Tracey Warr's Blog, page 27
September 17, 2016
Museum of Nonhumanity seminar, Helsinki
Saturday 24 September 1-5pm
The Museum of Nonhumanity, Helsinki
Seminar: Frontiers in Retreat & Zooetics: Non-human, Non-animal
Rock, water, mushroom. How far can we go in our definitions of ‘life’, and where might its extension take us? Human relationships with other species, other life, have already changed and evolved towards greater empathy and the notion of rights and legal standing. What might a next evolution of relationships amongst all life forms look like? The non-human, the non-animal; how can we get beyond binaries and taxonomies? How might notions of the discrete, which are so deeply ingrained in our assumptions and language, shift towards better understandings of symbiosis, mutualism, and interdependence?
In the HIAP-led five year art research project, Frontiers in Retreat, these questions are being raised in artists’ projects including recent works by Urbonas Studio, Tracey Warr, Mirko Nikolic, Richard Skelton and Terike Haapoja. In the seminar, Tracey Warr and Dionizas Bajarunas will present the mycelium Zooetic Pavilion by Urbonas Studio, which was inspired by J.G. Ballard’s fictional living plant technologies. Tracey Warr will talk about her water exoplanet fiction, Meanda, where water is one of the main protagonists. Mirko Nikolic will discuss his project Lives of Metals: ‘Copperlove’. Richard Skelton’s short film ‘In Pursuit of the Eleventh Measure’ (2016), will be screened.
The programme is co-curated by Jenni Nurmenniemi (HIAP; Frontiers in Retreat) and Tracey Warr (artist and writer, Frontiers in Retreat; Zooetics). The event will be moderated by artist, Professor Kira O’Reilly (Master’s Programme in Ecology and Contemporary Performance at Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki).
Programme:
13–13:15 Introduction
Tracey Warr: Frontiers in Retreat & Zooetics
Kira O’Reilly, moderator: session programme
13:15 Mirko Nikolic: Lives of Metals: ‘Copperlove’ (2014–)
14:00-14:30 Coffee Break
14:30–14:45 Richard Skelton: ‘In Pursuit of the Eleventh Measure’ (video, 7 min) with an introduction by Tracey Warr
14:45-15:30 Dionizas Bajarunas & Tracey Warr: Mycelium Zooetics Pavilion
15:30-16:15 Tracey Warr: ‘Meanda’
The event is free. Further details: The Museum of Nonhumanity
Filed under: Blog Tagged: helsinki, mycelium, rocks, water 
September 10, 2016
The Write Stuff
This interesting article, lf-the-write-stuff-aug-16 , on writers and writing groups in France by Vanessa Couchman, published in Living France magazine, includes an interview with me.
Filed under: Blog Tagged: books, france, historical fiction, writing
August 28, 2016
The Viking Hostage – new review
Very nice review of The Viking Hostage just published on The Cosy Reader
Filed under: Blog Tagged: books, historical fiction, vikings
August 21, 2016
Living in Greece
My interview with Marjory McGinn has just been published by The Displaced Nation. She talks about her experiences of living in Greece which inspired her memoir trilogy, culminating in A Scorpion in the Lemon Tree. For a chance of a free book read the interview.
Filed under: Blog Tagged: books, expats, greece
August 10, 2016
Conquest – new book cover
The cover of my new historical novel, Conquest: Daughter of the Last King. The book will be published by Impress Books on 1st October. This is the first novel in a trilogy, telling the story of Nest ferch Rhys who was the daughter of the last independent Welsh king during the struggle between Welsh and Normans in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Filed under: Blog Tagged: books, historical fiction, middle ages, wales, women in history
August 9, 2016
Exoplanet song
Tania Candiani, Listening Sculpture in the Exoplanet Lot exhibition. Photo: Yohann Gozard.For the Exoplanet Lot exhibition organised by MAGP, open in France now until 4 September, I collaborated with artist Tania Candiani on an ‘exoplanet song’. Tania installed this fabulous listening sculpture on the cliff top at Saint Cirq Lapopie above the Lot river. I adapted the lyrics of a medieval song written by the Comtesse de Dia and the song was recorded in Occitan and played in the valley. The Comtesse’s song was a love lament of a woman betrayed. My song is the voice of Earth lamenting that humans have left for an exoplanet. Here are my lyrics in English:
Of things I’d rather keep in silence I must sing
so bitter do I feel toward you
whom I love more than anything.
You left me for another planet,
my forests silent, my seas emptied.
Come home now. I have healed the scars you graved.
It’s not right another celestial body takes you away from me.
Remember how it was with us in the beginning!
Come home. We could still have much time together
Before the death throes of the sun begin.
I send you there, on your exoplanet,
this song as messenger and delegate.
Come home my lovers, my humans.
Filed under: Blog, Uncategorized Tagged: art and ecology, exoplanet, france, occitan
Tania Candiani, Listening Sculpture in the Exoplanet Lo...
Tania Candiani, Listening Sculpture in the Exoplanet Lot exhibition. Photo: Yohann Gozard.For the Exoplanet Lot exhibition organised by MAGP, open in France now until 4 September, I collaborated with artist Tania Candiani on an ‘exoplanet song’. Tania installed this fabulous listening sculpture on the cliff top at Saint Cirq Lapopie above the Lot river. I adapted the lyrics of a medieval song written by the Comtesse de Dia and the song was recorded in Occitan and played in the valley. The Comtesse’s song was a love lament of a woman betrayed. My song is the voice of Earth lamenting that humans have left for an exoplanet. Here are my lyrics in English:
Of things I’d rather keep in silence I must sing
so bitter do I feel toward you
whom I love more than anything.
You left me for another planet,
my forests silent, my seas emptied.
Come home now. I have healed the scars you graved.
It’s not right another celestial body takes you away from me.
Remember how it was with us in the beginning!
Come home. We could still have much time together
Before the death throes of the sun begin.
I send you there, on your exoplanet,
this song as messenger and delegate.
Come home my lovers, my humans.
Filed under: Blog, Uncategorized Tagged: art and ecology, exoplanet, france, occitan
August 1, 2016
@Meanda55555 Twitter Fiction
My Twitter Fiction version of Meanda is 55 tweets in. 35 more to go. If you haven’t started following the daily tweets yet, catch up with the story of a human expedition to a watery exoplanet on @Meanda55555.
Filed under: Blog, Uncategorized Tagged: exoplanet, flash fiction, water
July 14, 2016
Exoplanet Meanda
New photos of my installation and novella, Meanda, for the Exoplanet Lot exhibition, in France which runs until 4 September.
For more details see:
Maisons des Arts Georges Pompidou
Exoplanet Lot, Exoplanet Europe, Exoplanet Earth
Also don’t miss Meanda on Twitter daily until 4 September.
Photos by Yohann Gozard.
Filed under: Contemporary Art Tagged: art and ecology, books, exoplanet, france, future fiction, interspecies, water
July 13, 2016
What comprises non-human life?
Photo: Nomeda Urbonas
An article and extracts from my novella MEANDA have just been published on the Zooetics website. Zooetics is part of the 5 year Frontiers in Retreat art research project. With artists Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas and curator Viktorija Siaulyte, I have been exploring radical future potentialities for interspecies relations and notions of Nature.
Inspired by JG Ballard’s fictional living plant technologies, the Zooetics team has been working with mycelium – the extraordinary mushroom roots network. In MEANDA I made water one of the protagonists in a future fiction story set on an exoplanet.
Zooetics is a word coined to gesture at poetic, artistic, fictional, playful approaches to all life. Mycelium is certainly living. Is water?
I’m currently working with HIAP curator, Jenni Nurmenniemi, to develop a seminar which will take place in Helsinki in September and consider the question of non-human life within the context of the Museum of Nonhumanity.
Filed under: Art and Ecology Tagged: anthropocene, books, contemporary art, fiction, frontiers in retreat, future fiction, interspecies, mycelium, water
