Statements on Ecological Art...Ecological Art REVIEW/2011"Land art conceptual origins not to be confused with Environmental Art which has social cultural implications. Earth Art is the most all encompassing term - can include earlier and later versions. Eco-art is in scale, more attuned to site and ecology"John K. Grande/2011 (Canada) Statement towards an Ecological Art Definition/2011/ECOLOGICAL ART REVIEW/2011Ecological Art and Ethics/1997 (USA)Ecological Art is a worldwide art movement, the philosophy of which is based on ecological awareness, the harmonic coexistance of human beings and nature. It is a revitalizing movement in terms of materials used in works of art, which are in many cases, recycled and natural at the same time. Most of them emphasize the beauty of nature as a masterpiece, but one which is as fragile and vulnerable as our own life. Adriana Bianco (1997) Interview with Nohra Corredor/CUNY, Graduate Center, NYCEco-Art eConversations 2007 (USA)"Ecological art is much more than a traditional painting, photograph, or sculpture of the natural landscape. While such works may be visually pleasing, they are generally based on awe inspiring or picturesque, preconceived views of the natural world... "Ecological art, in contrast, is grounded in an ethos that focuses on communities and inter-relationships. These relationships include not only physical and biological pathways but also the cultural, political and historical aspects of communities or ecological systems. An ecological art curriculum employs art as a means for studying and promoting respect for the relationship and interaction of all living things. It should be exciting, hands on, interdisciplinary, and should engage students through various methods, such as teamwork, research, integration of technology, and exploration of ecological issues in the students' community. The goal of an eco art education curriculum should be to inform and enable students to utilize ART AND TECHNOLOGY as a means of exploration, expression, and communication, in order to understand and assume their role within their community and the environment." Reference: Excerpt from eDiscussion on 'ecological thinking' from SMART PROJECT SPACE/2008 (Holland)"As we enter this "Ecological Age""Ecological Age"(Thomas Berry) it seems prudent to differentiate which 'ways of ecological thinking' get onto the Ecological Art discipline map.First, the METHOD: In order to discuss the value of ecological thought to cultural production, how appropriate is speculation to advance the discussion and achieve some greater precision of the central problem posed here? Ecological inquiry implies a method per se. After World War II, an aggregate of ideas generated in many places gave origen to what today is known as communication theory, or information theory, or systems theory,from Bertalanffy (Vienna), Weiner (Harvard),Von Neumann (Princeton), Craik (Cambridge), Shannon (Bell Telephone labs) and so on. Among the problems they addressed they shared one question in common: what sort of a thing is an organized system (Whitehead and Russell-Theory of Logical Types)? In principle, the name is not the thing named, and the name of the name is not the name, and so on (i.e. a message ABOUT war is not part OF the war). Here we may find the beginnings of understanding complex systems, especially including the detection of patterns- e.g.,isomorphs. By following organized systems of ideas at the end of the 20th Century the WWW (World Wide Web) had sent 'information' all over and with it all the 'www's questions we can think of...where, what, when/who, why, which/and so on, to form eco-mental maps of whatever comes to our mind. These on-demand systems are being used in innovative ways by arts organizations arriving at creative experimentations and encouraging the interaction between artists and audiences. Environmental art fits in this category of art with a purpose based on societal and ecosystems needs (See Rosi Lister-"What is environmental art?") It is appropriate therefore to clarify at this point that NOT all ecological artists are environmental artists. It is of critical importance for the development of knowledge to make distinctions with a difference. And this is an example to that effect. Second, MODES OF THOUGHT: Let's assume for this discussion that at first glance there are three variables to be considered: the ARTIST with the society and with nature. And let's assume that instead of using relations, situations, inter-relations, trans-relations, interactions, linkages,as the starting point, we decide to COMBINE the variables to arrive to a particular mode of thought which we may call ecological. Of course, this requires a reconfiguration of the way of thinking and the adoption of new ecological models for arts organizations to support and embrace. We must make an effort to move ahead and beyond pre-organized tool-systems (especially those of computers and the like) and start advancing knowledge in COMBINATORY PROCESSES rather than relational and situational art practices(Leibniz)2008/ "Artistic Thinking" e-flux/journal/editorial/July 2011..."Yet the field of art is not set up to deal with these administrative challenges, for it refuses to offer a definitive answer to the question of what it is actually doing: the question "What is art?" must be left open. The more important and interesting question then concerns not the prudishness of this refusal, but the fact that the most useful answers are always provided in the negative. These are the answers that account for the fact that art education is, in fact, a fundamental paradox; almost a contradiction in terms. For how can we even begin to think about teaching something that, on a basic level, cannot be taught? How to form the audacity to make moves that have not been already sanctioned, and within spaces where they may not be acceptable? Fostering this audacity is less a structural concern; of how to deal with a given space, of how to access a history or a network of relations, of how to make work visible, and so forth—and more a question of identifying the kind of thinking that can surpass structures and institutionalization altogether. We might call this artistic thinking".2011/Quote from E-Flux/journal/issue/26/Related LINKS: |