2016 international programme

2016 artists and collaborators
Lise Autogena, Arte Útil, Auto Italia, British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, Tania Bruguera, Centre for Alternative Technology, Critical Art Ensemble, Crowe & Rawlinson, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T), Andy Freeman, Fran Gallardo, Fernando García-Dory, Alistair Hudson, Dimitri Launder, Lisa Ma, Sylvia Nagl, Veronica Ranner, Susan Schuppli, Kota Takeuchi, Territorial Agency, Thompson & Craighead, Neal White (Office of Experiments), Robert Whitman, Ben Vickers and YoHa
 

Arts Catalyst commissions ambitious artists’ projects that critically engage with science and technology in society. Our 2016 programme supports artistic practices that explore the reciprocal effects of art and science, of politics and machines, of communities and environments. With a focus on research and experiment, we will generate new exchanges between artists, scientists, technologists and the public. From our new Centre in London, Arts Catalyst will work across the city, in populated ecological sites of coasts, forests and rivers, and with partners internationally.

Winter / spring
Notes from the Field: Commoning Practices in Art and Science
January 28–March 19, 2016

The opening exhibition at the new Arts Catalyst Centre for Art, Science and Technology is Notes from the Field, a multi-faceted project investigating the notion of art as a tool or tactic for action with communities. It has a specific focus on projects involving science and technology to address socio-ecological issues. Notes from the Field features films, images, maps, interviews and objects relating to Arts Catalyst’s ongoing art and citizen science project Wrecked on the Intertidal Zone, with lead artists YoHa, Critical Art Ensemble, Andy Freeman and Fran Gallardo, who have been working with communities on the Thames estuary over the course of three years. Alongside is an activation of the Arte Útil archive, a project initiated by artist Tania Bruguera, which chronicles a history of projects that draw on artistic thinking to create tactics to change how we act in society.

Spring / summer
In Everyday Urbanism > Architecture as Social Process, resident researchers, including Territorial Agency and MA students from Goldsmiths Centre for Research Architecture, explore social, political and environmental issues in Arts Catalyst’s new neighborhood of King’s Cross, and work with the local community to develop “tool kits” and “users manuals.”

In YoHa and Critical Art Ensemble’s Graveyard for Lost Species, an old Thames cockleboat, engraved with the names of lost species gathered from a thousand local stories, becomes a poignant temporary public monument on the Thames estuary, fated to disappear gradually back into the estuary mud.

Summer / autumn
Nuclear Culture presents exhibitions of new commissions at KARST in Plymouth, United Kingdom, and Bildmuseet in Umea, Sweden, engaging audiences with ideas around radioactivity, risk, deep time and the nuclear Anthropocene. New commissions by Thompson & Craighead, Lise Autogena, Crowe & Rawlinson, and Susan Schuppli examine contemporary nuclear culture. The Nuclear Culture Source Book, edited by Arts Catalyst Associate Curator Ele Carpenter, is published at the end of the year by Black Dog Publishing. This international activity will be reflected at Arts Catalyst Centre with a residency by artist Kota Takeuchi and accompanying events programme.

Autumn / winter
In October, artists and engineers re-imagine the seminal 1966 event 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T), on its 50th anniversary. This major project features new commissions by artists and engineers, including Robert Whitman (E.A.T. founder) and Auto Italia. Concurrently, the Arts Catalyst Centre hosts an archival presentation in collaboration with Julie Martin, Director of E.A.T, and a programme of talks with Afterall.