Art and sustainibilty

http://www.lovelyasatree.com/index.htm

http://greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=265

The Principles of Sustainability in Contemporary Art

by Maja and Reuben Fowkes

"'existing humans must assume responsibility for future humans and other species' and grant to animals and plants the right to thrive and exist without damage." 

"a renewed sense of social responsibility is also a vital element of sustainability." 

"The use of internet as a device for communication, networking, archiving, and a creative tool is also seen as a more sustainable alternative to traditional artistic techniques. Lens-based media have been used to document ephemeral performances or actions and appear to be the favourite means for environmentally-aware artists to communicate new ideas." 

"There is another issue of art and sustainability to be addressed, and that is the question of the sustainability of art structures. It involves facing the ecological deficit of large museums and confronting the suspect relationship of many art institutions to polluters in the corporate world through unethical sponsorship. Galeta points to an even deeper problem: 'Only art today does not think about recycling.' This refers both to the practical issue of what to do with an ever increasing stockpile of art works, and to the discord between the belief in art as the highest civilisational value conceived for eternity, with the do-not-touch approach attached to it, and the idea of sustainability." 

"Sustainable art is arguably a wider concept than environmental art, which is primarily focussed on remedying ecological problems, recycling, and the healing of nature. While in contemporary living we have a greater understanding of sustainability in our everyday choices (or the lack of them), contemporary artists increasingly take on the role of alternative knowledge producer, involved in 'producing, mediating, and exchanging alternative models and dealing with issues that are marginalised in mainstream culture and politics.' [10] The artistic engagement with sustainability entails an understanding of ecological equality, a shift from the anthropocentric model to include the non-human world in our moral universe, a renewed sense of social responsibility, as well as a concern for grassroots democracy, and draws on radical critiques of art and society and the dematerialised practices of conceptual art to offer sustainable alternatives in art and life."

“The Art of Making Do with Enough,” Maja and Reuben

Fowkes

http://www.translocal.org/writings/makingdo.htm

"According to environmental thought, the key problems to be addressed on the path to sustainable living are a capitalist model of growth, consumerism, hierarchies in society, social injustice, and the human impact on the environment and natural world. The transformation of society into a more sustainable one entails putting into practice the principles of ecology, grassroots democracy, social justice and non-violence."

"Sustainability in art brings awareness of a wider ecological context around the production and reception of art works. It questions the sacrosanct status of the art object as the highest civilisational value and problematises the belief that artworks are created, and should be preserved, for eternity. Just as in society there is a tendency to stop seeing nature as an endless resource, attuned artists problematise the understanding of art as commodity, and are reluctant to add to the stockpile of art objects, choosing instead to explore alternative means of expression."

"Engaged artists are involved in creating something like a wave effect to shift society in the direction of sustainability; by exploring and demonstrating alternatives."

"Artist Nils Norman draws on practices of alternative culture, his work seems particularly close to ideals of social ecology and eco-communalism. Social ecology sees the primary struggle as against hierarchy and domination, is grounded in an ecological sensibility, and opposes instrumentalist attitudes towards the natural world. It seeks to re-embed humans in nature, and espouses bio-regionalism, small communities, diversity, and appropriate technology. Eco-communalism favours ‘disengagement from corrupt social and political institutions, and the establishment of exemplary institutions or the pursuit of exemplary personal action.’"

"The Edible playscape", Bristol 2001

Nils Norman - "I have come to see adventure playgrounds as radical models of alternative public space—playful spaces of disruption, disorder, and undevelopment, in direct opposition to the relentless privatisation and dismal redevelopment of every sad scrap of urban space.”

"Though well-known as a net artist, Heath Bunting’s recent projects take place in real time situations, with internet used as a tool for publicising, communicating and archiving artists’ projects. The medium of the internet is widely encountered in contemporary art as an environmentally-friendly alternative, although Heath Bunting’s background in net art activism gives him a strong insight into the web as “intellectual battlefield populated by governments, corporations, activists and artists”—hardly a control free zone. His practice of storing material on a remote server is a liberation from dependence on the possession of the material object of the computer, and resists the consumerist imperative to new technology. The website Bunting runs with other members of the irational.org collective hosts subversive art projects and is exemplary in its minimal style and appropriate technology aesthetic, clearly opposed to the flashy corporate branded web presence."

I clicked on a few of the links and they all came up with things like this;

Seems like a dairy of his past work. you can clearly see " its minimal style and appropriate technology aesthetic, clearly opposed to the flashy corporate branded web presence"

Heres Heath Bunting

"International Tree Climbing Day, initiated by Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon, is an example of the use of the internet to spread certain freedom-enhancing ideas and behaviours. The project involved setting in motion a new tradition of ‘international tree climbing day’, with the expectation that this innocently subversive celebration would spread across the world. By 2006, the day was actively celebrated in Australia, Hungary, and locations in the UK. The invitation to spend the day climbing trees is an opportunity to reconnect with the natural environment, and experience ourselves as part of it, as well as to break free of the social conditioning that inhibits us from climbing trees every other day of the year." 

Heres the page for this day - 

And a dairy/log of it...

"Sustainable art practice is an opportunity as well as a challenge for contemporary artists. Giorgo Agamben observes that the situation becomes productive “exactly there where the zones of the indistinguishability of artistic practice and political activism are at stake, always then when a temporary moment of the indifference of life and art arises, through which both undergo a crucial metamorphosis at the same time” , and that seems to be the case here."

Photography and the Environment - Jennifer Daly

"Since its inception, photography has been a toxic endeavor. To create a

Daguerreotype, one of the earliest photographic processes, the artist would polish a

copper plate, coat it with silver, and sensitize it with iodine fumes. Once the plate was

exposed, the image was developed with heated mercury vapors in a small-enclosed

darkroom. By the end of the 19th century, photography had become more standardized,

and subsequently less perilous, but the chemistry involved was still hazardous. Until the

introduction of digital photography at the mass-market level in the 1990s, the process to

develop film and to make black and white prints stayed relatively unchanged. At the end

of the day, there are still toxic solutions left over."