Event Type
Webinars and Virtual Events

Presenters: Matthew Burtner (University of Virginia), Leena Cho (University of Virginia), and Gabrielle Russomagno (School of Visual Arts)

Arctic Research Seminar Series: Bridging Arts and Science
Event Dates
2020-09-21
Location
Online: 8:00-9:00 am AKDT, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT

This seminar will be presented by Matthew Burtner (University of Virginia), Leena Cho (University of Virginia), and Gabrielle Russomagno (School of Visual Arts). During this webinar presenters will discuss how their work spans science and the arts through media such as music, landscape architecture, and the visual arts.

Speaker Abstracts:

Matthew will share how he uses sound as a medium between music and science in Arctic coastal ecosystems. Ecoacoustic music utilizes sonification, field recording and environmental materials to imbed natural systems into music. He will discuss the methodology and show examples of these techniques in his work.

By merging the study of environmental humanities, and science and technology studies with landscape architecture, Leena will highlight the Arctic ground’s vibrant materialities as a conceptual and physical basis for design, while delineating potential areas of landscape design research and collaboration to further examine design potentials unique to the Arctic’s built environment. Permafrost ground is one of the defining landscape elements in the Arctic, and is a foundation for dynamic socioecological and cultural expressions in Arctic cities.

Gabrielle will discuss A Quick and Tragic Thaw, a series of artworks that explores the impact of a warming world using the arctic region as the symbolic apex. Through the study of scholarly research and data, use of mapping technology and satellite imagery, as well as essays, poems, photographs and illustrations, these artworks interpret the more recent story of human influenced climate change. More broadly, this urgent narration recognizes migration movements of biological forms, toxins, and water and is meant to be a meditation on loss and the fragility of the planet.