ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness — Re-envisioning Art, Technology and Nature :: Conference: September 19 – 24, 2012 :: Exhibition: September 20, 2012 – January 6, 2013 :: Regional Collaboration: September – December, 2012 :: New Mexico, US :: Call for Proposals — Deadline October 1, 2011.

ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness is a symposium and series of events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art, technology and nature. The ISEA symposium is held every year in a different location around the world, and has a 30-year history of significant acclaim. Albuquerque is the first host city in the U.S. in six years.

The ISEA2012 symposium will consist of a conference September 19 – 24, 2012 based in Albuquerque with outreach days along the state’s Cultural Corridor in Santa Fe and Taos, and an expansive, regional collaboration throughout the fall of 2012, including art exhibitions, public events, performances and educational activities. This project will bring together a wealth of leading creative minds from around the globe, and engage the local community through in-depth partnerships.

Machine Wilderness references the New Mexico region as an area of rapid growth and technology alongside wide expanses of open land, and aims to present artists’ and technologists’ ideas for a more humane interaction between technology and wilderness in which “machines” can take many forms to support life on Earth. Machine Wilderness focuses on creative solutions for how technology and the natural world can sustainably co-exist.

The program will include: a bilingual focus, an indigenous thread, and a focus on land and skyscape. Because of our vast resource of land in New Mexico, proposals from artists are being sought that will take ISEA participants out into the landscape. The Albuquerque Balloon Museum offers a unique opportunity for artworks to extend into the sky as well.

The lead organizations hosting ISEA2012 are 516 ARTS, The University of New Mexico and The Albuquerque Museum of Art & History. There are a total over 50 partnering organizations to date representing museums, colleges, nonprofit arts organizations, environmental organizations and the scientific and technological communities.

Subthemes/Conference Tracks

The Cosmos: “Radical Cosmologies”
Theme Leaders: Lea Rekow, Independent Curator
Tom Leeser, Program Director
Art & Technology in the School of Art, California Institute of the Arts

The “Radical Cosmologies” theme will gaze at the universe and question our place in it. It will explore a wide range of creative perspectives and practices around the cultural, scientific and philosophical possibilities of contemporary astronomy. This theme will incorporate various forms of media, written word, performance and installation, as well as workshops, community-based actions, lectures and online projects to offer viewers fresh interpretations and experiences of cultural myths, indigenous histories and contemporary science.

Creative Economies: “Econotopias”
Theme Leader: Stephanie Rothenberg, Associate Professor
Department of Visual Studies, SUNY Buffalo

From the local to the global, the “Econotopias” theme will engage a critical dialogue around the challenges and excessive demands of the global marketplace and its impact on everyday life. It explores the future of creative economies as drivers of possibility in diverse communities and environments and through new technologies. By bringing local and international artists, engineers, economists, labor specialists and community organizers together, “Econotopias” will focus on the need for more sustainable social and production practices through panels, projects, workshops and exhibitions on topics such as open-source ideologies, the gift economy, micro-credit, the culture industry and global outsourcing.

Wildlife: “Trans-Species Habitats”
Theme Leader: Catherine P. Harris, Assistant Professor
Art and Ecology and Landscape Architecture, The University of New Mexico

Coyotes, bears, peregrine falcons, many charismatic mega-species are making cities their homes. Bees, bats and other smaller animals are suffering disease and perhaps species collapse. Plant and animal communities are failing due to the control of natural cycles such as flood or fire to accommodate settled human development. However, humans are copying animal adaptations and replicating complex natural systems in sustainable design from Velcro to storm water infiltration. The “Trans-Species Habitat” theme encourages the integration of human, animal and plant species in the urban fabric. This theme will showcase work that re-imagines the city as a viable space for the integration of overlapping species flowing in patterns and spatial organizations and seeks to highlight works that integrate animal needs and encourage animal flow through an existing or imagined urban space.

Transportation: “Dynamobilities”

The once-simple task of moving from point A to point B has become a minefield of choices and consequences. The “Dynamobilities” theme will highlight art works, panels and workshops that ask questions about and present possible solutions to the issue of 21st century mobility. Featured projects may include new devices for moving through space, mobile media that depend on the user’s movement through space, or examinations of the power needed for mobility and/or question the need for speed. Theoretical presentations may address the mobility of people, goods and ideas.

Power: “Gridlocked”
Theme Leader: Erin Elder, Nancy Zastudil & Nina Elder, Co-Founders
PLAND, Taos, New Mexico

Flip a switch and the lights come on. Flush a toilet and waste disappears. Swipe a card and money is transferred. Sophisticated yet often invisible grids of power sustain contemporary life throughout the farthest reaches of our world, providing electricity, gas, water, sewage, finances, materials, transportation, communication and more. Rolling blackouts, economic fallout, climate change and natural disasters test the viability of this interconnected system of dependence. The “Gridlocked” theme aims to provide a multi-layered exposé of the structures and infrastructures of power, and make visible their origins, mechanisms, consequences and alternatives. Featured projects may include workshops, presentations and field trips that explore power in its simplest manifestations as well as its complex hold on global society.