Proposal by Pierre Proske

Carbon Arts is working in partnership with artist, Pierre Proske, to develop .Blush – a public media arts work on a large scale that responds to the energy performance of the built environment. The project, supported by an Australia Council for the Arts ‘Creative Australia’ grant, re-imagines a sustainable building with a skin that ‘blushes’ and changes hue based on the energy usage, with ‘freckles’ consisting of thermochomic and electrically activated discs. We will be working in partnership with the City of Melbourne, Synergetics, FMSA Architects and Jason Bond of the Environment Shop to research the location, scale, interpretation and technological design for this project. Our vision is to realise the .Blush buildings in the City of Melbourne by the end of 2013, so that with innovative visualisation of energy saving/consumption we can better preserve our resources and environment.

Follow us on the project blog: http://www.dotblush.com/

Presented by the Australian Network of Art & Technology (ANAT) and Carbon Arts, ECHOLOGY: making sense of data brings together Australia’s leading artists, a world leader in urban development and local communities to create data-driven public artworks that encourage meaningful engagement with issues surrounding sustainability, climate change and resource use at a local level. It is a three stage project, supported by a mix of government and private sector partnership, that will culminate in the production of three new, significant public art works at Lend Lease sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In the first stage of the project, seminars were held in three state capitals to introduce Australian artists to the rapidly developing field of data-driven arts practice. An open call for ideas for the three sites will be announced in May 2012, with shortlisted teams selected to attend an Arts Lab in July 2012 to develop proposals to production-ready stage. Winners will be selected in September to go into production with launch of completed works beginning at ISEA in Sydney in 2013.

Greenmeme’s Hyperion-Son of Uranus is a sculptural visualisation of the sewerage infrastructure of LA county, represented as a time-stamp in 2009. Commissioned for the new Environmental Learning Center for the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment plant, the grid-like structure bulges where pipes are largest creating a unique topography from volumetric data. Fashioned from recycled street signs collected from CalTrans over 3 years, Hyperion flashes green and silver as light hits the surface, a reminder of the multiple layers of infrastructure both visible and hidden.

ECHOLOGY brings together Australia’s leading artists and urban developers to create data‐driven public artworks that engage with serious issues in evocative and playful ways. Come along to the seminar and networking event nearest you to find out how you can be part of this exciting opportunity and to meet some of the best international artists working in the field:

Julie FREEMAN (UK), Usman HAQUE (UK), Joyce HINTERDING (AU), Geo HOMSY (US), Natalie JEREMIJENKO (AU/US) and DV ROGERS (NZ/AU)

MELBOURNE | 3pm – 6pm | Monday 26 March| Conference Centre, State Library of Victoria

BRISBANE | 5pm – 8pm | Wednesday 28 March | The Edge, State Library of Queensland

SYDNEY | 2pm – 5pm | Thursday 29 March | Lecture Theatre EG02, College of Fine Arts, UNSW

The Seminar recording is now available for download.

Curating Cities Workshop by Carbon Arts

Led by Jodi Newcombe, supported by the Curating Cities research team, the workshop presents a new set of guidelines and eco-sustainability criteria for the analysis of public art. It will introduce the Curating Cities database which aims to provide definitive analysis of public art for artists and art commissioners. The workshop will outline opportunities for art writers and researchers to contribute case studies to the database, peer-reviewed by an international editorial board.

Presented by NIEA at COFA UNSW
In association with Carbon Arts, City of Sydney and Object: Australian Centre for Design

Tuesday, 28 Feb 2012, 2-4pm
Arcade Room, Mathews Arcade, UNSW Kensington
Free Entry
Visit www.niea.unsw.edu.au/events for further details

The Park Spark project is an urban intervention that questions our waste infrastructure and engages people directly in re-imagining uses for waste products. Artist Matthew Mazotta has created a system that literally transforms dog waste into energy in a New York City park, avoiding waste to landfill. By turning a crank dog-owners power a methane digester and provide the fuel source for an adjacent gas lamp. This ‘eternal flame’ will burn until a member of the public suggests an alternative use for this ‘excess’ resource. Part education, part provocation and part solution, this innovative arts project reconnects people to their environment in a very tangible way.

Animal Wall by artist Gitta Gschewendter is a large-scale public artwork that provides 1000 apartments for bats and birds. Situated along a 50 metre wall, Animal Wall was commissioned as part of a new residential development in Cardiff, Wales, and mirrors the provision of the 1000 homes for humans. A direct response to the loss of natural habitat that housing developments are partially responsible for, the artwork contributes both practically and aesthetically to the needs of public space.

Live Forever is the work of artists Jenna Didier and Oliver Hess whose practice Infranatural seeks to tie the built environment to the natural pulse of a living city. A Los Angeles fire station is host to the public art work, which acts as a barometer of the county’s fire risk through a web of humidity & temperature sensors stretched across the facade like a a growing vine.  LED lights at each node flash across the building in shades of blue to red, making people aware of their environment, frequently warning them to take care with sparks and cigarettes.

Plunge is a new climate change-themed public artwork in the City of London by artist Michael Pinsky. Sited in three locations around key historic monuments, Plunge communicates future sea level rise through an elegant series of LED powered rings. Each ring shows where the Thames is expected to reach in the year 3111 if current carbon pollution trends continue. In the words of the artist, at one level the work places the viewer deep below the water’s surface, and at another level the work “suggests a protective shell, proposing that we have a chance to change this situation.”

What will our 21st century ice-cream future be?

We will also explore alternative milk producing species, including the buffalo, and their impacts on the environment.

Friday 2 December 2011
3.00 – 5.00 PM
William Angliss Institute, 555 La Trobe St, VIC 3000 (Meet at reception)
$35 Full Price/$25 Students + Staff
Click here to book