World Offset - part of the EcoAesthetics Exhibit

WORLD OFFSET is a new artwork by SAIC faculty Tiffany Holmes that just opened this last week for the <>TAG exhibition, EcoAesthetics. The interactive website allows individuals in the Hague and beyond to pledge a small carbon offset that alters the visuals in the eco-visualization. An eco-visualization is a creative animation that makes hidden or numeric environmental data visible and comprehensible.

Both the full-screen and web-based animation begins with no carbon offsets. All of the spinning disks are filled with devices that consume energy: hairdryers, toasters, cars, and airplanes. When the first 100 pounds of carbon are promised, a change occurs in the animation: trees replace hairdryers. The goal of the animation is to offset at minimum 15,000 pounds of carbon, the amount that the average American consumes per year. The fact that so many real promises are required to offset the impact of one individual is in itself a demonstration of the enormous challenge of modifying human behavior to slow climate change.

Every thirty seconds the name of the most recent offset contributor is displayed in the animation. The website dynamically archives all carbon promises and contributor information.

Please check out the site and make a carbon promise. No cheating, pick something you are not doing already.

Radio Ephemera - call for Submissions

Radio Emphemera is this his years audio challenge from the Third Coast Festival in collaboration with the Prelinger Library

HEAR a description of the project and an interview with the Prelingers

Yes, you have until August 3rd to come up with a 3 minute story using a stranger's voice that connects at least two out of five books from the library. Nicely, three of the five books in the pool are old biology texts, so the possiblities abound...

"Heating Up" Exhibit - Call to Artists

The Evanston Art Center, a non-profit, community based visual arts organization is hosting an exhibition, "Heating Up" scheduled for October 5- November 9, 2008.

This is an exhibition of artists who are creating a cultural discourse around the topics of climate change and ecosystem degradation. We are currently looking for submissions from artists until August 15, 2008. The artists may use a range of methods and media-including installations, drawings, sculpture, photography and/or projects that involve the community. The artists in "Heating Up" will challenge viewers to initiate dialogues and engage in actions that can help heal our planet's fragile ecosystems.

For more information: www.evanstonartcenter.org/exhibitions or Contact: pdanoff@evanstonartcenter.org Evanston Art Center 2603 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60201
847.475.5300

Autism + The Republics of Cognition 3/18

Autism & the Many Republics of Cognition
presented by Ralph Savarese, Associate Professor of English, Grinnell College

Tuesday, March 18
Noon-1:30 PM
The University of Illinois at Chicago
Westside Research Office Bldg., Room 561
1747 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago


The Institute for Health Research and Policy, The Chancellor's Committee on Disability, and Project Biocultures present this seminar as part of the University of Illinois at Chicago's ongoing Biocultures Seminar series.

Ralph Savarese, PhD, is an associate professor of American literature, creative writing, and disability studies at Grinnell College. He is the author of Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption (Other Press, 2007), hailed by Newsweek as “real life love story and an urgent manifesto for the rights of people with neurological disabilities.”