In this introduction to her gathering on Digital and Natural Ecologies, Lisa Swanstrom pulls back from the tendency towards apocalyptic speculation that is commonplace in popular discourse of technology and nature. Instead, Swanstrom offers a more grounded discourse that addresses the impact of the digital on the natural.
(source: http://electronicbookreview.com/thread/criticalecologies/peripheral)
ARTIST STATEMENT: Nuclear reactors are built to last for about 30 years. After that, the spent fuel needs to be stored for thousands of years. Zero-fault is unknown in all human endeavours. Culture fissions. Extinction Elegies is about the fragile instability of received meaning at both biological and social levels.
(Source: Artist's description on the project site)
TECHNE: The display of Extinction Elegies is non-linear and changes over repeated readings. For every time the entire poem is read (by the current reader), a mutant word(s) is introduced into every verse. In other words, after reading all the verses once, the next loop all the verses will contain one word replaced; after two reading loops, two words are replaced, etc... When the number of loops or mutation-rate exceeds the number of words in a verse, individual letters are replaced with words and all the verses disintegrate into untenable bloated nonsense.
INTERACTIVITY: Click on video, then use the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys on yr keyboard to get new verses & the UP or DOWN arrow keys on yr keyboard to increase or decrease mutation. Alternatively, after the first time all the verses are read, the mutation rate auto-increases and buttons appear (at top and bottom of screen) which permit direct control of mutation rate.
For information on nuclear power, I am indebted to Rosalie Bertell and FaireWinds. Soundtrack (produced using Ableton's Tension) available for free download on Bandcamp. Most footage shot (March 2011) at La Societe des Plantes in Kamouraska using a Canon T2i with 50mm 1.8 lens (Author's note)
Albuquerque, NM
United States
The Eighteenth International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness is a symposium and series of events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art, technology and nature. The ISEA symposium is held every year in a different location around the world, and has a 30-year history of significant acclaim. Albuquerque is the first host city in the U.S. in six years. The ISEA2012 symposium will consist of a conference September 19 – 24, 2012 based in Albuquerque with outreach days along the state’s “Cultural Corridor” in Santa Fe and Taos, and an expansive, regional collaboration throughout the fall of 2012, including art exhibitions, public events, performances and educational activities. This project will bring together a wealth of leading creative minds from around the globe, and engage the local community through in-depth partnerships. Machine Wilderness references the New Mexico region as an area of rapid growth and technology alongside wide expanses of open land, and aims to present artists' and technologists' ideas for a more humane interaction between technology and wilderness in which "machines" can take many forms to support life on Earth. Machine Wilderness focuses on creative solutions for how technology and the natural world can sustainably co-exist. The program will include: a bilingual focus, an indigenous thread, and a focus on land and skyscape. Because of our vast resource of land in New Mexico, proposals from artists are being sought that will take ISEA participants out into the landscape. The Albuquerque Balloon Museum offers a unique opportunity for artworks to extend into the sky as well. The lead organizations hosting ISEA2012 are 516 ARTS, The University of New Mexico and The Albuquerque Museum of Art & History. There are a total over 50 partnering organizations to date representing museums, colleges, nonprofit arts organizations, environmental organizations and the scientific and technological communities. (Source: ISEA 2012 website)