The Arts Catalyst

Sunday 28 April 2013, 11am - 5.30pm. The Arts Catalyst, London. Mark Aerial Waller / Isao Hashimoto / Sandra Lahire / Otolith Group / Eva & Franco Mattes / Chris Oakley / Yelena Popova A programme of artists' films investigating nuclear culture from the perspective of the 21st Century reflecting on 1980s feminist experimental film and activism, gritty dramatic satire of the 1990s, and recent video-essay works from 2009 -- 2012. Artists narrate their own experience of nuclear environments in Britain, the Urals, Estonia, Ukraine, Japan and Canada, travelling back home or to sites of disaster to try and capture the invisible or the unimaginable. Investigating the aesthetic implications of radiation reveals the impossibility of capturing an energy that bleaches the images from film and erases the hard drives of digital devices. The films raise important questions for nuclear critique from nuclear entropy, utopian and dystopian belief systems, questioning scientific certainty, political agency and the proliferation of nuclear culture. Curated by Ele Carpenter with students from MFA Curating, Goldsmiths. Roundtable Discussion A roundtable discussion with artists Kodwo Eshun (Otolith Group) and Mark Aerial Waller in conversation with philosopher Liam Sprod, chaired by Susan Kelly. The recording of the event is available in four parts below. Roundtable discussants Kodwo Eshun is a writer, theorist, filmmaker and co-founder of The Otolith Group with Anjalika Sagar, 2002. Their practice includes curating, publishing and production of artists work. Their research into aural and visual cultures is informed by the legacy and potential of the moving image and the archive. In 2012 The Otolith Group made the film 'The Radiant' exploring the aftermath of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and the partial meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Susan Kelly (Chair) is an artist and writer whose research looks at relationships between art and micropolitics, rhetoric and practices of organisation. She works in performance, installation, video, and writes and publishes. She works both independently and collectively with various art-activist research groups in London, and teaches Fine Art at Goldsmith's College. Liam Sprod was born in England before the possibility of nuclear war prompted his parents to relocate to Hobart, Australia. There he studied, researched and taught philosophy at the University of Tasmania. Eventually tiring of merely reading European philosophy he has been undertaking research throughout Europe, tracing the various end-of narratives from the ends of history in Berlin and Jena, through the end of poetry in Auschwitz, to the end of television in Timisoara, Romania. The result of this was the book Nuclear Futurism (Zero Books, 2012). He is currently a PhD Student with the London Graduate School at Kingston University, where he is working on the confusion of time and space in post-Kantian philosophy as a way to open up the confrontation between realist and idealist tendencies within that tradition. Mark Aerial Waller makes films, events and sculptural installations that seek relationships with the historical positioning of culture; that mythologically potent archival data can coexist in the area between the reconfigured present and its original home. This work includes the film Glow Boys (1999), made in part at Oldbury and Sizewell reactors, after a year's research meeting staff and contractors at BNFL sites across the UK, Midwatch (2001), where interviews with veterans of the first British nuclear weapons tests collide with Melville's Moby Dick in a psychologically charged exchange. Waller lectures at Central Saint Martins and Norwich University of the Arts and exhibits internationally.

Crafting Life is a symposium accompanying the opening of the exhibition Transformism at the John Hansard Gallery, enabling an exploration of some of the ideas suggested by the artists' works and exploring how crafted life forms create an interplay between art, design, science and technology. The cultivation and crafting of biological life has existed for centuries, both for aesthetic and practical purposes. Today, with the advancement of bioscientific tools, techniques and materials, these new forms are now not only produced by farms and individuals, but in laboratories and factories, with 'crafting' taking place on the molecular level. In this symposium, we will begin to examine, from different disciplinary perspectives, some of the implications of applying new scientific and technological tools to the manipulation of living forms and systems, what this means for our relationship with non-human life, and the new realm of aesthetic and forms it opens up. Prof Susanne Kuechler is head of Anthropology department at UCL, Director of Masters Programme in Culture, Materials and Design, and co-editor of the Journal of Material Culture. Her current research is in new material, new technologies and society: their innovation, take-up, classification and transmission, material-aesthetics and the anthropology of art, and she specialisises in pacific anthropology and ethnographic collections. Dr Emma J Roe is a lecturer in Human Geography in Geography and Environment at the University of Southampton. She specialises in bodily cultural geographies, specialising in bodily cultural geographies of human-nonhuman relations, embodied material ethics and practical experience of consumption. Prof Raymond Oliver is a lecturer in Interactive Materials in the P³i - D:STEM Interaction Studio Lab at Northumbria University, a chemical engineer with 20 years expertise through a variety of senior research and technology management posts in a global chemicals and materials company. P³i - D:STEM Interaction Studio Lab specialises in Synthetic Biology, Organic electronics, Sensors and Mircrofluidics, Nano materials and technologies into practical, usable, desirable solutions for tomorrow's issues today.

A Matter of Gravity The moon life foundation - Alicia Framis Director of Moon Life Foundation, Alicia Framis speculates on the possibility that humans will live in space in the future. The project acts as a stimulus for artists, designers, architects to create futuristic radical political but humane concepts for an extreme lunar environment. Alicia Framis is also the Lost Astronaut -- an performance-installation at APF LAB, exploring the potentialities of living on the moon through the ironical activities and fictional character of a woman astronaut. Left on earth like all women who were never part of the moon race, she settles in to BaseCamp, in which she lived for the two weeks in a customized astronaut suit, among drawings and prototypes that aim to both parody and demand women's presence on the moon. Alicia Framis studied Fine Arts at the Barcelona University and Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. She completed her masters at the Institut d'Hautes Etudes, Paris and at the Rijksakademie Van Beelde Kunstende, Amsterdam. While the 'Martians Chronicles' might soon become real facts, Dr Jill Stuart will be discussing with us the ownership of space, so that we know where to land! She will explain us the history of cosmic governance and the future of outer space law. Dr Jill Stuart is Fellow in Global Politics at the London School of Economics, and reviews editor for the journal Global Policy. She researches law, politics and theory of outer space exploration and exploitation. Her interests extend to the way terrestrial politics and conceptualisations such as sovereignty are projected into outer space, and how outer space potentially plays a role in reconstituting how those politics and conceptualisations are understood in terrestrial politics. Come along and meet with one of our space genies, Jem Finer who experienced zero gravity and realized a 1000-year long musical composition (Longplayer), as well as being artist in residence in the astrophysics department at Oxford University making a number of works including two sculptural observatories, Landscope and The Centre of the Universe. Julijonas will talk about unique aesthetic manifestations of gravity in our highly technologised culture, from anti-gravitational shoes to deadly roller coasters. Having worked in amusement park development -- as an architect, ride designer and head of fairground -- Urbonas became fascinated by what he calls the bodily-perceived aesthetics of 'gravitational theatre'. Since then the topic has been at the core of his creative life, from artistic work to scholarly articles. Most recently this interest has matured into his PhD research based in the department of Design Interactions at the RCA. The series is programmed by Nelly Ben Hayoun and Nahum Mantra. KOSMICA is endorsed by ITACCUS, the International Astronautical Federation's Committee on the Cultural Utilisation of Space. Artists' websites: Julijonas Urbonas - http://www.julijonasurbonas.lt Dr Jill Stuart - lse.ac.uk, www.globalpolicyjournal.com Jem Finer - www.cosmolog.org.uk, www.onearthasinheaven.net, longplayer.org Alicia Framis - http://moon-life.org/, www.aliciaframis.com

KOSMICA April 2012 The Arts Catalyst 50-54 Clerkenwell Road London EC1M 5PS 20/04/2012 7-10pm Free Our monthly series of social galactic gatherings bringing together those interested in sharing cultural ideas about space. We'll be livestreaming the event on Friday 20 April from 6.30pm watch it on our Bambuser channel http://bambuser.com/v/2571900 Related pages and articles Each KOSMICA session is unique: bringing together the cosmically curious and culturally quirky space community for a social mix of art--space programmes - a film screening, performance or live concert with a short presentation, talk and debate about alternative and cultural uses of space. Friday 20 April 2012, 7-10pm In April's KOSMICA, space scientist Dr Lucie Green explores the atmosphere of the sun, artist Chooc Ly Tan scrutinises physics, and Guess What play music inspired by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Persian astronomer Al-Khawarizmi. Plus a screening of Semiconductor's stunning short film Brilliant Noise. Dr Lucie Green is a solar researcher who studies activity in the atmosphere of the Sun, in particular, immense magnetic fields in the Sun's atmosphere. These sporadically erupt to form a coronal mass ejection. Lucie is based at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL's Department of Space and Climate Physics. She sits on the board of the European Solar Physics Division (ESPD) of the European Physical Society and is a member of the Royal Society's Education Committee. Chooc Ly Tan is an artist living and working in London. Her multidisciplinary practice includes performance, video, text and sculpture. Part of her inquiry is the arguable role of physics, which is scrutinised through materiality and time-based media to question its attributed functions. Tan's often-playful experiments explore fragility, with matter that coexists in states between order and chaos, for example, gravity or materials that repel or work against each other to create tension and volatility. Guess What was formed in 1968 (2005) by Luke Warmcop and Graham Mushnik They started out working indoors only, producing obscure metaphysical music and soundtracks. In 1972 (2009) their first LP was recorded and released on Catapulte. Titled Yuri Gagarin - 12 Modern Odes To History's Greatest Spaceman, it explores the inner-world and outer-world of Gagarin and his adventure. In 1973 (2010), they discovered the mighty "Giallo" cinema, and recorded some Italian-sounding music, due out in 1975 (2012) on Imagenes. In the meantime, a new focus is keeping them busy: the Persian mathematician and astronomer Al-Khawarizmi, and music from the Middle East.

"The Arts Catalyst went on the road with Kosmica in Paris on Sunday 17th March 2013 hosted by La Société de Curiosités, 123 Rue de Clignancourt, 18e Paris, France KOSMICA is an international series of galactic gatherings for earth-bound artists, space engineers, performers, astronomers, musicians and anyone interested in exploring and sharing space in original ways. On this occasion the programme will focus on the work by different members of ITACCUS, a technical committee for the cultural utilisations of space within the IAF. Daniela de Paulis Daniela de Paulis is a visual artist and lecturer living and working between Italy and The Netherlands. Since October 2009 she has been artist in residence at Dwingeloo radio telescope (NL) where she developed, together with the CAMRAS and ASTRON team, a technology called Visual Moonbounce, which allows sending images to the Moon and back as radio signals. Since 2010 she has been collaborating with the international collective Astronomers Without Borders (AWB), as the Project Chair for the AstroArt programme. danieladepaulis.com Rob La Frenais Curator of The Arts Catalyst since 1997 who has curated and produced interdisciplinary and visual art projects since 1987. Before joining The Arts Catalyst, he was a freelance curator and organiser working in a European context in various countries. In 2012 he curated the exhibition Republic of the Moon, which challenged utilitarian plans of lunar mines and military bases with artists' imaginings and interventions. Richard Clar New media interdisciplinary artist, founded Art Technologies in 1987 as a liaison between the worlds of art and technology. His philosophically-oriented artwork turned towards art-in-space in 1982 with a NASA-approved art payload for the U.S. Space Shuttle. Richard Clar's current work encompasses site-specific environmental issues ranging from orbital debris to water-management on Earth; war and peace; and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). arttechnologies.com Roger Malina ITACCUS co-chair, astronomer, editor and Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology at the University of Texas, where he is developing Art-Science R and D and Experimental publishing research. Malina is the former Director of the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence and his speciality is in space instrumentation; he was the Principal Investigator for the NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer Satellite at the University of California, Berkeley. He also has been involved for 25 years with the Leonardo organisation whose mission is to promote and make visible work that explores the interaction of the arts and sciences and the arts and new technologies. malina.diatrope.com The KOSMICA series is curated by Nahum Mantra and The Arts Catalyst, and is endorsed by ITACCUS, the International Astronautical Federation's Committee on the Cultural Utilisation of Space. This event occurs before the annual ITACCUS meeting at the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), a worldwide federation of organisations active in space."