New Dialogues - Timothy Morton and Douglas Kahn
Is the idea of Nature over?
Timothy Morton, controversial California-based English professor and ecological critic asks if, in order to be able to talk about the Earth's ecology, we need to dispose of the notion of Nature altogether. Morton joined seminal sound and media historian Douglas Kahn for two public talks in New Zealand in May, 2011 direct from an ecological hothouse workshop in Sydney.
DARK ECOLOGIES: TIMOTHY MORTON AND DOUGLAS KAHN IN CONVERSATION
Morton and Kahn were part of a free public conversation, entitled Dark Ecologies that addressed the difficult questions of human agency, natural energies, and our developing understanding of the global environment.
Organised by Now Future and hosted by the Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic, AUT and the University of New South Wales, Now Future kick started their 2011 Dialogues with Tomorrow discussion series with the Kahn/Morton Dialogue. This was an extraordinary chance to hear these two internationally renowned authors discuss the ways in which we can sense and make sense of the invisible phenomena such as climate change and radiation which are shaping our physical and psychological environment.
The unique opportunity to be part of the conversation with these two thinkers, was made possible by their presence in Sydney, where they were featuring in the Hothouse workshop on ecological thinking at the National Institute of Experimental Art, University of New South Wales. In addition their Dialogue was timed to complement and build on the visit of leading climate scientist James Hansen who was also touring New Zealand in May.
As part of the Dunedin School of Art's contribution to the Otago Polytechnic's living campus programme, Timothy Morton also delivered a Post Graduate Seminar on Object Oriented Ontologies at the Dunedin School of Art.
For podcasts of the Dark Ecologies conversation see http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2011/05/dark-ecologies-2-mp3-aukland-tim-morton.html
For information and podcasts of the 2010 Dialogues see http://www.nowfuture.org.nz/dialogues-2010
- Kahn and Morton in conversation, some of the audience in Dunedin
DARK ECOLOGIES DATES & VENUES:
Monday 23rd May, 2011 6 - 8pm
A Dunedin School of Art event at the
Dunedin Public Art Gallery Auditorium,
The Octagon, Dunedin
Free Entry
Wed 25 May 2011 10.30-12.00pm
Lecture room WS 114 City Campus
AUT University
WS Building 34 St Paul Street
Free Entry
BIOGRAPHIES
Douglas Kahn is Professor of Media and Innovation at the National Institute of Experimental Arts (NIEA), University of New South Wales. Until recently, he was Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University of California, Davis. He is the editor of Source: Music of the Avant-Garde. and the author of Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts, which has been highly influential and remains the benchmark text concerning sound-based art. Forthcoming books include Mainframe Experimentalism, a collection on early computing and the arts, and Earth Sound Earth Signal, on the geophysical trade of acoustics and electromagnetism in communications, science and the arts.
www.douglaskahn.com
Timothy Morton is Professor of English (Literature and the Environment) at UC Davis. His interests include literature and the environment, ecotheory, philosophy, biology, physical sciences, literary theory, food studies, sound and music, materialism, poetics, Romanticism, Buddhism, and the eighteenth century. His two most recent books, The Ecological Thought (Harvard UP, April 2010) and Ecology Without Nature (Harvard UP, 2007; paperback 2009), have had a wide and transformative impact on how ecology is conceived within the arts and humanities. Tim blogs at http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com