STEM vs STEAM

[image] photo credit: Charles Nègre, La tailleur de pierre, salt print from a collodion on glass negative, summer 1853 courtesy of Hans P. Kraus, Jr. | New York. Retrieved from http://stemtosteam.org/case-studies/

A fascinating conversation on Radio NZ between Noelle McCarthy and Professor Bruce Sheridan around creativity, generating ideas, improvisation, education, failure and a lot more... the ideas around 'STEM' (science, technology, engineering and maths) vs STEAM (add art to the mix) was a great analogy. A 'stem' rooted to the ground as opposed to 'steam' which has the ability to be everywhere ... read more here http://stemtosteam.org ... and listen to interview on Radio New Zealand here

Bruce Sheridan: psychology of creativity

Bruce Sheridan is the Chair of Cinema Art + Science at Columbia College, Chicago, and North American regional Chair of CILECT, the world organisation of film and media schools. He has returned to New Zealand as the fourth Creative Fellow for the University of Auckland’s Creative Thinking Project, to deliver a series of public lectures drawing on recent research into creativity and discussing evidence from neuroscience and cognitive psychology to make the case for reintegrating art and science in education. RNZ

this is not normal ...

we sat facing each other, fists pounding the table, plates rattling, scattering and shimmering on the wooden surface . like boiling water on the hood of a pick-up truck in the middle of a texan summer . two minds interlocked in a battle of differences . two opposing views, neither one understanding the complexities of their intents . the shouting got louder and the ability to rationalise increasingly became dimmer . loved ones dispersed, sheltering from the eruptions . we continued to shout . 'art is not art unless it is universal' thump ! the plates danced ... 'but hold on a sec, does that mean that i am not an artist because i am not universal?' no reply... 'art is only good when everyone recognises it ... like monet or michelangelo... that's what art is! bang! ... it went on like this and things shut down ... what began as a conversation, where the exchange of ideas and the sharing of experiences around a common space enlivened by the gift of food and drink, had now become, once again, a lecture . this is not normal i thought to myself . thankfully those days are gone .

Converstations with Doug Aitkens : artist / interviewer / facilitator

process | patterns | chaos | motion | place

"Doug Aitken was born in California in 1968. He lives and works in Los Angeles and New York. Widely known for his innovative fine art installations, Aitken utilizes a wide array of media and artistic approaches to leads us into a world where time, space, and memory are fluid concepts [...] Aitken’s body of work ranges from photography, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, and installations." Retrieved from http://www.dougaitkenworkshop.com/bio/

In this series of interviews Doug Aitken's talks with contemporary visual artists, musicians, architects and socially conscious individuals across a diverse range of topics, disciplines and practice. They discuss processes, inspiration and art making and of interest to me is his interview with artist Aaron Koblin and the underlying theme of patterns. Through out all of the conversations the presence of patterns and systems is touch on, whether they be organic in nature, constructed visually or assembled aurally they exist within all that we do which facilitates our connections to and with our social world.

Station to Station (http://stationtostation.com) is another Aitken's initiated project where a train ride "connect[s] leading figures and underground creators from the worlds of art, music, food, literature, and film for a series of cultural interventions and site-specific happenings. The train, designed as a moving, kinetic light sculpture, broadcasted unique content and experiences to a global audience [...]" which takes viewers on a "journey into the new cultural frontier." Retrieved from http://stationtostation.com/about/

http://dougaitkenthesource.com http://www.dougaitkenworkshop.com http://stationtostation.com

debris : flotsam and jetsam

What is it that we leave behind? the emotions of sorrow and loss? the physicality of presence, a smell? a touch, an embrace? ... / how do we know what it is that we leave behind and how do others resurrect those discarded bits, bytes, functions and intentions? ... / time erodes and memories fade  ... / some things are no longer wanted, exiled from our blithe consumerist attitudes, banned, abolished, replaced ... / some things, like events and occurrences move from our fundamental reasoning to the periphery of our understanding, where connections are marginal, where our synapses carefully choose which bonds to make, which modules should be inserted and which should be discarded ... / a bit like space junk or residual matter that echoes Cauchy’s theory of complex analysis, a holomorphic function mapped under stress ... / or maybe, precisely that ... far too complex ... /

but... what of the data we leave ignored, that has no visible function, no commercial gain? where do those pixelated social couplings reside? .../ how do we aggregate a digital space to act as revealers of truth, the space where the machine and I, me and you, us and them coexist? ... / does this ‘virtual reality’ remove, neglect, disregard the need for responsibility, facilitate and defer rationality and compound understanding? ... / does the augmentation confuse or does it allow us to hide behind a code, a syntax, a digit of ideology, a hyperlink which offers us the promise of elsewhere?

Science, religion, philosophy, and politics have all attempted to reveal our truths for us ... / digital technologies attempt to democratize knowledge, to placate our need for acceptance and to insinuate where truth might be found ... / it also becomes a source for commodification and provides the illusion of wealth which further expands our concepts of hope, of our desire for acceptance and our need for homogenization ... / the digital space can also foster our ambitions for a more egalitarian existence and act as a companion, a catalyst for revolt and for dissent .../ it can be a subversive voice echoing millions of disenfranchised, a witness to the uprise ... / it represents itself in the hyperreal, the gloss of perfection, the glow of the screen and the flawless world of software, digital enhancements and predefined filters ... / it mirrors a conflicting environment, one which not only represents the oppressed and the objector but one that also acts as a conduit for the abandonment of liability and the deferral of accountability ... /

But maybe, things are far more innocent than they appear? like the sign that’s no longer there leaving a question as to why it was removed or what it may have said / or the condensation of air trapped inside a community notice inviting us to participate in an initiative which is no longer legible ... / or the discarded boxes, bits of wood, the off-cuts of structures which have lost their function ... / or maybe they mimic society’s flotsam and jetsam, a hello, a goodbye, a conversation, the hope for something new, something more immediate ... / or are these things far more real, like the scars that never heal or the words which linger long after the battlefield ... / or possibly a broken bit of code or the cadence of eloquent voices crushed, subdued ... / or the truth which lies in a sea of mistrust or the imagined which evaporates in the deserts of our minds eye? is it a mark of intent, a symbol of progress, a pixel exploded, a fragment of time? or perhaps it is just another image, just another byte for consumption, just one more bit of repetitive commodity, just one more digit that implicates us in our relation with the here and now ( / )

Esther Shalev-Gerz

Esther Shalev-Gerz states "All my work is based on the potentiality of trust" (Shalev-Gerz, 2013). Her projects often express the narrative of a time forgotten which she then reinterprets as slices of time in the present. She has described the importance of memory in her works as an integral aspect of her site specific installations. The relationship between object and environment is how those moments are defined. Individuals who occupy the space in the past talk about their experience and their relationship with not only the physical space but the intent of the space and their interaction with others who use those same spaces.

Though we rarely speak of trust in relation to art, a work of art may well be the ultimate expression of trust. It is as if we trust, for instance, that some inked piece of paper or painted canvas will receive us and speak truly about our world and its own. It is this space of trust that enables dialogue to unfold. Dialogue is a group of people freely reaching a place and verbally exchanging thoughts in a present and immediate way whilst listening, not only to others but also to themselves with others, then coming together and exchanging again, and after having left, coming together yet again. Such gathering is never spontaneous; still, it must be proposed. (Esther Shalev-Gerz, The Trust Gap (2013). Retrieved from • / http://art-agenda.com/shows/art-and-theory-new-publications-by-esther-shalev-gerz/

“I do think all art springs out from an invitation, real or imaginary” (Esther Shalev-Gerz, 2010).

http://youtu.be/LP77WlRppAg

Artist's talk with Esther Shalev-Gerz at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, January 12, 2013.

http://youtu.be/e_DXgVEMfvQ

The Artwork as an Act of Memory

For over 20 years her work has focused on interventions and projects in public space, taking the form of collaboration and exchange with the audience. Her installations and photographic work raise questions on group memory and its interaction with personal history and souvenir. In these commemorative monuments, installations, video and photographic works, questions about history are posed, and its relationship with collective memory is explored and investigated. Esther Shalev-Gerz: The Artwork as an Act of Memory. 2001 by: Contemporary Past. Retrieved from: http://vimeo.com/27525041

[vimeo 27525041 w=500 h=281]

Esther Shalev-Gerz: The Artwork as an Act of Memory from Contemporary Past on Vimeo.

Resources / images :

http://www.shalev-gerz.net/

Cover image: DAEDAL(US), 2003. Intervention and Installation. Dublin, Ireland. Still image projections variable dimensions. 15 colour photographs - 65 cm x 53 cm. 15 diasec-mounted colour photographs – 108 cm x 80 cm.

INSEPARABLE ANGELS: AN IMAGINARY HOUSE FOR WALTER BENJAMIN, 2000. Installation. Collection of the Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden. 1 Double-faced clock - 60 cm. Double-seated chair – 82 cm x 65 cm x 43 cm.

BOOKS INHALED BY THE SKY, 1998. Video Projection - 14 mn.