tippingpoint.org.uk

A diagram of floating stones

Motion-tp — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:37:02 +0000

As Artists in Residence at the University College London Environment Institute we were researching a variety of phenomena relating to oceanic and coastal plastic pollution. With a series of art works we reflect upon the “awayness” of plastic garbage in the collective memory – once it is thrown away – and its persistence (as a rarely degrading material) in the oceans and on the beaches.

In March 2011 we travelled to 23 remote and beautiful beaches on the Shetland Islands to collect specific stones and plastic. Each beach had a different “affinity” to plastic garbage. The first version of the installation “a diagram of floating stones” makes a particular reference to the aquariums of Victorian oceanographic scientists as old media of observation, research and (dis)play. Within glass tanks the found stones from each beach are kept in Shetland lace knitted “bags”, like fishing nets and hover in the water because of the connected plastic’s buoyancy.

The installation was shown during the Edinburgh Art Festival 2012 at Inspace with 3,000 visitors. The installation was supported through a Design Informatics Residency at University of Edinburgh.

The next – and larger scale – version of “a diagram of floating stones” will be placed in Argyll and installed directly in the sea. The found plastic will be shaped in a construction which resembles prehistoric cup or ringmarks, typical for the area. The stones/rocks found in the area will be suspended from these plastic rings and hover in the sea. The plastic material will be collected during beach clean events in Argyll.

Flight Behaviour

Motion-tp — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:34:40 +0000

The extraordinary New York Times bestselling author of The Lacuna (winner of the Orange Prize), The Poisonwood Bible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver returns with a truly stunning and unforgettable work. Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in our particular chosen truths. Kingsolver’s riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions—religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians—trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world. Flight Behavior is arguably Kingsolver’s must thrilling and accessible novel to date, and like so many other of her acclaimed works, represents contemporary American fiction at its finest.

Predicting a Climate Archive

Motion-tp — Wed, 01 May 2013 06:17:52 +0000

This event showcased a range of interdisciplinary artworks developed in response to the current environmental crisis. The aim was to propose new approaches to the visualisation and contextualisation of existing climate data and documentation.

Adapting the notion of the black-box recorder, the site was organized as an ‘arche’ or shelter in which to gather and display fragmentary remains as archive material for the future.

It attempted to re-frame perceptions of the present crisis and allow consideration of our position within an uncertain future.

Each of the works featured resulted from an engagement with local climate issues, and a number have been developed through an ongoing dialogue between artists and scientists working at Aberystwyth University.

Odds Against Tomorrow

PeterGingold — Wed, 01 May 2013 06:16:33 +0000

A novel about fear of the future – and the future of fear. New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of an empty office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming. As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe-ecological collapse, war games, natural disasters – he becomes obsessed by a culture’s fears. Yet he also loses touch with his last connection to reality: Elsa Bruner, a friend with her own apocalyptic secret, who has started a commune in Maine. Then, just as Mitchell’s predictions reach a nightmarish crescendo, an actual worst-case scenario overtakes Manhattan. Mitchell realizes he is uniquely prepared to profit. But at what cost?

FutureMuseum

Motion-tp — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:01:16 +0000

Jethro Brice’s FutureMuseum project adopts the ‘fluid tense’ as a creative strategy, approaching the future as an area of uncertainty which in turn reflects a contested present. A collection of artefacts, models and documents of uncertain provenance, the Museum presents a fragmentary archaeology of the future. Projection into a virtual future space not only provides a route to imagining possible futures but, more importantly, it helps us to see the present from a perspective less constrained by current dominant narratives. It allows us to draw a possible thread of continuity, from counter-narratives of the past to future solutions, finding resilience in the realisation that landscapes evolve on a longer time-scale than human societal structures.