PLENTY

The rendered images are studies in complexity theory, particularly the application of algorithmically derived formulas to aesthetic theory and perception. The research field is visual arts and in particular, digital media. The research question regards the hapticity of an audience’s interaction with the visual image.  In this instance, the visual images are partial renderings of algorithmically generated forms. The images represent ‘point clouds’ of the generative process and are especially rendered with lighting and shade parameters to as closely as possible, resemble drawings.

The works comprise novel generations of holonically paired algorithms; that is features of initial algorithms that affect and influence the second, and so on. These renderings represent novel instances of the ‘julia set’ formula and undergo a laborious process of generation and selection to render permutations of the set that in some way closely resemble natural form and phenomena. The works exhibited form part of an ongoing research dialogue with the audience in successive exhibitions regarding haptic engagement with the visual.

The exhibitions goals were for all of the works to comprise part of a discourse about our interdependence and interconnectedness with the natural world. ‘Gathering and ‘A Delicate Moment as the curator writes “Della Bosca creates drawings using algorithmic generation of fractal mathematics. The forms echo winds, eddies and plants, that reflect the repeating structural patterns of the abstract and physical worlds”. The works were chosen by the curator to engage the audience in a manner that other works do not and to explore concrete connections with mathematics.

PLENTY

TUE 27 SEPTEMBER-SUN 23 OCTOBER, 2016

PRESENTED BY BRISBANE POWERHOUSE

Prominent and emerging Australian artists feature in this unique exhibition that explores our interconnectedness and dependence on the natural world.

For most of human history, the natural world appeared to provide us with everything we need to thrive. But given the current ecological crisis – driven by humanity’s insatiable consumption of the world’s minerals, plants, animals, water and soils – is the Earth still plentiful?

The exhibition is a central part of RONA16 – the Rights of Nature Australia National Arts Fiesta. RONA16 is hosted by the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) in collaboration with artists around Australia. It is designed to celebrate Australia’s first Rights of Nature Citizens Tribunal, being held in Brisbane on 22 October. The Tribunal offers a reinterpretation of environmental governance from human-centred to Earth centred law and offers a space for all artists and citizens to question, challenge and respond to thecurrent threats facing the natural world.

Plenty is curated by Associate Professor Marian Drew, Griffith University in consultation with Co-Founder and National Convenor of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance, DrMichelle Maloney.

Plenty brings together a range of artistic dialogues that explore human interconnectedness and interdependence with the natural world. From mathematical forms to toad prints, the artwork here, collectively, is a call for more curiosity, acknowledgement, understanding and good humour when we think about our relationship to our environment, and how the things that we value may be preserved. We increasingly understand that human health and happiness are inseparable to the health of the ecosystems in which we live. The pleasure, fascination, and sense of connection we feel while observing other living things, and the beautiful diverse environments that support them, feed us culturally, spiritually, emotionally and physically.

Cultural sites like the post-industrial Brisbane Powerhouse, provide entertainment, and a stimulating environment in which to ask big questions surrounding contemporary life. For most of human history, the natural world appeared to provide us with everything we need to thrive. But given the current ecological crisis – driven by humanity’s insatiable consumption of the world’s minerals, plants, animals, water and soils – is the Earth still plentiful?The artists in this exhibition explore a range of ideas for our pleasure and reflection. The seduction and affect of highly refined aesthetic engagements, is that they can deliver ideas and feelings that circumvent purely intellectual reasoning, stealing in to play on our thoughts. Individually and collectively, Plenty creates a space for audiences to ponder these aesthetically framed questions. Material engagement, beauty, metaphor and analogy can resonate physically, emotionally and intellectually, leading to continued reflection and even reorientation. It is clear that the culture we live in, mediates our experience and acts to shape our appreciation and perception of the world around us.

David Suzuki at his Sydney Opera house ‘Legacy’ speech in 2010, counselled that as a community we should de-value the influence the economy has over our lives and re-value nature and our relationship to it at a local and community level. This exhibition aims to do just that.The arts can play a significant role in our continued adaptation to, and even mitigation of rapid change, not only by sharing unthinkable dystopian futures, but also by being part of the progressive attitude that is searching for creative solutions.

Plenty, the exhibition, was conceived and mounted in support of a growing national not-for-profit organisation called The Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) created in 2012, by a group of lawyers concerned about the deteriorating health of the natural world, and in particular, the role that law and governance plays in supporting the legal destruction of our precious natural environment. AELA, and its subsidiaries Earth Arts and RONA 16 join a growing international movement that is seeking a less anthropocentric and more sustainable approach to living on our beautiful planet.

AELA holds its first public hearing in Brisbane on 22nd October, 2016, of the Rights of Nature Tribunal Australia. The Tribunal offers a unique space for Australians to speak on behalf of the ecosystems they love, and to make recommendations about how the law should be changed to better protect our natural world. AELA’s work is inspired by deep ecologist Thomas Berry, and as a ‘response to the Great Work’, is multi-disciplinary and brings people together from different cultures, professional backgrounds and bio-regions of Australia. It combines academic research, advocacy and community based projects, and is connected by five core themes: changing culture, reconnecting with what matters, building community, building alternatives, and transforming law and governance. RONA16 was created by AELA to blend the Tribunal’s creative reinterpretation of environmental governance with cultural responses to the rights of the natural world to flourish.

RONA16 is a National Arts Celebration, gathered through a network of interconnected activities that are all registered and hosted on a central portal (www.rona16.org.au). Plenty is proudly a central part of the RONA16 cultural response.

The cultural dialogue necessary for cultural change doesn’t come from one person or event; it is a field of work by many people that include citizens and creative professional and amateur artists, designers, musicians, architects and artisans. It is a grass roots movement that has a cultural momentum that needs to be understood as everybody trying. It is part of the significance of art that it can help audiences reflect on their own values and develop personal standpoints on cultural, social and environmental issues of importance.

The Brisbane Powerhouse Performing art space, once a coal fired electrical power station and then for many years an industrial ruin, is an ideal site to think about our urgent need for transformation.

1David Suzuki, The Legacy : An Elders Vision for our sustainable Future, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2010, p34.

Marian Drew