The Interactive Atlas of the San Miguel

By Dan Collins and Gene Cooper

The Interactive Atlas of the San Miguel is a mediated sculptural display that allows users to interact with informational layers (pictures, texts, maps, stream data, etc.) and contribute “stories of place” focused on the San Miguel River Watershed in Southwestern Colorado. The project in its current form is a prototype for a network of interactive stations situated in publically accessible institutions and facilities (libraries, schools, museums, general stores, etc.) along the length of the San Miguel River. … Continue Reading

The Covert Power of Creativity

By Alyce Santoro

Because conceptual art can exist in non-material forms, one could argue that it is not only one of the most sustainable forms of creative practice, but also one of the most radical in its potential to challenge conventional thinking. To a tremendous extent, commercial media—whose primary function is to persuade its audience to consume—influences current prevailing thought. Conceptual art, by contrast, is often non-commodifiable; the value of an idea can supersede conventional methods of quantification, lending it a subtle, subversive, status-quo-defying kind of power. … Continue Reading

The Plant is Present, 2011

Organized by Meghan Moe Beitiks with Sabri Reed and Liliya Lifanova

Sansevieria trifasciata is an epic performer. Commonly known as “snake plant” or “mother in law’s tongue,” the plant is ubiquitous and unique at the same time. Over the course of its career, it has gone for months without water, made fiber from its own body, and collaborated with NASA to remove toxins like benzene and formaldehyde from the very air we breathe. In Sansevieria trifasciata’s seminal work, “The Bedroom Plant,” it converts carbon dioxide into oxygen at night. … Continue Reading

Digital Farm Collective

By Matthew Moore

The Digital Farm Collective is an international initiative to record and share footage, philosophies and scientific data on the growth of produce. Using time-lapse films, interviews with farmers and agricultural data, artist Matthew Moore hopes to contribute to a more sustainable global food system by sharing and preserving the growing practices of produce farmers from all over the world. … Continue Reading

Repurpose the Street: Mission Greenbelt & Related Projects

By Amber Hasselbring

In her first solo exhibition at SF Arts Commission Gallery in 2007, Hasselbring launched the Mission Greenbelt project, an ongoing public artwork inspired by the city’s Sidewalk Landscaping Permit, made available in 2006. The permit process allows residents to replace portions of sidewalk concrete with gardens. The Mission Greenbelt project’s goal was to build contiguous habitat gardens in SF’s Mission District, connecting Dolores Park (19th & Dolores) to Franklin Square Park (16th & Bryant). The interactive SFAC Gallery exhibition featured mixed media artworks (see image: mission greenbelt puzzle), bilingual sidewalk landscaping permit applications, a temporary CA native garden, as well as events including a campaign kick-off celebration, workshops, public school visits, plant sales and tours of the proposed Mission Greenbelt route. … Continue Reading

Worm Share

By Amy Youngs

The Worm Share project encourages symbiotic relationships between humans and worms. Through experimental artworks, participatory designs, workshops and networking technologies, I facilitate the travel and propagation of composting worms into domestic spaces and encourage others to do the same. In exchange, the worm colonies provide valuable ecosystem services. … Continue Reading

Human Chains

By Ameret Vahle

While working with cutouts and stencils of human chains in my paintings, I got the idea to put a call out asking people for cutouts of their own. … Continue Reading

Jalan Jati – “Teak Road”

By The Migrant Ecologies Project (Lucy Davis & Collaborators)

Jalan Jati or “Teak Road” is a visual art, science and ecology project tracing the historic, material and poetic journeys of a 1950’s teak bed, found in a Singapore karang guni junk store, back to a location in Southeast Asia where the original teak tree may have grown. … Continue Reading

Traffic Movement

By Steve Jones and Sally Rodgers

Traffic Movement is an imagined environment which transforms a recognizable street scene into a sonorous tone-poem. In this future soundscape, intelligent traffic lights speak their minds, the hum notes and partials of Electric Vehicles (EVs) ascend and descend, birds can be heard in the distant trees and footsteps echo on the city streets.

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Exodus

Moving to Atlanta from Detroit in 2006, I was immediately struck by the pace of growth in the area. I knew I had to make work that addressed this issue, but I also wanted to avoid rehashing the architectural imagery of new home construction that often defines urban sprawl. Instead, the images in this series were created using motion sensor cameras placed in two cities lying approximately 20 miles northeast of Atlanta: Suwanee, which has seen its population nearly double from 8,725 to 15,355 in the last ten years (1) and Buford, now home to the largest shopping mall in Georgia and the 14th largest in the United States. It is an area very much on the frontlines of urban sprawl in America (2).

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