Art and Extreme Environments: Inhabiting the Extreme

Public Lecture
Friday, October 21, 2011
4 – 6 pm

Human beings have expanded their presence to the entire planet and beyond, to environments of which not only they are not native but that they could not live in without their contemporary technologies : Antarctica, Outer Space, the Underwater world. Since the conquest and exploration era, these extreme environments have been permanently inhabited, although by temporary residents.

These spaces have also always been a territory for artists, working in all possible media, with topics spanning from romanticism to the sublime, through countless heroic and epic expedition stories and sagas. It is no wonder that today’s artists are involved in the current issues at stake regarding these environments, such as global warming, pollution and climate change, but also in a wider sense, in what it means to inhabit such places and how a space is turned into a place and into home.

Annick Bureaud will argue through a presentation of contemporary creations and artworks that we are currently witnessing an anthropologisation of the extreme and an extremophilisation of humans. The aesthetics and the different modalities of works that are meant both for situation within these environments (and for the people living there) and for more conventional gallery settings will be discussed, as well as the validity of the divide between new media and contemporary art.

Leonardo: A Case Study in Art(s), Science(s) and Technologie(s) Publishing

Seminar
Thursday, October 20, 2011
4 – 5 pm

Founded by kinetic artist and space engineer Frank Malina, the first issue of Leonardo was released in 1968 in the form of a (very) academic journal. More than forty years later, the Leonardo imprint now encompasses not only the original printed journal, but also a book series, websites, electronic publications and activities outside the traditional confines of publishing such as the organization of workshops and conferences and the support of artists-in-residence projects.

This seminar will present the original goals and missions of Leonardo, how they evolved together with the evolution of techno-science art, how what were once cutting-edge artworks are now part of art history, and the role of Leonardo in documenting these artworks and advocating for them. Publishing in general and academic publishing in particular are witnessing tremendous changes through the development of many new online platforms and tools. Leonardo is now engaging in a reflection on “next step publishing” that will be discussed with seminar participants.

Location for both events:
Hexagram Resource Centre, Concordia University, Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex, Room 11.705, 1515 Saint Catherine St. W., Montreal QC

Biography

Based in Paris, Annick Bureaud is an independent art critic, curator, event organizer, researcher and teacher in art and techno-sciences. (www.annickbureaud.net). She is the director of Leonardo/Olats (www.olats.org), the European sister organization to Leonardo/Isast (www.leonardo.info), and a co-founding member of the Collectif Nunc (www.nunc.com). Her written work includes Les Basiques : l’art « multimédia », an introductory book on new media art (Leonardo/Olats, 2004), numerous articles and contributions to the French contemporary art magazine Art Press. She is the co-editor of the collection of essays Connexions : art, réseaux, media (Ensba Press, 2002) and she has organized many symposia, conferences and workshops, including Artmedia VIII: From Aesthetics of Communication to Net Art, Paris, 2002. In 2009, she co-curated the exhibition (Un)Inhabitable? Art of Extreme Environments as part of Festival @rt Outsiders at MEP/European House of Photography in Paris.

Image: Catherine Rannou, “Colonisation 2041”, 2009, photographed by Annick Bureaud

Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)