A Delicate Balance: Man and Nature

Submission Memo
To: Green Mountain College Community
From: Shea Hansen, Kristina Yager, Jamie Kennedy, Chris Botsford, Ryan Kerins
Date: May 4th, 2009
Subject: Green Art, Media and Design: Promoting Change

The focus of our Delicate Balance project was to show the community the power
art, media and design specifically in promoting sustainability. We did this by researching
different types of medias/aspects of art and their individual power to promote such
change, i.e.: visual, aesthetic, sound, and various art medias. We then took our findings
and produced a display of art and media in the Withey Lobby during lunch hours. We
chose this time and place to attract the most attention in order to get the best results of our
surveys. The surveys were used as a tool to evaluate the public and its reaction to such
images/videos by asking them short answer questions. From these surveys we were able
to determine the views of a generalized public. Since the Green Mountain College
community is already involved in the pursuit of sustainability, we thought that they would
be good candidates for our research. Since the images had a hidden meaning we knew
that we could avoid any bias’. From this display of art and media we hoped to inform and
inspire the GMC community to make a change with the community through this art
activism. After viewing this display, we wanted our audience to experience the duality of
beauty verse reality. We hope to encourage discussion of our demonstration which will
help to spread knowledge of not only environmental, social, and political issues at hand,
but also the shear power of imagery itself.

Project Participants:
*All group members mainly worked together in compiling info and putting these aspects
together. We felt working together, rather than assigning individual aspects, would
provide a more beneficial experience for all members. Core sub-groups included:
• Shea Hansen & Kristina Yager: We mainly worked together on our sections of this
project. We researched appropriate images to display, and also formatted them and
 printed them out. We also gathered necessary “snip-its” to go with each image
during our ‘big reveal’. Also completed by Shea and Kristina were the before and
after surveys used in our project to be filled out by GMC students/faculty. We also
worked together in putting together our group video, which was recorded by Chris
and Jamie. (And we wrote and edited this outline).
• Chris Botsford and Jamie Kennedy: Mainly worked together on their parts of the
project as well. These two went around the GMC campus and town of Poultney to
gather appropriate images/video for our film. They did this by driving to already
approved places by group, and videotaping. They also met with Shea and Kristina
to put final film together.
• Ryan Kerins: Looked at particular design products that have important roles in
environmental design. These aspects were not able to be included in our final
project due to a lack to time.
• All members: Worked together to bring entire project together. All group
members traveled around the town to find appropriate filming destinations for our
video. We all had individual inputs as to how to display project and engage
students/faculty. Each group member was present for both project days. We all
handed out surveys, explained info to public, and set-up and took back down
display.

Elements of Project:
• Example Surveys and entire Analysis will be included in Presentation, as well as
examples of images utilized to spark survey responses.

Suggested action for next step:

From the concluded analysis of our presentation we hope to show the GMC community
will understand the power of this different side of activism. The next step of this project
is to encourage the GMC community to view/create more art activism. An important next
step is to promote the visit of famous photographer J. Henry Fair, who will be visiting in
November. Fair is an amazing example of art activism and also the duality of beauty
verse reality and man verse nature.
Appendix

Example survey:
Example photos:

Resources:

Video URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnUjTHB1lvM

Picture URL’s:
http://www.chrisjordan.com/

http://www.industrialscars.com

http://www.banksy.com
 Art, Media and Design
Presentation by,
Kristina Yager, Shea Hansen, Ryan Kerins, Chris Botsford, and Jamie Kennedy
Purpose of project:
To show the power of art, media and design specifically in promoting change
To analyze different types of medias/aspects of art and their individual power to
promote such change, i.e.: visual, aesthetic, sound, and various art medias
To evaluate the public and its reaction to such images/video: through surveys
and short answer questions we determined the views of a generalized public
To determine whether this form of “art activism” is a successful tool in
promoting change in the ideals of the public
How we did it:
Researched different types of medias/aspects of art and their individual power to promote such
change
Produced display of art and film in the Withey Lobby during lunch hours over a 2 day period.
(We chose this time and place to attract the most attention in order to get the best results of our
surveys.)
Day 1 showed images with no explanation and hidden meanings. Day 2 included facts with
images and hidden meanings were revealed (each day had own survey)
Surveys were used as a tool to evaluate the public and its reaction to such images/videos by
asking them short answer questions.

Images shown
Banksy, J Henry Fair, Chris Jordan
Waste impoundment at Chemical plant/ refinery
next to Exxon plastics and Exxon refinery
Depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic
pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was
collected from the Pacific Ocean
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: An island of floating garbage
in the Pacific Ocean.
Analysis of Surveys:
Survey for day 1:
~ Questions were brief and asked viewers to simply explain how the
images made them feel and their basic reaction to the images
~Most responses were positive with a frequent use of the words
“calming” and “happy”
~On a scale from 1-10 (10 being the most beautiful) most viewers
rated the pictures as 7, 8, or 9
Analysis of surveys cont…
Survey for day 2:
Questions 1 and 2 asked viewers to explain how they feel and to list some emotions when
viewing the images.

Most common responses of 30 surveys:

Sad (10 people)
Surprised (11)
Disappointed (6)
Ashamed (3)
Helpless

Day 2 cont.
Question 3 asked if images inspired viewers to make changes
Yes: 25
Maybe: 2
Not really: 3

Question 5 asked viewers if they thought that art was a successful way to promote change
Yes: 27
Maybe: 3
No: NONE!

Survey Quotes:
Here is what some GMC students had to say:

“I’dlike to help get people to make less waste”

(When referring to question 5) “American’s are lazy and don’t like to read..
photos are the best way to get their attention”
“People will see these dramatic problems from around the world and want to do
something about it”
Shea’s Slide #1..
J Henry Fair
(from his artist statement)
“My work is a response to my vision of society. I see our culture as being addicted to
petroleum and the unsustainable consumption of other natural resources, which seems
to portend a future of scarcity. My vision is of a different possibility, arrived at through
careful husbandry of resources and adjustment of our desires and consumption patterns
toward a future of health and plenty”
In his “Industrial Scars” series, Fair presents visually seductive, saturated-color
abstractions while documenting some of the planet’s most foul environmental
abominations.

Shea’s Slide #2..

Ways is which art is useful to a movement:
Movements use the medium of artistic expression for communicating with the larger, and for
communicating internally
Art can help mobilize protest. One way it does so is by raising consciousness in potential
recruits and the public
Art is useful to movements because it keeps people active in and committed to a movement
once they have already joined
Art can portray a more powerful message to an audience than could plain words. Use of color
and positive images can send a more inviting feeling to an opposing person, or someone un-
informed

Shea’s Slide #3..

“As long as there are causes to fight for, people will utilize what they have in order to promote
change, and to educate the public about them. No matter the arguments against this type of
activism, artists will continue to utilize art as a tool for change, even if it only affects one
person’s way of thinking.”

Kristina’s Slide #1
How has art made a difference in the world?
Social, political and environmental changes have been made
using art activism

Why is art a good tool?

Right-brained individuals can respond better to art than spoken activism
Two-thirds (65%) of American adult travelers say they included a cultural, arts,
heritage, or historic activity or event while on a trip=many people view art

Social:
Organizations such as SPARC and The Cradle Project

Changes for immigration, rights, culture issues etc.

Kristina’s Slide #2
Political:

Political cartoons
Satire
Simple
Assume that people have background knowledge=applies to everyone

Environmental:

Environmental art activism can be art that is made of environmental materials or art
of any medium that portrays an environmental image or idea in order to promote
change.

Green art
–Artevist t-shirts
–Well paper
–Simon Starling
Chris’s Slide #1
Objective: Promoting Change using a Short Film
Sound can be easily: changed, flexed, moved, or even distorted and manipulated to
alter/change ones way of experiencing an image or event (cinema, film, art and even television),
Sound as: music, speech, noise, or silence can be modulated or abruptly changed with a
mixture of powers, fundamentals, and dimensions present in its form to achieve its purpose and
effects on our perception.
We originally wanted to work with both audio and without audio for the film, but we ended up
utilizing it as a silent film only.

Chris’s Slide #2
Objectives of film: the film did have a strong impact on our audiences and we answer specific question
concerning some form of this art, and what affects it has on people and change and how these things
promote change and can affect change.
Why is sound important? As we develop our uses or nonuse’s of sound we enforce the physical aspect of
a film (i.e.: more focus on visuals).
Below is a brief example of how sound does have a “stock emotion”, along with the visuals of a film to
promote change in a society:

www://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnjx6KETmi4 (inconvenient truth)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1oMHLrxfgc

Jamie’s Slide
•The power of motion when used in films
•The power of still pictures when used in films
•Motion versus stills pertaining to our project
•The process of filming for change..

Ryan’s Slide #1
Green Product/Building Design
~Promoting Social and Environmental Change~
“Design Will Save the World” – www.Inhabitat.com’s slogan

The following models of questions need to be addressed before buying, specifying, or designing
anything. If everyone were to follow these guidelines, not only would our economy be
drastically different and more sustainable, our environment would be healthy and productive.

Do we need it? Can we live without it?

Is the project designed to minimize waste?
Can it be made smaller, lighter, or made from fewer materials?

Is it designed to be durable or multi-functional?

Does it use renewable resources?

Is reuse practical and encouraged?

Are the product and packaging refillable, recyclable, or repairable?

Is it made with post consumer recycled or reclaimed materials and how much?

Are the materials available in a less toxic form? Can it be made with less toxic materials?

Is it made from a socially and environmentally responsible company?

Is it made locally?

Ryan’s Slide #2
Reduction leads to Refinement > Look at Porsche
Triple Zero Approach – Zero unsustainable energy consumption, Zero emissions, and Zero waste – key to sustainable
future in terms of buildings and housing.