#IIC AHRA Situated Ecologies Conference: Presenting Time after Time

 The content and aims of my Major Project, Time after Time correspond with some of the AHA conference themes and offer an opportunity to test the potential of the artwork to engage and activity audiences, an aim which was set out in my Project Proposal. So I have decided to submit a proposal to run a session as outlined below. I think this would be a great opportunity to exhibit and contextualise my work and also to collaborate with CT colleagues/research student, so I hope it gets accepted:

“This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings” (Macy and Gahbler, 2006, p.105).

How technology can be used to augment analogue artworks and further engage and activate audiences.

Delegates are invited to attend a session which will include the presentation of an illustrated paper and associated artist’s books, scrolls and a website. As a practice-research test-bed, delegates will be invited to ‘be with’ alternative forms of the artwork, Time After Time, in order to discuss whether augmenting the analogue images with digital technologies can further engage and activate audiences.

Time After Time documents some of the extraordinary events that occurred between 2016 and 2021, significant national and global events that, as Olivia Laing notes, happened at rates too rapid to allow time for individual and collective reflection and response (Laing, 2020, p1). It was a period which may come to be regarded as the apotheosis of Neoliberalism marked by: the election of Donald Trump and the success of the Brexit campaign; the diaspora of refugees with thousands dying in the Mediterranean in their attempts to reach Europe; catastrophic climate disasters which include bee colony collapse and devastating fires in Australia and America, and the tragic spread of the Covid-19 virus which to date has killed over 6-million people.

However, it is also a period that includes inspiring resilience, activism and protest including: Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion, Hope not Hate, Me Too, and Black Lives Matter; scientific discoveries that offer hope for the environment and public health; tree planting and species recovery, and the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the USA elections (their inauguration marked by the compelling words of Amanda Gorman); these events demonstrate the power of resistance and present alternative models of existence and coexistence of human and non-human entities.

Time After Time sets out to depict this period and is positioned as a form of visual autoethnography and social justice. As visual autoethnography, the work will present subjective and personal perspectives whilst simultaneously inviting audiences to reflect on common and collective experiences. As social justice, the work will also intersect with feminist political activism and reparation (Sedgwick, 1997): it will encourage reflection and dialogue (or silent recognition) and will offer a space to think about was, what could have been and what might be, in a manner that offers hope and a call for action. The events will be juxtaposed against corresponding cosmic and microscopic discoveries, empiric findings and scales of existence that situate our humanity within, and as part of, a broader context.

To deepen audiences’ understanding of the artwork and to encourage activism, creative technologies have been used to reveal hidden meanings and symbolism, to  provide supplementary information, and to provide links to campaigning organisations….

Delegates will be invited to reflect on the digital and analogue methods of communicating ideas and to share their responses and reflections, both in this session and as participants of zine-making workshops.

 

Interim Events

Collaborating with CT colleagues to generate QR codes and apps that can link the analogue artworks with digital information, action groups, petitions and resources.

Co-creating autoethnographic and social justice scrolls with SoA students