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Registration takes place in the Roland Levinsky Cross Point out side Lecture Theatre 1 and 2.
Balancing climate change and learning through games
David Crookall (University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France), Pimnutcha Promduangsri (Lycée Auguste Renoir, Cagnes, France), Pariphat Promduangsri (Collège Romée de Villeneuve, Villeneuve Loubet, France).
crookall.consulting@gmail.com : http://linkedin.com/in/simulation
pimnutcha.promduangsri@gmail.com : http://linkedin.com/in/pimpro
ploy.pariphat@gmail.com
ABSTRACT:
Climate change is putting the world wildly out of balance. The wellbeing and life of humans are increasingly under threat from human activity. Humans are killing the very thing that provides for their life. Human lifestyle is killing human lifestyle. Most so-called leaders today (usually politicians) are not seriously interested in climate change and the ravages that it is imposing on the planet and on life. Some cities have taken up the slack, for example, mayors have pledged action to move the world to 1.5°. However, it is themass of ‘their’ population that really needs to be encouraged to act for their survival. The only irreversible way in which this can be done is intergenerationally, through experiential learning (education that is relevant and practical). Several methods exist, such as field work, internships, simulation/gaming, citizen science. The poster will challenge people to make connections among the causes and effects of climate change and the role of education in fighting them. The poster will do what it preaches by presenting several ames that participants can actually play. Thus the poster will ask people to think about several types of balance: human action and climate, ethics and education, learning and games.
DESCRIPTION:
The poster will be A1 size. Three people will be there to welcome participants and dialogue with them. People will be able to contribute to the poster by drawing connections with coloured pens.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIE(S) (ready for dissemination. 200 words maximum):
David Crookall works in several areas, including earth sciences, simulation/gaming and publication. He has published widely and was editor of an international academic journal for many years. He is about to retire from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. His LinkedIn profile is linkedin.com/in/simulation
Pimnutcha Promduangsri is a 17-year-old science student at Auguste Renoir high school in Cagnes-surmer, France. She was one of the youngest participants of the 2017 EGU General Assembly in Vienna. She has a deep interest in the environment and taking care of the environment. Her LinkedIn profile is linkedin.com/in/pimpro
Pariphat Promduangsri is a 15 year old student at College Romée de Villeneuve, middle school in
Villeneuve Loubet, France. She is interested in science, maths, the environment, the planets and music.
In a time of global uncertainty and dark ecology, how can artists bear witness through creative practice?
Kate Paxman (Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK)
katherine.paxman@plymouth.ac.uk : http://www.hengistburyoverture.blogspot.co.uk
ABSTRACT:
This work seeks to explore the uncertain nature of our current economic and ecological moment: our political and social climate of neoliberalism, austerity and the privatization of art, culture and education, and the ecological crisis we are facing from climate change.
The research is located in the creation of a new body of work in response to Torbay’s Marine Conservation Zone (designated 2013) and in particular its submerged or partially submerged (infralittoral) sea caves, which extend from Mackeral Cove in the north to Sharkham Point in the south.1 The dynamic environments of shallow water marine caves and their biotopes are especially vulnerable to changing weather patterns. Subject to frequent strong wave surges, intertidal marine caves are at risk of complete destruction from extreme storm damage.2
The focus will be on the inter-relation between people and place and will employ a cross-disciplinary approach, working with specialists outside the field of visual art, for example, marine biologists and geologists and experts from local conservation groups and charities. The work will look at the negative effects of environmental change on people and the “modern uncanny”3 of solastalgia, “a new concept developed to give greater meaning and clarity to environmentally induced distress.”4
- McLeod, CR, Yeo, M, Brown, AE, Burn, AJ, Hopkins, JJ, & Way, SF (eds.) (2005) The Habitats Directive: selection of Special Areas of Conservation in the UK. 2nd edn. Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough. www.jncc.gov.uk/SACselection
- Connor, D.W., J.H. Allen, N.Golding, K.L.Howell, L.M. Lieberknecht, K.O. Northen and B. Reker (2004) The Marine Habitat Classification for Britain and Ireland Version 04.05. In: JNCC (2015) The Marine Habitat Classification for Britain and Ireland Version 15.03 [Online]. (2017, February 10). Available from: jncc.defra.gov.uk/MarineHabitiatClassification.
- MacFarlane, Robert. (Fri 1 April 2016). Generation Anthropocene: How Humans Altered the Planet Forever. The Guardian [4] Albrecht, G. (2007). Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change. Australas Psychiatry 2007;15 Suppl 1:S95-8.
DESCRIPTION:
One of the starting points for the research alongside the practice led approach is Timothy Morton’s concept of ‘Dark Ecology’ and his proposal for a new approach to environmental thinking.1 In this approach, in order to have a properly ecological view, Morton proposes that we must relinquish the idea of nature once and for all. I will be considering Timothy Morton’s ‘Dark Ecology’ in the context of Tim Ingold’s writing in Being Alive.2 I will also be looking at artists from the 3-year Dark Ecology Project – a journey through the Arctic regions of Norway and Russia.3
In looking more closely at contemporary multi-media responses to current ecological thinking, I am interested in exploring ‘sonic atmospheres’, informed by Affect Theory.4
Another starting point is the term solastalgia which “speaks of a modern uncanny, in which a familiar place is rendered unrecognisable by climate change or corporate action: the home becomes suddenly unhomely around its inhabitants.”5 In order to explore the sensation of solastalgia, I would refer to the writing of Dylan Trigg on melancholy, space and nostalgia, 6 and to Juhani Pallasmaa’s notion of peripheral perception.7
- Morton, T. (2007). Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England. Harvard University Press.
- Ingold, T. ( 2011). Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London and New York. Routledge.
- Hilde Methi. (2014). Dark Ecology. Retrieved from www.darkecology.net.
- Deleuze, Guattari. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus. USA. University of Minnesota Press.
- MacFarlane, Robert. (Fri 1 April 2016). Generation Anthropocene: How Humans Altered the Planet Forever. The Guardian
- Trigg, D. (2012). The Memory of Place: A Phenomenology of the Uncanny. Ohio University Press
- Pallasmaa, J. (2014). Space, Place and Atmosphere: Peripheral Perception in Existential Experience, in Architectural Atmospheres: On the Experience and Politics of Architecture ed Christian Borch. Basel. Birkhauser.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIE(S) (ready for dissemination. 200 words maximum):
Kate’s work explores the nature of site, archaeology and heritage, and the image of the changing landscape in relation to contemporary practice. Working across-disciplines, her outcomes often take the form of moving image and sound installations re-situated in the places they were made.
A sensitivity to place and fragile habitats has been developed through recent projects including Hengistbury Overture (2016), commissioned by Activate Performing Arts for the 2016 Inside Out Festival, Dorset; Mutability and Beaten Earth (2015) for the Smooth Space-Torre Abbey Residency Project and Inner Quarry (2012) for ‘over the horizon’, Berry Head NNR, Brixham, Devon, a Smooth Space, Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust partnership project. Kate is currently undertaking a practice-led Ph.D with the art+sound research group, School of Art, Design and Architecture, Plymouth University.
In 2011 Kate co-founded artist-led initiative Smooth Space with fellow artist David Harbott. They develop artist residencies in a range of locations, always outside the gallery environment and often working in partnership with non-arts organizations.
smooth space “always possesses a greater power of deterritorialization than the striated”1
[1] Deleuze, Guattari. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus. USA. University of Minnesota Press.Multispecies Roundtable for Climate Impact
AUTHORS: Pamela Cajilig1, Diego S. Maranan1, 2, 3, Arlene Sy4, Oliver Salva1, Angelo Vermeulen3, 5
AFFILIATIONS: 1 Curiosity Design Research, 2 University of the Philippines Open University, 3 Space, Ecologies, Art, and Design, 4 Independent artist, 5 Delft University of Technology
LOCATION: 1, 2, 4 The Philippines, 3 Belgium, 5 The Netherlands.
pamela@curiosity.ph : http://www.curiosity.ph
dmaranan@upou.edu.ph : http://www.diegomaranan.com
arlene.sy@gmail.com : http://www.arlenesy.com
birdie@curiosity.ph : http://www.curiosity.ph
angelo@sead.network : http://www.angelovermeulen.net
ABSTRACT: This poster details a speculative framework—a Multispecies Roundtable for Climate Impact— for interpreting climate- and weather-related information from a variety of biological and artificial agents and data sources. Based on our experience in designing interventions for disaster (Cajilig & Salva, 2014), our framework integrates information across various stakeholders to help arrive at decisions that can protect lives, natural and artificial resources, and livelihoods.
DESCRIPTION: The Philippines is one of the most typhoon prone countries in world (Bankoff, 2003), and its government has invested significantly in data technology which has proven to be critical in planning for climate impact. However, there is conflict as to how this data ought to be interpreted and used by the technoscientific community on one hand and, on the other, by sectors of society who rely on traditional and embodied knowledge of the natural environment. How do we interpret the information equitably to make decisions that can protect lives, natural and artificial resources, and livelihoods? We take artist Angelo Vermeulen’s notion of a multispecies roundtable for co-creating systems—in which plants, computers, and people are brought together in mutually beneficial ways (Vermeulen, 2016)—and apply it to the context of natural disaster management. This design concept explores how we can make better decisions for the common good by building a community practice around climate impact that is made up humans, nonhuman animals, and artificial intelligence. The decision-making process draws from machine learning: roundtable actors repeatedly decide on a course of action, until they make a decision that succeeds. We propose to integrate ethnoscientific models for weather and climate prediction by indigenous and artisanal groups. As an initial step, representatives and the technoscientific community sit at the roundtable to negotiate how ethnoscientific information can be used with the latter’s predictive models. Further iterations of the concept will explore the involvement of other agents. What if animals and plants also had a seat at the roundtable? What if machines can be considered as a stakeholder of the commons? Possible technologies that can be brought to bear on our framework include brain-computer interfaces, location tracking and gesture-identification technologies to interpret the behavior of and thoughts non-human animals. To involve the ethnoscientific communities, we propose using mobile apps that can gamify their decision-making processes. We suggest that integrating these processes through machine learning allows the roundtable to improve integrating information and making recommendations to protect lives, natural and artificial resources, and livelihoods. The figure below summarizes key aspects of the framework.
Bankoff, G. (2003). Cultures of disaster: society and natural hazards in the Philippines. London: Routledge.
Cajilig, P., & Salva, O. (2014, October). Creating Political Artifacts with Design Thinking: Shelter Prototype
Development in a Disaster Context. Conference paper presented at the 36th Annual Conference of UGAT (Uganayang Pang-AghamTao) / Anthropological Association of the Philippines, St. Louis University, Baguio City, Philippines.
Vermeulen, A. (2016, April). Living computers, Mars simulations and DIY Starships: Advancing crossdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration. Lecture presented at the CogNovo Research Seminar Series, Plymouth University, UK. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/5068
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIE(S): Pamela Cajilig is a design and business anthropologist, and co-founder and Principal at Curiosity Design Research, a consultancy that helps organizations understand human experiences so that design can be used as a platform for inspiration, solutions, and social change. Pamela has been involved in design-based recovery research projects during the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, and has worked in disaster preparedness and response for various government agencies. Diego Maranan is an embodied cognition researcher and designer, assistant professor at the University of the Philippines. Marie Curie Fellow at the CogNovo programme at Plymouth University, and co-founder of Curiosity. Arlene Sy is an independent visual artist, illustrator, and art director based in Manila. Oliver Salva is co-founder and General Manager of Curiosity, where he works in business innovation. Angelo Vermeulen is an biologist, artist, and space systems researcher at TU Delft. He has served as a crew commander for NASA; co-founded Space, Ecologies, Art, and Design with Diego; and is currently a TED Senior Fellow.
if we do nothing (towards the creative sonification of climate change data)
James Alexander Wyness (UK)
jimmy2@wyness.org : http://www.wyness.org
Anthropogenically driven changes in the environment take place every day and have done so for centuries. The approaching dangers of relatively recent acceleration in such changes are comprehensively documented. It is predicted that the effects of such changes, if we do nothing to modify our collective behaviour, will be to cause widespread and irreversible damage to physical, biological and human managed systems. These effects will be felt differently by different populations in different climatic zones. In describing the project if we do nothing this poster illustrates my research and practice in response to aspects of the causes and effects of climate change, in particular tipping elements, by creating accessible immersive sound installations which sonify meaningful data-sets. I am working alongside three partners: one with advanced programming and data networking skills in the synthesis language Supercollider; the Cryosphere and Climate Change Group at Aberdeen University, for advice on the selection, interpretation and presentation of static and real-time data sets, as eventual raw material for the sonification models; a partner with extensive curatorial experience. I envisage initially producing installations which responds to static data sets whilst simultaneously laying firm foundations (partners, research, funding strategy) for an eventual permanent fixed installation.
DESCRIPTION:
My proposed poster serves as a project description. I see this project as an artistic endeavour which bridges data and the understandings of non-scientists vis-a-vis climate change. It sets out to open a knowledge portal that allows people to understand more clearly some of the implications of this complex field, investigating the creative sonification of data that reflect climate change, for example glaciers/ice sheets mass balance and more generally sea ice extent. 2017 will see the research, modelling and testing of new sonification ideas and techniques, the presentation of public outcomes, the establishment of new partnerships and in-depth evaluation and feedback across all activites – in developing my work conference presentation and publication will be significant, hence this proposal. Altogether these will lay foundations for an eventual innovative fixed permanent installation which interprets and sonifies real-time data.
My idea is conceptually simple and responds to ‘sense of place’ by creating a site where listeners will be invited to feel the results of climate change by apprehending accessible sonic representations, which nonetheless offer second-order complexity and tension as the sonic medium interprets ‘tipping elements’ – global warming, rising CO2 levels or ice sheet diminution. I will exploit sound’s advantages, as a phenomenological reality in itself, soundover-sign, felt somatically, over certain forms of visual media. For example, selected tipping elements (temperature, ice levels) mapped from a given date up to the predicted tipping point (if we do nothing), are scaled appropriately. Shifting frequencies, perceived as pitches, would indicate rising temperature or diminishing ice cover. As tipping points approach, the frequencies reach inaudibility at higher and lower thresholds, descending/ascending beyond perception, though sound might still be felt (as vibration) and differently so for individuals, mirroring how climate change will be experienced differently by populations around the planet. Thus the listener engages with two complex sounds (ie not sine waves) having a strong fundamental frequency, recognisable as shifting pitches. The interaction of such sonic shifts produces artifacts and perturbations, eliciting further interest in the sonic medium, offering analogies with chaotic systems. A more ‘horizontal’ signification might interpret species loss or biodiversity reduction by mapping to the density of sonic events over given time-scales. Complex noise-based timbres might effectively represent various chaotic conditions as tipping points pass. Data scaling ensures that sonifications are meaningfully mapped to critical fields appropriate to the order of human perception and attention – eg, one hour representing the next 10 years (if we do nothing, if we intervene positively), several hours representing the past 50 years until now. A pre-industrial date, when conditions were considered to be ‘balanced’, might be represented by a single pitch bifurcating as changes take place over years, scaled to the listener’s temporal order. Different timbres might represent several fields as climate change analogues drift towards worst-case scenarios.
SOLARIZER: The solar power synthesiser.
Laura P. Gracia. CRiSAP Creative Research in Sound Art Practice – LCC London College of Communication – UAL University of Arts London. UK.
lauraplanagracia@gmail.com : http://netzzz.net/
The Solar Sound Bots create a jungle full of animals sound. What if robots activate self-educated in an environment where they are exposed to multiple stimuli (sound, light, human presence)? The idea is to see the evolution of the sound with which to investigate environment. Instead of using a digital network, we will use the bots’ sensitivity to light and synthesise and analyse the environment. The sounds perceptible to humans a non-human sound a technological fabrication that helps us understands more about the light that surrounds us and the natural environment that produces these lights. All sensors used are light sensible. The experiment pretends to introduce a new ethical dimension in music production and broaden the senses to more environmental sounds. The test acts to add the organic use of solar cells. It is based on DIY cultures and so, defies the values of progress that powerful mainstream technologies are establishing.
DESCRIPTION:
The SOLARIZER is a solar power synthesiser. It is built from workshops with Solar Sound Bots and Solar Cell Synthesizers. The results is an experimental electromagnetic noise with D.I.Y. circuitry: oscillators, timers, LDR, induction coils, solar cells, IC Schmitt Triggers & light sources (natural environmental light, projectors, lamps, strobes). The experiment consists of natural low voltage components – solar cells from 3v to 12v – that supply low output devices. The oscillators, based on different integrated circuits (IC) control 3V to 12V input and transform it into sound. These produce a repetitively modulated wave that could be a triangle-wave or square-wave. The light sources control the circuits modulating the signal, in other words, the light triggers sonic signals. In a sound/light integration, the modulation of tone activates an interactive system based on DIY circuitry. It is a self-generated sonic machine creating a syncopated, high-pitched, noisy beep (Frances Dyson, The tone of our Times, The MIT Press). The result is a rhythmic noise performance based on saturation and collapse. The triggering of the sonic signal through different media devices causes an innovative sound circuitry based on new bio-sonic materialism practices that try to move forward cutting edge sound development. It also investigates Simondon’s transduction effects. The solarizer consists of different sorts of works based on solar cell input. During the workshops, the artist developed different models of DIY solar cell synthesisers. There are mainly three models.
- One relies on the 3v solar cell, with the IC 74HC14, developed by Ralf Schreiber. It does not require to be mounted on PCB board, so its final appearance resembles a Bot.
- Other models use the IC 4093 with 5v, 9v, and 12v solar cell.
- The IC 40106 reacts to the 9v solar cell. It is as well reacting to 12v solar cell and 15v.
With the workshop, it has demonstrated that different solar sound bots and solar cell synthesisers create new and different wave sounds. The experiment pretends to introduce a new ethical dimension in music production and broaden the senses to more environmental sounds. The test acts to add the organic use of solar cells. It is based on DIY cultures and so, defies the values of progress that powerful mainstream technologies are establishing.The result is a jungle full of animals sound. What if robots activate selfeducated in an environment where they are exposed to multiple stimuli (sound, light, human presence, etc.)?The idea is to see the evolution of the sound with which to investigate environment. Instead of using a digital network, we will use the bots’ sensitivity to light and synthesise and analyse the environment. The sounds perceptible to humans a non-human sound a technological fabrication that helps us understands more about the light that surrounds us and the natural environment that produces these lights. All sensors used are light sensible.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIE(S):
Laura Plana Gracia (Barcelona, 1982). Currently PhD Student at CRiSAP. Curator, artist and researcher established in London since 2009. She has studied the history of art and media art and is interested in electronic arts, art, science and technology and digital media. Participant at hacking culture and noise scene has taken part in many international events, such as exhibitions, workshops, conferences, and concerts, in Spain, UK, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Serbia, and Russia. As a Live Performer, she has acted in various festivals and events in London and overseas. To highlight Noizemaschine, London; XX Studio, Montreal, Canada, 2015; Noise Toys Orchestra, with Tasos Stamou, Cafe Oto Project Space,
London, 2015; Sonica FM, London, 2015; OneBeatEcho, US, 2014; Improvised Electronic Round Up, New York, 2014. In 2015, she launched her independent record label EAM Elektronische-art-and-music, with the album supporting the exhibition curated at Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico. She is well-known in London noise scene where she performs under the moniker Medial Ages. Recently, has set up Laboratory Nature & Technology, an independent and experimental space located in northern region of the Pyrenees. Creating practices based in the embodiment among nature and technology its aims are to transfer the contemporary needs of technological society to ancestral nature and paradisiacal environments. Laboratory promotes an ecological use of technology and seeks recovery of the rural heritage. Its activities are hiking in Natural Reserves and D.i.Y. Workshops. http://netzzz.net/laboratory/ http://netzzz.net/