Monday, May 7, 2012

Exhibition Opening this Thursday

We are pleased to invite you all to the opening of Us & Them: Umwelten this Thursday night at RMIT Project Space!!



Exhibition to be opened by Linda Williams and Kate Rigby  

For further details on the exhibition opening click here - http://schoolofartgalleries.dsc.rmit.edu.au/PSSR/exhibitions/2012/umwelten.html

Catalogue - fresh off the press!

We are delighted to announce Linda Williams' wonderful text - New Perspectives in environmental Art: Us and Them – Umwelten, will feature in the Exhibition catalogue.

Here is a snippit from the text.... 
 
The concept of umwelten, is a term derived from the work of the early 20th Century biologist and ethologist Jakob von Uexküll. In the German umwelt means ‘surrounding world’, or ‘self-centred world’ and for von Uexküll, umwelten conveyed the idea of the vast range of creatures occupying worlds whose meaning could be understood from their specific point of perspective. Within myriad umwelten then, diverse creatures experience their umwelt differently, yet von Uexküll’s findings led him to conclude that communication, or semiosis, was a process of interaction common to the umwelten of all organisms: whether human or non-human. The study of these processes of communication formed the basis of biosemiotics, of which perhaps one of the best-known studies is the ‘information dance’ of bees......
Image- World Species Market, Debbie Symons
Linda Williams is Associate Professor in Art, Environment and Cultural Studies and Program Coordinator of the Honours Program in the School of Art. She leads the RMIT Global Ecologies Research Group. Along with her work as a widely published art critic, she has published in the field of the history of culture and science, philosophy and critical theory, and is an active member of the Globalization and Culture project in the Global Cities Research Institute at RMIT. She is also an international reader for the ARC.

for more on Linda and the Global Ecologies research cluster, click here - http://www.rmit.edu.au/art/artandenvironmentalsustainability

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Us and Them- Umwelten Begins

Us and Them - Umwelten, has emerged from eight artists from the RMIT Global Ecologies Research Group. The works presented in the exhibition respond to German ethologist Jacob von Uexkull’s theory of ‘umwelt’, which suggests that each and every animal, including humans, lives in its own perceptual world that is separate from any other, yet perfectly equal and linked together...

Curated by Catherine Clover & Jen Rae.

To read more on the exhibition click here - http://usandthem-umwelten.blogspot.com.au/p/about.html

Steve Baker, Roadside XII, 2011, Photograph, dimensions variable