eco art and transdisciplinarity
DESCRIPTION
This powerpoint was for a lecture on this subject at the invitation of Juan Carlos Espinosa, Assistant Dean of the Honors College, Florida International University given on March 18 2014 at the university. I am grateful especially to colleagues of the EcoArt Dialogue who have influenced my thinking about EcoArt over the years and including Sam Bower, Aviva Rahmani, Jackie Brookner, Hildegard Kurt, Shelley Sacks, Betsy Damon, Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid, Tricia Watts and many more. Specifically on the transdisciplinarity theme of this talk I am extremely grateful for introduction to the theories of Basarab Nicolescu by Sacha Kagan, David Haley and Hans Dieleman. Please see the EcoArt South Florida website for more information on the organization, our mission and goals: http://ecoartsofla.org and our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/EASoFla.TRANSCRIPT
EcoArt and Transdisciplinarity
presentation by
Mary Jo Aagerstoun, Ph.D.President, EcoArt South Florida
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Is EcoArt Transdisciplinary??
Diagram courtesy of Sam Bower, greenmuseum.org
EcoArt is not a discipline. It is a practice.
So is environmental art, which is a larger category of practice.
Art is the discipline.
The other practices inside the environmental art bubble are also practices
They can be practices each one individually
And
They can be incorporated into EcoArt, together or separately
In many combinations
But EcoArt cannot be absorbed into them
…so what makes EcoArtEcoArt?
EcoArt is both a practice of environmental art, AND… can subsume into itselfother environmental art practices…
…and…
All are part of the DISCIPLINE of ART
…and…
…EcoArt ALSO brings INTO it, PROCESSES of the DISCIPLINES of…
ENGINEERING
and
SCIENCE
How we will proceed
• Nicolescu’s definitions• Roots of EcoArt
• Branches of EcoArt• Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)
• Revisit Nicolescu
Basarab Nicolescu1942-
Honorary theoretical physicist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris. He is also a Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and Docteur ès-Sciences Physiques (PhD), 1972, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris. He was appointed Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University, South Africa for the period 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2013 and was elected as Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) Fellow in 2011.
For introducing me to Nicolescu’s thinking, thanks to Sacha Kagan Toward Global (Environ)Mental Change: Transformative Art and Cultures of Sustainability. Berlin: Heinrich Boell Stiftung, 2012, David Haley ‘Art, Ecology and Reality: the Potential for Transdisciplinarity,’ paper, 5th Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics, and Hans Dieleman, “Transdisciplinary Artful Doing in Spaces of Experimentation and Imagination” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science The ATLAS (December, 2012)
Nicolescu’s definitionsfrom: Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Hampton Press Inc., 2008
• ‘Multidisciplinarity concerns studying … [a] topic not in just one discipline but in several at the same time.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘Interdisciplinarity… concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘…transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
How we will proceed
• Nicolescu’s definitions • Roots of EcoArt
• Branches of EcoArt• Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)
• Revisit Nicolescu
performance(FLUXUS)
social practice
installation
“new genre” public art
land art
bio-artgenerative art
1960s-’80s Experimental Art Movements
ROOTS of EcoArt
EcoArt precedents are practices within Art,
therefore they are
INTRA disciplinary!!
performance
Joseph Beuys1973
“Bog Action”Zuider Zee Performance
installation
Allan Kaprow
1961“Yard”
land art
Robert Smithson, 1970, “Spiral Jetty”
“new genre” public art
Suzanne Lacy, 1977, “Three Weeks in May”
social practice
John Malpede and Skid Row Artists1985-present
“Los Angeles Poverty Department”
bio-artgenerative art
Portable Orchard, 1972 Endangered Meadows of Europe, 1996Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany
Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison
species
soil/food
energyhabitat
water
THE “BRANCHES:” 21st Century EcoArt Intervention Foci
slow activism
energy
Sarah Hall, 2009, “Science of Light”
Sarah Hall, 2011, “Waterglass”
habitat
Lynne Hull, 1985-2004
Habitat Sculptures
water
Betsy Damon, 1998, “Living Water
Garden,” Chengdu,
China
species
Brandon Ballengee, 1996-present, field research and exhibits
soil/food
Amy Franceschini. 2006-2008, Sustainable Road Show and Victory Gardens
Jesse Etelson
Michael Singer
Xavier Cortada
Jackie Brookner/
Angelo Ciotti
Lucy Keshavarz
THE FRUIT: EcoArt in South Florida
Jackie Brookner and Angelo Ciotti, “Elders’ Cove,” Dreher Park, West Palm Beach, dedicated 2004
Xavier Cortada, Reclamation Project and 2007-Present
Xavier Cortada, Native Flags 2009-Present
Michael Singer, West Palm Beach Waterfront, Completed 2010
Michael Singer, Biofiltration Sculpture, Coconut Creek Seminole Casino,Completed 2012
Jesse Etelson, “Welcome Home Wildlife,” Torry Island, Belle Glade, Palm Beach County, Pilot Completed 2012 (ongoing)
Jesse Etelson, “Welcome Home Wildlife,” Torry Island, Belle Glade, Palm Beach County, Pilot Completed 2012 (ongoing)
Lucy Keshavarz, “Babbling Brook,” Westgate, Unincorporated Palm Beach County, Completed 2013
Transdisciplinarity and EcoArt
• Nicolescu’s definitions • Roots of EcoArt
• Branches of EcoArt • Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)•Revisit Nicolescu
Nicolescu’s definitionsfrom: Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Hampton Press Inc., 2008
• ‘Multidisciplinarity concerns studying … [a] topic not in just one discipline but in several at the same time.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘Interdisciplinarity… concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘…transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
Transdisciplinarity Is the
EFFECT and RESULT ofDeploying
Multidisciplinarityor Interdisciplinarity
It isBETWEENACROSSBEYOND
All Disciplines
And Therefore Enters the
Province Of…
POETRY AND METAPHOR