Interactive Futures ‘11: ANIMAL INFLUENCE: Off-Site

Photo by Julie Andreyev

Presented with ECUAD & Interactive Futures 2011

ANIMAL INFLUENCE: Off-Site

Nov 17^th – 23^rd, 2011

Gallery Gachet

Opening reception: Thurs Nov 17^th, 8 – 10pm

How are animals influencing us? New media artists, scientists, activists, and philosophers are gathering together for a unique look at how animal cognition, animal consciousness and animal agency are changing the way we make art, do science, make ethical choices and make change in the world.

Interactive Futures 2011: ANIMAL INFLUENCE is a 3-day conference at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, with two exhibitions (one at ECU’s Concourse Gallery and one at Gallery Gachet) opening the conference on Thursday, Nov 17, 6pm-8pm (Concourse Gallery), 8pm-10pm (Gallery Gachet).

The exhibitions have works by internationally renowned new media artists who work with animals as subject matter, or even with animals as collaborators. Artists include: Ecoarttech, , Sam Easterson, Sandra Semchuk, France Cadet, Chris Jones, Joanne Bristol, Iain Gardner, Merritt Johnson, Lisa Jevbratt. The work featured at Gallery Gachet includes artists Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson, and Julie Andreyev.

Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson conduct their collaborative practice from bases in the north of England, Iceland and Gothenburg, Sweden. With a strong research grounding, their socially engaged projects explore contemporary relationships between human and non-human animals in the contexts of history, culture and the environment. The practice sets out to challenge anthro-pocentric systems and the thinking that sanctions loss through representations of ‘the other’, proposing instead, alternative tropes including ‘parities in meeting’.

Previous projects include:
Uncertainty in the City, Storey Gallery, Lancaster, UK, 2010
between you and me, Podspace Gallery, Newcastle, NSW,
2009 and Kalmar Konstmuseum, Sweden, 2009
(a)fly, Reykjavík Arts Festival, Iceland, 2006
nanoq: flat out and bluesome, assorted venues including Bristol, London, Oxford, Reykjavík, Copenhagen, Oslo, Cambridge, Svalbard and Tromsø, 2004 – 2011
Big Mouth, Tramway, Glasgow, 2004

Publications:
Uncertainty in the City, The Green Box – Kunst Editionen, Berlin, 2011
nanoq: flat out and bluesome, Black Dog Publishing, London, 2006
(a)fly, National Museum of Iceland, 2006
Big Mouth, Tramway, Glasgow, 2004
Work in progress include
Matrix, a project concerning arctic maternity dens for which the artists undertook a research trip to Svalbard in 2010 and Landfill, a new project for the 2011 Gothenburg Biennial, Sweden

Julie Andreyev is an artist whose recent area of practice called Animal Lover explores animal consciousness and creativity through modes of interspecies collaboration and chance, to produce interactive installation, video, social media, and performance. Her work has been shown across Canada, in the US, Europe and Japan in galleries and festivals such as The Vancouver Art Gallery, SIGGRAPH, Cultural Olympiad Vancouver 2011, Viper, CHI, Japan Media Arts Festival, Digital Art Weeks, Nuit Blanche. Andreyev’s work is supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, The British Columbia Arts Council, Foreign Affairs Canada, and The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is Associate Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, and Artistic Director of Interactive Futures, www.julieandreyev.com.

Interactive Futures 2011: ANIMAL INFLUENCE: Register for Friday and Saturday daytime conference presentations, including a keynote by well-known and respected biologist, Marc Beckoff and talks by international artists, such as Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson and Sam Easterson.

Dates: Thursday, November 17^th– Saturday, November 19th

Where: Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD), 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC

Friday, Nov 18 from 7pm-9pm has screenings and Saturday, Nov 19, 8pm-10pm has performances, both free to the public. Come and challenge your ideas about all those other animal species with whom we share the earth. Details about the conference, exhibitions, screenings and performances, and how to register are available at http://interactivefutures.ca

For more information contact: Julie Andreyev, Artistic Director, 604 251-1374,jandreye@ecuad.ca

For more information for the Gallery Gachet Off-Site exhibition, please contact Lara Fitzgerald, Programming Director, 604 687 2468, programming@gachet.org