Uisce Salach (Dirty Water) Art + Science workshop

Art + Science CPD workshop with Softday

Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts in partnership with Science Gallery Dublin is delighted to host a professional development workshop led by art/science duo Softday for arts practitioners who wish to explore the potential of interdisciplinary collaborations in the field of art and science. This workshop is aimed at emerging and professional artists of all disciplines with an interest in collaborative practice that connects art and science, art and ecology, art and the environment and art and sound.

In this CPD Softday will be prototyping their new project Uisce Salach (Dirty Water). They will explore new possibilities for a socially engaged art approach to making ‘water analysis’ a citizen’s science by inviting workshop participants to investigate and map their own water sources, and convert the information collected into musical composition and sonic interpretation using acouscenic listening methodologies. Water is essential for sustaining life and we all need clean water to survive. Due to several forms of pollution, drinkable water is being reduced, day by day, while global populations grow. To survive, it is estimated that a human needs 1.9 litres of water per day.

Participants are requested to bring a small water sample to the workshop; in a sterile sample jar, noting the date, time and exact location of the sample. Water samples can be collected from a domestic source such as kitchen tap, or from a well, a local river, or any other source of ‘clean’ water that is important to the participant. Include a photograph of the sample if possible and a short description of the context. Inexpensive sterile sample jars can be obtained from a local pharmacy.

*Please note jars will not be supplied on the day.

This CPD aims to demonstrate the potential of collaborations across art form to generate work that engages with a broad public invested in ecological issues.

Softday

Softday, the art-science collaboration of artist Sean Taylor and computer scientist Mikael Fernström, engage with issues relating to natural cycles in time, climate change and its global effects. As a collaborative team they use their arts practice to explore relations to and understandings of nature, expressed through sonifications and multimedia artworks and performances. Both artists are interested in exploring the cracks between various media and creative genres such as expanded theatre, sound art, socially engaged practice, sculpture, music, dance and the application of new technologies. In 2011, Softday were selected as one of the winning entries to the prestigious project EUROPE – A SOUND PANORAMA, in Karlsruhe, Germany. The Karlsruhe live concert was recorded by Deutschlandradio Kultur and distributed to all European radio stations.

Previous projects include: Amhrán na mBeach (Song of the Bees) 2011 – 2013 a collaboration with Irish beekeepers, a scientist and the monks of Glenstal Abbey, which focussed on the life of honey bees and current threats such as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) The Marbh Chrois (Dead Zone) (2010) which addressed the impact of two ‘contested’ marine dead zones as a key stressor on marine ecosystems in Donegal, Ireland and Nobody leaves till the Daphnia sing (2009) examined the implications of contaminated domestic drinking water supplies in Galway and West Limerick.

Science Gallery Dublin

Science Gallery Dublin encourages young people to learn through their interests, through cutting-edge programmes that ignite creativity and discovery where science and art collide. Science Gallery Dublin is fuelled by the expertise of scientists, artists. researchers, students, designers, inventors, visionaries, creative thinkers and entrepreneurs. The focus is on providing experiences that allow visitors to participate and facilitate social connections, always providing an element of surprise.