WaterWheel Last Chance

19-21 March 2016

Climate change, financial crises, war, and global environmental damage have all put pressures on water forcing it to ‘work’ as commodity, capital and resource. While the natural world ‘works’ in the maintenance and transformation of water, there are also the ‘works’ created by the passing actions of floods, tides and storms. How can art, science, design, and activism reinstate the social, cultural and environmental value of water? How can we give recognition to the indispensable and invaluable ways that water works?

This will be your last chance to tune into to watch the annual water themed presentations and performances using the Waterwheel interactive, collaborative platform from March 19 onwards http://water-wheel.net/taps-list (This link shows you the time and date in your local time for the 7 sessions spread over 34 hours. You only need to log in if you wish to comment.) Run marathon-style, each 2 hour session will be broadcast from a different part of the world.

This annual online global event, run since 2012, is a showcase on water by artists, scientists, activists and academics from all walks of life.

Some of these presentations are later published, and in 2014 an e-book was published which you can view here >> blog.water-wheel.net/2015/02/e-book-water-views-3WDS14.html
Here 450 participants, from 34 countries across 5 continents, interacted with audiences in real time on the internet and in 18 physical venues or ‘nodes,’ using the Waterwheel online video and sound platform. The symposium, held 17-23 March 2014, also focussed on a youth & inter-generational dialogue “Voice of the Future” strand.

Waterwheel was co-founded in August 2011 by Brisbane-based artist, Suzon Fuks, the design studio Inkahoots, who developed this, and the arts organisation Igneous, which manages it. It has never had any paid staff and the resources for its development from Australian national and Queensland state government arts funding were for artists who did projects using the platform. So now after 5 years the 2016 annual water themed online conference will be the last.

So to wet your appetite for this year’s theme Water Works – where 22 curators from 19 countries will discuss selected entries and respond to an online audience in a streaming event on Waterwheel.

The programme overview is here: http://bit.ly/WATERworks-programme

Indian classical singer Mahesha Vinayakram will open and close “Water Works” with a performance.

The first two hour session (water-wheel.net/taps/view/854) will be presentations of videos selected by San Franscico-based artist and teacher, Michele Guieu (micheleguieu.com/wordpress) followed by a presentation of seven New Zealand artists, curated by Ian Clothier (ianclothier.com) who runs the biannual media art residency and symposium SCANZ(www.intercreate.org) in New Plymouth where he lives.

The next session (water-wheel.net/taps/view/855), starting 2 hours later, is curated by Katarina Djordjevic Urosevic ((artskylight.com), Serbia), Joanna Hoffmann (University of Arts, Studio for Transdisciplinary Projects and Research, Poznan, Poland) and artist Pascale Barret (pascalebarret.com), Belgium)

Water Works session #3 (water-wheel.net/taps/view/856) is curated by:
West D.L. Marrin, an applied scientist in biogeochemistry, pollutant dynamics, water resources, and aquatic ecology. His lectures focus on global water quality threats, hydromimicry practices, and the water-energy-food nexus. He is a former adjunct professor at San Diego State University, U.S.A.;
Claudia Jacques & Victoria Vesna (waterbodies.org). Claudia (claudiajacques.com), currently a PhD candidate at the Planetary Collegium, CAiiA Hub, University of Plymouth, UK., researches space-time aesthetics in the user-information-interface relationship through the lens of Cybersemiotics. Intersecting art, technology and science, she designs interactive hybrid art and information environments that aim to explore perceptions of space-time and the digital-physical in the pursuit of human consciousness. Victoria (victoriavesna.com) is an artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts and Director of the Art|Sci center at the School of the Arts and California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI))
and Lila Moore (mdx.academia.edu/LilaMoore), an artist film-maker, screen choreographer, networked performance practitioner, and theorist based in Israel. She is a post-doctoral researcher at The I-Node of the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, UK, and holds a doctorate from Middlesex University in Dance on Screen which explores choreography for the camera and screen-dance in the contexts of performative and hybrid art forms, with special reference to ritual and myth from a feminine/feminist perspective.

Water Works session #4 (water-wheel.net/taps/view/857) is on sound art works and is curated by Leah Barclay, Eric Leonardson and Ricardo Dal Farra.
Leah Barclay (leahbarclay.com) is an Australian interdisciplinary artist, composer and researcher who specialises in electroacoustic music, sound art and acoustic ecology. Leah has received critical acclaim for her immersive performances, installations and large-scale community projects that explore volatile environments ranging from the central Amazon Rainforest to the floor of the Australian ocean. Her work is multi-platform in nature and often involves long-term community engagement accompanied by the development of virtual platforms to explore the value of digital technology in environmental crisis. Her diverse creative practice has resulted in a dynamic freelance career where she works as an artist, consultant, educator and researcher with various organisations and institutions. These include designing immersive education programs for UNESCO, directing large-scale interdisciplinary research projects for major universities across Australia and the USA and facilitating partnerships between communities, NGOs and government to explore creative approaches to climate action.
Eric Leonardson (ericleonardson.org) is a Chicago-based composer, radio artist, sound designer, instrument inventor, improviser, visual artist, and teacher. He has devoted a majority of his professional career to unorthodox approaches to sound and its instrumentation with a broad understanding of texture, atmosphere and micro-tones.
And Ricardo Dal Farra (linkedin.com/in/ricardodalfarra) is an Argentine composer and multimedia artist, researcher, educator, performer and curator focusing mainly on new media arts and electroacoustic music for more than 25 years. Dal Farra holds a PhD in Etude et pratiques des arts from Université du Québec à Montréal and is Founding Director of Centro de Experimentación e Investigación en Artes Electrónicas – CEIArtE (Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre) at National University of Tres de Febrero, Argentina; Associated Researcher at the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre, De Montfort Univerisity, United Kingdom; and Senior Consultant for the Amauta – Andean Media Arts Centre in Cusco, Peru.

Water Works session #5 (water-wheel.net/taps/view/858) is curated by:
Eklavya Prasad (linkedin.com) a social development professional who has led a grassroots campaign in rural north Bihar, New Dehli, India, since 2005 on decentralized and alternative drinking water solutions;
Atefeh Khas (atefehkhas.com) an Iranian artist who specializes in environmental installations, and is a member of the environmental artists group “Open Five” since 2005,
and Catherine Lee + Margaret Shiu, directors of the Bamboo Curtain artist residency studio (bambooculture.com), in Taipei, Taiwan.

Water Works session #6 (water-wheel.net/taps/view/859) is curated by:
Tracey Benson (canberra.academia.edu/TraceyBenson) a media artist and academic based in Canberra, Australia;
Amin Hammami (linkedin.com) previously a lecturer in Cinema, Audiovisual and Sound Art at the Higher Institute of Multimedia Arts of Manouba in Tunisia and now at the University of Dammam in Saudi Arabia. He has been involved with Waterwheel since 2011.
Tracey Benson (canberra.academia.edu/TraceyBenson), and
Amin Hammami (linkedin.com) previously a lecturer in Cinema, Audiovisual and Sound Art at the Higher Institute of Multimedia Arts of Manouba in Tunisia and now at the University of Dammam in Saudi Arabia. He has been involved with Waterwheel since 2011, and
Camilla Boemio (camillaboemio.com), an Italian curator focussing on socio-political developments within contemporary society. She was Deputy Curator of the Maldives Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and was consultant for the art-science section at ISWA European project (Immersion in the Science Worlds through Arts).

A workshop on audio recording and streaming
(water-wheel.net/taps/view/860) by the London arts collective, Soundcamp (soundtent.org). Technologies for setting up a temporary or long-term live audio stream using a mobile phone or a laptop as well as a dedicated streambox out of low cost components, using the Raspberry Pi micro processor and Primo microphone capsules to make up cheap, high quality stereo microphones, will be demonstrated.
Real time audio has the potential to create a compelling connection to a site, which can directly convey much of the feel and uniqueness of a location. A small but significant group of projects is establishing a network of streams from diverse soundscapes around the world. Some of these events are SoundCamp 2016, (30 April – 1 May 2016), a 24 hour live stream of audio radio around the globe for International Dawn chorus Day (idcd.info) on May 1st, the Locus Sonus open microphone network (locusonus.org), the Balance Unbalance conference on acoustics and ecology in Colombia (9-11 May 2016), and World Listening Day 2016 (18 July 2016).

Water Works session #7 (water-wheel.net/taps/view/861) is curated by:
Annie Abrahams (bram.org) based in France, she is an pioneer of networked performance art.
Russell Milledge (researchgate.net) a co-founder of the interdisciplinary artists’ collective Bonemap (bonemap.com) which is concerned with the ecological edges of civilisation while creating immersive art and performance based in far northern Australia. Projects often engage Cape York, Torres Strait Islander and international contemporary artists.
Jason Grant (Australia)

And the waterwheel blog is an archive of water related events: http://blog.water-wheel.net