The Center hosted its first conference in October 2005.

View the Conference Program.

The conference volume is now available through the Penn State University Press.

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Public Art Initiatives

The Center for the Arts in Society is sponsoring two public art intiatives led by faculty in the arts and humanities.

Controversy
Director:  Andreea Ritivoi, Department of English, H&SS

Building on CAS's discussions of controversies in the arts that have taken place over the past five years, this initiative will foster new discussions, activities, and interdisciplinary exchanges. The project group will include faculty members and graduate students from the arts and humanities with an interest in theoretical and practical approaches to controversy from various perspectives.

Discussions and planned events will focus on such questions as:

• What is a controversy, how do we develop frameworks of analysis, how do we tie controversy in with broader concepts in argumentation and communication theory, how do understandings of controversy vary from time to time and place to place?
• How are controversies created, expressed, or ameliorated through cultural production and examination?
• When do "controversies" turn into "conflicts" that demand resolution on an interpersonal or intercultural level?
• Do conflicts (political, personal, cultural, or artistic) create
  opposing positions that constitute a "controversy"-and how?

The role of the artist in prompting, accentuating, and bringing conflict to the attention of the public will form another aspect of the controversy initiative. Artists in various media may use their work to either deliberately provoke or perpetuate conflict, or to represent current conflicts. Depictions of symbols from Abu Ghraib, for instance, or new renderings of familiar American symbols in an art work, can bring controversy to another level of discourse. We expect to raise questions such as: when, how, and why does a work of art produce a controversy? Alternatively, how do individual artists (in any field of art) represent controversy in or outside of their disciplines, and for what purposes? 

We will also draw on ideas developed in connection with a web-based Archive of Controversies in the Arts. Faculty members and graduate students who participated on that committee can contribute expertise in the visual mapping of controversy, the design of argumentation, and the impact of imagery on the construction, as well as articulation, of a position or point-of-view.  Rendering an argument in visual form may lead to revision of the terms of debate and subsequently to a rethinking of theories drawn from text-based disciplines.
 
We expect members of this group to be working on specific, historically and culturally based projects or case studies at the same time as they contribute to an evolving interpretation of controversy and related concepts, like conflict and debate.
 
Outcomes of the initiative will include: collaborative projects; a template for faculty and graduate student research; exhibitions; publications in book or journal form; and potentially a conference on "Controversy and the Arts."

Performance and Ecology
Director: Wendy Arons, School of Drama, CFA

Despite the fact that the looming ecological crisis will likely be the primary drama of the 21st century, ecology and the environment is a fairly underrepresented subject in the professional theater world, and has low visibility in the field of theatre and performance studies as well. This initiative aims to call attention to the power of performance and theater to raise awareness about ecological issues and stimulate activism, build coalitions, and generally use the powerful "presentness" of live performance to move and inspire spectators to action and change. While the specific environmental issue that will be addressed under this initiative is still to be determined, the aim of the initiative will be to bring together scholars from the humanities, arts, and sciences as well as community activists and stakeholders who are interested in contributing expertise and knowledge to an original performance piece. The initiative may have several components, including:

• A "mini-conference" on (historical and contemporary) intersections of Performance and Ecology with a planned edited anthology of articles growing out of the conference.
• Courses on the history of environmental theater, offered in
  literature or history or art, and/or on the history of environmental controversies in relation to the arts.
• Interdisciplinary workshops/seminars as a means of sharing
  information among artists, scientists, historians, community activists and stakeholders etc. to build a knowledge base for the performance piece and flesh out the contours of the ecological/environmental concern the piece will address.
• Public talks from guests outside Carnegie Mellon, such as D. Soyini Madison (an activist and theater director who has done several devised works on environmental issues in the past), Una Chaudhuri (an New York University scholar who has been an influential writer on performance and ecology), and others.
• A staged reading or lightly mounted production of the winning play from the Eco-drama festival that will be held at the University of Oregon in spring 2009.
• An invited guest artist/ writer/ director to develop and stage the performance piece.
• A series of workshop/rehearsals to devise a public performancE piece, culminating in a public performance of the piece.
• Documentary "making of" the piece, in either film or book form.

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