Amy Franceschini

By enlisting scientists to help her realize her art projects, Franceschini joins a growing number of artists who have interjected ‘scientist’ into art’s line-up of assistants and collaborators.

a. Even artists who are not members of a group may not work in isolation. For example, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) ran a large studio to execute the numerous commissions entrusted to him.

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Andy Goldsworthy

Although Andy Goldsworthy occasionally imports materials, he is most known for utilizing the physical conditions and resources already existing on the site where his work is fabricated.

A common characteristic of eco art is that the materials/forms/and themes of works of art are derived from the locale in which they are created.

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Andy Gracie

The first quandary posed by fish, plant, rack (2004) by Andy Gracie involves identifying the category of contemporary art-making that best represents this curious installation.

The first quandary posed by fish, plant, rack (2004) by Andy Gracie involves identifying the category of contemporary art-making that best represents this curious installation.

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Beehive Collective

The Beehive Collective joins Yun-Fei Ji, Maya Lin, and Marina Zurkow in using graphic means to protest a dangerous environmental condition.

The Beehive Collective joins Yun-Fei Ji, Maya Lin, and Marina Zurkow in using graphic means to protest a dangerous environmental condition. In this context, the word ‘graphic’ refers to creating vivid two-dimensional images for the express purpose of influencing opinions and behaviors.

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Brandon Ballengée

Brandon Ballengée engages in renewing, not inventing.

The invention of a new art form or the founding of a new art movement usually qualifies an artist for inclusion in the history of art. But some artists entered art history because of their association with the prefix ‘neo’ instead of the adjective ‘new’.

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Bright Ugochukwu Eke

Dress plays an important role in Nigerian society. Eke took advantage of this cultural tradition when he created raincoats.

a. Dress plays an important role in Nigerian society. To the knowing eye, the textile patterns used in dress have functions beyond dazzling the eye. They also provide information about the wearer’s tribal origin, social standing, age, and marital status.

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Chu Yun

By evoking the serene visual beauty of the night sky, Chu Yun provides a particularly curious example of a disruptive eco artist.

Some artists are dedicated to disrupting society. Others are committed to confirming the status quo. Eco artists tend to be disruptive because they either protect and restore what is being mistreated and protest the wasteful and contaminating practices that have become commonplace.

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Critical Art Ensemble

CAE’s politically-charged mission was formulated out of objections to the privilege of education and the privatization of production in society.

The debate between those who identify art in terms of private consumption, and those who view it as a shared cultural asset is ongoing. By positioning their work in the public domain, today’s public art practitioners invariably align with the second alternative.

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Eduardo Kac

Kac contributed to the expansion of painting techniques and mediums when he incorporated living biological processes to create biotopes in 2006. It remains to be seen if cultivating microbial life forms will become a typical a part of an artist’s training in the future, but Kac created another work of art that indicates the significance of his contribution in the present.

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Fernando Garcia Dory

Fernando Garcia-Dory is equally concerned about endangered cultures that are being subsumed in the frenetic pace of technological innovation, industrial transformation, and market globalization.

a. An exhibition at the David Brower Center on the University of California campus in 2011 teamed Fernando Garcia-Dory and Amy Franceschini.

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Gelitin

Gelitin includes duration in its toolbox of expressive means by amplifying the challenges surrounding ‘real-time’ art.

The concept of ‘real time’ first developed in the late 1950s-early 1960s by the designers of the computer systems network for the US Air force Strategic Air Command. Its goal was to provide instant response to a missile or bomber attack.

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Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger

The materials that comprise the contemporary environment cannot simply be divided into two categories – those that are beneficial and those that are harmful. Steiner / Lenzlinger demonstrate that quantity must be factored into such accountings.

The materials that comprise the contemporary environment cannot simply be divided into two categories – those that are beneficial and those that are harmful.

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HeHe

In terms of spelling, ‘eairth’ is a slight modification of the word ‘earth’. But in terms of meaning, the transformation is momentous. The appearance of the word ‘air’ in the midst of ‘earth’ reveals that earthlings exist immersed in a vast ocean of air. Of the traditional four elements, it is only air that surrounds us every instant.

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Jae Rhim Lee

Just as science fiction writers can anticipate inventions that haven’t yet entered the imaginings of engineers, so eco artists can introduce original concepts that may eventually serve practical needs. Such may be the case with Jae Rhim Lee.

Just as science fiction writers can anticipate inventions that haven’t yet entered the imaginings of engineers, so eco artists can introduce original concepts that may eventually serve practical needs.

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Lily Yeh

Lily Yeh integrates folk artists into the restoration and revitalization projects she identifies as part of her fine art practice.

Lily Yeh has converted the drawings of children and villagers into murals and mosaics to brighten the drab walls of the local architecture in Palestine, Nairobi, Rwanda, and North Philadelphia.

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Marina Zurkow

In Poster Children, Zurkow’s cartoon renderings conjure apocalyptic fantasies of the deluge that is predicted to accompany climate change in the coming decades.

The contexts in which cartoons appear extend far beyond Saturday morning children’s television. Cartoons appear in advertisements like the Geico gecko. They also factor into political propaganda like the anti-Semitism campaigns in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and Mao’s Communist revolution in China in the 1980s.

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Marjetica Potrc

An artist whose work stems from the dire conditions that are rampant in slums around the world may seem like an unlikely contributor to the age-old discourse on the nature of beauty. 

An artist whose work stems from the dire conditions that are rampant in slums around the world may seem like an unlikely contributor to the age-old discourse on the nature of beauty.

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Maya Lin

During my visit to Maya Lin’s studio in Manhattan, the artist surprised me by stating that her primary focus was on the future, and that she is an optimist.

During my visit to Maya Lin’s studio in Manhattan, the artist surprised me by stating that her primary focus was on the future, and that she is an optimist.

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Mel Chin

“I’m always striving to find the right material for capturing the specific weirdness of the present moment.”

“Art, for me, is not about the medium. It really all comes down to the message. And the message must be communicated by my patented “Malcolm-Quattro-X” method: not just by any means, but also by any method, any action, or any material necessary.

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Michael Mandiberg

Michael Mandiberg practices hactivism by trespassing onto commercial sites in order to draw attention to the consumerist activity being promoted there. He does not apply his programming skills to clog servers, unleash viruses, or otherwise damage and disrupt sites.

“‘Hacktivism’ (hacking plus activism) is the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends.

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Natalie Jeremijenko

Jeremijenko places science within the category of art in order to empower people to look critically at science which would otherwise appear authoritative and inaccessible to them. She believes that if science is incorporated into art, people will be more likely to form opinions about it.

a.

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Nicole Fournier

“This poly-agriculture is about embracing the messiness of Nature in its diversity, as opposed to trying to controlling it, through monoculture.”

One can imagine Nicole Fournier shaking her head in dismay regarding the report that in 1977 Walter De Maria rejected a shipment of 280,000 pounds of ordinary “earth” that he had ordered to create a work entitled The New York Earth Room.

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Pedro Reyes

Activism is prevalent among eco artists who are impatient to establish behaviors and policies among humans that promote environmental responsibility. Besides activating individuals, some eco artists also attempt to activate institutions.

Activism is prevalent among eco artists who are impatient to establish behaviors and policies among humans that promote environmental responsibility.

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Red Earth

Journeying backward in time to experience early human sensibilities is currently being routed through vision quests, special breathing exercises, guided visualizations, drumming, chanting, cleansing with fire and water, invocations, listening in silence, meditation, offerings, incense, anointments, and so forth.

The Earth’s waters, atmosphere, topographies, and living species are remote from lifestyles which are dominated by machined products and digital communications.

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Reverend Billy Talen

Reverend Billy Talen recognizes that many environmental causes require halting behaviors that damage or deplete the environment.

The word ‘activism’ is frequently found in discussions of respected works of contemporary art. It applies to art works that instigate direct action to achieve an ecological, political or social end.

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Simon Starling

Starling conducts art like an Xsport. His efforts are often so extreme they carry the charm of clownish stunts, always involving a skill he has not yet acquired: model-making, boat-building, bicycle construction, chair fabrication, etc.

Starling conducts art like an Xsport. His efforts are often so extreme they carry the charm of clownish stunts, always involving a skill he has not yet acquired: model-making, boat-building, bicycle construction, chair fabrication, etc.

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SUPERFLEX

Veterinarians, geologists, astronomers, dentists don’t have the problem that often confronts art professionals. This is the problem of identifying the objects that receive their professional attention. Artists continually tamper with and expand the range of their activities.

Veterinarians, geologists, astronomers, dentists don’t have the problem that often confronts art professionals.

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Tavares Strachan

Comte de Lautreamont (1846-1870) was a French poet who greatly influenced the Surrealists by proclaiming that a volley of surprising thoughts and emotions would erupt simply by changing the context in which an object is situated. He provided an example of such a displacement  – an umbrella, placed beside a sewing machine, lying on a dissecting table.

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Terike Haapoja

Haapoja diverges from anthropocentrism by highlighting the importance of non-human organisms.

Haapoja diverges from anthropocentrism by highlighting the importance of non-human organisms. She notes, “I find our relationship with the non-human world as a fundamental and fundamentally political question, perhaps the most important question of our times. Our economy is based on natural resources, our well-being on the vitality of other species, our politics on sharing the goods that non-humans provide us.

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Tissue Culture & Art

Artists of the sublime prefer mystery to scientific data, awe to comprehensibility, and enchantment to statistics.

An age-old art tradition involves inducing a state of wonder. Indeed, substantial literature has developed surrounding the concept of the ‘sublime’ as it has been evoked by artists. The ‘sublime’ infers that some component of the universe is so wondrous that no human creator could ever produce, comprehend, or presume to control it.

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Tomas Saraceno

Tomas Saraceno was selected to represent the reconfiguration of photography within this book because he went beyond depicting environmental imagery.

Tomas Saraceno was selected to represent the reconfiguration of photography within this book because he went beyond depicting environmental imagery. Environmental consciousness also dictated the means he employed to produce a photograph.

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Tue Greenfort

Tue Greenfort exhibited Two Degrees in a gallery spacethat exemplifies a white box. However, this artwork challenges O’Doherty’s assertion that this style of architectural interior acts as a neutral and otherworldly setting for the display of art.

The architecture of most art museum interiors is a ‘white box’, characterized by an undecorated space with white walls, white ceiling, and a neutral floor.

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Viet Ngo

Symbols are absent from the pragmatic water purification projects undertaken by Viet Ngo. Despite the large-scale engineering feats that distinguish his corporation, Lemna International, aesthetics matter to him.

Symbols are absent from the pragmatic water purification projects undertaken by Viet Ngo. Despite the large-scale engineering feats that distinguish his corporation, Lemna International, aesthetics matter to him.

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Yun-Fei Ji

Yun-Fei Ji and Ai Weiwei are both Chinese artists who protest the country’s headlong rush into modernity.

During China’s Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, Mao unleashed a campaign to erase “the Four Olds” from Chinese culture: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. But the assault on China’s ancient traditions actually commenced at the turn of the 20th century, and again when vestiges of the nation’s feudal era were suppressed or destroyed during the 1949 Communist Revolution.

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