b l a s t u l a reblog++

Synthetic Times: Media Art China — Edited by Fan Di’an and Zhang Ga: We live in a world that operates on bits and bytes. Reality has become synthetic, a convergence of the material and the immaterial. The synthetic power of new media art — integrative, interdisciplinary, interactive — expresses the blurred boundary between the physical and the digital. Synthetic Times collects new media art created since 2001 by artists and art collectives from nearly thirty countries. These innovative and groundbreaking works investigate how we perceive reality and what it means to be human on the threshold of human-machine symbiosis.

The artworks in Synthetic Times (which accompanies a milestone exhibition at the National Art Museum in China, an Olympics Cultural Project) explore a trajectory of uncanny visions ranging from the desire to transcend the corporal to the construction of synthetic worlds; from telematic dreaming to transgenic hybrids; from whimsical apparatuses to the deadpan gaze of magnetic fields. They reveal the tension between man and machine, between the animated and the inert, rekindling a discourse about relationships between nature and culture, the perceived and the imagined. Essays by leading new media theorists accompany the artworks, and an appendix documents additional programs held in conjunction with the exhibition.

Essays: Jordan Crandall, Oliver Grau, Erkii Huhtamo, Caroline A. Jones, Friedrich Kittler, Arthur Kroker, Mike Stubbs, Peter Weibel, Zhang Ga

Artists: 1000 Cell Phones Team, AL and AL, Blendid, Jean-Michel Bruyère, Rejane Cantoni, Aristarkh Chernyshev, Convergeo + Media and Design Lab, Luvc Courchesne, Du Zhenjun, etoy, exonemo, f18 institute, Paula Gaetano Adi, Usman Haque, Edwin van der Heide, Kurt Hentschläger, Mateusz Herczka, Christoph Hillebrand, Daniel Palacios Jiménez, Kichul Kim, Knowbotic Research, Daniela Kutschat Hanns, Paul Lincoln, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Chico MacMurtrie, Eva and Franco Mattes, Anthony McCall, Henrik Menné, Miao Xiaochun, Yves Netzhammer, Marnix de Nijs, Magdalena Pederin, David Rokeby, Mariana Rondon, Bengt Sjölén, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Stelarc, Sissel Tolaas, Transmute Collective, Tsai Wen-Ying, VERDENSTEATRET, Marek Walczak, Martin Wattenberg, Herwig Weiser, Wu Juehui, Xu Bing, Xu Zhongmin

Copublished with the National Art Museum of China

About the Editors

Fan Di’an is Director of the National Art Museum of China.

Zhang Ga is a media artist and independent curator. He is the artistic director and curator of the exhibition this book accompanies.

Originally by jo from Networked_Performance on June 23, 2009, 10:00pm

Posted under reblog art

China and the United States should focus on their similarities, rather than their differences, to jumpstart bilateral climate negotiations, a pair of former White House staffers recommended yesterday.

Unable to agree on each other’s role in addressing climate change, the talks between the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters have remained in gridlock since the United States excused itself from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

To ease into a new era of policymaking, both countries should focus on popular initiatives that could still significantly reduce emissions, such as shared efforts to develop electric vehicles, green buildings, and carbon sequestration projects, the former staffers said in a Brookings Institution report.

“Climate change evokes philosophical disagreements, whereas clean energy evokes economic opportunities,” said co-author David Sandalow, who served as associate director for the global environment in former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Council on Environmental Quality.

The report comes a few weeks before U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s first visit to China in her new position. Clinton, who is expected to discuss climate change, will likely set a new tone for U.S foreign relations toward China.

Rather than grapple with the most controversial issues in the climate change debate - trade competition, coal use, and emission targets - a focus on mutually beneficial, large-scale projects would “capture the public’s imagination” for further emission reductions, said Sandalow, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who is rumored to earn a new position in President Barack Obama’s administration.

The two countries could also strengthen pre-existing local partnerships that exchange technology and expertise in a range of climate-related industries. For example, Denver, Colorado, and the Chinese city of Chongqing have joined forces to develop electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. These partnerships currently suffer from “information barriers” and a lack of funding, the report said.

Other countries, especially Japan and the European Union, have also provided services to help develop green buildings, electric vehicles, and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology in China. The United States now may interfere with the other countries’ efforts if it suddenly increases its attention, said Elizabeth Economy, director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“I don’t mind duplicating their efforts, but we don’t want to undermine them,” Economy said. “Maybe we should look ahead, [for instance] at India, for issues where China is already under way.”

China has focused much of its climate change policies on improving energy efficiency, with significantly greater renewable energy investments as well. Its leadership has opposed binding emission reductions because much of the country is still developing, and its per-capita emissions are much smaller than those of the United States and other developed nations.

“China has done a lot, but of course it’s not enough,” said Zhou Wenzhong, Chinese ambassador to the United States, at the Brookings report launch. “Our most urgent issue is to limit poverty and develop the economy for one-fifth of the world’s people.”

The administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush refused to rejoin international climate treaties until China also agreed to cut emissions. Obama has also stated that China should participate in global emission reduction efforts, but he has promised that the United States will lead in a new international agreement.

The United States and China, combined, contribute more than 40 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. World leaders such as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have requested that both countries increase their reduction commitments.

“Neither side is doing enough,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, a co-author of the Brookings report who served as senior director for Asia on President Clinton’s National Security Council. “Each of us plays a major role in the politics of this issue in either country, and none of us are very sensitive to that.”

In addition to the Brookings recommendations, the U.S.-based research group Asia Society released a roadmap yesterday for United States-Chinese climate cooperation.

The report, which U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu co-chaired before his selection, outlines several bold, sweeping changes to reduce both countries’ emissions. For instance, the report suggests greater investment in CCS from coal-fired power plants, a “smart” electrical grid, and broad deployment of wind and solar energy.

The Chinese government has requested that foreign governments provide greater technology transfers as part of an international climate regime. But China should still be more proactive in its requests during negotiations, Economy said.

“They don’t have the capacity to do what they really want to get done,” she said. “So [priorities] need to come from them.”

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

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(Posted by Ben Block in Climate Change at 11:40 AM)

Originally
from Worldchanging: Bright Green

by Ben Block


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by Ben Block from Worldchanging: Bright Green on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment

A spectacular exhibition currently on view at the CCCB in Barcelona gives an overview of the recent processes of construction and implacable deconstruction that China is undergoing. The contemporary urban design, architecture, landscape and infrastructure of various Chinese cities is analyzed in the light of the country history and culture continue

Originally
from we make money not art

by Regine


reBlogged

Originally by Regine from we make money not art

Posted under reblog art

The Chinese Dream - A society under construction, by DCF, Neville Mars and Adrian Hornsby.

Publisher 010 says: What if you built the whole mass of western europe in 20 years? What if 400 million farmers then moved in? What would it look like? How would it work? Would you be able to go to sleep at night? And if you did, would you dream of somewhere else …?

China is in the midst of breakneck transformation. The last 30 years of astonishing economic growth and political and cultural reform have been driven by the world’s biggest ever urban boom. The new China is now halfway built. Within the next 30 years China will most likely take centre-stage as a global superpower, with hundreds of millions of new urbanites flooding into the rapidly swelling cities. But this process - presenting no less than the construction of a new society - is taking place almost without time to think.

Taking as its starting point the goal announced in China in 2001 to build 400 new cities of 1 million inhabitants each by 2020, or 20 new cities a year for 20 years, the book explores the hopes and hazards of dreaming on such a scale. The question being asked is in fact no less than how to build a new utopia. But is China mortgaging its present for a promised future, and doing so at the same time that current speeds of construction eclipse any real forward planning?

Partly because of the Olympics, publishing houses have been releasing books about China by the dozens, with massive and super fast urbanization appearing to be the most popular subject by far. And who could blame the public for being so fascinated by back covers that repeat again and again figures and facts such as:

‘China is the fourth largest economy in the world. If current growth rate continue, China will outsize the U.S. in the next 20 to 30 years’

‘By 2020 China’s national network of expressways will exceed in length even the American interstate highway system.’

Photo-collage by Martijn De Waal. Bigger version online and inside the book

Some of these publications are genuinely well-researched and carefully written, others feel more like a quick and opportunist job. If you have to get your hand on just one book about urban China, make it this one. It is the result of several years of works by experts who were called to reflect on possible scenarios for urbanization in China in 2020. It is also great ‘value for money’, not just because the price is surprisingly affordable for a book that counts 700 pages but because once you open it you realize that it’s almost a work of art. The typo, graphic design, the photos, the layout, the graphics, every page has been meticulously crafted. And i have photos to prove my claim:

The urban (near) future of China is analyzed under every angle: economics, society, ecology, energy, architecture, urban planning and politics.

Some books about similar subject shun from any mention of China’s political situation. This one doesn’t. It’s not exactly heavy on politics but its authors recognize that, while ‘it’s urbanization not democracy that constitutes the main driver for change in China’, it would be naive to try and draw a clear picture of Chinese cities without taking the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) factor into account.

More importantly, the books holds a mirror to our ‘Western societies”. We’ve arrived at a crossroad where we are forced to stop and look with horror at the shortcomings of the capitalist model, a model that China is embracing fast, steady and avidly. The more i read about China’s frenzy and excesses the more i was remembered of ours. Of course there are many differences: we know of the ‘American dream’ but how much exactly do we know of the ‘Chinese dream’? We might have often read that one of the main goals of China is to create a broad middle class which will, of course, form the least saturated market we can dream of, but are we sure that the Chinese will blindly follow the same models of capitalism as we do? For example will they be willing to embrace our ‘credit-addiction’ and other eco-suicidal habits?

Beijing Boom Tower

I almost forgot to mention my favourite part of the book: the ‘Glossary / From Lipstick to Skyscraper’. Some of the words and expressions relate to urbanization all over the world (archi-scrabble, anyone?). Some are peculiar to China: Chinese immobility, Chinese Moderni$m, Chengdu 1.5, dormitory extrusion, floating village, panda-hugger, Shanghai fever, chiburb, etc.

If 700 pages are not enough, head to BURB.TV, the collaborative research wiki that updates and expands into the larger knowledge of The Chinese Dream. Each article is a topical blog or BURB into which texts, images, and discussion are submitted. The research is produced with visionaries, architects, planners and social scientists invited by the Dynamic City Foundation.

This piece originally appeared on Regine Debatty’s blog, We Make Money, Not Art

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(Posted by Regine Debatty in Megacities at 9:56 AM)

Originally
from Worldchanging: Bright Green

by Regine Debatty


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by Regine Debatty from Worldchanging: Bright Green on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog art

This article was written by Mara Hvistendahl in October 2007. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

Western China is turning into a massive dust bowl. Desertification now affects fully one-third of the world’s population — and what’s happening in Western China represents the largest conversion of productive land to desert anywhere in the world, consuming over one million acres of land each year. The dust isn’t confined to the west: every spring, massive sandstorms roar through Beijing, blanketing the city with tons of dust.

The October issue of the Canadian magazine The Walrus has an excellent feature by Patrick Alleyn on efforts to combat desertification in China (subscription-only, but 10-day trials are available). Benoit Aquin’s startling photos, which accompany the article, have been circulating on Chinese bulletin boards.

In China, desertification is exacerbated by overgrazing by sheep and other animals. As Chinese make more money, they are eating greater quantities of meat; by last year, herd numbers had increased fourfold over 1960s levels. The Chinese government has responded by imposing grazing bans and relocating rural residents to settlements that are effectively ecological refugee camps.

Alleyn describes one of these villages in Ningxia autonomous region. Herders reportedly vie for the right to be sent there, but once at the village, they sit around, live off subsidies, and wait. I’ve visited similar villages in Qinghai province; Tibetan nomads are being relocated to these villages, also in the name of preventing overgrazing, which are similarly bleak to the ones in Ningxia (think rural housing projects). One Ningxia refugee says she hopes to reclaim her land within five years. In greater Tibet, nomads may never get that chance. They are offered more compensation if they agree to hand over their land titles.

What’s a better solution? Tree-planting is a great approach - and has the added benefit of mitigating climate change, the root cause of desertification. But it doesn’t resolve the question of what to do with herders. Alleyn points to more holistic approaches:

Many of the stakeholders involved in the fight against desertification in China, both foreign and Chinese, are calling for investment in a more promising strategy: conservation agriculture, designed around water-saving irrigation systems, more suitable farming and grazing practices, and the inclusion of farmers in the decision-making process.

“China must invest more in its number one resource: its farmers and herders,” advises Brant Kirychuk, manager of a project led by Canada’s department of agriculture in the arid northern provinces of China. “They need to be guided and then take part in decisions.” Between 2000 and 2009, the Canadian government has committed $23.5 million to a sustainable agriculture plan aimed at rejuvenating China’s arid lands. Canadian experts are on hand with Chinese specialists as well as with farmers and herders to share a process that was developed to save the Canadian prairies from the 1930s dust bowl. “In Canada, thirty years were necessary to recover,” Kirychuk says.

There are promising Chinese projects out there as well. Botanist Gaoming Jiang (who also advocates organic farming as a solution for China’s food safety woes) is working closely with locals in Inner Mongolia, persuading them to grow their own feed rather than setting animals out to pasture — and convincing shepherds that they can actually earn more money by cutting back on sheep and goat herds.

China needs more sustainable programs like these, efforts that take the dust bowl’s inhabitants into account.

Image: Seedlings destined for a Chinese reforestation project. Credit: flickr/autan

Revitalizing China’s Dust Bowl is part of our month long retrospective leading up to our anniversary on October 1. For the next four weeks, we’ll celebrate five years of solutions-based, forward-thinking and innovative journalism by publishing the best of the Worldchanging archives.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Worldchanging Retro at 11:25 AM)

Originally
from Worldchanging

by WorldChanging Team


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by WorldChanging Team from Worldchanging on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment

This article was written by Mara Hvistendahl in August 2007. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

In 2005, green architect William McDonough and British engineering firm Arup separately announced plans to build ambitious eco-cities housing up to 500,000 inhabitants on the mainland. For a few months following these announcements, coverage was enthusiastic (we have written about these cities a number of times, with earlier articles here and here). Much of this coverage was deserved. Designers are, after all, devising solutions to what promises to be one of the largest rural-to-urban migrations in history.

But in recent months, journalists have begun to look at how these cities are shaping up. After publishing a glowing article on McDonough’s designs for sustainable Chinese cities in 2005, Newsweek ran an article this May that reads like a retraction. Its assessment of Huangbaiyu, the model village in McDonough’s program and the first in a series of seven planned eco-cities, is bleak:

The project appears to be a mess. Construction of the 400 houses is way behind schedule. The 42 that have been built still have no heat, electricity or running water. Walls are already cracking and moisture seeps through the ceilings. According to people who’ve worked on the project, many of the houses don’t adhere to the original specifications—meaning they could never achieve the energy savings they were meant to achieve. The biomass gasification facility meant to burn animal, human and agricultural waste, doesn’t work. Not surprisingly, no one in the village has volunteered to move into the new community.

Last month, Popular Science published a feature that casts similar doubts on the prospects for China’s eco-cities.

I saw Peter Head speak at April’s Holcim Forum, a gathering of sustainability-minded architects and engineers, in Shanghai. During his presentation, he showed a video that had been produced by the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation, the developer responsible for Dongtan, the city Arup designed for an island outside of Shanghai. The city presented in the video suggested the myriad gated communities that surround Shanghai: gaudy and dramatic, with very little of the restraint and economy that most would associate with sustainable design.

That is precisely the problem in China. People in developed countries have had a few decades to try out and reject excess. It isn’t just an awareness of environmental degradation that pushes us to go green; it’s a knowledge, gleaned from firsthand experience, that conventional living generates a level of waste that makes us uncomfortable. In urban China, however, bigger is still better. Most middle-class Chinese are still preoccupied with finding ways to display their wealth, not minimize its impact on the world.

Such attitudes — which are understandable, if not admirable — are behind the problems now surfacing in the transformation of urban China. To accomplish their goals, Western designers working in China might partner with local government officials, as McDonough has done. But such officials might be more concerned with project success than with enforcing land rights or securing public participation — also critical to creating healthy, enduring communities. On the other hand, another solution is to trust eco-city properties to the market, as Arup has done with Dongtan. Visitors to that project, which is now taking shape, decribe large single-family homes and suburban-style planning. Wired’s feature on Dongtan suggests that SIIC and Arup differed on what they wanted out of Dongtan early on:

Part of the problem was that SIIC wasn’t sure yet what it wanted. Its people talked about Dongtan as an eco-city, but they also talked about it as a quaint green suburb or as Shanghai’s Hamptons, a place for the city’s wealthy to flee for the weekend. They seemed to have good intentions but little direction.

The BBC alludes to similar problems in its recent article on Dongtan.

But the stream of Chinese eco-cities won’t stop. Last month, New York architect Kevin Kennon announced a green community for the resort island of Hainan. We should expect — and hope — to see more in years to come. Why? For people interested in seeing China go green (and, given its share of global emissions, we all should be), there isn’t any other option. The alternative to massive eco-cities is not slow, organic development but massive conventional cities, with all their attendant ills. Urbanization is simply occurring too rapidly in China to allow for anything else. The hope for China now is that is that its designers — Western architects and local politicians alike — will learn from their mistakes.

Image: Dongtan Marsh. Credit: flickr/laughterwyn

China Eco-Cities Update is part of our month long retrospective leading up to our anniversary on October 1. For the next four weeks, we’ll celebrate five years of solutions-based, forward-thinking and innovative journalism by publishing the best of the Worldchanging archives.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Worldchanging Retro at 2:05 PM)

Originally
from Worldchanging

by WorldChanging Team


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by WorldChanging Team from Worldchanging on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment