• artist own site
  • University of Central Lancashire

Beautiful Dystopias

~ Exploring the hidden impacts of the way we live – www.jacscott.com

Beautiful Dystopias

Monthly Archives: May 2013

World’s Largest Wave Farm to be Built off the Coast of Scotland

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on World’s Largest Wave Farm to be Built off the Coast of Scotland

Fantastic commonsense here – UK is an island, lets make waves!

Scotland holds 10 percent of Europe’s wave power potential, and the nation just announced plans to tap into that resource by building the world’s largest wave farm!

Aquamarine-Power-Scotland-Wave-power

 

Once constructed, the farm will generate 40 MW of green energy – enough to power 30,000 homes each year. The project will be developed by Aquamarine Power off the coast of Lewis using 50 of the company’s devices, and it should be up and running by 2018.

Wave power is sometimes considered the lesser cousin of wind and solar power; it came to the game later than either one and even the largest wave farm may generate less power than small wind farms do.

What makes wave farming so great is that it can continue to work tirelessly, unlike wind or solar farms – even when the sun is down and the wind is calm.

Wave-power-energy

 

Scotland is the perfect location to…

View original post 63 more words

Advertisements

Sanctuary

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in ARTWORKS BY JAC SCOTT, DRAWINGS and PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH, PHILOSOPHY, QUOTES

≈ Comments Off on Sanctuary

Tags

beauty, environment, nature, photography, quotes

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.     Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

plant-in-treePhotograph taken in Sea Wood, near Ulverston, Cumbria, UK – May 2013.

The end of the Sawar Road, Water Towers, Cantt., Lahore. 25th July 2011.

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on The end of the Sawar Road, Water Towers, Cantt., Lahore. 25th July 2011.

Monumental falls, hear the bricks crash but we are spared the dust. Sculptor David Alesworth in Lahore is one of 28 artists I am profiling in my latest sculpture book – his sense of humanity wonderfully reflected in his blog.

davidalesworth

Photo

Felled like trees in their entirety

Dsc_4613_2

some having stood for almost 150 years

Dsc_4614
Dsc_4628
Dsc_4629
Dsc_4633

exquisite brick detailing, gone forever.

Dsc_4637
Photo8

Goithic revival flourishes

Dsc_4617
Dsc_4620
Dsc_4621
Dsc_4630
Photo5
Photo6

a minor earthquake when this one came down

Photo7
Photo9

View original post

2.5% Freshwater

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in CLIMATE, CONSUMPTION, NATURAL RESOURCES, RESEARCH, SCIENCE

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

consumption, environment, photography, research, sustainability, water

What are we doing still using drinking-quality water to flush our toilets?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23597-act-now-to-avert-a-global-water-crisis.html

As the powerful water masters meet in Bonn, Germany this week we hope water conservation and sensible usage gets an airing on the agenda. Only 2.5%  is freshwater on our planet so its a precious resource we should protect. Scaremongering of water-wars in the future is not so stupid when you study the facts. This article makes interesting reading.

Photograph – I took this shot of Lake Windermere in March 2013. Windermere is the largest natural lake in England.  I am currently working on a commission from Friends of the Lake District with the theme of water pollution. http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/170623/windermere_catchment_restoration_programme_leaflet.pdf

A small collection of sculptures will be created from the salvaged debris collected on a mass dive to the Lake depths.

Pterodactyl

23 Thursday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in ART, BOOK

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

art, exhibition, feathers, found, installation, sculpture

Today I am busy writing about extraordinary artist Kate MccGwire who I am featuring as one of the twenty-eight sculptors in my new book on mixed-media sculpture.  MccGwire creates haunting curvaceous sculptures that are truly breath taking, and all are made with feathers, yes feathers. Visit her website to see how wonderful her work is – you will be astounded!  http://www.katemccgwire.com

002

 

Evacuate 

Site specific installation by Kate MccGwire at Tatton Park, Cheshire 2011

And so in line with all good researchers I looked at which artists had worked with this material before. (Regular readers of this blog will know I love feathers too, but tend to use the odd one sparingly in my work – almost too precious to use). Now I am a fan of German sculptor Rebecca Horn’s upside down piano since I saw it at Tate Modern many years ago – it really does make you question “is it safe to go underneath it?”piano

Anyway, her work with feathers turned into performance in the 1970 – 80s as a way of animating her sculptures. The work is strangely beguiling as she cocoons herself with wings and fans. But, the work that captured my ‘you don’t have to be crazy but it helps’ badge is the work shown here and to be really honest, I love it. How about you?

umbrella upside down rebecca horn hospital bed reb horn corner

 

Heart of Darkness

20 Monday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in ART, ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE AT UCLAN, ARTWORKS BY JAC SCOTT, HIDDEN IMPACTS, NATURAL RESOURCES

≈ Comments Off on Heart of Darkness

Tags

art, carbon, China, death, environment, mining, photography, toxicology

Beautiful Dystopias Collection 2012-13

Alternative Perspectives     A collection pf photomontages developed harnessing the scanning electron microscope at the University of Central Lancashire, (during my residency there 2011-13), to create magnified images of objects, plants and creatures. These photographs form a foundation layer that is manipulated in Adobe Photoshop program, with the juxtaposing of additional imagery to make social commentary about the way we live and our relationship to the earth.

Heart-of-Darkness-graniteAlternative Perspectives: Heart of Darkness (foundation image of fragment of granite brought back from China)

Hidden remains break the surface to reveal the many lives lost whilst extracting precious metals, minerals and rare earth elements to feed our insatiable appetite for new technology and luxury consumer goods. Mining of these valuable minerals has an allure for the profiteer to pay scant attention to the health and welfare of its workforce.  Whilst the poor peoples ignore safety in preference to eking out a living, by digging with their rudimentary equipment, to find a few nuggets that will mean food on their tables.

Soil: an under-appreciated dynamic consortium of communities. Part 1?

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on Soil: an under-appreciated dynamic consortium of communities. Part 1?

Soil – love it for all the right reasons

Just Science

Quick fact: the amount of data generated by analyzing the genetic make-up of 1 gram of soil would surpass the total for the entire Human Genome Project. That is because a gram of soil may contain between 2,000 and 18,000 different genomes comprised within roughly 40,000,000 to 2,000,000,000 bacteria cells (1) and (2). Soil; we all walk on it, but do we ever think about what might be lurking in it? My daughter does, for instance, because she looks for tiny black snails to bring into our house and put in potted plants. However, I’m referring to things much smaller and much more influential to the overall ecosystem. Bacteria and fungi have mostly beneficial impacts on the lives of plants, but we know only a fraction of a fraction of the total species present. Many of us think of soil as dirt; dry and inorganic, but soil is a…

View original post 570 more words

Link

All our own realities

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on All our own realities

All our own realities

Is there a parallel universe?

Do you want to find out about other realities?

Arts Catalyst have organised this event for you.

Intellectual power

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on Intellectual power

Tags

philosophy, power, research

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/14/oxford-university-takes-shell-funding

George is on excellent form here – worth two minutes of your time – please let me know what you think about his points.

EcoArts Australis Conference

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on EcoArts Australis Conference

Art and environment embraced down under

An Inside Look At The Science Of Eating Grass

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on An Inside Look At The Science Of Eating Grass

No, no, no! I have nothing against the moo, and yes they are very clever in their food processing abilities to a point, but we have too many of them, because we are too greedy for the produce they give us. This leads to huge amounts amounts of methane entering the atmosphere and contributing to green house gasses. We all need to eat less cow and value them more.
A farmer friend of mine confided in me one day that over the decades cows have generally increased in size by 50% leading them to experience new problems with their legs because they carry so much weight – just like like we do when we get fat.

Dinner Table Science

Cows are cool.  And here is why.

They’re not especially smart, or amazingly athletic, nor are they formidable predators or experts of camouflage.  Their main survival tactic is to be large and to move in groups.  But what’s really cool about cows, is that they are ruminants.

A ruminant is a mammal that eats only plants (an herbivore) and manages to get enough nutrients out of these plants by digesting them multiple times.

This in in contrast to animals like, for example, humans.  Humans are monogastric, and have one, single chambered stomach.  Our digestive system is basically a one-way pipe: food goes in one end, is digested along the way while we absorb the nutrients, and then the waste exits the other end.

However, cows (and other ruminants like goats, sheep, camels, and giraffes) eat only grass, and they need to work a lot harder than a 1-stomach system…

View original post 499 more words

Combing the Earth One Genome at a Time: In Pursuit of “The Next Big Thing” in Sustainability

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by jacscottstudio in RESEARCH

≈ Comments Off on Combing the Earth One Genome at a Time: In Pursuit of “The Next Big Thing” in Sustainability

Bacteria can save the world and your energy bill?

Just Science

There is one thing that can be said about scientists: they’re never satisfied…thankfully. Observation and curiosity leave them on a never-ending quest to understand Mother Nature and improve humanity. One great example of this is the field of alternative energy science. Through the efforts of the Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) and Joint Genome Institute within the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Science, there is a perpetual search for Nature’s best metabolic machinery. This search requires thinking outside the box and sometimes outside your comfort zone. For example, last year researchers from the Joint BioEnergy Institute published findings that originated in the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, a rain forest and home to Enterobacter lignolyticus, a bacterium that is tolerant to ionic liquids (liquids with salts that are not crystaline, but are liquid). This discovery began with the observation that soil microbes at El Yunque…

View original post 207 more words

← Older posts

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 286 other followers

Who am I?

jacscottstudio

jacscottstudio

Hello! I am a visual artist focusing on issue-based work that investigates the environmental issues behind fractured realities. Exploring the enigma of our existence, revealed in our ways of being, our relationship with our environs and the marks we leave behind is my preoccupation. My predilection for collaborations with scientists and geographers has led to an informed body of work that reflects a world without a sense of equilibrium. The work aims to have an oblique potency that acknowledges the world’s dark underbelly, whilst acting as a catalyst for igniting debate. I am an innate researcher who has not lost the infantile curiosity and wonder about the world - the questions and answers are in flux - I appreciate other people's viewpoints so please comment on posts that interest you - I am always happy to hear constructive criticism about my artworks and hear more information about and/or debate issues I raise. Both as metaphor and in material selection, my artistic responses focus on brooding degradation: peeling layers inviting a meditation on the narrative exposed. I try not to create more stuff – our world is already over-stuffed – so I reuse and transform objects whenever possible to satisfy my environmental conscience. This blog was initially started to complement my residency at University of Central Lancashire in Britain where I was working with scientists in the School of Built and Natural Environment examining the hidden impacts of our way of life. The residency has now ended but due to the public response I aim to continue it as long as people are interested in my art practice. Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. Visit www.jacscott.com for more information about my contemporary practice.

View Full Profile →

Categories

  • ART
  • ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE AT UCLAN
  • ARTWORKS BY JAC SCOTT
  • BOOK
  • CLIMATE
  • CONSUMPTION
  • death
  • DRAWINGS and PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
  • exhibition
  • HIDDEN IMPACTS
  • NATURAL RESOURCES
  • PHILOSOPHY
  • QUOTES
  • RESEARCH
  • SCIENCE
  • TOXICOLOGY

Recent Posts

  • Extraordinary
  • Arts Catalyst’s new Centre for Art, Science and Technology opens in London
  • A way forward for sculptors?
  • The Final Death
  • The Post Mortem Has Begun
  • A Journey Towards Post Mortem
  • Plastic Artists
  • Dust
  • Petal
  • The Path to the Inevitable

Archives

  • June 2018
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • March 2012
Advertisements

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy