Author: eccentric

Art in the Anthropocene Conference, Trinity College Dublin, June 7-9 2019.

The School for Creative Arts and the “Identities in Transformation” Steering Group invite you to participate in the conference “Art in the Anthropocene” at Trinity College Dublin from Friday 7 June to Sunday 9 June 2019. The conference is being organised in collaboration with the Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, and the Science Gallery’s exhibition on PLASTIC.

The Anthropocene has been defined as the present geological epoch in which the earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity are being slowly disrupted by human intervention. The term has become commonly used since the beginning of the twenty-first century when Paul Crutzen argued its importance in a Nature article, and since then scientists have debated its credibility and possible starting point, suggesting the end of the eighteenth century (with the birth of the industrial revolution) or 1945 (with the commencement of nuclear weapons testing).

The notion of the Anthropocene raises important questions that concern the sustainability of the planet.  With seas rising and becoming inexorably acidified and contaminated and the destruction of coral reefs (such as the Great Barrier Reef); with fish life and plankton dying because of climate change and pollution from plastic, oil, and other forms of human waste; with the endangerment and extinction of animal species; with huge tracts of land in Africa being leased by China to feed its own population; with African governments encouraging their citizens to go abroad in order to send back foreign income to sustain their national economies; with aggressive mining  and fracking operations, fertilization, forest fires, and over-cultivation of land; with the ubiquitous burning of fossil fuels and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; with deforestation, drought, desertification, poverty and hunger in the global south forcing increasing waves of migration; with melting icebergs,  periodic oil disasters, and emissions of radiation from nuclear power plants as well as the continual threat of nuclear war; and with the rapid increase of the world population to 7 billion (estimated to increase to 10 billion by 2050), Elon Musk has offered a wake-up call by proposing that we need to colonize Mars.

Posthumanism has offered an alternative to anthropocentrism and emphasised the importance of the non-human in the challenge against the destructive effects of the Anthropocene. Posthumanism privileges animals, plant life, ecological systems and the environment, as well as providing a feminist perspective on human patriarchy. It emphasizes the protection and conservation of the earth and its inhabitants, recognizing continuity between all living creatures including plants, animals and humans. New trends in philosophy offer new materialism, object-oriented ontologies, and theories of social assemblage.

The final progamme of the conference can be found here. And here it is possible to download the book of abstracts and participants’ bios.

Camilla Alberti finalista del STATES OF MIND PRIZE, inaugurazione 1 febbraio Palazzo Valmarana Braga, Vicenza.

Comunicato stampa:

Dopo un intenso lavoro di valutazione da parte dei giurati  – Simona Bordone, Orietta Brombin, Riccardo Caldura, Gabi Scardi e Luigi Viola – che ringraziamo, finalmente pubblichiamo i nomi degli artisti finalisti della prima edizione del premio di arte contemporanea dedicato agli UNDER 35, ideato da Gli Stati della Mente, realizzato con il sostegno del MiBACT e di SIAE, nell’ambito dell’iniziativa “Sillumina – Copia privata per i giovani, per la cultura”, avvalendosi del patrocinio di PAV – Parco Arte Vivente (Torino) e dell’Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (Venezia).

Le opere selezionate saranno esposte dal 1 al 17 febbraio presso lo storico Palazzo Valmarana Braga a Vicenza.
In occasione dell’inaugurazione sarà Barbara Fragogna, direttrice della galleria d’arte torinese partner del concorso Fusion Art Gallery / Inaudita, in accordo con la giuria, a decretare il vincitore in occasione dell’inaugurazione della mostra.
L’artista vincitore del Premio States of Mind avrà la possibilità di effettuare una residenza d’artista e la conseguente mostra personale presso la galleria partner. Verrà invece assegnato da Petra Cason, art director del Festival Gli Stati della Mente, il Premio Speciale Nicefall dedicato alla videoarte, e messo a disposizione assieme al know-how da Nicefall, agenzia di soluzioni digitali interattive specializzata in video mapping, lighting design e visual design.

 

Per maggiori informazioni su Camilla Alberti si prega di cliccare qui.

Per maggiori informazioni sul premio e la mostra di prega di cliccare qui.

 

Baptiste Debombourg at Plasticus, Galerie ENSAPLV École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Paris-La Villette

RENDU FINAL JPG WEB

PLASTICUS

Exposition du 16/11/2018 au 25/01/2019

Avec Boris Achour, Rada Boukova, Baptiste Debombourg & David Marin, Pierre-Yves Hélou, Camille Henrot, Delphine Kohler & Les Filles du Facteur, Eric Monin, la Plastic Bank, les étudiants de l’ENSAPLV.

Le projet Plasticus est né de la collaboration entre Rada Boukova, artiste invitée en 2018, et Baptiste Debombourg enseignant en art à L’ENSAPLV. L’exposition est une toile de fond pour un projet de recherche plus large, développé en atelier.

Cette exposition autour du sac plastique aborde le problème de son envahissement du fait de sa production de masse et donc la pollution engendrée. Elle propose une réflexion sur l’usage, le détournement, le recyclage de cet objet dans l’art contemporain, le design, l’architecture, l’histoire, l’économie ou la mode. Véritable atelier de recherche ouvert sur l’imagination, l’objectif est de proposer des pistes pour transformer et recycler ce matériau. Marqueur spatio-temporel de notre civilisation, basique, original, banal ou sophistiqué, le sac fait partie de notre quotidien depuis les années 1960 environ. Devenu un objet universel, il n’en demeure pas moins un matériau pourvu d’un immense potentiel tout autant qu’il est devenu un fléau pour l’environnement.

L’idée de cette exposition est un élan vers une autre direction : commençons par rêver et bricoler pour engager une autre manière de faire.

For more information on Baptiste Debombourg please click here.

 

 

Stakeholders dialogue. Human and Plants, installazione di Camilla Alberti e Simona Cioce presso The Swamp Pavilion, Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2018.

Axel Straschnoy at Perm Regional Museum

The Permian Projects

The Natural History Museum is a place where life and death mingle, where to celebrate life, we kill, a place where the variety of life can only be appreciated dead. The Permian was one of the most biodiverse periods in the history of Earth but ended with the worst mass extinction. In the regional museum in Perm, even more than in any other museum of natural history, life and death coexist.

These projects are conceived as artistic interventions into the existing museum practices, drawing ways of working, aesthetics and conceptual frameworks from the institution itself.

The Permian Collection

The Permian Collection is a collection of the insects exterminated as part of Perm Regional Museum’s conservation efforts.

These are regularly exterminated and disposed of without much afterthought. Focused on the nature-out-there, the Museum fails to consider itself as a place overrun by living beings, some of which might work against its stated mission of heritage conservation.

At artist’s request, the Museum began collecting the insect it kills, rounding up in half a year over 200 from 35 different families of Arthropoda. The new collection includes butterflies, mosquitos but also spiders and woodlice. The collected insects have been scientifically defined with the support of entomologists of Perm University, catalogued, photographed and placed in custom-made boxes, becoming the first new entomology collection since 2008.

The Dioramas of the Permian Museum

The Dioramas of the Permian Museum is a tridimensional photo series portraying the zoological collection’s animals in their new habitat: the museum storage.

Since the 1960s, the Perm Regional Museum used to have several dioramas in its displays. After moving venue in 2007, these were dismantled and their parts put into storage. The taxidermied animals that were part of them currently inhabit a former office, crowded in unlikely combinations that span biotopes and predator-prey relationships.

Many of these animals, collected when they were typical for the region, have become endangered. Some have gone extinct. The biotopes that the dioramas’ painted backgrounds depicted have in many cases ceased to exist. For many of the animals in the Museum’s Zoological collection, the storage itself has become their natural habitat, the only place they can still be found.

Axel Straschnoy’s work has been supported by a State Grant for Artists from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. His residency at the museum was supported by the Vladimir Potanin Foundation. The projects were co-produced by the Perm Regional Museum and Kolme Perunaa.

For further information on Axel Straschnoy, please click here.

Camilla Alberti e Carlo Gambirasio alla Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2018 per la Swamp School di Urbonas Studio

Camilla Alberti, Stakeholders Dialogue, 2018. Maquette for the Swamp School, Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2018.

 

The Swamp Pavilion è un’idea di Nomeda e Gediminas Urbonas, artisti, educatori e fondatori di Urbonas Studio.

Il duo ha ideato il progetto dello Swamp Pavilion per la XVI Edizione della Biennale di Architettura di Venezia. Attraverso il contributo di studiosi e artisti ci si interrogherà sul Commonism (On Cohabitation), ovvero sul significato del vivere comune nella società moderna in un laboratorio- piattaforma di sperimentazione e ricerca sul futuro del vivere.

Il progetto prevede la partecipazione degli studenti di diverse e prestigiose università internazionali, tra cui NABA oltre al MIT dove Gediminas Urbonas è direttore del programma in Art, Culture and Technology. Saranno presenti, inoltre, lo IUAV di Venezia, la Royal Academy di Anversa, la Princeton University, la FHNW di Basilea e la University of Fine Arts di Amburgo.

Il 25 settembre, all’interno del Padiglione Lituano, si terranno dei workshop guidati dagli Urbonas con la partecipazione di 13 studenti del Biennio di Arti Visive e Studi Curatoriali di NABA : Camilla Alberti, Marco Antelmi, Valentina Avanzini, Matteo Canetta, Simona Cioce, Laura Colantonio, Benedetta Dosa, Clarissa Falco, Carlo Gambirasio, Chiara Lupi, Letizia Mari, Matteo Messina, Tommaso Pagani.

Seguirà una lecture tenuta da Marco Scotini, Direttore Dipartimento Arti Visive e Studi Curatoriali e da Andris Brinkmanis, Course Leader BA in Painting and Visual Arts di NABA.

PROGRAMMA DEL 25 SETTEMBRE, 2018

10.30- 13.00:

Evocation of the Swamp di Nomeda e Gediminas Urbonas, artisti e curatori (Lituania/US)

Workshop NABA:

Swamp Pedagogy. A manual for the drift, presentato da Letizia Mari, Matteo Canetta

– The anti-sinking workshop. Utopian solutions from below, un progetto di Carlo Gambirasio, in collaborazione con Irene Angenica, Alice Staro, Andrea Biffi  e Galleria Ikona, Galleria Artespaziotempo, Venezia.

– Ants Soundscape, presentazione dell’installazione sonora di Chiara Lupi in collaborazione con Giorgio Berti e Dario Sposini

– Food for Commons, Food for Life, workshop di Valentina Avanzini, Laura Colantonio, Benedetta Dosa, Clarissa Falco

14.00 – 16.00 .

Workshop NABA

-Drum System, presentazione di Marco Antelmi

-Stakeholders dialogue. Human and Plants, presentazione di Camilla Alberti e Simona Cioce

-Marco Polo Returns through Suez, presentazione di Matteo Messina in collaborazione con Tommaso Pagani e Chiara Lupi

16:00 – 17.00

The desert in common. In praise of a Nomad Science, lecture di Marco Scotini and Andris Brinkmanis, curators NABA

The Swamp School,  a cura di  Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas

24-29 Settembre, 2018

Luogo : Giardino Bianco Art Space

Castello, Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1814, 30122 Venezia , Italy

www.swamp.it

 Più informazioni su Camilla Alberti e Carlo Gambirasio.

Axel Straschnoy is artist in residence at Grenna Museum – Polar Center, Sweden.

Axel Straschnoy is artist in residence at Grenna Museum – Polar Center during September 2018.

Axel Straschnoy has a specific interest in S. A. Andrée’s Polar Expedition and will immerse himself in the collections. In conjunction to his stay, he will give a talk on Tuesday 11 September at 6.30 pm

Under the heading “The Graphic Method” he will speak about his previous work and what fascinates with him about polar expeditions.

The lecture is given in English and free of charge.

Artist in Residence in collaboration with Nya Smaland. The conversation is organised with ART TALKS with support of Culture and Development, Region Jönköping County.

For more information about the artist please click here.

Presentazione del libro Duchamp Meets Turing: Arte, modernismo, postumano presso Walden Milano, martedì 19 giugno, ore 18.30

Presentazione del libro
Duchamp Meets Turing: Arte, modernismo, postumano.

Martedì 19 giugno, ore 18.30

Walden Milano
via Vetere 14
20123 Milano

 

L’autrice Gabriela Galati e il curatore Maurizio Bortolotti dialogheranno sul libro, in particolare sui tanti punti di convergenza ma anche di mutua divergenza tra il mondo dell’arte così detta mainstream e l’arte new media, quello che molte volte è stato definito come “digital divide”.

Nel suo libro How We Became Posthuman, Katherine Hayles analizza il processo attraverso il quale la concezione del soggetto umanista liberale ha lasciato posto a quella di un soggetto postumano, un soggetto che vive in completa simbiosi con il digitale. Questo processo non è stato innocuo: ha reso pervasiva la (fallace) percezione che l’informazione potrebbe fare a meno della materia all’interno di molti campi del sapere, un processo che Hayles sostiene abbia avuto origine nelle Macy Conferences e nell’evoluzione della teoria cibernetica. Questa riflessione identifica un processo analogo all’interno della teoria dell’arte: quando Clement Greenberg ha delineato i concetti di otticità e colour field come le caratteristiche principali che “definiscono” la pittura modernista, li ha concepiti in un soggetto puramente disincarnato. In questo contesto, si propone di considerare che il vero superamento del modernismo avviene con il postumano, ponendo le sue origini in Marcel Duchamp e nella sua invenzione del ready-made, e non nel postmodernismo, la cui consistenza teorica, almeno per quanto riguarda il campo dell’arte, sarà messa in discussione nel presente lavoro. Un primo obiettivo sarà quello di unificare i concetti e le teorie principali del campo dell’arte con quelle della cibernetica per riunificare “ Turing land” e “Duchamp land”.

Maurizio Bortolotti è un curatore che ha lavorato in Cina, Corea del Sud e India.
Ha curato la mostra Ai Weiwei. Disposition alla Biennale di Venezia nel 2013 e nel 2015-16 è stato direttore del “Research and Public Program” presso l’Himalayas Museum di Shanghai.

Gabriela Galati è docente di Teoria e Metodologia dei Mass Media  e di Media Art Theory presso NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano. Scrive recensioni su libri per Leonardo Reviews / Leonardo Journal-MIT Press, e collabora con Noema e AdVersus. Fondatrice di ECCENTRIC Art & Research, dopo un’esperienza quindicennale come direttrice di galleria e curatrice, prima a Buenos Aires, sua città natale, poi a New York e Milano, è attualmente direttrice della galleria d’arte contemporanea aA29 Project Room di Milano e Caserta.

L’installazione di Camilla Alberti De L’esprit Des Lois presso Walden Milano.

Camilla Alberti, De L’esprit Des Lois, 2018. Veduta dell’installazione presso Walden Milano.

Camilla Alberti, De L’esprit Des Lois, 2018.

Il progetto analizza la dimensione relazionale che s’instaura in un habitat tra due organismi differenti.

Lo spazio di Walden è regolato dalla convivenza stretta di umani e piante. I primi dominano lo spazio del café con il loro passaggio, mentre le piante lo abitano e attraverso questo loro risiedere modificano il luogo agendo direttamente sulla composizione dell’aria. Le piante, pertanto, conquistano l’habitat nella sfera dell’invisibile.
De L’esprit Des Lois crea una struttura composta da due basi scultoree che collegano le piante all’interno dello spazio permettendo loro di seguire il proprio sviluppo.
La definizione di un nuovo Habitat instaura una forma di coesistenza alla pari per entrambe le specie e ogni modificazione avviene secondo una concatenazione di leggi definite dalla convivenza stessa.

Il lavoro è presentato nel contesto del progetto NABA Occupy Walden

a cura di Leonardo Caffo
con gli studenti di Studi Curatoriali della NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti
coordinamento grafico Chiara Onestini
Sponsor Waiting Posthuman Studio, BRUMI
coordinamento progetti Clarissa Greta Gibella
dall’8 giugno al 30 luglio 2018
più di 40 progetti tra installazioni, eventi, talk, arte, design
party 22 giugno dalle ore 20

 

Walden Milano
via Vetere 14
20123 Milano
Per maggiori informazioni su Camilla Alberti si prega di cliccare qui.

 

 

Tomislav Brajnović’s solo exhibition Direct Link at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb will be on view until June 10.

Tomislav Brajnović: Direct Link

MSU Gallery, Thursday, 24th May 2018 at 8:00 pm

Curator of the exhibition: Nataša Ivančević, Deputy Director & Museum Advisor

For Tomislav Brajnović, art is more than the exploration of the form, visual artistic means, production, and presentation of the work of art. The radicalism of the artistic idea is more important to him than the radicalism of the artistic form. His works as well as his worldview are concerned with the issues of ethics, social justice, and are a critical reflection of the times we live in. Art and life are interfused without limitation. His methodology is focused on asking questions, analyzing and criticizing the social moment, the polemics with proponents of opposing views, and the disagreement with generalized answers. The range of his themes spans from social to religious to political to economic controversies, and is present in the works created from the beginnings of his artistic activity in the 1990s to this day.

He easily moves from medium to medium, and uses video, installation, sound, performance, readymade, and other means that best serve to transfer ideas at a specific point in time. More recently, he has been using social networks as a medium of artistic activity, as they provide the possibility to quickly spread information and personal views, as well as to express the opinions of a large number of users. At his first larger solo exhibition in Zagreb, “Direct Link”, he presents installations, documentation, video works, FB comments, and texts taken from the Internet, in which he reveals the social inequality that is reflected in the unequal distribution of wealth, power and influence, in the manipulation and abuse of advanced technology, which becomes a means of controlling free will and possible consequences of such action.

Brajnović takes the concept of Direct Link (Direktna veza) by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek for the title of his exhibition. The term implies a direct link between the human brain and digital space. Technology and scientific research bring progress, and the insertion of implants brings health benefits. What is a threat to the loss of autonomy of human thought and action and, ultimately, to freedom, is the possibility of managing the human mind through chip implants and digital links. According to Žižek, for an individual, the possibility of separating from the outside world and the possibility of withdrawal into one’s inner worlds thus disappears, which raises the ultimate question: “Who will control it?” On the other hand, Elon Musk thinks that humans already possess the characteristics of cyborgs, given the connection with digital devices, clouds and space. In the worst scenario, this can lead to the abolition of free will and of the space of freedom, and to the introduction of art censorship at the level of thought and idea. In this exhibition, Brajnović therefore issues a manifesto on the death of the audience as a result of the abolition of the artist, the audience and art.

After MSU, the exhibition will be presented at the Gallery of Fine Arts, Split, albeit on a lesser scale. Curator of the Split exhibition: Jasminka Babić, Senior Curator

Tomislav Brajnović was born in Zagreb in 1965. He completed his first year of studies at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1999, where his mentor was Professor Đuro Seder, and completed postgraduate studies in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London in 2003. He works and exhibits intensively both in Croatia and abroad. He is a recipient of several awards, scholarships and recognitions, and has taken part in several residence projects. He teaches New Media, City Mapping, and Recontextualization at the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka. Since 2007, he has been running the Studio Golo Brdo Project/Gallery. He is the author of the Supper with the Artist project.

For more information on the exhibition please click here.

For more information on Tomislav Brajnović please click here.