Tuesday 23 October 2012

Community Gardens Rosebank










Vinces Walk - Paul Woodruffes latest masterwork


Art and Ecology


Report on findings about the University of New Mexico (UNM) ‘Art and Ecology’ programme. 
Janine Randerson
9th October 2012

While exhibiting and presenting on my work ‘Neighbourhood Air’ at ISEA: Machine Wilderness (19-27 September) I also gathered information on the 'Art and Ecology' programme at the UNM. Many of the international artists in ISEA: Machine Wilderness were concerned with ecopolitical issues and sustainable technologies, future mobilities, or border politics where art meets product design, architecture and technologies of communication such as mobile media. The event was hosted by the UNM in Albuquerque.

The UNM is a world leader in sustainable technologies and the ‘Art and Ecology’ programme partners with ‘environmental communications’, landscape architecture and sustainability studies. I suggest that this programme has particular relevance to the interdisciplinary nature of the ‘Auckland Ecologies’ research cluster at Unitec within the FCIB. The following notes are based on conversations with ISEA festival director and UNM lecturer Andrea Polli, and also several undergraduate and Masters students in the programme.

The UNM ‘Art and Ecology’ programme has been running for 11 years and has quickly gained an international reputation for its wide-ranging and imaginative scope. The University is set in the desert environment of New Mexico, a place of artistic pilgrimage through the twentieth century and also a site of ecological crisis. Courses are UNM are often ‘team-taught’ and bring in expertise from the sciences and industry and where relevant.

One of the established courses in the UNM ‘Art and Ecology’ programme enables students to travel on a semester long field trip around sites of ‘Land Art’ from the 1960s until today. These included such places as Walter de Maria’s The Lightning Field (1967) in Western New Mexico and James Turrell’s Roden Crater (ongoing) in Arizona. The students are equipped with camping gear.  As well as observing these sites the students create their own environmentally responsive installations. The ‘communion with nature’ approach and the grand gestures of the early ‘Land Art’ movements is now augmented by a focus in the UNM ‘Art and Ecology’ programme on how social groups, including indigenous groups can be engaged in public projects.

The ‘live’ educational aspect of social projects or community interventions is also an emergent focus of the well-known Glasgow School of Art ‘Environmental Art and Sculpture’ programme. I also met with one of the lecturers on the Glasgow course, who described how ‘environmental art’ extends to social projects in the urban environment, rather than desert extremes.[1] There are student exchange programmes between the Glasgow School of Art and the UNM ‘Art and Ecology’ programme. I believe that if Unitec could offer an interdisciplinary ecological programme that we could also set up similar international exchanges, particularly with the added value of the RiR residence.

The ISEA conference progressed to Santa Fe where conference activities were situated at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA): College of Contemporary Arts. At this site I participated in an intriguing sound walk through the landscape by Terri Rueb called ‘No Places with Names: A Critical Acoustic Archaeology”. This project involved indigenous community participants, anthropologists and sound artists. The IAIA venue also hosted ‘Kai Hau Kai’ an installation about the sharing of cultural food practices and communication using online social media by Ngai Tahu artists Simon Kaan and Ron Bull in collaboration with local indigenous Indian students.  

The conference then moved on to the UNM Department of Architecture for a session in Taos on the Portable/Affordable Building, a mini-symposium and design competition presented in conjunction with the UNM-Taos Green Technology programme. Taos is home to the ‘Earth ships’ and other solar and bio-architecture designs. ISEA artists-in-residence who had been collaborating with scientists at Los Alamos (such as projects for algae based bio-fuels) and other technologists also gave seminars at Taos.

To visit the millennium old World Heritage site of Taos Pueblo was a significant experience for me. This is the only site of World Heritage that is still occupied and has been occupied continuously. Taos Pueblo highlights that indigenous cosmologies need to be central to an ecological approach to the creative industries. When I think about what kind of field course might take place in or around Auckland or greater New Zealand I think of historical and contemporary pa sites, as well as whare whakairo. Visits to artist or designer’s workshops with an emphasis on sustainable design/art could be another focus of an extended, multi-site field trip with an interdisciplinary student cohort.  

Finally, another appealing feature of the UNM programme is it’s flexibility and responsiveness to particular events. For example, in 2012 students worked with Andrea Polli on the ISEA: Machine Wilderness event as an elective course.  New courses each spring also bring in visiting national or international researchers and artists who contribute their expertise in addition to a team of teachers. For example a new UNM course this year is ‘CO-EVOLUTION: Art + Biology in the Museum’, another is ‘Creating Change’. I think that the ‘Auckland Ecologies’ research cluster could offer some kind of international symposium and then a permanent research hub that might offer flexible, team-taught courses as speculation for the future.


[1] One ‘Art and Ecology’ student I spoke to at Masters level noted the sometimes ‘forced’ nature of the current trend towards social projects. This highlights the need for sensitivity and ethical consideration in this approach.

Sunday 7 October 2012

Future Proof

Professor Hugh Bird, UoA, recently invited AP Dushko Bogunovich and Senior Lecturer Matthew Bradbury to give a lecture at the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning, Future Proof 2012 seminar series. Dushko and Matthew outlined their proposition for the future growth of Auckland, an alternative to the compact city model. They presented two recent research design projects, in East Auckland and PR China, that helped to illustrate the implications of their thinking. 






http://www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/future-proof


Sunday 2 September 2012

Auckland Ecologies Symposuim



A half-day seminar at Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae, Unitec from 1.00 – 5.00pm with refreshments until 7.00pm Friday September 7th, convened by Marcus Williams and Matthew Bradbury.  
The focus will be on current and potential research around the themes underpinning the Auckland Ecologies Research Focus established by the FRSC in 2011. 
After the whakatau there will be six micro presentations by CIB staff currently engaged in cross-departmental FRSC funded research projects.
 
Micro Presentations
 
Paul Woodruffe (DVA) (research partners Ken Simpson, Ilse Marie Erl, Sara Donoghey, and Faye Norman) - The Everyday Collective; Rosebank Rd (articulating local community groups with council and business)
 
Kristina Kaza (Arch) (research partners Allan McDonald, Jeannette Budget and Graeme McConchie) – Prone (Auckland’s earthquake prone heritage buildings)
 
Dushko Bogunovich (Arch) – (research partners John Boon, Matthew Bradbury, Nikolay Popov, Leslie Haines, David Turner, Peter McPherson) - Auckland 2020/30/40/50 (Alternative Growth Scenarios for the Supercity. Stage 1 - Case Study: Eco-town (east Auckland))
 
Janine Randerson (DVA) (research partner Chris Manford) - Neighbourhood Air (creative media as a tool for increasing awareness and agency for environmental air quality in Auckland)
 
Ngaire Molyneax (DoMM) (research partners Dina Sharma, Ken Simpson and Victor Grbic) – Organisational capability enhancement in urban Maori (understanding Maori business in Auckland)
 
Leslie Haines (L/Arch) (research partner Nikolay Popov) - Auckland’s Urban Forest (mapping distribution and intensity of Auckland trees)

Guests
 Neil Donnelly, Manager Strategic Planning of Todd Property Group
 
"My acid test for success is to know that when I drive past our developments in 15 - 20 years I will still feel as proud of them as I do today. Longevity is a key element of Todd Property Group's success." Evan Davies, Managing Director
 
Our vision for Todd Property Group is to be the leader in developing properties that contribute sustainable and lasting value to communities. Todd Property website
 
Stephen Cavanagh – Manager Sectors - ATEED
Auckland Tourism Events & Economic Development (a council-controlled organisation)
 
Auckland is often quoted as the economic powerhouse of New Zealand, due to its size, influence and business performance. However, it remains a region of untapped potential, where significant opportunities exist to leverage its unique business, tourism, and events landscape to further increase economic growth for the betterment of Auckland and New Zealand. ATEED website
 
Structure
 
Marcus Williams will outline the CIB Research funding structure for 2013
Ken Simpson will talk about the Rosebank Rd/Unitec relationship platform TEPU
Matthew Bradbury will talk ‘blue skies’ about the Auckland Ecologies focus.
 
Social
 
Attendees are invited for a light meal and refreshments at the Wairaka room at Carringtons after the seminar.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

First out of the blocks


Allan McDonald, team leader, Krystina Kaza and Jeanette Budgett are the first Ak Ecologies project to publish their initial research. Join us on Tuesday 5th of June at Sno White to see the work and read Jeanette’s essay . 












Rosebank Road Project progress 29/5/12





Paul Woodruffe and Faye Norman have photographically documented 3 important sites on the peninsular; the old Connell brothers land, Vince Middledorp’s land with racehorse stables and the last 2 acres of Haywood Wright’s property complete with his original buildings and heritage garden. We are currently filming these places and interviewing the owner/residents of these sites and will be editing this work into a 1993 28 minute amateur film of the Connell brothers gifted to us by a council employee to complete a documentary of these places of special character. The community mapping project is slowly taking shape with the support of the Avondale Community Garders and the Avondale Historic society, the first being an art-map of the route Vince walks his race horses, the second will be of the industrial section of Rosebank Road. We are also currently working with the ACG on a design and project management proposal to plant fruit trees on 5 childrens playground areas in Rosebank Road, we are looking for BLA students and staff to work on this with.
Five 3rd year DVA students working with the collective have just completed the branding identity for the Unitec/Rosebank Road Business Association joint venture, our first contact with the businesses in the area. The collective have become members of the Avondale Community Gardeners.

Sunday 27 May 2012

sustaincity around the world


AP Bogunovitch has just given three papers at international conferences including a key note address "Cities and Academia in the Era of Climate Change" at the 12th International Educating Cities conference at Changwon  http://www.iaec2012.go.kr/eng/sub/02_01_02.jsp and: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p2sN3jpqnM
"The City and the Crunch: Contours of A Pending Disaster ‘, at the   "Contours of The City" Conference in Bologna
and Urban Sustainability:  Resilient Regions, Sustainable Sprawl and Green Infrastructure" at the "Sustainable City 2012 - 7th International Conference on Urban Regeneration and Sustainability" conference at Ancona

Sunday 6 May 2012


The Unitec Arboretum project is progressing well with documentation of campus trees 2/3 complete, labels for 100 trees prepared for installation on World Environment Day June 5, and the interactive campus tree website in development, as shown in the screen shot. Penny Cliffin participated in the Wairaka Stream information session on campus last week with other Unitec sustainability fund researchers, and is giving a refereed conference paper about the Arboretum in Copenhagen next month. 


Allan McDonald, one of New Zealands leading documentary photographers is working with architectural scholars Graeme McConchie Krystina Kaza Jeanette Budgett on documenting Aucklands vulnerable  Edwardian commercial architecture as part of the AK ECO project, Prone. 

Monday 19 March 2012

New Direction for Christchurch


Dushko and Matthew write in the Herald about the opportunity the tragic consequence of  the Christchurch Earthquake can providing for the development of a new kind of urbanism.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10793129

The everyday collective laboratory


 Philosophical position.
To govern a society shared by people of emotion, people of reason, and everybody in between — as well as people who think their actions are shaped by logic but in fact are shaped by feelings and non-empirical philosophies — you need politics. At its best, politics navigates all the minds-states for the sake of the greater good, alert to the rocky shoals of community, identity, and the economy. At its worst, politics thrives on the incomplete disclosure or misrepresentation of data required by an electorate to make informed decisions, whether arrived at logically or emotionally.”

Neil de Grasse Tyson.

The everyday collective laboratory is a methodology of intuition and artistic enquiry that addresses these concerns as they relate to place, belonging and landscape. It does so by assisting aspects of society to communicate through map making, and the capturing and dissemination of subtle data from a diversity of mind states.

Paul Woodruffe

Sunday 11 March 2012

Auckland Edges


Watch a panel of the great and good, David Clelland, Manager Spatial and Infrastructure Strategy, Auckland Council, Rachel de Lambert, Design Director  Boffa Miskell, Connal Townsend Chief Executive Property Council, Bob Dey Property Guru, Dr Dushko Bogunovitch Assoc Professor Urban Design UIT , and Brady Nixon, Property Manager Countdown, discuss the future shape of Auckland 


Saturday 10 March 2012

'Neighbourhood Air'







http://www.neighbourhoodair.co.nz/


Neighbourhood Air (2012) is an interactive, online artwork that gathers live pollutant levels from Auckland city air. The collaborative project includes urban meteorologists, programmers, media artists, breathers of city air and weather as a continuous feedback mechanism. Sensor instruments in New Zealand provide a community platform for continuously accessible,real-time information. This new work was shown at Screen Space in February/March 2012 (Melbourne) before it travels to New Mexico as part of 'Machine Wilderness' ISEA Electronic Arts Symposium in September 2012.


collaborators:

Janine Randerson (media artist and lead investigator)
Jason Johnston (audio composition)
Jeff Nusz (interface programming)
Chris Manford (Computer Science, Unitec: sensor data programming)
Greer Laing , Geoff Henshaw and John Wagner (instrument scientists from Aeroqual, NZ)
Dr Jennifer Salmond (Urban Meteorologist, University of Auckland)