Archive for category: Featured

Feb 1st–3rd, 2013

Developing the culture to create a sustainable civilisation

Following is a list of abstracts selected for the SCANZ 2013 3rd nature wānanga-symposium. It is not quite complete yet. This page also has registration information and  an outline of the wānanga schedule.

Mātauranga Māori (for international viewers) refers to traditional Māori knowledge pre 1840s colonisation. The boundary of Mātauranga Māori and science is significant at (formerly) Crown Research Institutes in Aotearoa New Zealand and world leading in terms of integrating indigenous knowledge and Western science as a part of daily operations and core research activity. This integration is a feature of recent Intercreate.org projects in the creative sector, and forms one foundation of the 3rd nature project. There are instances worldwide of this occurring, and the wānanga-symposium will provide a range of solutions to issues of working across cultures and disciplines, from several countries. For those interested in understanding more Te Reo (Māori language), there is a dictionary at: www.maoridictionary.co.nz

Registration information

Registration includes dinner on Friday night at Owae marae, plus light lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, plus morning and afternoon tea. Early bird registration before December 14 2012 for waged people is $345 (student/unwaged $245), the full registration from December 15 is $395 (student/unwaged $295). One day registrations are $120 (Early bird) or $150 (from December 15).

Click here to register for the the wānanga-symposium.

The Friday night dinner is also a Wonderlogue event led by Trudy Lane, which involves interdisciplinary discussion.

Wānanga-symposium Schedule

Thematic framework

Integrating indigenous perspectives with creative, environmental, scientific and academic views on reality is essential to a sustainable future. At the same time, computing and digital media are changing our relationship to culture and the environment.

On the one hand digital technology allows us to analyse and display data in new ways, as when anthropologists use language databases to shed light on the movement of culture.

On the other hand digital technology adds to our senses, and extends them beyond the body to the forests and the land. Scientists, artists and others are transforming the environment into an organism, as Maori and indigenous peoples have always known it to be.

SCANZ 2013: 3rd nature brings together diverse people to discuss how to approach working together across culture, discipline and media. We must work together to resolve the issues emerging at the boundary between fresh knowledge and deep knowledge, beginning with sharing knowledge and projects.

Presentations and projects which highlight cross cultural interchange and/or computing and electronics projects and/or the hybrid arts were sought. The ensuing discussion and presentations will be shared in a special edition of Leonardo Electronic Almanac, the online publication of Leonardo – the leading Massachusetts Institute of Technology journal.

Who should attend?

Tangata whenua, indigenous peoples, scientists, artists, environmentalists, academics, philosophers, educationalists, musicians, teachers, technologists, and those concerned about sustainability, the future of Earth and humanity. Tangata whenua –people of the land – are indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand.

The first day of the hui will be held at Owae marae. Keynote speakers are Dr Te Huirangi Waikerepuru (Aotearoa New Zealand) and Intercreate International Research Fellow Nina Czegledy (Canada & Hungary). The second and third days are to be held in Te Piere o te Rangi on the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki campus and in Pukekura Park.

Register now

Registration information and the preliminary schedule can be found here.

Authors: Kura Puke and Stuart Foster

Abstract

Within the Turkish landscape, the elevated minarets or ‘light houses’ provide a visual focal point and a spatial trajectory through aural extensions created by the cyclical call of the adhan. A revered kaumatua, who attended ISEA2011 in Istanbul, spoke of his experience of this ancient and entrenched practice as “stirring” and “touching the soul”

This effect may be similar to the customary Maori call ‘karanga’ with its two-fold function; to communicate audibly across a physical distance, and, a spiritual call that engages the wairua . For the participants, this call may ignite ‘te puna roimata’ or ‘the wellspring of tears’ as this aural invocation petitions, beyond time and space, to the ancestors and ultimately to the source of life itself.

These allegories to the metaphysical, may be best communicated in visual-aural modes, where content is transmitted through media interconnectivity and received through wide ranging perceptions and understandings. In prompting metaphysical notions or discourse, these visuals participate in envisioning change.

The collaborative project titled ‘Tipi Rangi: Traversing the heavens’ is a sound-carrying laser light, where the relay of beams transport ancient vocal expression and audible environmental sounds, in a visual trajectory through the landscape.

Creative crossovers in science, technology, art and indigenous worldviews create new knowledge, towards integrated understandings of our contemporary ecological situation. These insights are crucial to cultivating meaningful, sustainable environmental wellbeing.

This project explores the potential toward deeper understanding of matter through electronics, forging dynamic relationships and producing captivating images, audio and performative expression. These motivations set the stage for transdisciplinary learning and communication to take place.

In the research of light, sound and other energies, exploration and discovery through technology allows the invisible to be made visible and the intangible, tangible. These are the realms of science and art, understandings of measuring and expressing narratives of these energies. Maori knowledge or matauranga has identified, interlinked and organized these phenomena within a complex but inclusive genealogical framework. The implication is, that every individual is connected to each other, to all things, and to nature itself, therefore the environment must be treated accordingly.

Notions of the metaphysical are fundamental to an indigenous view, and increasingly re-occurring in a western view, as scientific information cannot deliver these understandings but a convergence offers new knowledge pathways.

The continuation of karanga as a post colonial re-balancing of cultural identity for the collective and specifically women is a critical element in the dynamic contribution to matauranga Maori. In an increasingly younger, indigenous demographic, creating relevant meaningful visual culture is an imperative. Karanga sent forth through light, transmitting the voice as vibration can assert cultural value, identity and technology. The outcomes may be useful to those communities as inclusive learning opportunities and a tool for expressing mana

In the emerging global culture, creative products can travel, further innovating and creating new knowledge formed through both the weight of scientific data and the substance of experience.