THE LANGUAGE OF WATER
A 4-day International Science-Art Conference and 4-week Art Exhibition Exploring and Celebrating Water as the Dynamic Context of Life
Held in Bath Spa in the Spring of 2001
Organized by Bath Bio*Art
In partnership with Breakthrough Technologies Ltd and The Interalia Centre
And in association with The Scientific and Medical Network, The Gaia Society, envolve, The Arts Catalyst, The Centre for Frontier Sciences, The National Botanic Garden of Wales, The Dartington Hall Trust
"This event will bring together scientists and artists with a shared aim of improving understanding of the importance of water in the evolution of life and the emotional and physical welfare of human beings. This understanding comes from viewing water as the receptive medium into and through which life forms gather and distribute the energy that puts them in motion. As such, water provides the dynamic contextual highways and byways along and in which genetic information can flow and be exchanged and expressed to produce a myriad of diverse forms. Within it may lie the deep reason for emotion, our responsiveness to our own and others' needful being."
Alan Rayner and Caroline Way
Organizers
Venues
Conference: Bath Assembly Rooms, 17th to 20th April 2001
Art Exhibition: The Hotbath Gallery, 11th April to 9th May 2001
Conference Programme
(subject to any necessary last minute alterations)
Day 0, Monday 16th April 2001
13.00 – 17.00 Setting Up Displays and Equipment. Registration.
Day 1, Tuesday 17th April 2001
"Waterscapes"
[Water, Earth and Evolution]
Chaired by Basia Irland
0830 onwards: Registration
9.30 – 10.00 Opening: "Evolutionary Waterways" by Alan Rayner and Caroline Way.
10.00 – 11.00 Main Stream: "The Global Water Cycle and Plate Tectonics" by Nick Petford
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee
11.30 – 12.30 Water Play: "Fluid Flow and Water Marks" led by Heather Cowie
12.30 – 14.00 Lunch. Fringes and Pools. To include "Fountains, Artificial and Natural".
14.00 – 15.00 Main Stream: "Megafloods" by Peter Worsley
15.00 – 16.00 Water Play: "Breakthroughs with Flowforms" led by John Wilkes
16.00 – 16.30 Tea
16.30 – 17.30 Main Stream: "Water and Stone" by Peter Randall-Page
Evening Event:
18.30 – 20.00 Reception at the Hotbath Gallery Art Exhibition
Day 2, Wednesday 18th April 2001
"Bodies of Water"
[Water, Life and Health]
Chaired by Peter Chin Kean Choy
0830 onwards: Registration
9.00 – 10.00 Main Stream: "Microclusters of Water" by Masaru Emoto
10.00 – 11.00 Water Play: "Flights of Fluidity" led by Iain Couzin
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee
11.30 – 12.30 Main Stream: "Wild Whorls: Drops, Waves and Vortices in Nature, Technology and Ourselves" by David Auerbach
12.30 – 14.00 Lunch. Fringes and Pools. To include: "Pure Water – What is it, do we need it and how can we get it?"
14.00 – 15.00 Main Stream: "Taking Water to Heart" by Philip Kilner
15.00 – 16.00 Water Play: "River Story" led by Basia Irland
16.00 – 16.30 Tea
16.30 – 17.30 Main Stream: "Water Health and Local Communities" by Lucy Milton and Jean Grant
Evening Event:
20.00 – 22.00 Recital: "Point, Line to Plane – Studies in the Movement of Water" given by the NATURAL MUSIC ENSEMBLE at the Pump Room, Roman Baths.
Edward Cowie: Piano
Sarah Frances: Voice(s)
Stephen Preston: Flute
Mifune Tsuji: Violin
Day 3, Thursday 19th April 2001
"Water in Mind"
[Water Language, Thought and Emotion]
Chaired by Alan Rayner
0830 onwards: Registration
9.00 – 10.00 Main Stream: "The Flow of Metaphor" by Helen Haste
10.00 – 11.00 Water Play: "Deep in Thought and Splashing Out – Conscious Streams of Water Language" led by Caroline Way
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee
11.30 – 12.30 Main Stream: "Thought Ripples" by Susan Greenfield
12.30 – 14.00 Lunch. Fringes and Pools. To include 'Watsu (Water Shiatsu) – Healing Water'
14.00 – 15.00 Main Stream: "Water Logic - Zero Spirals and Fluid Numbers" by Lere Shakunle
15.00 – 16.00 Water Play: "Water Language and Breakthroughs" led by Geoffrey Higgins, Breakthrough Technologies
16.00 – 16.30 Tea
16.30 – 17.30 Main Stream: "Water in the Psyche" by Anthony Stevens
Evening Event:
19.00 – 22.00 Civic Reception and Dinner at the Pump Room and Roman Baths
Day 4, Friday 20th April 2001
"Reflections"
[Water, Philosophy and Spirit]
Chaired by Caroline Way
0830 onwards: Registration
9.00 – 10.00 Water Play: "Fluidic Movements of Chi Energy" led by Peter Chin Kean Choy
10.00 – 11.00 Main Stream: "SACRED SPRINGS: Oracles and the Underworld – reflections on water as mirror for the transforming power of the imagination" by Lindsay Clarke
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee
11.30 – 12.30 Main Stream: "Rhythms, Rivers and Rivulets" by Susan Derges
12.30 – 14.00 Lunch. Fringes and Pools. To include: "Water – Poetry in Motion"
14.00 – 15.00 Main Stream: "Water, Buildings and Gardens" by Charles Stirton
15.00 – 16.00 Water Play: "Reflecting On and Responding to Water in Words and Music" led by David Rothenberg
16.00 – 16.30 Tea
16.30 – 17.00 Closing: "Water Birth and the Emergence of Creativity" by Caroline Way and Alan Rayner
Evening Event:
18.15 – 21.30 (2 separate sessions) Post Conference Aqua Tai Chi led by Peter Chin Kean Choy at Bath Sports and Leisure Centre These fluidic Taoist Tai-Chi Exercises (which can be practised on land, as well as in water) have been practised for thousands of years as a system of health and rejuvenation in China. Modern medical research has discovered the value of these exercises as preventative measures against ill health. Using a system of effortless exercises on land as well as in water, Aqua Tai-Chi # helps alleviate high blood pressure problems; # eases arthritic joints and conditions; # restores balance, harmony and peace of heart, body, mind and spirit; # helps you energise your internal organs and keep yourself youthful and happy.
Weekend, 21st , 22nd April 2001
Post Conference Water Experience at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (details to be announced)
"Water Works" Displays
To include:
‘Flowform Cascade’ By A John Wilkes, Virbela Rhythm Research Institute, Emerson College, Sussex
‘Single-Cavity Flowform’ By Philip Kilner, Royal Brompton Hospital
‘Holey Water – Intraconnecting Living Space’ By Alan Rayner, Bath Bio*Art
‘Tao of Colour Science - Happy Internal Organs Drawings’ By Peter Chin Kean Choy, Rainbow Tai-Chi Chi Kung School, Devon
‘Tide – an artwork controlled by the movements of the Earth, Sun and Moon’ By Luke Jerram
‘Still Water’ By Caroline Way, Bath Bio*Art
‘Coral Space’ Earthwatch Project, February 2001: Bahamian Reef Survey by Verona Bass, Bath envolve.
‘Regenerating Water’ By Bryan Hirst, WaterLANDS Productions Ltd, Haywards Heath, W.Sussex.
‘Equatorium’ By Sandi Bellaart, Bath Bio*Art.
‘Nurturing Inner Space’ By Sandi Bellaart, Bath Bio*Art
‘The Rare Waters’ By David Williams, Dartington College of Arts
‘Collaborative Solutions to Pollution’ By Lucy Milton, Helix Arts
‘Re-searching fluid surfaces – a silversmith’s approach’ By Benjamin Storch, University of Central England.
‘Cell’ By Andrew Henon, Monday Studio.
‘Surface Tension, Displacement, Droplet' By Mo Kiziewicz, University of Bath.
‘Water Videos’ By various artists.
‘AQUA-VORTEX Liquid Energizer’ By Ing. Martin Kutternik-Lewis, Aquarian Angel Services Ltd.
‘Energizing Water’ By James Warnell, Diamond Spring Water Technologies
‘Water Solutions’ By Sara Damskier, Nordenfjord Miljo
‘Viktor Schauberger’s Water Theories’ By Alick Bartholomew
‘The Sound of Water’ By Hanne Keis
‘Water Bookshelf’ Publications on themes related to 'The Language of Water', by various authors
‘Concerning Water’ By Basia Irland, University of New Mexico. This special exhibition can be viewed at Bath envolve, Green Park Station
"Fringes and Pools"
‘Fountains and Tides, Artificial and Natural’ led by Bryan Hirst (Tuesday)
‘Pure Water: What is it, do we need it and how can we get it?’ led by Alexander Fink (Wednesday)
‘Watsu (Water Shiatsu) - Healing Water’ led by Jo Bennett (Thursday)
‘Water - Poetry in Motion’ led by Alyson Hallett
The Contributors
Dr David Auerbach (Department of Physiology, K.F. University, Harrachgasse 21/V, A8010 Graz, Austria) is a physicist whose passion is mechanics, fluid mechanics in particular. He was head of the vortex dynamics group at the Max-Planck-Insititut für Stömungsforschung until its recent closure and is now doing biofluid-dynamics in the Department of Physiology at the University of Graz. Apart from numerous scientific publications he has organized meetings on various flow themes, often in relationship to our consciousness and its development.
Presentation Outline: 'Wild Whorls: Drops, Waves and Vortices in Nature, Technology and Ourselves'
Which worlds are 'watery'? What forms live in them? Amongst those forms how are vortices special? How are they born, how do they grow, move, dance, transform? What makes them wild? What do they want - in our machines (wittingly or unwittingly), our environment, our bodies, ourselves?
Peter Chin Kean Choy (Rainbow Tai-Chi Chi Kung School, Creek Farm, Woodland, Devon TQ13 7JY, U.K.) has taught Tai-Chi Chi-Kung and Taoist arts and sciences for over 30 years. Director of the Rainbow Tai-Chi Chi-Kung Healing Centre, he is interested in building bridges between Eastern and Western ways of understanding the therapeutic benefits of Chi energy. He is the founder of the World's First Aqua Tai-Chi Swimming Pool designed to optimize health and rejuvenating exercises in and out of water. He is best-selling author of "15 Ways to a Happier You: Tai-Chi Chi Kung" and "37 Steps to Happiness – Tai-Chi Form/Aqua Tai-Chi" (released in Summer 2001).
Lindsay Clarke (Lower Eastcombe, Batcombe, Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 6AL, U.K.) is a full-time writer, having worked for many years in education. He is devoted to the urgent need for a transformation of consciousness in our time, and in particular to a shift away from what he views as the fissive mythology of positivist thinking back towards a lively sense of the sacred. His novels include "Sunday Whiteman", "Alice's Masque" and "The Chymical Wedding" (winner of the Whitbread Prize).
Professor Edward Cowie (Director of Research, Dartington College of Arts, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EJ, U.K.) is an internationally renowned musician, painter and former physicist. He has featured as a composer in festivals worldwide, including four times for the BBC Proms. He has exhibited in galleries in the USA, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. He has lectured widely, including the Ruskin Lecture and Gertrude Langer Memorial Lecture. He has also made several television films for BBC and Granada TV, and given several major radio series for ABC Australia. His current research centres on British birdsong on which he has published several papers. Edward and Heather Cowie are Arts Consultants to the King's Fund College in London and regularly work in the Senior Management programme.
Heather Cowie (Beckstones, Buckfast Road, Buckfastleigh, Devon TQ11 0EA, U.K.) is a visual artist whose works are inspired by landscape, the forces of nature and human interaction with the earth. Her first profession was as an exploration geologist, living and working in many outback areas of Australia. Her research interests include the visual articulation of sound, in particular birdsong, and the art/science interface. In addition to her current professional practice as a visual artist, she is researching for a PhD in Visual Arts at Dartington College of Arts.
Dr Iain Couzin (Ecology and Evolution Group, School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, U.K.) studies self-organisation and pattern formation in biological systems. His current research focuses on the behaviour and organisation of social insect colonies, fish schools, bird flocks and other animal groups. He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Leeds, but spends time in Canada, studying fish schooling behaviour, and at Princeton University in the U.S.A., developing simulation models of animal groups. In conjunction with his academic research, Iain is
interested in furthering the public understanding of science, and was a scientific advisor and computer simulation developer for the BBC series "Predators". He also works in the field of collective robotics, and as a computer vision consultant.
Susan Derges (The Cottage, South Tawton, Okehampton, Devon EX20 2LP, U.K.) is an artist living and working in Devon and a research member of the "Coast Group", University of Plymouth, where she is a lecturer in Media Arts. Her work is especially concerned with natural rhythms and cycles. She has exhibited her work internationally, for example in London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Tokyo in shows with such varied titles as "Machine Dreams", "Phenomenart", "Between Sun and Earth", "Growth and Form", "Full Circle", "Embodied" and "Woman Thinking River".
Dr Masaru Emoto is President of I.H.M. Co. Ltd, which he established in 1986 after working for Chisan Co. Ltd and Chubu Yomiuri Shimbun (currently Central Heads Quarters of the Yomiuru Newspapers). A certified and licensed doctor of alternative medicine from the Open International University in 1992, he has published twelve books (one written with world famous economist Dr Labi Batra) including several that have become best sellers in Japan. His latest book, "The Message From Water" published in June 1999 sold over 70,000 copies in the first 10 months. He has presented numerous lectures on "the miracle of water" and the power of Hado ("Hado" is the Japanese word signifying the world of subtle energy related to consciousness, synonymous with "Chi"). He researches on water in the human body, in daily life and on Earth, from the personal rather than scientific aspect, and experiments creatively with water crystals, believing these to reflect the essence of water.
Jean Grant (Helix Arts, 18 Norfolk Street, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear SR1 1EA) works in both social and environmental contexts supportive of Agenda 21. The assumptions upon which Jean bases her work are: Artists have always been acknowledged as observers and commentators on society. That everyone has a creative sensory understanding of his or her environment. She aims to be the open eye of clients, be they large corporations or small communities. Acknowledging and working with cause and effect. Challenging accepted modes of representation. Involving and articulating feelings and needs within a community. Interpreting and adding to a sense of place. In depth research into topic. Jean is a professional artist who studied Fine Art at Guildford School of Art and completed postgraduate studies at the Slade School of Art, University College, London. She has lectured and exhibited widely. Since the 1980's Jean has become a leading exponent in the specialised field of site specific and environmental artwork. Advising clients on how to re-interpret their sites to give and involve various communities in a sense of pride and ownership
Professor Susan Greenfield (Director and Fullerian Professor of Physiology, The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1X 4BS) is well known for her work on nervous system degeneration and the physical basis of consciousness. She was co-editor of "Mindwaves" and author of "Journeys to the Centres of the Mind", "Brain Story" (BBC Publications) and "Private Life of the Brain" (Penguin Books). A prime mover in "the public understanding of science", she was the first woman to be invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1994 and makes regular contributions to TV, radio and the national press. She gave a consultative seminar to Tony Blair in 1999 and was awarded the CBE in the New Year's Honours List 2000.
Professor Helen Haste (Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY) is Professor of Psychology at the University of Bath. She has published extensively in the fields of values, and in the interface of science and culture. She also has a longstanding interest in gender. For
some time she has been working on the role of metaphor in the way that we frame our understanding of the world (including science) and how this is embedded in language and social and cultural context. Her 1994 book, "The Sexual Metaphor" (Harvard UP) brought together many of these strands and she
is currently working on another book on metaphor, mind and culture. She is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She also has an active involvement in the communication of science, and was President of the Psychology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1991. She is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television.
Geoffrey Higgins (Director, Breakthrough Technologies, Kingscote Park, Kingscote, nr. Tetbury, Gloucestershire) founded Breakthrough Technologies 14 years ago, having formerly been a financial adviser to Prudential Insurance in Canada. At Breakthrough, he has consulted widely with organisations such as HP Bulmer, Guinness, Lucas and the Royal Berkshire Hospital, in order to bring about transformation leading to sustainability and vitality. Over the last 2 years, he has built a Well-Being Centre at Kingscote Park, which is due to open at the beginning of June, 2001.
Professor Basia Irland ( Department of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, 3204 Burton Av. S.E. Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 87106) is a sculptor who has worked on water projects and exhibited her art all over the world. The research from the water projects is put into portable sculptural repositories. She was Director of a 5 year project along the entire 2,875 mile length of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, working with biologists, hydrologists, government agencies, schools, the acequia associations and the tribes in four states and Mexico. A video documentary describing this work will be on show at the conference and she will also be exhibiting at the 'Concerning Water' exhibition at Bath envolve.
Dr Philip Kilner (Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Unit, Royal Brompton
Hospital, London SW3 6NP, U.K.) is a specialist in cardiac imaging. His interest in forms and flows of the heart began through studies of sculpture and 'Flowform' design (sculpted cavities that induce cyclic movements in streaming water) with John Wilkes at Emerson College in Sussex. A recent paper on flow through the heart can be found at: http://www.nature.com/nature/cover/cover000413.html .
Presentation Outline: 'Taking Water to Heart'
Water is an essential constituent of all known life forms, not least our own human body. Every human life relies on ever-changing fluid connections of exquisite complexity and order. Throughout the body, water is distributed both in and out of the blood, most of it being closely associated with inconceivably delicate membranes that make up the flexible, semi-permeable structures of cells of the various tissues of the body. The tissues are permeated by intricate, seeping filament-webs of blood - thousands of millions of capillaries distributed in networks that bring blood close to each living cell. Capillary diameters are a fraction of a hair's breadth. Every capillary is in fluid continuity upstream and downstream, via branches of arteries and veins, with the unifying flows of the heart.
As you read this, your blood is streaming inwards and outwards – converging in veins from all parts of your body, turning through the entwined but separate flow paths of right and left heart, and branching out again through arteries to the capillary webs of the lungs and other organs.
The aim of this talk is to conjure, as far as possible, an informed imagination of the circulatory system as it pulses, seeps and streams in each one of us. Such a richly varied fluid system can't be captured in words or pictures alone, although medical imaging can give clear dynamic views of parts of the system. Appropriate fluency of thought is needed to begin to appreciate the awesome beauty of our circulatory system, which maintains unity in complexity, and continuity through continual change.
Dr Linda Long (Department of Complementary Medicine, University of Exeter,
25 Victoria Park Road, Exeter EX2 4NT, U.K.) is both a trained research biochemist, with research experience in atherosclerosis and the parasitic diseases Leishmaniasis and African Sleeping Sickness, and an accomplished artist, composer, songwriter and performer. She has exhibited paintings at
various exhibitions on the themes of logical and creative process integration, interconnection and cyclical process, drawing inspiration from external dynamic living processes to mirror internal emotional and psychological processes. She also has strong interests in homoeopathy, herbal medicine and music therapy and was appointed Pilkington Research Fellow in Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter in 1999 where she is involved in conducting trials into complementary medicine. She is a founding member of Bio*Art with a passionate interest in exploring the boundaries between art and science.
Lucy Milton (Helix Arts, 18 Norfolk Street, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear SR1 1EA) is a Co-Director of Helix Arts (formerly Artists' Agency) whose "Seen & Unseen" initiative seeks to explore ways in which artists, scientists and community can work together to combat water pollution and raise awareness about sustainability. The Award-winning Wetland at Quaking Houses in County Durham provides a unique illustration of how such collaboration can transform an environmental problem into an asset. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Lucy set up the Lucy Milton Gallery in London in 1971, specializing in constructivist and systematic art from throughout Europe. Subsequently she has played varied roles in organizing exhibitions and Arts advisory work. She set up the Artists' Agency in 1983.
Dr Nick Petford (Centre for Earth and Environmental Science Research, Kingston University, Kingston, Surrey, KT1 2EE) works and publishes in the general area of igneous geology and geological fluid mechanics. His research interests are concerned mostly with developing theoretical and experimental models that will lead to a better understanding flow of magma (and other fluids) in the Earth's crust and other planets. He has undertaken fieldwork in many parts of the world, including the Andes of Peru, Chile, Argentina, Siberia and Korea. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of London and the Royal Astronomical Society, and has also worked as a journalist for the Times Higher Education Supplement.
Presentation Outline: 'The Global Water Cycle and Plate Tectonics'
Water is a fundamental component of the dynamic earth. Due to a fortunate positioning with respect to distance from the Sun, H2O can exist here in the liquid state. Confined to the 'habitable' zone, water participates in nearly all geological activity on our planet, from surficial weathering to geodynamical processes in the crust and mantle. On the microscopic scale, water is an essential ingredient of many earth minerals, where its presence weakens them and allows them to deform and flow under stress. Water-rich minerals also melt more easily than dry ones - thus enabling the interior of the planet to undergo episodes of partial melting. The flow of solid earth materials, and melting them to make magmas, are coupled strongly with mantle convection and plate tectonics. An important economic by-product of the ability of water to carry heat and do mechanical work (fracturing) inside the solid earth is the formation of major ore deposits close to the surface.
Over two thirds of the earth's surface is covered with water, and water vapour is an important atmospheric gas. The constant movement of water between the reservoirs of ocean, atmosphere, solid earth and biosphere defines the hydrological cycle. The total world supply of water (ca. 1.3 x 1021 kg) moves through the cycle at different rates, both presently and in the past. Identifying the rates at which present day reservoirs are growing (or in the case of ice water locked in the polar ice caps, shrinking) is of considerable practical importance. Recent work suggests that the earth may have had surface water 4.4 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after its formation. Mars and Venus almost certainly had free surface water at the same time. The fact that earth held tight to its surface water while the other terrestrial planets became parched relatively soon after their formation is what makes our planet unique.
Peter Randall-Page (PO Box 5, Drewsteignton, Exeter, Devon EX6 6YG, U.K.) studied sculpture at Bath Academy of Art before working on the conservation of 13th century sculpture at Wells Cathedral and studying marble carving in Italy. He now lives in Devon and his work, which is concerned with implying a sense of potential energy and life within the inanimate, is exhibited widely. He has undertaken many public commissions both in Britain and abroad and his work is held in many private and public collections including the Tate Gallery and the British Museum.
Dr Alan Rayner (Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, U.K.) is an ecologist and thinker interested in understanding pattern, process and relationship in living systems. An accomplished naturalist best known for his scientific studies of fungi, he was President of the British Mycological Society in 1998. He has published six scientific books, including "Degrees of Freedom - Living in Dynamic Boundaries" and over 130 scientific articles. A founder of Bath Bio*Art, he also produces and exhibits colourful oil paintings that reflect his scientific knowledge and sense of rapport with the natural world.
Presentation Outline: 'Evolutionary Waterways', with Caroline Way
For centuries, our understanding of how we human beings relate to our living space has been impeded by dry, rationalistic modes of enquiry that continue to underpin much mainstream analytical science and have culminated in modern gene-centred views of evolution, development and behaviour. These modes of enquiry deliberately ignore context by placing unrealistically discrete boundaries between 'subjects' and 'objects' and 'self' and 'other', so effectively denying the possibility of relationship between 'inner' and 'outer' space and inducing considerable environmental, social and psychological damage. Now that the global impact of human technology has reached unprecedented scales, there is an urgent need to acknowledge the limitations as well as the strengths of such thinking. At the same time we need to encourage the recombination of artistic and scientific vision that will enable us to attune more harmoniously to the fluidity of our living space, from which we are as inseparable as whirlpools from a water flow. The participatory philosophy of 'inclusionality', in which all things are regarded as dynamic contextual inclusions, may help here by allowing us to value the explicit focus of rational scientific inquiry not as 'all there is', but rather as a powerful, high resolution tool. This tool, when complemented by the collective imagination and insights arising from many, diverse perspectives, can help clarify implicit, holographic reality. Amongst other things, we can then put abstract genetic code into the dynamic, watery, evolutionary context that enlivens it into the meaningful language through which the diversity of life expresses itself.
Professor David Rothenberg (New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Newark, NJ 071 02, U.S.A.) is an associate professor of philosophy and editor of the award-winning journal, Terra Nova: Nature and Culture. A Terra Nova book, "Water Knows My Secret" is due out in the spring of 2001. His other books include "Hands End:Technology and the Limits of Nature", "Is it Painful to Think? Conversations with Arne Naess and several edited collections including "The New Earth Reader", and "Parliament of Minds", interviews with leading philosophers in conjunction with the TV series of which he is co-producer. He is also a composer and jazz clarinetist. His latest of five CDs is "Before the War" featuring many natural soundscapes.
Presentation Outline: ‘Reflecting on and responding to water in words and music'
Dr. Rothenberg will discuss the editing of WRITING ON WATER, his new anthology from MIT Press which will be published in early May, just after the Language of Water conference. What are the different ways writers and artists have responded to water? How were all the different responses put together? He will also perform a piece specially composed for this event, for clarinet and sounds of water, transformed and manipulated on the computer.
Lere Shakunle (The Matran School of Mathematics, Liselotte Herrmann Str. 38, 10407 Berlin, Germany) is the founder of a new University of mathematical creativity and editor of the Journal of Transfigural Mathematics. He worked in his native Nigeria as a journalist and broadcaster before moving to Germany where he began to formulate a "new mathematics" to provide creative solutions to real world problems. He thinks of mathematics as a universal language and of the creative mathematician as one who 'moves around the worlds of science, engineering, literature and the arts as one does from room to room in a much-loved house'.
Presentation Outline: 'Water Logic – Zero Spirals and Fluid Numbers'
Have you ever thought what mathematics would look like if the natural numbers were not discrete and separate from one another, but instead would relate to and flow in and out of one another? In fact, have you thought whether, by assuming numbers are discrete, one of the most fundamental suppositions in modern mathematics, we might be restricting our understanding of the way the world works? Why should we assume that numbers are discrete, anyway? Does this relate to our everyday observations – the culture of the eyes, so to speak – and experiences, or is it a sterile abstraction that in some way alienated us from the world, nature and condition of things?
Here, we will explore together numbers that naturally flow into one another and liberate us from the discretist culture of the eyes that throws asunder what is together even as they – these numbers – take us into what things really are as independent interdependent entities.
Professor Charles Stirton (Director, The National Botanic Garden of Wales, Middleton Hall, Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire SA32 8HG, U.K.) worked at the Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria and the University of Natal before being appointed Deputy Director, Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London. He left this post to become Director of the new National Botanic Garden of Wales, the first major botanic garden to be created in the U.K. for nearly 200 years. The mission of the new Garden is to create innovative opportunities to learn about plants and fungi and their vital roles in ensuring a sustainable future. Understanding of the importance of water, and the linking of scientific and artistic perspectives are fundamental to this mission. He is the author of 4 books and 100 scientific articles.
Dr Anthony Stevens (Fardel Manor, nr. Ivybridge, Devon PL21 9HT, Devon, U.K.) is a Jungian analyst, psychiatrist and writer on psychology. He graduated from Oxford and in addition to a doctorate in medicine has two degrees in psychology. He has written numerous books including "Archetype: A Natural History of the Self" (1982), "On Jung" (1990), "The Two Million-Year-Old Self" (1993), "Private Myths" (1995), "Ariadne's Clue" (1998) and "An Intelligent Person's Guide to Psychotherapy".
Caroline Way (1 Foxcombe Road, Bath BA1 3ED, U.K.) is an artist, teacher and inventor, and a founder of Bath Bio*Art. She was Artist in Residence at Killerton House, Devon where in 1992 she produced the "The Meditative Maze" which was precursor to the "HA HA" exhibition which included works by Anthony Gormley and other internationally acclaimed artists. Since then she has explored images from the liminal that have informed her understanding of dynamic boundaries and interfaces. She was curator of the "21st Icons" exhibition for the National Conference, "Women in Art Practice" and author of "Mountain Seed".
John Wilkes (Virbela Institute for Rhythm Research, Emerson College, Forest Row, E. Sussex RH18 5JK) obtained his A.R.C.A. Hons in 1956 from the Royal College of Art, London. In 1970, he discovered the celebrated Flowform method while involved in research at the Institute for Flow Sciences, Herrischried, Germany. Subsequent development at Emerson College and in collaboration with Associates worldwide in 25 countries, starting in 1973 in Jaerna, Sweden, has led to well over 1000 projects, and articles and references to Flowforms in over three hundred publications. Increasingly, the work is concerned with water quality improvement and enhancement of its life-supporting capacities. He has travelled extensively (including a round-the-world trip in 1988), presenting lectures and workshops in twenty countries.
Presentation Outline: 'Breakthroughs with Flowforms'
Flowforms are vessels, the proportions of which generate rhythms in water streaming through them. Individual forms have an inlet and outlet and can be installed as a cascade creating a channel of any desired length or orientation. The typical movement consists of a pulsing lemniscatory flow path. The lemniscate or figure-of-eight is fundamental to organic
processes. Flowforms provide a tool by means of which the effect of rhythms and surface on water's life supporting capacity can be investigated. All living forms exist physically not only through a general relationship between the polarities of contraction and expansion but also within a rhythmic context. Rhythm is normally if not always generated through processes of resistance, that is, through very specific proportions in any given fluid context. Life depends upon rhythms.
Today water's ability to support living processes is constantly being eroded, it not only has to be repeatedly purified but it also needs the revitalisation it earlier underwent through the hydrological cycle. This is undermined through environmental pollution. These processes with water need to be reinstated through nature friendly techniques which enhance this
vitality. It is reasonably well documented that movement, especially rhythmic movement has a positive effect upon the growth of nutrient materials and for instance their keeping qualities. Much research still needs however to be undertaken to improve the efficacy of applications, such as organic farming preparations, irrigation, biological purification, food processing, drinking water, therapies, air-conditioning, fish-farming, to name only a few of the areas in which Flowforms have been incorporated since 1970. The use of Flowforms as water features in public and private landscaping,
swimming pools, children's recreation areas is also well established round the world.
Professor Peter Worsley (School of Geography, University of Oxford, OX1 3TB
and Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology, University of Reading, RG6 6AB) has specialised in research into arctic natural environmental processes past and present. He has worked and continues to work as an academic geologist and physical geographer investigating the impact of climatic change on various parts of the northern hemisphere. He has previously held academic positions in the Universities of Alberta, Colorado, Ottawa, Nottingham and Stockholm. Currently he is a research associate in Oxford and Emeritus Professor at Reading.
THE ART EXHIBITION will be open during normal Gallery hours free of charge to conference delegates and members of the public.
The Organizers
Bath Bio*Art is an informal group of Bath-based artists and scientists concerned by the schism between artistic and scientific approaches to understanding life that has arisen from the increasing abstraction of life forms, for both philosophical and technical reasons, out of the watery context in which they belong. The group views Bio*Art philosophically as an integration of art and biological science that expresses and draws inspiration from a fresh perception of the dynamic, water-retaining boundaries of living systems. The creative interplay between the differentiation and integration of these dynamic boundaries as energy supplies wax and wane is the ever-rejuvenating source of life's richness and responsiveness. Understanding this interplay yields a truly empathic view of life in which human needs for individual freedom and universal belonging are reconciled.
Breakthrough Technologies Ltd (Kingscote Park, Kingscote, nr. Tetbury, Gloucestershire) is a company committed to principles of Vitality and Sustainability, which has been in business for 13 years, working with large organizations on long contracts. It aims to empower these organizations, and the communities they are a part of, with the skills necessary to transform their vision, behaviour and strategic approach in ways that make them more alive, innovative and vibrant, sustaining all kinds of life, diversity and cultures. It does this by providing training, facilitation and coaching, using its 35 acre grounds - which include a landscaped water-revitalising system complete with flow forms - to demonstrate how to live sustainably and richly in practice as well as in theory. It has seven practitioners and four support staff.
The Interalia Centre (6 Old School House, Britannia Road, Kingswood, Bristol BS15 2DB) was formed in 1990 by Richard Bright to provide an international forum for the exchange of ideas exploring the relationships between the arts and sciences. Its aims are based on the belief that far from being mutually exclusive activities, art and science represent different yet complementary ways of looking at and understanding the world. Interalia's activities have consistently demonstrated that creative understanding can be extended through exploring and equating diverse fields of knowledge through 'free-flowing' communication. The Interalia Centre facilitates, educates and makes connections between individuals, groups and organisations, many of whom would normally be denied access to such opportunities. To read from the list of speakers involved in Interalia is to read off those at the cutting edge of art and science.