This powerpoint was for a lecture on this subject at the invitation of Juan Carlos Espinosa, Assistant Dean of the Honors College, Florida International University given on March 18 2014 at the university. I am grateful especially to colleagues of the EcoArt Dialogue who have influenced my thinking about EcoArt over the years and including Sam Bower, Aviva Rahmani, Jackie Brookner, Hildegard Kurt, Shelley Sacks, Betsy Damon, Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid, Tricia Watts and many more. Specifically on the transdisciplinarity theme of this talk I am extremely grateful for introduction to the theories of Basarab Nicolescu by Sacha Kagan, David Haley and Hans Dieleman. Please see the EcoArt South Florida website for more information on the organization, our mission and goals: http://ecoartsofla.org and our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/EASoFla.

1. EcoArt and Transdisciplinarity
presentation by
Mary Jo Aagerstoun, Ph.D.
President, EcoArt South Florida
Tuesday, March 18, 2014

2. Is EcoArt Transdisciplinary??

4. Diagram courtesy of Sam Bower, greenmuseum.org

5. EcoArt is not a discipline. It is a practice.
So is environmental art, which is a larger
category of practice.
Art is the discipline.
The other practices inside the
environmental art bubble are also
practices
They can be practices each one
individually
And
They can be incorporated into EcoArt,
together or separately
In many combinations
But EcoArt cannot be absorbed
into them

6. …so what makes EcoArt
EcoArt?

8. EcoArt is both a practice of
environmental art, AND…
can subsume into itself
other environmental art practices…
…and…
All are part of the DISCIPLINE of ART
…and…
…EcoArt ALSO brings INTO it, PROCESSES
of the DISCIPLINES of…
ENGINEERING
and
SCIENCE

9. How we will proceed
•Nicolescu’s definitions
•Roots of EcoArt
•Branches of EcoArt
•Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)
•Revisit Nicolescu

10. Basarab Nicolescu
1942-
Honorary theoretical physicist at the Centre
National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire de
Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes
Énergies, Université Pierre et Marie
Curie, Paris. He is also a Professor at
the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-
Napoca, Romania and Docteur ès-Sciences
Physiques (PhD), 1972, Université Pierre et
Marie Curie, Paris. He was appointed
Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch
University, South Africa for the period 1
January 2011 to 31 December 2013 and
was elected as Stellenbosch Institute for
Advanced Study (STIAS) Fellow in 2011.
For introducing me to Nicolescu’s thinking, thanks to Sacha Kagan Toward Global (Environ)Mental Change: Transformative Art and Cultures of Sustainability.
Berlin: Heinrich Boell Stiftung, 2012, David Haley ‘Art, Ecology and Reality: the Potential for Transdisciplinarity,’ paper, 5th Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics,
and Hans Dieleman, “Transdisciplinary Artful Doing in Spaces of Experimentation and Imagination” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science The ATLAS
(December, 2012)

11. Nicolescu’s definitions
from: Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Hampton
Press Inc., 2008
• ‘Multidisciplinarity concerns studying … [a] topic not in just one
discipline but in several at the same time.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘Interdisciplinarity… concerns the transfer of methods from one
discipline to another.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘…transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the
disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.’
(Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

12. How we will proceed
•Nicolescu’s definitions
•Roots of EcoArt
•Branches of EcoArt
•Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)
•Revisit Nicolescu

13. performance
(FLUXUS)
social practice
installation
“new genre” public art
land art
bio-art
generative art
1960s-’80s Experimental Art Movements
ROOTS of EcoArt

14. EcoArt
precedents
are practices
within Art,
therefore they
are
INTRA
disciplinary!!

15. performance
Joseph Beuys
1973
“Bog Action”
Zuider Zee Performance

16. installation
Allan
Kaprow
1961
“Yard”

17. land art
Robert Smithson, 1970, “Spiral Jetty”

18. “new genre” public art
Suzanne Lacy, 1977, “Three
Weeks in May”

19. social practice
John
Malpede
and Skid
Row Artists
1985-present
“Los
Angeles
Poverty
Department”

20. bio-art
generative art
Portable Orchard, 1972 Endangered Meadows of Europe, 1996
Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland, Bonn, Germany
Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison

21. species
soil/food
energy
habitat
water
THE “BRANCHES:” 21st Century EcoArt
Intervention Foci

22. energy
Sarah Hall, 2009, “Science of
Light”
Sarah Hall, 2011,
“Waterglass”

23. habitat
Lynne Hull,
1985-2004
Habitat
Sculptures

24. water
Betsy
Damon,
1998,
“Living
Water
Garden,”
Chengdu,
China

25. species
Brandon Ballengee,
1996-present, field
research and
exhibits

26. soil/food
Amy Franceschini. 2006-2008,
Sustainable Road Show and Victory
Gardens

27. Jesse
Etelson
Michael
Singer
Xavier
Cortada
Jackie
Brookner/
Angelo
Ciotti
Lucy
Keshavarz
THE FRUIT: EcoArt in South Florida

28. Jackie Brookner and Angelo Ciotti, “Elders’ Cove,” Dreher
Park, West Palm Beach, dedicated 2004

29. Xavier Cortada, Reclamation Project and 2007-Present

30. Xavier Cortada, Native Flags 2009-Present

31. Michael Singer, West Palm Beach Waterfront, Completed 2010

32. Michael Singer, Biofiltration Sculpture, Coconut Creek Seminole
Casino,
Completed 2012

33. Jesse Etelson, “Welcome Home Wildlife,” Torry Island, Belle Glade,
Palm Beach County, Pilot Completed 2012 (ongoing)

34. Jesse Etelson, “Welcome Home Wildlife,” Torry Island, Belle Glade,
Palm Beach County, Pilot Completed 2012 (ongoing)

35. Lucy Keshavarz, “Babbling Brook,” Westgate, Unincorporated Palm
Beach County,
Completed 2013

36. Transdisciplinarity and EcoArt
•Nicolescu’s definitions
•Roots of EcoArt
•Branches of EcoArt
•Fruit of EcoArt (Florida)
•Revisit Nicolescu

37. Nicolescu’s definitions
from: Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Hampton
Press Inc., 2008
• ‘Multidisciplinarity concerns studying … [a] topic not in just one
discipline but in several at the same time.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘Interdisciplinarity… concerns the transfer of methods from one
discipline to another.’ (Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)
• ‘…transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the
disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.’
(Nicolescu 2008, pp. 2)

38. Transdisciplinarity
Is the
EFFECT and
RESULT of
Deploying
Multidisciplinarity
or Interdisciplinarity
It is
BETWEEN
ACROSS
BEYOND
All
Disciplines
And
Therefore Enters the
Province
Of…