Environmental Art Activism Archive

Title: How ‘How Stuff is Made’ is Made / WritingintheInformationAge
Course number: E90. 1952 – Adv Proj Ditigal Art I / meet with E90.2952 001
Professor: Natalie Jeremijenko
Distinguished Visiting Course Advisor: Colin Beavan aka Noimapactman

Time: Thursday, 08:55AM – 02:15PM
Place: BARN 402

Example Curriculum:
Current classes working on HSIM Madrid:[how architecture is made] London: New York:

Course Structure:
HowStuffisMade is a 6 – 8 week course introducing college level engineering and design students to the social and political constraints, organizational innovations and global context that inform manufacturing decisions. This course complements introductory engineering and design curricula by providing a dynamic, flexible platform for case-study based content and student-led industry investigations not otherwise included in current engineering and design programs. HSIM modules are applied to / taught within existing semester long classes. Class time is divided between weekly studios and lectures/seminars covering assigned reading (manufacturing site-visits are conducted outside of scheduled class-time).

In Spring 2006, HowStuffisMade will begin distributing a course module to university programs in the San Diego region. National distribution will begin in the Fall of 2006. During the project’s first 5 years HSIM staff will conduct site visits and professional development seminars with selected faculty and administrators from city, state and private institutions. Following this …

Originally given at San Jose City Hall, Council Chambers, as part of FUSE the presentation was streamed live to Ars Virtua in Second Life [ http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/6/77/48] and is available as a podcast. The talk was entitled “The Environmental Health Clinic: on structuring participation in the environmental movement, or more specifically, in re-imagining, refiguring and rebuilding our relationships to natural systems”—intro below. However the presentation in 2nd life, its second life, underscores the questions about participation–what actions are available to your avatar? does it matter who you are? or that you are an avatar in the material and bodily questions involved in environmental health?

Intro:

Does anyone know what to do about global warming? I am guessing that everyone has a few ideas, no? But how does anyone one of us go about developing these ideas, trying them out, testing, developing, and learning more? And how many people are interested in doing something about climate change and other environmental issues? I don’t know anyone who is not. But somehow the bombastic “what you can do” guides in every green issue of a magazine do not foster a social movement; signing petitions, writing letters to political representatives doesn’t make me feel like I have …

Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement.

Phil Brown described three conditions involved in the organization of a Social Movement around Environmental Health .

Community observations are legitimate.

Riverkeeper Mobil Oil Spill;

noticed oil

–

causal issues …

The travels of Spinach

The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) presented the Envisioning Development Toolkit at Storefront [PERFORMANCE P], a workshop aimed at demystifying the term “affordable housing” that uses an interactive felt poster to help people understand how the city and federal governments define “affordable,” what the income spread is like for different neighborhoods, and who can afford to move into those neighborhoods now. As an agency, CUP makes educational projects about places and how they change, bringing together art and design professionals and community-based advocates and researchers.

The xClinic prescribes this and other CUP workshops for structuring community engagement in the complex processes involved in development.

Title: Environmental Art Activism and Social Networking Platforms
Course number: E90.1022.01
Professor: Natalie Jeremijenko

Summary:
What to do in the face of a climate crisis? How does the social movement around environmental change coalesce? How do cultural ideas interact with technical, material and economic constraints to develop the movement around new environmentalism? How does the contemporary environmental movement differ from its predecessors? How can we reimagine our relationship to natural systems?

Topics:
Environmental Art Activism, Social Networking, Innovative and Inclusive Design

Projects:
1) Me++: Become an Environmental ImPatient
2) Where++:
3) Them++: HowStuffisMade
4) How++: Environmental Health Clinic: Brown sites
5) When++:

Selected texts:

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Houghton Mifflin Co, 2007)Link to The Death of Environmentalism

Response by Carl Pope from the Sierra Club, Laura Fauth from AdBusters, and the Climate Progress Blog.

Kate Stohr, Cameron Sinclair, Design Like you Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humantarian Crisis (Metropolis Books, 2006)

Alex Stephen, World Changing (website)

Simon M. Reader and Kevin N. Laland, Animal Innovation (2003).

Phil Brown, Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement (Columbia Uninversity Press, 2007)

John Thackara, In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World (MIT Press, 2006).

Charles Perrow, The …

Marissa Jahn, artist and curator, speaks about social space of seeds, anti-advertising, and the I-5 project.
POND
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/Marissa Jahn/01 Pond 1.mp3

The thesis of Thackara’s book is that design got us into this mess, design can/must get us out. As you write up your analysis it is important to keep in mind that you are doing so in order to provide an innovation, a redesign. Thackara’s book is addressed to designers trying to reimaging how we might change stuff. This and Molotch’s last chapter are the two overarching guides for directing innovation in manufacturing and products.

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/05bubble_space.pdf

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/08bubble_literacy.pdf

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/10bubble_flow.pdf

Corrado Poli
TRAFFIC REVOLUTION: LESS MOBILITY, MORE COMMUNICATION
Presentation on April 18 @9:30 am by Corrado Poli on “TRAFFIC REVOLUTION. Less mobility more communication. The political problem of traffic plans from transportation engineering to communication strategies. Techniques, problems and environmental solutions”.

Here is the final syllabus with grade breakdown and project descriptions

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/ArtActGradeScheme.pdf

Attached is the special double issue published in TIME magazine, April 9, 2007
“The Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference”
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/TIME001.pdf

Please post your comments based on a critical assessment of this journalistic piece.