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Para-site-seeing: Art and multi-scalar mobilities

Activity: Talk or presentation typesInvited talk

17/07/2019

How can changes that happen from microscopic to global scales be imagined and encountered in meaningful ways? The GPS devices that we currently work with operate on scales that range from the planetary (satellites at 20,200 km above the earth) to the sub-atomic (in extremely accurate atomic clocks that are used by GPS devices). GPS navigation ranges from globe-spanning international flights to the detailed local mapping of individual animals in the wild, offering and necessitating an imaginative engagement with scale. Artworks engaging with mobilities have mapped and made visible a range of movements, from satellites and long Antarctic voyages to familiar local journeys and microbial mobilities. On these different scales, they enable us to encounter the entanglement of distance, proximity, and scale, and to connect globalization with our human presence in the world. Referencing the work of anthropologist Anna Tsing, this seminar will address the argument that art practices are taking up the challenge of observing change and precarity, and creating spaces in which collective imagination of different futures can be cultivated through relational and performative artworks.

External organisation (External collaborations)

NameRMIT University, Melbourne
Country/TerritoryAustralia