Prone to Collapse
Beth Weinstein & Ellen McMahon
In the last decade the Southwestern United States has lost more than 20% of its conifer forests. A group of scientists based at the University of Arizona is working to understand why trees are dying so they can better predict what will happen in the future. One of their primary tools for determining the extent and effects of forest die-off (also known as conifer collapse) is hemispherical photography. These 360-degree fisheye images are taken in forests at different stages of mortality to determine the increased amount of radiant energy (sunlight) hitting the earth’s surface as trees die. This information is critical to their study, which reveals that, added to drought and beetle infestation, the slight increase in global temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions has created the fatal tipping point.
Prone to Collapse is a new work developed from ongoing scientific research and several months of creative research and reflection on the raw material. As an installation it re-presents and re-contextualizes the hemispherical photographs used by these scientists in an immersive, sensory experience.
Animated hemispheric photographs are projected onto a scrim suspended within an installation made of repurposed materials derived from trees. Viewers are invited to recline within the installation to experience the transition from lush healthy forests through death and disappearance. As a complement to the embodied sensing of the issues, info-graphics convey critical information about the research and the implications of the scientists’ findings. By combining the multisensory visceral experience of lying in a forest as it dies and the conveyed graphic information, the collaborators seek to create conditions to awaken people to the problem of forest die-off, become receptive to learning about it, and become inclined to take action.
Polar View
Cecily Culver
I am submitting a digital video installation, digital prints and three sculptures that are a part of the same body of work that uses Polar Pop cups to consider the point of view of a thing that is celebrated for its function in hydrating humans. However, they are disregarded beyond their use-life, despite making a significant contribution to the contamination of the environment. These works call into question the life of things, materials like expanded polystyrene foam, environmentalism and the cost of our anthropocentrism.
Polar View is a nine-channel video exploring a day in the life of a 44-ounce Expanded Polystyrene cup--more specifically, a “Polar Pop” from the Circle K convenience store. From the point of purchase to its eventual toss into the rubbish pile, Polar View presents multiple viewpoints from the oculus of a mundane part of our reality. Despite being ubiquitous, the existence, and moreover, the agency, of these cups is easily looked over. Polar View points at the life of a particular thing that is clearly an active player in our world.
The sculptures abstract a Polar Pop straw and lid, integrating it with the environment as if the disregarded rubbish has evolved to blend with the environment; in one it stares down at the viewer as if prompting him or her to take a sip. Polar View includes a series of digital prints from the video. Polar View was shown in the Juried MFA Summer show in the Harry Wood Gallery at the ASU Tempe campus in the summer of 2014.
Drainage
Dannon Schroeder
From the very first existence of humankind, an ongoing fragility between man and nature has been stretched and strained like a rubber band. Not completely snapping in two, the balance has been sustainable thus far. The human need to rely on nature for its abundance of resources exposes the weaknesses and strengths of our existence. The examination of human perspective towards the natural world has been a progressive tool for cognitive development since the origin of our species.
Drainage is a fine art exhibition/installation displaying intricately crafted wood sculptures that both visually and conceptually address many of the key topics presented at the Balance-Unbalance 2015 Conference. Created within this past year, these artworks resonate with deeply rooted references to ecology, biology and sociobiology. The sculptures directly address topics such as water access and sustainability, climate change, environmental awareness, and urban growth. The work has been crafted using locally salvaged woods and desert foliage, as well as reclaimed hardwoods.
Drainage infuses delicate natural forms with highly manipulated wood surface finishes that mimic constructed/casted metals. The striking contrast may not seem so striking to all as the viewer reflects on how their personal interaction with the natural world correlates with the artwork displayed in front of them.
Desert Breeze
James White
This installation, simply put, is of two sloop-rigged sailboats with neon and argon sails, competing on a sea of loose white sand. Sand rills are in the configuration of fingerprints. The whole installation is constructed on two 4’ x 8’ black platforms, which are horizontal to the floor.
The relationship between the rills of desert sand and the rills of the ocean floor are self-evident. The “competing” boats are healing over as they “ride” the desert or ocean breeze, a familiar sight to anyone who has sailed or observed sailing and its constant balance between tipping and forward motion across the waves.
The neon and argon in the luminous sails are uniquely powered by high frequency radio waves to eliminate wires, with light transmitted up through the mast, emitted fiber-optically onto the edges and surface engravings of the polycarbonate transparent sails.
The fingerprint reference is one of humanity and identity, caught up in competitive adventures, whether it be between individuals or between man and his environment. This piece is best displayed without gallery lighting or much external light, as the neon creates its own light and shadows.
This sculpture is the latest in a 45-year exploration of light and its relationship to human activity. This sculpture has been displayed at the Arizona State University Night Gallery in Tempe.
Planets
Mary Hood
Planets is a suite of eight images created in 2010, in which water is pooling, overflowing, diverting and escaping. The water in turn becomes the substance of reflection and a symbol for our collective sub-consciousness. The prints are an extension of the Ten Thousand Tears (2007-2009) and Collective Pooling print series (2008), in the fact that they are using my fingerprints as a representation of water and our collective identity. These projects were an important tool for me to reflect upon the environmental, social and political unrest in our chaotic global theatre. However, with Planets, I feel that the "water" is more representative of our human presence on the earth, slowly eroding a path for our existence, leaving canyons and valleys in our wake. The spill over into the larger "pool" is representative of the passage of time and our collective unconsciousness.
The process is a combination of inkjet printing from digital photographs I took during a trip to the Red Rock National Monument in Nevada, combined with layers of monotype and relief printmaking methods. The sky blends and rock "details" are monotypes overprinted on the inkjet layer, giving the print a bit more depth and texture. The final layer is the relief fingerprint, layered in three colors. Each print is 20 x 24” framed in whitewashed maple frames.
Climate Change
Mary Neubauer
Climate Change is a related series of six 15" x 30"digital Lambda prints created in 2012. They are framed with museum mounting. These works were modeled in Rhino 3D in response to my observations of weather and changing cloud patterns throughout the Arizona seasonal year. The 3D models were surface-mapped with changing weather patterns and endowed with qualities of light and transparency. In larger 96" x 72" formats, three of the same images have been printed on silk and can act as a triptych panel or wall-hanging. The works are largely an intuitive response to what I know scientifically about climate change. Because I also work with data visualization of environmental statistics, these intuitive works have a strong empirical foundation. They are meant to deliver a visual signal or sign of what is to come in terms of climate extremes. For this reason, they use a repeating iconic whirlwind shape as a significator. Sometimes the shape is benign and delicate, but as the series progresses, the storm icon becomes more strange and intense. Accompanying these images is a singular data-driven sculptural form that visualizes 25 years of Sonoran Desert Weather through daily high and low temperatures arranged in a 13w month periodicity.
Louisiana Re-storied
Meredith Drum
Louisiana Re-storied is an interactive, documentary installation about envir