Re-Imagining Static Utopias: (Unraveling the Bat/human Problem):

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Uncanny Intimacy, 2015, Interactive installation, Source image of Grey Headed Flying Fox, Object Gallery, Australian Design Centre, Sydney, Australia, Aug-Sept 2015 (Image Nick Edards)

ABSTRACT:
The making of the modern world has long been fuelled by utopian images that are blind to ecological reality. Botanical gardens are but one example – who typically portray themselves as miniature, isolated 'edens on earth'.  Whilst respected, heritage-laden institutions such as the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney promote such an idealised image they are now self-evidently also the vital ‘lungs’ of a crowded citiy as well as a critical habitats for threatened biodiversity (in this case notably flying foxes). In 2010 the 'Remnant Emergency Artlab' set out to alleviate this utopian hangover through a creative provocation called the 'Botanical Gardens ‘X-Tension’ - an imagined city-wide, distributed, network of 'ecological gardens' - in order to ask, what now needs to be better understood, connected and therefore ultimately conserved?

FOR: Pubished in paper/online: Leonardo Journal, Volume 47, Issue 3, 2014, pp. 282-285

DOWNLOAD PAPER: (PDF)

FULL REFERENCE: Armstrong, K M, 2014, Re-Imagining Static Utopias: (Unraveling the Bat/human Problem) in Leonardo Journal Vol. 47, Issue 3, 2014, pp. 282-285