[ISEA2022] Institutional presentation: Ricardo Dal Farra — Balance-Unbalance: Ecology and Citizenship

Institutional Presentation Statement 

June 10, Remote Institutional Presentation. Session: Art and environment

Keywords: climate change, art and environment, eco-action, transdisciplinarity, art-science

The frequency and severity that certain weather and climate-related events are having around us are increasing, and the ability of human beings to modify our adjacent surroundings has turned into a power capable of altering the planet. Do the electronic arts have a role in all this?

We are living in a world reaching a critical point. The equilibrium between a healthy environment, the energy our society needs to maintain or improve its usual lifestyle, and the world’s interconnected economies have recently passed from a delicate balance to a new reality, where unbalance seems to be the rule. Traditional disaster management approaches are not enough to deal with the current problems and the rising risks. New forms of collaboration are needed to inspire people and organizations to link knowledge with action.

Artists could inspire new explorations and contribute with innovative perspectives and critical thinking to actively participate in solving some of our major challenges, such as the spiraling environmental crisis. We need to develop creative ways to facilitate a paradigm shift toward a sustainable tomorrow. Creative thinking, innovative tools, and transdisciplinary actions could produce perceptual, intellectual and pragmatic changes. One of the initiatives that aim to use the media arts as a catalyst, with the intent of generating a deeper awareness and creating lasting intellectual working partnerships to face the many facets of the environmental crisis, is: The Balance-Unbalance international project, which explores [art, science, technology] intersections between nature and society.

In this context of global threats: Can the [media] arts and artists help? Everyone has a role in the construction of the future, artists, too. We must search, investigate, reflect, and act. We can create, and we can also invite others to analyze, engage, envision and act. It is not possible to wait longer or to delegate personal responsibilities. By bringing people from very different sectors of our society to think together and facilitate multi and transdisciplinary collaborative project developments, Balance-Unbalance and its associated initiatives are turning feasible to connect artistic creation and tangible tools for change. Balance-Unbalance has been contributing to making social transformation happen.

For the video recording of the talk see: Amalia Creus — Art and environment

  • Dr. Ricardo Dal Farra is professor of electronic arts and music at Concordia University, Canada, and director of the electronic arts center CEIARTE-UNTREF, Argentina. He is Founder of the international symposia Balance-Unbalance (BunB) and Understanding Visual Music (UVM). Dal Farra has been director of Hexagram in Canada, coordinator of the Multimedia Communication national program of the Federal Ministry of Education in Argentina, senior consultant of the Amauta New Media Art Centre of Cusco in Peru, and researcher of UNESCO, France, for its project Digi-Arts. He designed university and high school programs in art-science. Ricardo created the Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection hosted by the Daniel Langlois Foundation, Canada. He is a board member of ISEA International, and of Leonardo (MIT Press), Organised Sound (Cambridge Press), and Artnodes (UOC) editorial boards. With a Ph.D. in Arts, Dal Farra is a composer and artist specialized in transdisciplinary actions with science and emergent technologies. https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/ricardo-dal-farra.html