Zones of Emergency

Ute Meta Bauer, co-director of the Zones of Emergency lecture series, will be on a panel at Harvard (Stubbins, Room 112) on March 20 from 11:30-2:30. She will be reflecting on InSite2005. Moises Gonzales, who will be joining us at ZOE next Monday (3/17), will be moderating this discussion about border issues with Luis Sigueros, Ruben Martinez and Teddy Cruz.

The Mexican – United States borderlands have sustained several hundred years of human settlements and transformation of the natural landscape.  In the midst of political, social, economic, and environmental challenges, “mexicanos” have continued to adapt to the natural and built environment of both northern Mexico and the American southwest.  This forum will explore the transformation adaptive landscape of “La Frontera”.

Today, March 11, Purple Blurb will host a presentation of non-fiction stories - instances of digital testimony that are relevant to our current situation and current wars. Ben Miller, author and lecturer in MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies will present Soldier’s Story Archive. The event is at 14N-233 at MIT at 6pm.

Please come tomorrow night, March 10th, to The Power of Display: The ‘Look’ of Emergency. David Small of Small Design Firm and John Tirman will be speaking about their projects in relation to the aesthetic and social issues that arise as a result of communicating and representing emergency situations. Small Design Firm was chosen to design four large scale installations for the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. John Tirman, the Executive Director of MIT’s Center for International Studies, will speak about Iraq: The Human Cost.

Lucy + Jorge Orta have a show opening on April 7 at 7pm at Hangar Bicocca, Milan, Italy. On the same date, Mel Chin will be speaking here for the Zones of Emergency series.

In the spring of 2007, Lucy + Jorge Orta completed their expedition to Antarctica as part of an artistic project on this frozen continent. It was both a real and a symbolic journey to the edge of the world, living in an extreme environment under the severest survival conditions. Antarctica curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, is the artists’ first major solo exhibition in Italy at the Hangar Bicocca (3rd April to 8th June 2008) and represents the first complete and organic public showing of the artworks created by the artists as a result of their experience in Antarctica.

Off limits to military activity and protected as an ecosystem, the Antarctic contains 70% of the planet’s fresh water reserves. For the artists Antarctic Village – No Borders signifies an emblem of a future in which true globalisation will mean a more equitable redistribution of resources, freedom of movement and right to exist for the people of the world.

On exhibition are the emblematic dome architectures that composed the Antarctic Village actually installed in Antarctica, as well new Drop Parachutes, Survival Kits and the dual screen video projection of their expedition. Visitors entering the Hangar Bicocca will receive their Antarctic World Passport, a passport edition created by the artists as a symbol for the eradication of all borders, real or imaginary, as obstacles to integration and cultural exchange.

The exhibition is also an occasion for presenting other major works created by the artists, addressing social, environmental and humanitarian issues: mobility, population migration, climate crisis and human rights.

Antarctica is the focus of a hardback publication by Electa on Lucy + Jorge Orta’s art practice, with texts in both Italian and English.

Please join us tomorrow, Monday, Monday 3, 2008 at 7pm for a lecture and roundtable discussion with Mark Tribe with Benjamin Mako Hill on Networks, Tactics, Breakdown in the Joan Jonas Performance Hall at the MIT Visual Arts Program located here. Mark Tribe will present a selection of projects, such as the Port Huron Project, that explore how tactical practices and public interventions use the internet and other networks as a means to instigate political discourse and public collaboration. This work addresses zones of emergency in a broad sense, raising issues related to the psychological condition of being politically oppressed. Benjamin Mako Hil will present his work on online voting machines for the masses as well as discuss his involvment as an activist in the free software movement.

Please join us tomorrow, Monday, February 25, 2008 at 7pm for a lecture and roundtable discussion in the Joan Jonas Performance Hall at the MIT Visual Arts Program located here. The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar will present a selection of works, that focus on his practice in zones of emergency like Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship, and in Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide (1994 -2000). Kayvan Zainabadi, former president of Amnesty International at MIT, will speak about his experience at MIT working with Amnesty on crisis in Darfur.

We are excited to announce Zones of Emergency, the Spring 2008 Monday Nights @ VAP Lecture Series, which brings together practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds and fields to examine the scale and complexity of catastrophe and disaster scenarios through lectures and panel discussions. Lectures and panel discussions will range from the philosophical and cultural understandings of the emergency to practical “on the ground” operating organizations to current use of networked technology examining its own breakdown.