Anchoring knowledge; River Ecologies/ Contemporary Art and Environmental Humanities on the Danube

Challenging anthropocentric conventions that seek to harness the river for economic, cultural and political purposes, River Ecologies places the complex ecological materiality of the Danube at the centre of artistic and scholarly attention. Drawing on the insights of artists, scientists, anthropologists, writers and environmental historians, brought together in the experiential setting of the River School, this collective inquiry journeys to sites of urban and natural wilderness to explore issues of reciprocity, resilience, non-human agency and interspecies solidarity. From the confluence of contemporary art and environmental humanities, the artistic and theoretical reflections of River Ecologies flow through the critical habitats of Rewilding Mentalities, Avian Ethnographies, Environmental Histories and Biosphere Responsibility to re-engage with the natural world

Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway : Untitled (superorganism)

Untitled (superorganism) The aftermath of an ant mill. A fragile monument, it will blow away with the first wind. In an ant mill hundreds of thousands of ants walk in a circle, a ceremonial procession, until overcome by exhaustion and, eventually, death. It’s hypothesised that this behaviour is simply a quirk of evolution, a flaw in the ingenious system of pheromones that govern the complex social behaviours and hierarchy of the colony. But who knows, perhaps they choose this ritual suicide; perhaps this is their Stonehenge

Untitled (superorganism)

“Untitled (Superorganism)” was a video installation commissioned for ‘Anthropocene Monument’, an exhibition curated by by Bruno Latour and Bronislaw Szerszynski at Les Abattoirs Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Toulouse (3/10 2014 - 4/1 2015). The exhibition was a precursor to the determinations of the Anthropocene Working Group and The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), to examine evidence of a new geological epoch in which geologically significant conditions and processes have been profoundly altered by human activities. Untitled (Superorganism) simulated the the event of an Ant Mill, a phenomenon observed in some ants, where hundreds of thousands of ants walk in a circle, a ceremonial procession, until overcome by exhaustion and, eventually, death. This phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies, related to a flaw in the ingenious system of pheromones that govern the complex social behaviours and hierarchy of the colony. Using research into feeding and pheromone laying behaviour, this work simulated the behaviour of an ant colony. Digital simulations were composited into live video footage of the museum space and exhibited in the context of the physical aftermath of an actual ant mill having taken place in the museum

European Glass Context 2016, GLASS Cultural Heritage and Craftsmanship /Process as Object

Lise Autogena discussed her work with glass in the late 1980s and 90s - and how it led to a technology-based approach to realising ideas, where the making of images became an entirely context driven and collaborative approach

Production of: Foghorn Requiem

Richard Hollinshead was invited by the National Trust to develop a high-profile temporary artwork for Souter Lighthouse, South Shields. In response to this opportunity he developed an Artists’ Brief and curated a proposal by artists Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway. Their proposal Foghorn Requiem became a major site-specific project, and on June 22nd 2013 more than 50 ships gathered on the North Sea to perform an ambitious musical score by composer Orlando Gough, marking the disappearance of the sound of the foghorn from the UK’s coastal landscape. Specially tuned shipshorns and air supply systems installed on those vessels were accompanied by the Foghorn at Souter and three Championship-level brass bands, and Foghorn Requiem was performed to an audience of 8000

Untitled (superorganism)

“Untitled (Superorganism)” was a video installation commissioned for ‘Anthropocene Monument’, an exhibition curated by by Bruno Latour and Bronislaw Szerszynski at Les Abattoirs Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Toulouse (3/10 2014 - 4/1 2015). The exhibition was a precursor to the determinations of the Anthropocene Working Group and The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), to examine evidence of a new geological epoch in which geologically significant conditions and processes have been profoundly altered by human activities. Untitled (Superorganism) simulated the the event of an Ant Mill, a phenomenon observed in some ants, where hundreds of thousands of ants walk in a circle, a ceremonial procession, until overcome by exhaustion and, eventually, death. This phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies, related to a flaw in the ingenious system of pheromones that govern the complex social behaviours and hierarchy of the colony. Using research into feeding and pheromone laying behaviour, this work simulated the behaviour of an ant colony. Digital simulations were composited into live video footage of the museum space and exhibited in the context of the physical aftermath of an actual ant mill having taken place in the museum

Conversations: The Data Route

Keynote presentation at Conversations: The Data Route, a conference in connection with the BIG BANG DATA exhibition at ArtScience Museum Singapore. Are you ready for the era of Big Data? Join us as we discuss and investigate the route that Big Data has taken, and how this affects the way information is communicated, shared and used in our digital age. Speakers included co-curator of Big Bang Data, Jose Luis, artists Ingo Gunther, Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway, psychotherapist Teodora Pavkovic amongst other esteemed speakers

New Aesthetics for a Data-Saturated World (The role of SciArt in our Society)

"The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the in-house science service of the European Commission and supports policy makers with robust science. With the realisation that in a fast developing globalized world processes are becoming increasingly complex and require innovative, transdisciplinary thinking, the JRC has recently launched its SciArt - Science and Art Programme. As part of the SciArt process, we invite artists to join up with our scientists to discuss, reflect, innovate, and put our research into context, so that we can provide our policy makers with the facts as well as an encompassing analysis – looked at from different angles and perspectives. JRC is inviting participants to the Preparatory Workshop for the next Resonances III on the topic of Big Data. The workshop is held on 20 October in the Leonardo da Vinci Science and Technology Museum in Milan to allow the participants to visit the Resonances II and to brainstorm with us on the angle for the next Resonances cycle on Big Data. With a few presentations to set the scene and mostly interactive breakout groups we want to discuss with artists, scientists and experts the three "W" · What is Big Data, what are its known and unexpected sources? · Where and how is Big Data transforming our society, our lives and even our very self to the better and the worse? · Who are we going to be in the future when Big Data has enabled scientists, engineers, doctors, experts to transform our societies, our work, our economies, our bodies, our agriculture, our security, our thinking? By helping us finding the angle under which the JRC, as DG of the European Commission, should address the topic of Big Data,

Nothing Beside Remains

The exhibition Nothing Beside Remains by Lise Autogena & Joshua Portway is a reflection on the passage of time, the perishability of power and the anatomy of ruins in a world where the uncontested rule of man over nature is facing decline. The exhibited works investigate our perspectives as humans on the collapse of complex systems: from romantic poems telling the story of imperious rulers and their fallen empires, via self-organising ant colonies to the risk of total ecological collapse. Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, the artists present the audience with visualisations of complex data sets, a recreation of the suicidal, but strangely ritualistic phenomenon of an ant mill and the slow flooding of Regelbau 411’s bunker calibrated according to the rate at which the global sea levels are rising. Thus, the works essentially address the issue of the altered timescales introduced by the concept of the Anthropocene. How to relate to questions of power and finality, when viewing human history in relation to planetary processes and an unfathomable future? How does it affect our self-perception, when hours, days, weeks and years no longer suffice as measurements of time? Regelbau 411’s bunkers constitute a leitmotif for the exhibition, the ruin standing as a symbol of the slow negation of everything permanent: the desert of time blows in from the vast beaches at Oddesund, where everything meets us as scattered fragments on their way towards final dissolution

HavObservatoriet

HavObservatoriet was an inquiry into new ways of interpreting and visualising the physical processes that impact on behaviours and dynamics of ocean waves. The project constructed a physical ocean observatory that digitally simulates the wave dynamics of the oceans surrounding Denmark in real time, using real time ocean forecast data supplied by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Each geographic position of spectral data simulates the amplitude of waves at every wavelength and in every direction as one single circular image that envelops the viewer in a combined statistical model of the behaviour of the sea surface. The project is constructed as a permanent circular open-air ‘wave observatory’ in Vejle Klima Park, a landscaped harbour area, designed to protect the city of Vejle against flooding. The observatory creates a public space within the park, sheltered from the wind and connected to the power of the ocean. The project converts the spectral data into an animated simulation of the ocean surface which is rendered using a non-photorealistic particle-based rendering system. The panoramic image of the sea that surrounds the viewer is displayed at 1:1 scale: a one-meter-high wave will appear one meter high in the observatory. Because the screen wraps around the viewer, a wave approaching from one direction will ‘wash’ over the observatory and disappear in the opposite direction. HavObservatoriet was developed in collaboration with Joshua Portway and Jean Bidlot, Senior Scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and further supported by Matthieu Chevallier, Head of Evaluation at ECMWF. It was the first of a series of artworks commissioned by Vejle Municipality and The Danish Art Foundation with a focus on water as a future challenge and potential. The project was supported by regional renewal funds of the Danish Social and Housing Authority and Sheffield Hallam University