http://transnationaltemps.net/spill/

MediaNoche’s gallery space at 102nd Street / Park Ave.
New York City
Exhibition running from July 30-September 21, 2010
Hours: Wednesday – Friday, 3-7pm

Opening: July 30th, 2010

Responding to what has been called the United States’ worst ever environmental crisis, the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico frames this forward-looking group exhibition. Following on the heels of a decidedly unsuccessful round of climate negotiations in Copenhagen, the months of news coverage of oil gushing into the Gulf have provoked widespread unease with business as usual. As BP desperately attempts to recover both the oil and its public image, artists and designers from around the world are wrestling with the question of sustainability in the aftermath of these shocking events.

The Deepwater Horizon accident coincided with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, a custom that itself came about partly in response to the Union Oil Platform A oil spill in Santa Barbara (1969). That spill, relatively small in comparison, catalyzed an environmental movement and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. It remains to be seen what lessons and institutions may arise from this summer of junk shots and containment domes, but there can be little doubt that the stakes are high. The Gulf of Mexico, already reeling from deoxygenated ‘dead zones’ due to pollution arriving via the Mississippi River, now faces unprecedented ecological challenges stemming from both the oil and chemical dispersants. Moreover, these events call attention to the problem of fossil fuel dependency in this era of global warming. The passionate and incisive responses of contemporary artists, unencumbered by journalistic norms of decorum, are an opportunity to see these historic events through the eyes of others who are fed up with humanity’s unintended war on the environment.

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MediaNoche is the place where art, technology and community converge. We offer artists working in new media exhibition space and residencies in order to provoke a dialogue that blurs all lines of marginality and alterity. Unique among art and technology groups, MediaNoche is directly linked to the oldest Latino community of New York City, Spanish Harlem, and has showcased a roster of local and international new media artists. http://MediaNoche.us

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Transnational Temps is an international arts collective concerned with ecology, sustainability, and media. Since its formation in 2001 it has produced a series of critically acclaimed works and exhibitions under the banner Earth Art for the 21st Century. Working primarily from Europe and the United States, works to date have emphasized participation, tactical media, and spanning the sometimes awkward divide between activist advocacy and aesthetics. http://TransnationalTemps.net

The exhibition Ecomedia presents projects founded on progressive
ecological models and conceives utopian horizons in the process. It
peruses fundamental considerations concerning ecosystems,
sustainability, renewable energy sources, as well as visions of the
future.

In addition, it examines the role of art and new media over and
above science, technology, and ecoactivism.
The artistic approaches rooted in the link between media technologies
and so-called “natural” systems such as climate, water, and earthquakes
are innovative. These projects revolve around the charting of data and
their audio visualization. For the most part, they circumvent common
scientific technological recording methods and open up new worlds of
perception

12. October 2007– 13. January 2008

Edith Russ Site for Media Art
Katharinenstraße 23
D-26121 Oldenburg

Germany