BREAKOUT SESSION LEADERS

Saturday afternoon, December 7
2:15 - 3:15 pm: 7 concurrent sessions

• Amy Lipton, curator, Exec. Dir./ Ecoartspace.com, Beacon, NY
  
  Sam Bower, Exec. Dir./ greenmuseum.org [online museum of environmental art]
  
  QUESTION: Ecovention as a Collaborative Model: Or "ecology" means we all have to deal with it.

  How can public art-sci projects help build community, restore degraded ecosystems and support the environmental movement?

There is a worldwide art movement that is transforming the role of art and artists in society. The collaboration of curator, Amy Lipton of ecoartspace and Sam Bower founder of greenmuseum.org in the recent "ecovention" exhibition in Cincinnati and online is an example of the institutional crosspollination which helps support this movement. Learn about the hurdles and the rewards of addressing issues which affect us all.

BRIEF BIO: Amy Lipton

Amy Lipton is a curator and former gallerist who lives in New York, where she has resided since 1980 after graduating from California Institute of the Arts, (CalArts) with a BFA. Since joining ecoartspace in 1999, Lipton has curated an art and the environment curriculum for The Earth School, District 1 in Manhattan, which took place in Spring 2000. In June, 2000 she organized a panel discussion with artists and scientists, Reconstructing Ecologies at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Most recently, she co-curated a large scale exhibition titled Ecovention at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, which opened in June 2002.

e-mail address amy@ecoartspace.org

Address
10 Leonard St. Beacon, NY 12508

Telephone
845-440-0625

Fax
212-219-8636

Organizations website addresses
ecovention http://www.greenmuseum.org/c/ecovention/
ecoartspace http://ecoartspace.org
 

BRIEF BIO: Sam Bower

Sam Bower is Executive Director of greenmuseum.org, the online museum of environmental art. He created environmental art for 8 years as part of a collaborative art group called Meadowsweet Dairy. He is a founding member of Cell, a non-profit community art space in San Francisco, Director of the Crucible Steel Gallery, and has designed websites, worked in advertising, events planning and the environmental non-profit sector here and in Ecuador.

e-mail address sam@greenmuseum.org

Address
518 Tamalpais Dr., Corte Madera, CA 94925, USA

Telephone
415-945-9322

Organizations website addresses
greenmuseum.org http://greenmuseum.org

• Nicola Triscott, Exec. Dir./ The Arts Catalyst, London/ UK
  
  Rob La Frenais, curator /The Arts CAtalyst, London/ UK

  TOPIC: The human race will not stay on Earth forever, but in pursuit of light and space, will first tentatively break out of the Earths atmosphere and will then conquer the entire solar system. - Konstantin Tsyolkovsky

  March 18th 2001. The fragments of the Mir orbital space station splash down in the South Pacific Ocean.

  March 19th 2001. A small group of international specialists in art, science and media decide in a meeting in Paris to found the MIR network, an intercultural initiative to explore space in the 21st century.

MIRs aim:

• Promotion of arts and cultural activity as part of the international space programme

• Access to space facilities for artistic practice

• Interdisciplinary research: artists and scientists working with and alongside each other

• Sharing of knowledge, gained experience and expertise with other artists, scientists and the public

This session will report on the MIR networks activities to date, in particular, artists/scientists work in zero gravity with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, and will invite discussion on the potential for artistic and cultural activity relating to the space programme.

MIR members are: Arts Catalyst (UK), V2 (Netherlands), Projekt Atol (Slovenia), Leonardo/Olats (France) and TV Gallery (Russia).

 

BRIEF BIO: Nicola Triscott

Nicola Triscott is the director and founder of the Arts Catalyst, the UK's science-art agency, which has been organising collaborative projects between scientists and artists since 1993. Its work in space art is principally concerned with issues of access to specialist environments.

With Marko Peljhan from Projekt Atol, she has organised - and been a participant on - 2 parabolic flights with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia.

The first flight was in September 2000 and carried dancer-choreographer Kitsou Dubois and a 5-person team to study dance in weightlessness, as well as other artists and scientists.

The second flight was the MIR pilot project: MIR Flight 001, which enabled a group of artists and scientists to experience and develop projects in zero gravity and in the Star City environment, results from which were presented at the Sadlers Wells in London in March 2002.

The Arts Catalyst set up a collaboration between choreographer Kitsou Dubois and the Biodynamics Group at Imperial College, led by Prof. Robert Schroter, and made a successful proposal to the European Space Agency for an experiment which is taking place on ESA parabolic campaigns in March and September 2002. The Arts Catalyst runs an annual space art forum (since 1999) and is a founder member of the MIR network.

e-mail address info@artscatalyst.org

Address
The Arts Catalyst
Toynbee Studios
28 Commercial Street
London E1 6LS
UK

Telephone
+44 20 7375 3690

Organization website address
http:www.artscatalyst.org

 

BRIEF BIO: Rob La Frenais

Rob La Frenais is the curator of the Arts Catalyst. He has been organizing visual art projects on an international level since 1987, curating major projects with artists such as James Turrell, Marina Abramovic, Stelarc and Orlan.

From 1979 to 1987 he was the editor of Performance Magazine, a UK-based European cross-artform journal. He joined the Arts Catalyst in 1997 and with Nicola Triscott organized shows such as 'Atomic', featuring the nuclear artist James Acord, and the major international conferences 'Eye of the Storm' and 'Cosmic Chances' at the Royal Institution, London, as well as setting up and chairing the UK Space Art Forum, taking place in 1999, 2000 and 2001.

In August 1999 he took part in the first dedicated artists' parabolic flight to take place in Russia with the Yuri Gagarin Training Centre, organized by Marko Peljhan for Dragan Zivadinov's Noordung company.

e-mail address
roblafrenais@clara.co.uk

• Remo Campopiano, artist, founder/Robotics Art Club [art-sci public art], Seconick, MA

  
  QUESTION: How can an on-going, informal science-art education project help nurture an artist's career at the same time?

  Learn how a Robotics Art Club for fathers and sons helped this artist produce a major art-sci public art project in Boston. The artist will talk about how the Club came into existence and how it lead to the "WaterSpider Project" [large-scale, outdoor, interactive sculptures] and now evolving into the Robotic Art Program under the auspisces of a nearby university. This Art Club is both informal science education via art and a support model for collaboration. Learn how teaching in an art-sci community setting can inspire via public art projects, help kids and parents bond, and create a financial sustainability model for independent artists?

  BRIEF BIO:

  Remo Campopiano is a multimedia artist living and working just outside of Providence in Seekonk, Massachusetts. Currently he is exploring new technologies in the world of science and telecommunications. To explore his new interest in robotics, Campopiano started a Robotics Art Club with pre-teens in the Providence area. The club's current project is "Dance of the WaterSpiders. In the 80's, Campopiano was best known for his series of live-art installations. To support himself during this period, he co-founded ARTPAPER--a visual-arts newspaper. In the 90's Campopiano founded ARTNETWEB in Soho, NYC, where he pioneered early net-art and performance art on the Internet. Campopiano has won many fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Award.
  
  Email:
  remo@remo.net
  
  Address
  35 Woodward Avenue
  Seekonk, MA 02771

  Phone
  508-336-5988

  Web site address
  http://remo.net

QUESTION: What are the challenges and benefits - for artists, audiences and institutions - when science and technology are the subject?

The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project was created to commission, develop and present new works for the theatre exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.  Now entering itās fifth season, the EST/Sloan Project presents an annual festival, FIRST LIGHT, which features an Off-Broadway production, workshops, readings and; has launched national partnership initiatives with major Regional Theatres and Universities; and has co-hosted special events with leading scientific institutions.  More than seventy-five artists, composers, choreographers and theatre companies have been awarded EST/Sloan Project commissions.

BIO:

Chris Smith is the Program Director for the EST/Sloan Project (which he co-founded in 1998) and the Artistic Director of Youngblood, a company of playwrights. Directing credits include world premiere productions of new works by Charles Grodin, Romulus Linney, Joyce Carol Oates, David Ives and Frank D. Gilroy (including the Drama Desk-nominated Best Play, Contact with the Enemy), among many others.  He has produced plays, musicals and special events around the country and in the UK.  He is the author of the books to two musicals, A Sense of Freedom and Signs and Wonders.

Ensemble Studio Theatre

549 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
212.247.4982

sloanproject@ensemblestudiotheatre.org
www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org

Jim Gimzewski and Victoria Vesna are collaborating on a number of projects that blur the disciplinary boundaries including directing the SINAPSE initiative together with Katherine Hayles, helping establish an image of a newly emerging CNSI (Califonia NanoSystems Institute) and developing creative projects that introduce dreams and nightmares of nanotechnology to a larger public.

BRIEF BIO: James Gimzewski

James Gimzewski is a world leading expert in Nanotechnology and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA and the Californian Nanosystems Institute. He is an author of over 200 scientific publications, has given over 300 invited talks on nanoscale science and holds numerous patents. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Among he awards that he holds the Feyman Prize for Technology and the Institute of Physics 2001 Duddell medal and Prize.

e-mail address
gim@chem.ucla.edu

Address
UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
3042A Young Hall
607 Charles E. Young Drive East
Box 95156
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569

Phone
310 794-7514

URL: http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski/

 

BRIEF BIO: Victoria Vesna

Victoria Vesna is an artist, professor and chair of the department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts. Her work can be defined as experimental research that resides in between disciplines and technologies. She explores how communication technologies effect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. Victoria has exhibited her work in 16 solo exhibitions, over 70 group shows, published 20 papers and gave over 100 invited talks in the last ten years.

e-mail address
vv@ucla.edu

Address
Department of Design | Media Arts
11000 Kinross Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1456

Phone
310 825-0925

URL: http://vv.arts.ucla.edu 

QUESTION: How do art-science collaborations challenge the culture of funding organizations supporting collaborative projects?

New media art tied to new and/or digital technologies has become more inclusive of science-based practices. Collaborations between artists and scientists and/or engineers are occurring often in the field of information technology and computer science, on projects that may involve artificial intelligence, bioengineering, creative software development, data visualization, interface design or robotics.

This year the Canada Council for the Arts and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) held their first ever joint competition, in a new program called the New Media Initiative. The Canada Council for the Arts is an arm's length agency of the Canadian government that supports artists and arts organization to create, produce and exhibit their work. NSERC is the Canadian national funding body supporting basic
university research through research grants and research projects involving partnerships of universities with industry.

The New Media Initiative supports teams of artists and scientists or engineers working collaboratively on new media projects. To be eligible, the applicants' program of work must lead to new artistic creation as well as the generation of new scientific knowledge.

The New Media Initiative is carried out within existing programs of the Canada Council and NSERC. The Canada Council funds the artistic component of approved projects and NSERC funds the scientific and engineering research component.


BIO:

David Poole is the Head of the Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts. Media Arts at the Canada Council encompasses film, video, new media and audio as used by artists to create work over which they retain creative control. Production of work in these areas is often collaborative, involving artists from other disciplines as well as researchers, scientists, engineers and technologists. As an officer at the Canada Council, David Poole has been responsible for programs serving film and video artists and for distribution and exhibition organizations. Before working at Council, he was a distributor of Canadian experimental films at the Canadian Filmmakers' Distribution Centre and a lecturer at Ryerson Polytechnical University. He holds an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University.

David Poole
Head, Media Arts Section
The Canada Council for the Arts
PO Box 1047, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1P 5V8

telephone: 613-566-4414, extension 5250
email:  david.poole@canadacouncil.ca
URL:   http://www.canadacouncil.ca/grants/mediaarts/mash20-e.asp

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