ZER01 Symposium

September 16—17, 2010
9am - 5pm
San Jose City Hall Council Chambers
200 East Santa Clara Street
San Jose, CA

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The GLOBAL WARNING symposium, organized by ZER01: The Art and Technology Network, the City of San Jose Public Art Program and CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University in collaboration with LEONARDO/ISAST, with additional support from the Montalvo Arts Center, was held September 16–17, 2010, in conjunction with the 2010 01SJ Biennial in San Jose, CA. This two-day symposium examined the interconnectedness of ideas and actions and the current relationships between art-making, science and ecology. A group of distinguished artists, scientists and policy-makers presented and examined case studies of collaborative environmental art projects.

Watch video documentation of symposium talks

DAY 1 - OVERVIEW

Thursday, September 16, 2010
Hosted by Leonardo/ISAST
Co-organized by Patricia Bentson, Tami Spector and Marcia Tanner
Symposium coordination and outreach: Danielle Siembieda, Michael Amundsen and Kathleen Quillian

The first day of the symposium will encourage cross-disciplinary dialogue, fostering conversations among scientists, artists and policy-makers grappling with some of the key environmental issues of our time. The program for Day 1 of the symposium includes a keynote speech by noted author Kathleen Dean Moore, an overview of environmental activist artists by Gail Wight, a talk on environmental philosophy by Dr. Gerard Kuperus, a discussion of climate change issues and public outreach by Dr. Peter Roopnarine, and a lively artist-scientist dialogue featuring Dr. Karen Holl, Marisa Jahn, Dr. Peter Roopnarine, Tiffany Holmes with moderator Meredith Tromble.

DAY 1 - SCHEDULE AND PARTICIPANTS

INTRODUCTIONS AND WELCOME

Joel Slayton (ZER01 Executive Director)
Tami Spector (USF Professor; Leonardo Board Member)
Marcia Tanner (Curator; Writer; Art Appraiser; Leonardo Board Member)

SPEAKERS

Dr. Kathleen Dean Moore (Editor/Author; Professor, Oregon State University): Why It’s Wrong to Wreck the World
Dr. Gerard Kuperus (Asst. Professor, University of San Francisco): Environmental Ethics through Aesthetics
Gail Wight (Artist; Professor, Stanford University): Landscape Disrupted: Brief History of Artists and the Environment
Dr. Peter Roopnarine (Curator/Researcher, California Academy of Sciences): Embracing Uncertainty

PANEL: Making a Future: Artists and Scientists on the Environment

Moderated by Meredith Tromble (Artist/Author; San Francisco Art Institute Faculty) and featuring:

Dr. Karen Holl (Researcher/Professor, UC Santa Cruz): Conserving Tropical Forests to Reduce Global Warning
Dr. Peter Roopnarine (Curator/Researcher, California Academy of Sciences): Marine Food Webs and the Environment
Marisa Jahn (Artist/Author/Activist): Wormholes as Solutions: Art and Social Change
Tiffany Holmes (Artist, Associate Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago): Beyond Eco-Art: 21st-Century Eco-Visualization

SPECIAL PERFORMANCE

The Shamanic Cheerleaders

Followed by the 01SJ Biennial Opening Ceremonies at City Hall
And the Opening of Out of the Garage into the World

Leonardo/ISAST gratefully acknowledges support for Day 1 of the GLOBAL WARNING Symposium provided by:

City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs, Barbara Goldstein, Public Art Director
University of San Francisco, Dean's Office of Arts and Sciences
USF College of Arts and Sciences, Philosophy Dept, Jeffrey Paris, Chair
USF College of Arts and Sciences, Environmental Science Dept, William L. Karney, Chair
USF College of Arts and Sciences, Art & Architecture Dept, Stuart McKee, Chair
Journal of Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press
Calit2, A UCSD/UCI Partnership
Berkeley Center for New Media
Rachel Crawford
Marcia Tanner

DAY 1 - BIOS & SPEAKER TOPICS

Kathleen Dean Moore (Editor/Author; Professor, Oregon State University)
KEYNOTE: Why It’s Wrong to Wreck the World

Climate disruption and environmental despoilation are moral challenges, not simply economic or scientific/technological issues. They call us to honor obligations of integrity, justice and compassion – obligations we owe to present generations and to the endangered future. Only if we fully acknowledge what we have done, and fully affirm what we most deeply value, will we make decisions that are worthy of us as moral beings.

Kathleen Dean Moore is co-editor of the newly released MORAL GROUND: Moral Action for a Planet in Peril, a call from moral leaders around the world to honor our responsibilities to the future. Her recent books include Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature; Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World; Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water; and The Pine Island Paradox, which explores an ecological ethic of care. Moore is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University, where she teaches environmental ethics. She is the founding director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word in Corvallis, Oregon.

Gail Wight (Artist; Professor, Stanford University)
Landscape Disrupted: Brief History of Artists and the Environment

Gail Wight provides a brief history of contemporary artists tackling environmental issues, a look at what a post-industrial landscape portraiture might be at this point in time, and a discussion of the larger surroundings in which these artists work.

Artist Gail Wight investigates issues of biology and the history of science and technology. Wight uses her art to wrestle with the ways in which scientific theories, procedures and conventions shape our interactions with the world around us, and playfully investigates our constant redefinition of self. Her works of art take the form of interactive sculpture, video, print and performative art, often involving other living organisms. Recent projects have focused on the topics of deep time and evolution. Wight holds an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute where she was a Javits Fellow, and a BFA from the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art. Wight has exhibited her work internationally and teaches in Art Practice at Stanford University.

Dr. Gerard Kuperus (Asst. Professor, USF)
Environmental Ethics through Aesthetics

American writers such as Emerson and Thoreau established that nature allowed us the opportunity to find oneself in nature whereas society leads to loss. Others, such as Nietzsche, have argued that nature itself is chaos and that we accordingly should not want to return to some kind of natural state. This latter perception seems to make an environmental ethics impossible: without any order an ethical order is lacking as well. The main thesis of this discussion is that we can find ourselves in nature – even if it is without order – through aesthetic experiences. The question is then posed: can such aesthetic experiences provide a basis for environmental ethics?

Dr. Gerard Kuperus is Assistant Professor in Philosophy as well as Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco. He has published in different areas of the history of philosophy, aesthetics and animal rights. In his research he is interested in the way in which we understand ourselves in relationship to nature and how such an understanding can possibly form a foundation for ethics. He is currently working on an edited volume on nature, Ontology of Nature, Continental Readings of Nature (Springer). This volume explores how our Western conception of nature has changed during the last 2,500 years and how different conceptions demand different ethical approaches. At USF Kuperus teaches courses on the human animal, environmental ethics, aesthetics, existentialism, and nineteenth-century philosophy. He is also a member of the USF Green Team, an advisory board that aims at a sustainable campus.

Meredith Tromble (Artist/Author; SFAI Faculty)
Panel Moderator: Making a Future: Artists and Scientists on the Environment

Meredith Tromble is an artist and writer working at the intersections of art and science. She creates performance/interventions revealing psychological aspects of sustainability. Her writing practice began as a regular artist/commentator for KQED's “West Coast Weekend”; she has published in magazines ranging from Foundations of Chemistry to Artweek and Aspect, and the University of California Press published her book on Lynn Hershman. Tromble is a noted speaker at venues such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Tate Britain in London, and she serves as a board member of Leonardo/ISAST. She is faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute and holds an MFA from Mills College.

Marisa Jahn (Artist/Author/Activist)
Wormholes as Solutions: Art as Social Change

Through examples drawing from socially-engaged practices, Marisa Jahn furthers the notion that by “going in through the back door,” or by carving out wormholes, art can dismantles usual inhibitions and solve larger structural problems. In her talk, Jahn will discuss recent projects that involve engine-block cooking, coloring books and one Bibliobandido.

Marisa Jahn is an artist/writer/curator/activist who co-founded of REV- (www.rev-it.org), a non-profit organization that fosters socially engaged art, design and pedagogy. Her work has been presented at the MIT Museum; ICA Philadelphia; ISEA/Zero One; Eyebeam; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Asian Art Museum. Jahn received a BA from UC Berkeley (2000), a MS from MIT’s Department of Architecture (2008), and has received awards and recognition from Franklin Furnace, UNESCO and CEC Artslink. Jahn works with various grassroots advocacy organizations such as I-Witness Video, NYC Park Advocates, and Street Vendor Project, She is the current Director of Architecture at Art Omi (artomi.org). Jahn’s work has been featured in international media including Art in America, LA Times, Frieze, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Make Magazine, Metropolis, the Discovery Channel, NPR, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. See www.marisajahn.com.

Tiffany Holmes (Artist, Associate Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago)
Beyond Eco-Art: 21st-Century Eco-visualization

Eco-visualizations—artworks that translate ecological data into easy-to-understand images and sound—expand the trajectory and scope of the environmental art arena. Eco-visualization artwork is often interdisciplinary and promotes sustainability through a shared experience of a real time happening that is controlled by a computer or associated electronic technology.

Tiffany Holmes explores the potential of technology to promote environmental stewardship. Recent projects include darkSky, an interactive installation that creatively visualizes energy loads at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and solarCircus, a kinetic sculpture and workshop series that both profile creative uses for hacked solar toys.She is an Associate Professor of Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she teaches courses in computer programming for artists, interaction design, eco-art, and the history and theory of electronic media.

Dr. Karen Holl (Researcher/Professor, UCSC)
Conserving Tropical Forests to Reduce Global Warning

Dr. Holl will briefly discuss the role that tropical forest clearing plays in carbon emissions. She will then discuss efforts to conserve and restore tropical forests, which help to conserve biodiversity and slow global warming.

Dr. Karen Holl is a Professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She received her BS in Biology from Stanford University, completed her Ph.D. in Biology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. Her research focuses on understanding how local and landscape scale processes affect ecosystem recovery from human disturbance and using this information to restore damaged ecosystems. She has studied restoration ecology in a range of ecosystems, including tropical rain forests, eastern hardwood forests, and chaparral, grassland and riparian systems in California. She advises numerous public and private agencies on land management and restoration. At UCSC she co-directs the Center for Tropical, Research on Ecology, Agriculture, and Development and works to further efforts to conserve tropical forest, in part by training students from Latin American countries. In 2008 she was selected as an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow and is committed to communicating with policy makers and the public. She teaches courses in restoration ecology, conservation biology, and environmental problem solving, and chairs the Environmental Studies Department Curriculum Committee. She is on the editorial board for Restoration Ecology and is the associated editor for the Island Press-Society for Ecological Restoration book series.

Dr. Peter Roopnarine (Curator/Researcher, California Academy of Sciences)
Embracing Uncertainty / Marine Food Webs and the Environment

Dr. Roopnarine is giving two talks in the program. His first talk will focus on climate change issues: There are three sources of uncertainty in science: things that we don't know, things that we do not understand, and things that cannot be known. These uncertainties complicate attempts to understand and confront the climate crisis, and yet they also present hope for the future. His second talk, as part of the panel discussion, focuses on his research: the effects of pollution and environmental threats on marine life, including a project that involves tracking the long-term impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Peter Roopnarine studied biology at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, where he developed an interest in marine systems and ecology. He received a B.Sc. in 1984, and then his MS in Ocean Sciences at Nova University Oceanographic Center in 1988. Graduate work on molluscs lead to a developing interest in paleontology, so he went on to receive a Ph.D. in Geology from UC Davis in 1994. After Davis, he held an Assistant Professorship in Biology at Southeast Missouri State University for 3 years, then moved to the University of Arizona as a research associate. Roopnarine moved to San Francisco in 1999 to join the California Academy of Sciences as the Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology and Geology. His research interests include biological extinction, extinction dynamics in complex ecological systems, and molluscan evolutionary ecology and systematics.

Joel Slayton (ZER01 Executive Director)

Joel Slayton took the helm of ZER01 in June of 2008 after serving as both a board member for the organization and chairperson of ISEA2006, which was held in conjunction with the inaugural 01SJ Biennial. An artist, writer and researcher, Slayton is a full tenured professor at San Jose State University where he is Director of the CADRE Laboratory for New Media, an interdisciplinary academic program in the School of Art and Design dedicated to the development of experimental applications involving information technology and art. From 1998-2007 Slayton was also president and founder of C5 Corporation, a hybrid form of authorship intersecting research, corporate culture and artistic enterprise. C5 research explores issues of visualization involving large data sets and social networks. Considered a pioneer in the field of art and technology, Slayton creates artworks that engage with a wide range of media technology, including information mapping, networks and interactive visualization. Slayton's works have been featured in over one hundred exhibitions internationally.

Tami I. Spector (USF Professor; Leonardo Board Member)

Tami I. Spector received her B.A. from Bard College, her Ph.D. from Dartmouth College, and was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota. She is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of San Francisco, where she also serves as department chair. Trained as a physical organic chemist, her scientific work has focused on fluorocarbons, strained ring organics, and the molecular dynamics and free energy calculations of biomolecules. She has also published and presented work on molecular aesthetics, the visual image of chemistry, the intersections of chemistry and contemporary visual art, and nanoaesthetics, and served as a guest editor for HYLE: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry and Foundations of Chemistry. She is on the board of Leonardo/ISAST, chairs the Leonardo Scientists Working Group, and serves as the co-editor of an on-going special section on Art, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology for the journal Leonardo.

Marcia Tanner (Curator; Writer; Art Appraiser; Leonardo Board Member)

Marcia Tanner is an independent curator, writer, art appraiser and adviser focusing on artists working with science and technology. Former PR Director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and former Executive Director of the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Tanner most recently organized We Interrupt Your Program at Mills College Art Museum in 2008. Her previous exhibitions include Brides of Frankenstein at the San Jose Museum of Art (2005), Bad Girls West, UCLA Wight Art Gallery (1994), as well as shows at other venues. She has served on the boards of several nonprofit arts organizations and currently is a member of the Board of Directors of LEONARDO/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology.

Patricia Bentson (Associate Director of Leonardo/ISAST)

Patricia Bentson is Associate Director of Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. She has worked in print and online media and publishing for more than 20 years and in nonprofit administration for more than 10 years. Two of the many hats she wears at Leonardo include her roles as Managing Editor of Leonardo Music Journal, an annual publication devoted to contemporary music and the sonic arts, and managing editor of the website Leonardo On-Line at http://www.leonardo.info. Bentson studied environmental design and photojournalism, earning a B.S. at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Combining her fascination with ideas and images, she has worked for various clients as a scriptwriter, editor and photographer. She has a particular interest in the work of artists, scientists and policy makers who engage the public and inspire action.

The Shamanic Cheerleaders

The Shamanic Cheerleaders are a Bay Area-based performance group dedicated to bringing spirit while delivering multi-dimensional entertainment wherever they go. Their intention is to deliver a powerful message of all-inclusive consciousness through playful levity. They raise awareness about environmental/social issues and current events through a variety of cheerleading skills, including dance, acrobatics, spoken word, song, cheer and music.

 

DAY 2 - OVERVIEW

Friday, September 17, 2010
Hosted by The City of San Jose Public Art Program and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media
Co-organized by Joel Slayton and Barbara Goldstein
Symposium coordination and outreach: Danielle Siembieda, Michael Amundsen and Kathleen Quillian

The second day of the symposium will focus on the role public art and artists can play in environmental activism, informed by urban planning, sustainable design issues and public policy. The day will feature presentations by three teams selected to develop designs for the Climate Clock, a landmark public art project. An overview of the Climate Clock Initiative will be presented and complemented by artist team presentations of their design strategies prior to the beginning of their residencies in fall 2010. Climate Clock artist teams include: Freya Bardell, Brian Howe and Brent Bucknum; Usaman Haque and Robert Davis; and Chico Macmurtrie, Geo Homsy, Bill Washabaugh and Gideon Shapiro. Other speakers include: Andrea Polli, Tim Dye, Buster Simpson, Robin Lasser, Marguerite Perret and Jade Chang.

DAY 2 - PARTICIPANTS

Freya Bardell is an ecological designer and artist based in Los Angeles, California. She works with Greenmeme and is a design consultant for Rana Creek, which are innovative, environmentally oriented companies based in California. Her work is part of a growing movement known as Sustainable design that seeks to integrate new technologies and ecological systems to design, architecture and landscaping environments. Bardell has also worked as designer for Osborn Architects, Glendale, CA; a 3-D artist for Mind Browser Productions, Los Angeles; an artist and interactive consultant for Urbana, Los Angeles; and as a superintendent for Hulette Construction.

Ecological Designer, Brent Bucknum, founded the Hyphae Design Laboratory in February 2008, a consulting and design firm dedicated to bridging the gap between innovative architecture and hard biological sciences. From 2005-2008, Bucknum served as the design director at Rana Creek, an ecological restoration and design firm based in Carmel Valley, California. Bucknum’s work included the design of large-scale living roofs, ecological landscapes, rainwater catchment systems, living walls, greywater systems and constructed wetlands. He has worked as an ecological designer for Blaha Design and Greenfield International gaining experience in browfield remediation and natural building. His national and international project’s have enabled him to research indigenous cultures and incorporate appropriate building techniques into designs. Bucknum is also a member/collaborator of Greenmeme, an design firm based in Los Angeles and The Chlorophyll Collective, an environmental education group based in Oakland, California.

Robert Davis is a systems developer in the Psychology Department of Goldsmiths College, University of London, who is particularly interested in systems that are contingent upon the environment and the entities that inhabit it, as well as the adaption within such systems. His particular interests include analog neural networks and chemical systems.

Usman Haque is an architect who has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. His skills include the design of both physical spaces, and the software and systems that bring them to life. Together they have worked on a number of previous projects including Haunt and Evolving Sonic Environment. The Haunt project was an attempt to simulate a haunted space, using infrasound and electromagnetic field patterns derived from previously recorded ‘haunted’ spaces. Evolving Sonic Environment was an architectural experiment to construct an interactive environment that builds up an internal representation of its occupants through a network of autonomous but communicative sensors.

Chico MacMurtrie works using sculpture to animate space and stimulate public dialogue. Together with his collaborative studio of artists, technicians, and programmers’ known as Amorphic Robot Works he has exhibited work in 15 different countries since 1992. Many of these projects have poetically raised questions about birth, death, renewal, mechanical vs. organic life, and the resilience of nature within the urban habitat. Recent projects include two sculptural metal trees that explore different aspects of humans’ relationship with nature: Growing, Raining Tree, a $100,000 commission from the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, responds to the presence of viewers by moving and dripping water from the tips of its branches. Floating Tree for Anable Basin, installed upon a sculptural island planted with native estuary grasses, encapsulates the historical interplay between industrial and ecological activity on the New York City waterfront. It is designed to focus attention on the balance of nature in the city. MacMurtrie’s imaginative use of robotic technology is exemplified in the Totemobile (2006), a sculpture of a Citroen DS that expands twice each day into a 60-foot-tall elongated sculpture, creating a serenely monumental spectacle.

Geo Homsy brings 25 years of professional, academic, and artistic experience in electrical engineering and computer science to the Organograph design team. A collaborator with Amorphic Robot Works since 1991, Homsy has served as software choreographer and chief technical consultant on numerous projects involving pneumatics, hydraulics, electronics, and real-time control and performance software. His innovative, technically intricate work was exemplified in the sculpture Growing, Raining Tree. His art-related experience also includes creating and directing the Large Hot Pipe Organ, a pyro-acoustic musical instrument that has performed in six countries. Homsy has served as artistic director of SlackerTronics Systems in the Netherlands, and contributed to several projects with San Francisco-based Survival Research Laboratories. Homsy’s professional engineering career includes pioneering work in Europe and the US for the laboratories of Quicklogic, Woodward Design Associates, Electude, Addison Wesley Longman, and University of California. He is a founding partner of the information architecture firm Permabit, and a partner in the multi-disciplinary design firm Squid Labs. Homsy will be the lead digital design engineer for this proposal.

Trained as an aerospace engineer and mechanic, Bill Washabaugh has applied his technical expertise and creative vision to numerous fields of design. He joined Amorphic Robot Works in 2006 as Lead Engineer for the studio’s landmark Totemobile project, a robotic sculpture that transforms from a 1965 Citroen DS automobile into a 60-foot-tall moving sculpture. Directing a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, artists, and fabricators, he managed the design/build timeline, CAD modeling, machine design and analysis. Washabaugh has worked as Senior Mechanical Engineer for New York-based Arnell Group, and as a Senior Design Engineer for Genie Industries and Chef’n Corporation in Seattle, where his ZipFlips product was awarded the RedDot Design Award in 2007. His design and engineering experience also includes consumer product design, furniture design, interactive electro-mechanical systems, and kinetic architecture. Washbaugh will be the lead mechanical engieneer for this proposal.

Interested in the role of public art and architecture in shaping or reflecting society, Gideon Shapiro has collaborated with Amorphic Robot Works since 2005. He recruited the interdisciplinary team of artists and ecologists who created ARW’s winning proposal for the Long Island City Grounded competition, culminating in the installation of Floating Tree for Anable Basin. This project explored the possibility of a revived natural urban habitat for both birds and humans, the industrial history of the New York City waterfront, and the transformative effects of rapid high-rise residential development. Shapiro managed the project’s implementation and coordinated an extensive public outreach effort in collaboration with community partners such as Place in History, the New York Audubon Society, Plant Specialists, and the Long Island City Community Boathouse, highlighting the sculpture as a catalyst for discussion about nature in the urban context. He has also worked with ARW on several other sculpture commissions and competitions, including the Inflatable Birds and the Flight 587 Memorial Competition. An architectural writer, researcher, and designer, Shapiro works for the Manhattan-based architectural firm of Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He will be the researcher/designer for this proposal.

Andrea Polli is a digital media artist living in New Mexico. Her work addresses issues related to science and technology in contemporary society. She is interested in global systems, the real time interconnectivity of these systems, and the effect of these systems on individuals. Polli’s work with science, technology and media has been presented widely in over 100 presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally, has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including UNESCO. Her work has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Art News, NY Arts and others. She has published two book chapters, several audio CDs, DVDs and many papers in print including MIT Press and Cambridge University Press journals. She currently works in collaboration with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storm and climate through sound (called sonification). Recent projects include: a spatialized sonification of highly detailed models of storms that devastated the New York area; a series of sonifications of climate in Central Park; and a real-time multi-channel sonification and visualization of weather in the Arctic. She has exhibited, performed, and lectured nationally and internationally and recently spent seven weeks in Antarctica on a National Science Foundation funded project. http://www.90degreessouth.org. As a member of the steering committee for New York 2050, a wide-reaching project envisioning the future of the New York City region, she worked with city planners, environmental scientists, historians and other experts to look at the impact of climate on the future of human life both locally and globally.

Tim Dye joined STI in 1990 and is responsible for strategic planning and management of STI’S forecasting/public outreach, meteorological analysis and radar wind profiler (RWP) business areas. He specializes in developing innovative information systems for air quality applications and public communication. He is an internationally recognized leader in the development of air quality information and forecasting systems. Mr. Dye has led the development of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) AIRNow program since 2002; was lead author of the EPA guidance document for setting up ozone and PM2.5 forecasting programs; led the development of the World Meteorological Program’s course on air quality forecasting’ and developed a wide range of objective forecasting tools to predict air quality.

Buster Simpson is a Seattle-based artist who has been developing environmental artwork for over 40 years. Exploring complex issues with humor, poetry and metaphor he has worked primarily in the public realm. Simpson’s projects include agit-prop installations such as his 1991 “Hudson River Purge” which dropped limestone disks or “tums” for the river to dramatize the acidity of the water; projects that evolve over time such as the “Host Analog, ” a living nurse log placed at the Oregon State Convention Center; and technologically complex sculptures like “Brush with Illumination” in Vancouver, Canada, which generates online brushstrokes creating living sumi paintings from water current, tide and atmospheric data. Simpson has often used art to illustrate environmental and natural processes and is currently lead artist on the master planning team for San Jose’s Water Pollution Control Plant.

Robin Lasser is a Professor of Art at San Jose State University. Lasser produces photographs, video, sound, site-specific installations and public art dealing with social and environmental issues. Lasser often works in a collaborative mode with other artists, writers, students, public agencies, community organizations, and international coalitions (exemplified by her work in Egypt as a Fulbright Scholar) to produce art and promote public dialogue. Lasser’s work is published and exhibited internationally. Current projects include “Dress Tents: Nomadic Wearable Architecture” a fusion of architecture, the body and the land played out through living sculpture, moving images and still photography with Adrienne Pao.

Marguerite Perret is a mixed media installation artist who explores connections between art, science, medicine, and cultural history She is an associate professor of art and design at Washburn University, Topeka KS where she teaches digital imaging, foundations design and courses in art and ecology, and science and art. Current projects include “The Waiting Room” (with Robin Lasser, Stephanie Lanter and Bruce Scherting) a multi-media installation exploring issues on women’s health care, Collect(ive) a public art project about material culture at Grinnell College and The Simulated Garden which documents rare and recently extinct species that exist only or primarily as specimens in US and UK museums.

Jade Chang is a Los Angeles-based writer. Recently the West Coast Editor of Metropolis Magazine, she has also been a film columnist for the BBC and a Sundance Arts Writing Fellow; in 2007 she received the AIGA/Winterhouse Design Criticism award. As a journalist Jade has covered everything from deconstructed tomato soup to the hidden rebellion of minimalls for the LA Times, LA Weekly, Angeleno and others. She is currently the Executive Producer of Modern Luxury Media online and a Contributing Editor at Metropolis.

Barbara Goldstein is the Public Art Director for the City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs and the editor of Public Art by the Book, a primer recently published by Americans for the Arts and the University of Washington Press. Prior to her work in San José, Goldstein was Public Art Director for the City of Seattle. Goldstein has worked as a cultural planner, architectural and art critic, editor and publisher. From 1989 to 1993, she was Director of Design Review and Cultural Planning for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. From 1980-85 she edited and published Arts + Architecture magazine. She has written for art and architectural magazines both nationally and internationally, and has lectured on public art throughout the United States, and in Canada, Japan, China and Taipei.

2010 01SJ Biennial Overview

The 01SJ Biennial is a multidisciplinary, international contemporary art festival that focuses on the intersection between art, technology and digital culture. The 3rd 01SJ Biennial will take place September 16--19, 2010 in venues throughout downtown San Jose, CA.

Build Your Own World

The theme of the 3rd 01SJ Biennial, "Build Your Own World," is predicated on the notion that as artists, designers, engineers, architects, corporations and citizens we have the tools to (re)build the world---in both large and small ways. It is about how powerful ideas and innovative individuals from around the world can make a difference and come together to build a unique, citywide platform for creative solutions and public engagement. It is about the inspiration needed to build a world we want to live in and are able to live with.

Updated 24 October 2012