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‘Beauty will save the world’: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Workshop on Art and Social Change, University of Bristol, 7-8 September 2010 Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Professor Alex Danchev, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham Dr Iain Biggs and Dr Victoria Walters, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of the West of England Hosted by the Department of Politics and sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Studies and the Global Insecurities Centre, University of Bristol How does art construct, resist and contest dominant identities and social practices? How does art open up possibilities for (re)creating the world? What are the relationships between art, aesthetics, and politics? What are the power relations involved in art? Whose art, and whose values are best placed to change the world? Can engaging with art help us develop new epistemologies and research methodologies? Can beauty ‘save’ the world? This two-day interdisciplinary postgraduate workshop is premised on the assumption that art actively constructs social ‘reality’, as opposed to merely reflecting it. Against dominant pronouncements privileging the centrality of rationalism and science as the legitimate avenues towards knowledge and social change, this workshop poses the question: what does the ‘serious’ pursuit of ‘progress’ miss out on when it disqualifies the artist’s imaginary as superfluous, lacking impact, unimportant? The workshop aims to bring together postgraduate students working in and across various disciplines to share research which looks at the contested meanings of art and aesthetics, explores art in different cultural and historical settings, and examines the ways in which art and its constructions of beauty, society, politics can help in understanding, and changing, the social world. The workshop will also enable postgraduate students to engage and network with more established scholars, who will be present at the workshop as keynote speakers, panel chairs and roundtable discussants. We welcome paper and panel proposals (2-3 presenters per panel) which engage specifically with the theme of art and social change, from various disciplines, including but not limited to: Archaeology, Anthropology, Classics, English, Modern Languages, History, History of Art, Visual and Performing Arts, Cultural Studies, Geography, Philosophy, Sociology and Politics. Papers can include think pieces or works in progress. We encourage a diversity of presentation styles, from ‘traditional’ papers to interactive sessions, involving short film screenings, musical and dramatic performances, and the display of paintings, sculpture, photographs, and installation art. Presenters will be assigned a 30-minute slot for their presentation, which can be used by the presenter as they wish, but must include at least 5 minutes for audience questions.
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Beauty will save the world?
An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference onArt and Social Change
7-8 September 2010University of Bristol
a biocentric artist
Cathy Fitzgerald, first year, VISUAL Culture – film practice and theory, National College Art & Design, Ireland
key research area: we need key research area: we need newnew cinematic cinematic
narratives narratives if we want to if we want to continue to exist continue to exist on on
earthearth
earth’s systems are near collapse
yet the crisis of the earthis a crisis of culture
our our culture culture prioritises prioritises narrativesnarratives thatthat promise promise
unlimited unlimited consumptionconsumption
for allfor all
whereas ‘nature’ on which we
depend is presented as something other, exotic, sublime, picturesque...
and not connected to our everyday life
aren’t scientists just poor communicators?
nature is
contested...
old philosophical territory
deforestation in New Zealand
there is a big divide
nature
culture
‘nature’ seen as a ‘cultural
construct’’,
science deals with nature as a material entity
unfortunately ‘the values with which the
humanities have taught us to regard humankind
have rarely been extended to the material world
which the sciences examine and technology
transforms’
Bate 2000 Bate 2000 The Song of the EarthThe Song of the Earth
the
assemblage
of nature is
in process
and can be
engaged
through many
activities,
practices and
places.
Hinchcliffe 2007 Geographies of Nature
we have always mediated nature
mass mediation is a historical process by which we have been taught to be observers of, if not in, nature Lindahl Elliot, Mediating Nature, 2006
how well we are using audiovisual technology,
to perceive, or not, the earth and our place in
it?
popular cultural formulas ‘mediating nature’
sublime (natural disaster movies) horror (animal attack films), picturesque, romantic, exotic, etc
historic development of nature documentary often blinkered from wider political, social or ecological concernsown environments
my work is creating
backyard filmic narratives
connecting my local eco
stories/actions to planetary concerns
Harmonious dwelling with the earth is a matter of staying put and listening in, whereas the rapacious drive of ‘progress’ is towards travelling out and making claims – the claims of knowledge, of conquest and of possession Bate 2000
ecopoetics - a hybrid strategy?
eco - oikos : Greek, the study of dwelling/home
(science)
poiesis : Greek ‘making’ (culture)
Greeks were all into didactic poetry
experimental film
burning bright 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6PaMZTx0c4
once i counted birds 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiPVXALKNXU
poetry’s way of articulating the
relationship between humankind and environment, person and place is peculiar because it is
experiential, not descriptive....Bate 2000 The Song of the Earth
the poetic works
not as a set of assumptions or proposals about particular environmental issues
but as a way of reflecting upon what it might mean to
dwell with the
earth....
also it is pre-political (not propaganda)Bate 2000 The Song of the Earth
subjectivity in nonfiction cinema, prevalent with low cost video & Internet, is a reflection and a consequence of
our fragmented, globalised world.. we are all condemned to decentredness, fragmentation and liquidity...
the
autobiographical feeds the hope of
finding or creating unity in this world... Rascaroli 2009 The Personal Camera -Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film
small, slow, organic media
centered on
local contexts
may result in a deeper
form of environment
al communicati
on than shallow
messages in mass media
Lopez 2010
thank youwww.ecoartnotebook.com
[email protected] facebook.com/cathyfitzgerald linkedin.com/in/cathyfitz
