ARC: Launching the 2011/2012 Academic Year!


Hello Friends,
While campus was calmer during the summer months, we have been hard at work planning a number of research projects, retreats, and public symposia for the upcoming academic year.  Check out a preview of Fall events in the works so far.
September has already started off with a bang, and so much more is on the horizon.  We welcomed our first group of ARC Allied Research Interns, including eleven undergrads who are working in our research groups on Art + Neighborhood, Art + Time, Art + STEM, and Art + University.  Look for a list of names in the next issue of ARC News.
We started a Brown Bag lunch series with a successful visit from Caden Manson who showed work and spoke generously with ARC affiliate Gail de Kosnik and a room full of students and faculty from across campus.  Manson is a co-founder of Big Art Group and the Contemporary Performance Network and currently at work on a show called The People that opens at Zpace/YBCA.  I myself appreciated how much his description of the high tech process behind his work resonated with some of the reflections we have had in Art + STEM conversation.  Meanwhile, his admittedly frank assessment of what he described as the “faux-economy” of visual arts’ turn to performance echoed some of the bemused sentiments expressed in our Art + Time’s Curating People symposium last spring.
As September unfolds, we are hosting a September 12 retreat with artist groups and civic leaders of San Francisco to reflect on the role of the arts in Central Market’s urban plan.  See forthcoming posts.
I also will be giving public lecture with Berkeley’s Art and Technology Colloquium called “Social Art Works” on Monday, September 19 at 7:30 and hope that ARC’s friends and affiliates can come.
Check out these and other forthcoming events as well as future blog posts from myself and others as we reflect upon the various strands of our research, our travels, our organizing, and exchanges with kindred spirits like you.
Yours,
Shannon