Common Ground
The Sound of Science: Artists and Scientists Discuss Climate Change
to
1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific
This event is produced by The Brooklyn Rail. Learn how you can donate ✨🌈
Join us for conversations and musical performances with artists, scientists, composers, musicians, and museum directors on the implications of NFTs, carbon capture, and the performing arts in the age of climate crisis.
In this talk
Please note this event is planned to run until about 3:30pm EST. We’ll open with an artist dialog followed by a musical performance followed by a second dialog on the intersections between music and science. As always, we’ll have an audience q&a and close with a poetry reading.
1pm EST: Artist dialog with Andrea Andersson, Torkwase Dyson, John Gerrard, and Miranda Massie hosted by Paul D. Miller
2pm EST: Musical performances from The ClimateMusic Project, DJ Spooky, and Jacqueline Austermann with Eve Ó Donnell and Lea Luka Tiziana Sikau
2:30pm EST: Science and Music dialog with Jacqueline Austermann, Laurie Goldman, Dr. Andrew Jones, Andrew Revkin, and Erik Ian Walker hosted by Paul D. Miller
Andrea Andersson
Writer and curator Andrea Andersson serves as Founding Director and Chief Curator of Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought, a non-profit institute for research, publishing, and exhibitions, committing to art informed by diasporic experience. She has organized exhibitions with artists including Troy Montes-Michie, Yto Barrada, Sanford Biggers, Cecilia Vicuña, Zarouhie Abdalian, Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick, and Adam Pendleton, among others; she co-edits a series of artists’ books with Siglio Press including Adam Pendleton: Becoming Imperceptible, Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen, Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension and most recently, Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye. She also recently co-edited Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch (Yale UP).
Jacqueline Austermann
Assistant Professor at Columbia University and part of the Seismology, Geology, and Tectonophysics Division of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Jacqueline Austermann studies sea level changes ranging from the past glacial cycles to Millions of years ago in order to infer ice mass changes and ice sheet stability as well as constrain the Earth’s rheology. Austermann also works on geodynamic and plate tectonic problems dealing with plate driving forces and dynamics of the Earth’s deep interior.
Torkwase Dyson
A painter whose compositions address the continuity of movement, climate change, infrastructure, and architecture, Torkwase Dyson grapples with ways space is perceived and negotiated by black and brown bodies. These subjects produce abstractions that explore the history and future of black spatial liberation strategies and environmental racism. Explorations of how the body unifies, balances, and arranges itself to move through environments become expressive and discursive structures within her work. Dyson builds the paintings slowly, accumulating washes and configuring geometric elements through improvisation and reflection. The subtle use of atmospheric color, lines, and scale in the paintings invites the eye to consider the conceptual and corporeal knowledge of space in real time.
John Gerrard
John Gerrard is best known for his sculptures and installations, which typically take the form of digital simulations, displayed using real-time computer graphics. Gerrard’s works concern themselves with the nature of contemporary power by exemplifying the mass structures and vast networks of energy which materialised during the twentieth century. Gerrard’s method of production involves taking tens of thousands of digital photographs and then recreating a scene with them by implementing the same technology used for video games. The result is seemingly realistic but artificial in actuality. Such virtual technology has become standard in the videogames industry, which evolved from US military simulation exercises; yet it has rarely crossed over into the visual arts.
Laurie Goldman
Director of Public Engagement at The ClimateMusic Project, Laurie Goldman is a veteran public policy professional who has held positions in government, industry, and academia. She most recently served as Deputy Director of UC Berkeley’s Global Engagement Office. As head of Global Trade Policy for Levi Strauss & Co., Laurie advised on global trade and development issues. Laurie has always been passionate about working with institutions committed to a greater good and has sought out opportunities to engage on global concerns. Laurie holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from George Washington University and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from Tufts University.
Dr. Andrew Jones
Earth scientist Andrew Jones works at the interface of human and environmental systems. He is a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an Adjunct Professor in the interdisciplinary Energy and Resources Group program at UC Berkeley. His research blends quantitative Earth science methods with social science perspectives and stakeholder engagement to understand climate change and human-Earth interactions at decision-relevant scales and provide insight into strategies for increasing resilience of energy water, food, and urban systems. He has participated in a number of science-art collaborations including The Climate Music Project and helped to organize a series of residencies on the intersection of artistic practice, scientific practice, and climate equity.
Eve Ó Donnell
Irish composer, vocalist, creative producer, and curator Eve Ó Donnell lives and works in Brooklyn. Since receiving her Bachelor of Music Degree in Composition in 2012 she has worked in New Music internationally. Eve is the curator and producer of the Irish musical discovery platform #IrishOriginSeries, and she is a founding member of the Os Ensemble choir, for which she composes regularly on the topic of environmental impact through climate change. As the Artistic Producer, Composer Initiatives at National Sawdust, Eve produces the emerging composer mentorship initiatives; the Hildegard Composer Competition for female, trans and nonbinary composers; and the Blueprint Fellowship in partnership with The Juilliard School, which supports emerging composers.
Miranda Massie
Director and Founder of NYC’s Climate Museum, the first climate-dedicated museum in the US, Miranda Massie has organized a NYC-wide art installation, the five-month exhibition Taking Action, youth performance programs, science education, a monthly discussion series on climate and inequality, and more. During the pandemic, the Museum has developed programs and advocacy tools to provide diverse constituencies with opportunities for connection with the goal of encouraging broad civic engagement and empowering the public to take action on climate crisis. Miranda is a regular guest lecturer in design, museum studies, and climate-focused graduate and undergraduate courses. She speaks frequently on the need for climate-focused programming in the cultural sector.
Andrew Revkin
Environmental journalist Andrew Revkin is Founding Director of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University’s Earth Institute where he builds programs, courses, tools, and collaborations that bridge the gap between science and society. Revkin has written on climate change for over 30 years. He has held positions at National Geographic and Discover Magazine and won many awards in science journalism, along with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Revkin has written on the history of humanity’s relationship with weather, the changing Arctic, global warming, the Amazon rainforest, and science communication. A lifelong musician, he was a frequent accompanist of Pete Seeger and is a performing songwriter.
Lea Luka Tiziana Sikau
Mezzo-soprano, scholar, and cultural impresaria Lea Luka has carved a niche for herself at the nexus of critical inquiry, media art, and music. She is currently working with Marina Abramovic on the opera production 7 Deaths of Maria Callas and previously worked for the new music incubator National Sawdust. She has learnt from, worked, or performed with Jörg Widmann, Ai Wei Wei, Andrey Boreyko, Sxip Shirey, Johanna Doderer, Sarah Maria Sun, Axel Kober, Hans W. Henze, Edda Moser, Jay Scheib, Sir Peter Jonas, Barbara Bonney, Brigitta Muntendorf, Paola Prestini, and Joan Punyet Miró, among other artists. She was awarded with the Bavarian Cultural Award 2020. Lea Luka is an Alumna of Harvard’s Mellon School and conducted research at MIT on art science collaborations.
Erik Ian Walker
Since 1982, Erik Ian Walker has been writing and recording music for theater, dance, film, and television in the Bay Area. Drawing on his knowledge of the science of sound in his compositions, he includes sounds from the everyday and from nature as part of his soundscapes. His extensive collaborations include experimental theater/dance performance, film, and rock and jazz ensembles. His latest releases include Climate by the Climate Ensemble and numerous singles as Hash Brown and the Red Eyed Rangers. Erik runs WackoWorld Music in San Francisco, a recording and teaching studio. He produces for local artists and teaches musicianship, improvisation, synthesizer madness, and piano for all ages at the studio. Erik holds a degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky)
Composer, multimedia artist, and writer Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) immerses audiences in a blend of genres, global culture, and environmental and social issues. Miller has collaborated with an array of recording artists, including Metallica, Chuck D, Steve Reich, and Yoko Ono. His 2018 album DJ Spooky Presents: Phantom Dancehall debuted at #3 on Billboard Reggae. He is an Editor-at-Large for the Brooklyn Rail.
The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poetry reading, and we’re fortunate to have Craig Santos Perez reading today.
Craig Santos Perez
An Indigenous Pacific Islander from Guam, Craig Santos Perez is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Habitat Threshold. He teaches environmental poetry at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa.
❤️ 🌈 We'd like to thank the The Terra Foundation for American Art for making these daily conversations possible, and for their support of our growing archive.