including Lawrence Lessig’s “Creative Commons” and “Code of Law.” Their website expresses this best
“The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protesters with open source tools for urban communication. The goal of the G.R.L. is to technologically empower individuals to creatively alter and reclaim their surroundings from commercial and corporate culture. G.R.L. agents are currently working in the lab and in the field to develop and test a range of experimental technologies for the state-of-the-art graffiti writer.This site documents those efforts with video documentation and DIY instructions for each project.”
