EcoArt and Transdisciplinarity

presentation by

Mary Jo Aagerstoun, Ph.D.President, EcoArt South Florida

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Is EcoArt Transdisciplinary??

Diagram courtesy of Sam Bower, greenmuseum.org

EcoArt is not a discipline. It is a practice.

So is environmental art, which is a larger category of practice.

Art is the discipline.

The other practices inside the environmental art bubble are also practices

They can be practices each one individually

And

They can be incorporated into EcoArt, together or separately

In many combinations

But EcoArt cannot be absorbed into them

…so what makes EcoArtEcoArt?

EcoArt is both a practice of environmental art, AND… can subsume into itselfother environmental art practices…

…and…

All are part of the DISCIPLINE of ART

…and…

…EcoArt ALSO brings INTO it, PROCESSES of the DISCIPLINES of…

ENGINEERING

and

SCIENCE

How we will proceed

• Nicolescu’s definitions• Roots of EcoArt

• Branches of EcoArt• Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)

• Revisit Nicolescu

Basarab Nicolescu1942-

Honorary theoretical physicist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris. He is also a Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and Docteur ès-Sciences Physiques (PhD), 1972, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris. He was appointed Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University, South Africa for the period 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2013 and was elected as Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) Fellow in 2011.

For introducing me to Nicolescu’s thinking, thanks to Sacha Kagan Toward Global (Environ)Mental Change: Transformative Art and Cultures of Sustainability. Berlin: Heinrich Boell Stiftung, 2012, David Haley ‘Art, Ecology and Reality: the Potential for Transdisciplinarity,’ paper, 5th Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics, and Hans Dieleman, “Transdisciplinary Artful Doing in Spaces of Experimentation and Imagination” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science The ATLAS (December, 2012)

Nicolescu’s definitionsfrom: Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Hampton Press Inc., 2008

• ‘Multidisciplinarity concerns studying … [a] topic not in just one discipline but in several at the same time.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

• ‘Interdisciplinarity… concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

• ‘…transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

How we will proceed

• Nicolescu’s definitions • Roots of EcoArt

• Branches of EcoArt• Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)

• Revisit Nicolescu

performance(FLUXUS)

social practice

installation

“new genre” public art

land art

bio-artgenerative art

1960s-’80s Experimental Art Movements

ROOTS of EcoArt

EcoArt precedents are practices within Art,

therefore they are

INTRA disciplinary!!

performance

Joseph Beuys1973

“Bog Action”Zuider Zee Performance

installation

Allan Kaprow

1961“Yard”

land art

Robert Smithson, 1970, “Spiral Jetty”

“new genre” public art

Suzanne Lacy, 1977, “Three Weeks in May”

social practice

John Malpede and Skid Row Artists1985-present

“Los Angeles Poverty Department”

bio-artgenerative art

Portable Orchard, 1972 Endangered Meadows of Europe, 1996Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany

Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison

species

soil/food

energyhabitat

water

THE “BRANCHES:” 21st Century EcoArt Intervention Foci

slow activism

energy

Sarah Hall, 2009, “Science of Light”

Sarah Hall, 2011, “Waterglass”

habitat

Lynne Hull, 1985-2004

Habitat Sculptures

water

Betsy Damon, 1998, “Living Water

Garden,” Chengdu,

China

species

Brandon Ballengee, 1996-present, field research and exhibits

soil/food

Amy Franceschini. 2006-2008, Sustainable Road Show and Victory Gardens

Jesse Etelson

Michael Singer

Xavier Cortada

Jackie Brookner/

Angelo Ciotti

Lucy Keshavarz

THE FRUIT: EcoArt in South Florida

Jackie Brookner and Angelo Ciotti, “Elders’ Cove,” Dreher Park, West Palm Beach, dedicated 2004

Xavier Cortada, Reclamation Project and 2007-Present

Xavier Cortada, Native Flags 2009-Present

Michael Singer, West Palm Beach Waterfront, Completed 2010

Michael Singer, Biofiltration Sculpture, Coconut Creek Seminole Casino,Completed 2012

Jesse Etelson, “Welcome Home Wildlife,” Torry Island, Belle Glade, Palm Beach County, Pilot Completed 2012 (ongoing)

Jesse Etelson, “Welcome Home Wildlife,” Torry Island, Belle Glade, Palm Beach County, Pilot Completed 2012 (ongoing)

Lucy Keshavarz, “Babbling Brook,” Westgate, Unincorporated Palm Beach County, Completed 2013

Transdisciplinarity and EcoArt

• Nicolescu’s definitions • Roots of EcoArt

• Branches of EcoArt • Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)•Revisit Nicolescu

Nicolescu’s definitionsfrom: Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Hampton Press Inc., 2008

• ‘Multidisciplinarity concerns studying … [a] topic not in just one discipline but in several at the same time.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

• ‘Interdisciplinarity… concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

• ‘…transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

Transdisciplinarity Is the

EFFECT and RESULT ofDeploying

Multidisciplinarityor Interdisciplinarity

It isBETWEENACROSSBEYOND

All Disciplines

And Therefore Enters the

Province Of…

POETRY AND METAPHOR