[NetBehaviour] open call -- Art and biodiversity: sustainable art?

[netbehaviour]

Art and biodiversity: sustainable art ?
open call deadline June 15th 2013


[Plastik Art&Science]
http://art-science.univ-paris1.fr/

Interest in ecology and sustainable development is unprecedented, as is 
to the increasing concern overshadowing society's well-being. With the 
news of massive deforestation and the scarcity of water resources, we 
are continually reminded of how animal and vegetable species are 
endangered. It's clear that the need to respect the environment is 
shared by all but that natural resources are being exhausted through 
conflict of interest and contradictory action. As a result living and 
endangered organisms are affected by a kind of universal heritage value, 
as if representing the memory of an uncertain future.

Since the '60s, artists have testified to, and denounced, through their 
work, the ravages that human activity has brought on a planetary scale. 
With art interventions that have taken place in nature or have been an 
actual part of a landscape, the concepts of the environment, of site and 
territory, have become more visible in the art world. By demonstrating 
the physical properties of the material, and of the living, such 
artworks – whether perennial or ephemeral, in natural or developed 
spaces – actively call for the spectator's participation, alternately as 
observer, walker, or explorer in a double game with the attitude of the 
artist him/herself. To what extent have the new contours of 
spatialization in an artwork and art's modus operandi in general 
contributed to the change in the way we look at the natural world? What 
impact has it all had on increasing the general public's awareness, and 
of protecting our environment?

Between the esthetic and ethics, art and the science of the living, the 
4th edition of Plastik will present an evaluation of the perimeters of 
action and the meaning of artistic practice dealing with the subject of 
safeguarding biodiversity. The ties between environmental issues and 
artistic creation will be tackled from the point of view of the real as 
well as the symbolic scope of such practices, between the implementation 
of an ecological, imaginary approach, and social commitment. We will try 
to understand the propositions revealed by artworks which entertain a 
relationship to the balance at play between the living and the 
extinction of species. What kind of response do such artworks develop in 
relation to this new challenge, launched by scientists, as being of the 
greatest interest for humanity? Is it ecological art or 
ecologically-made art? Can one talk of eco-gestures in art? Through 
their experience as researchers, artists, critics, or exhibition 
curators, the authors will gather together a collection of testimonials 
and studies, questioning the procedures in order to understand how the 
preservation of biodiversity has become the subject of today's most 
significative artworks.

We'll be asking:
- Are researchers, and artists, in the face of environmental challenges: 
the new crisis managers?
- Notions of creation and destruction, safeguarding and conservation
- Reevaluating nature, landscape, and territory
- Eco-art, the green esthetic, neo-naturalism, sustainable art?
- Collaborative environmental intervention
- Animal ethics in artistic practice, abolitionism and welfarism
- The eco design approach, and individual commitment?
- Implementing art and eco-gestures : exploration-fiction, surveying, 
plantations, collecting, ethnography, gentle intervention
- Museums, institutions and their ecological responsibilities


[Plastik] est la revue de l'Institut ACTE
CNRS - Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Admission criteria for articles:
Authors are invited to propose texts of between 3 000 and 10 000 worlds. 
Contributions can contain up to 10 images with a resolution of 72 dpi. 
Images should be sent separately, with mention of their place, title and 
source. The same goes for pictures and other illustrations under format 
image. The first page must contain: the title of the article, the name 
of the author(s), their affiliation, email and postal address, a summary 
of 10 to 15 lines and a list of keywords characterizing the contents of 
the article.

Deadline for articles:
Please send your articles by email before June 15, 2013.

Rédaction [Plastik]
plastik.art.science at gmail.com
Institut ACTE - CNRS
Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne
47 rue des Bergers 75015 Paris - France

Olga Kisseleva
olga.kisseleva at univ-paris1.fr