Next up in the Grid Imaginaries series... feat Veronica Jacomo (Temple University) and @helenvpritchard (HGK Basel / University of Plymouth).
⚡Scan the QR code for Teams link ⚡
Please join us for the first of three online events exploring the principal figure of electricity infrastructure — the grid — and its various manifestations in art and culture. Featuring @marjolijn_dijkman and @drdomdavies .
Organised by @lifeworldsresearch cluster and @raadbcu - the Centre for Research in Art, Architecture and Design at @birmingham_school_of_art
Scan the QR code for a Teams link. All welcome x
@visualculturesgold public programme lecture this Thursday 4th December, 5-7pm. All welcome.
A bit of a pre-launch talk and conversation around my book _Futures in the Making_ coming out in 2026...
Abstract:
Contemporary art and visual culture are brimming with images of a future shaped by environmental destruction, technological innovation, and new forms of sociality. This talk traces the genealogy of some of the tools and techniques that underpin such creative practices, isolating a series of ‘speculative infrastructures’ that shape and script the way environmental futures are constituted as objects of imagination and experience. Looking at speculative and anticipatory practices as underpinned by infrastructures—both material and discursive—has the potential to shed light on the forms of power embedded within them, but it also points to the ways in which they can fall prey to lock-in processes and path-dependencies. Framed in this way, the junctures where lock-in processes begin to take hold can be seen as points at which artistic projects oriented towards environmental justice can productively intervene. Artworks not only have the capacity to generate alternative images of the future, this talk will argue, but also rework the infrastructures by which such images are conceptualized and produced.
Been cooking up the Lifeworlds research cluster with @beckyshaw9990 and some excellent colleagues and PhD students @birmingham_school_of_art for over a year now. This year we’ll be turning outwards a bit more, first of all through a monthly online study group, later through one or two public events. Follow @lifeworldsresearch for updates and DM to be added to the mailing list. All welcome x
Wrote a thing (with the excellent @guyanese.in.berlin , @materialbarlow and @lydcole ).
"'Mine the volume’: Excess and the voluminous ecological politics of capitalist frontiers" examines the implications for environmental governance when mining expands beyond its terrestrial foundations into new subterranean realms, the seafloor, the atmosphere and outer space.
Fully open access so download a million pdfs here: /10.1177/25148486251323823
Images 1: A map of exploration contracts awarded by the ISA in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, including areas of particular environmental interest (APEIs) currently protected from mining.
Image 2. Geostationary orbit. European Space Agency.
Image 3. Visible effects of gold mining on forest cover in Guyana.
#mining #deepseamining #asteroid #guyana #extractivism #volume #politicalecology
New article on #prospecting , #speculation, and the extractive view in contemporary art and visual culture in the journal Environmental Humanities published by @dukeuniversitypress
Big thanks to the artists discussed in the article— @edithmorales_art@georges_senga and @femherregraven —for their time and willingness to be interviewed, insightful comments, and permission to use images of their work.
It's been a long path to publication with this one, but seeing it finally appear in a journal that’s done more than any other to carve out a unique interdisciplinary space to think through environmental art and humanities feels worth the wait. All the issues are fully open access too, so feel free to send a link to all your chums:
/10.1215/22011919-11327276
...or from personal website link in bio.
Image: Timothy O’Sullivan, Karnak, Montezuma Range, Nevada, 1867. In Clarence King, Systematic Geology: Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, vol. 2, Descriptive Geology (Washington, DC, 1877), plate 23, p. 763.
Reconstruction of George Merryweather’s Tempest Prognosticator —a storm forecasting device from the 1850s that harnessed the power of leeches to measure air pressure. A leech was placed in water in each of the 12 glass bottles around the base. When air pressure fell the leeches would move upwards, triggering a whalebone switch connected to a mechanism that rang a bell at the top of the instrument.
Unfortunately the plan to scale down the device and distribute to ports and harbours was never realised (barometers turned out to be a lot cheaper…)
#stormwarning #bioindicators #meteorology
Charts modelling the predicted spread of radioactive material following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. A visual gem dug up from a recent @metoffice archive visit.
The so-called ‘NAME’ model that was developed to predict the atmospheric effects of such nuclear incidents has since been applied to everything from air quality to animal diseases.
Very happy to announce a new fully funded PhD opportunity at Birmingham School of Art to work on a project supervised by me, Prof. Becky Shaw (@beckyshaw9990 ) and Prof. Peter Larkham.
The successful applicant will be part of a thriving postgraduate community at BCU and financially supported through a fee waiver and a tax free stipend payable the same rate as UK Research Council funded studentships (£19,237 a year for 2024/25) for up to 42 months full time.
The opportunity is open to national and international students and has a particular focus on practice-based research.
More details on the research questions, anticipated findings and application process can be found by scanning the QR code or visiting /42vab4me.
Deadline date: 30th April 2024
Online Q&A sessions bookable through the website on Tuesday 16 April and 23 April 2024 (both 10-11am BST)
Looking forward to this well-put-together symposium at the University of Amsterdam in a few days. I'll be speaking about Deep Sea Mining, transparency, sediment plumes, and how we think about the future of the oceans. Lots of other great contributions, which can be viewed in person or streamed online via the QR code on the poster.
Wonderful orange doorstep of a book edited by @wingshan.ee for the @freelandsfoundation artists programme.
Last Spring I had the pleasure of meeting artist @dorothy__hunter in Belfast and being driven to the Cuilcagh Lakelands UNESCO Global Geopark that has inspired much of her recent work.
Such a great experience learning more about the geology, myth and legend that fastens itself to this landscape. I had a lot of fun trawling through cave survey maps in the weeks that followed and assembling fragments into poems, inspired by the very precise and emotive use of language in Dorothy’s work itself. Keep your eyes peeled for her future exhibitions and grab a copy of the book on the freelands website
Finally got my hands on a hard copy of this beautiful anthology of Speculative Nature Writing edited by Jos Smith and Hetty Saunders.
My contribution is set in an unspectacular corner of the British midlands, where slender scaffolding structures encircle the trees like the skeletons of dismantled gas-holding towers. Valves on the towers let out bursts of gas, creating an invisible cloud that contains the amount of CO2 expected in the atmosphere in 2050.
Weaving fact and fiction, the text is an attempt to explore the convergence of the speculative time of a scientific experiment, the phenological time of the woodland ecosystem, the financial time of market fluctuations and the bureaucratic time of institutions, written in the form of ‘minutes.’
Pdf available from my website soon, but head on over to @guillemotpress to buy yourself a hard copy with all of the other fantastic contributions.
#speculativefiction #clifi #naturewriting #meetings
