Wednesday, September 14, 2011 Goto comments Leave a comment Blog

At the two-year anniversary of the birth of the project that led us to a recent show at U.C. Berkeley for Earth Day 2011, it seems appropiate to look back over the past 24 months to trace the growth of Cartesian Eco-FemDarkanism.

I wrote an article by the same title in law school (published in Environmental Law  in 2007), a reflection of my effort to struggle with and learn environmental ethics.  When I finished the article, I had a lingering sense that there might be a chance to deliver its message more creatively, broadly, and effectively.

Jeff and I began our work on Cartesian Eco-FemDarkanism by a certain matter of chance.  In the summer of 2009, a young woman studying for her Masters in poetry approached me with the idea to have a gallery exhibit based on the article.  She had crossed it in her own study of and search for the collaborative potential of art and poetry.  She arranged for an event at a small gallery in Portland called the Sea Change Gallery, curated by young, energetic social and environmental artists/advocates, Alec Neal and Katherine Ball.  Alec and Katherine graciously agreed to host the show for an evening in September.

Energized for a chance to try to expand the scope and medium of the ideas in the article, I turned to my very good friend and dreaming cohort, Jeff.  We already had a ten-year history of working on various creative projects together and had been trying for a few years to settle on a serious project to sink our collective teeth into.  CEFD seemed the perfect opportunity to blend our talents and passions.

We spent hundreds of hours that summer preparing for the first showing at Sea Change Gallery.  I labored over a way to adapt the article into a prose-style script that could be read aloud and, more importantly, that could connect with an audience.  Jeff and I culled through photos and video, searching for visual and audio material that would enhance the impact of the spoken word.  Jeff designed the visual presentation and struggled with software and hardware issues, seeking stability and functionality for the show’s A/V material.  A close friend, Russ Wallace, wrote an amazing soundtrack for the show on accoustic guitar.  The final preparations included merging the prose with the soundtrack and visual elements while Jeff and I were living nearly two-thousand miles apart.

The Sea Change Gallery was a fantasic setting:  we had a great crowd, lots of support from friends, and a good reception of the show’s message.  Bolstered by the success of the performance, Jeff and I resolved to make the show more dynamic and engaging.  We abandoned the original two-projector, photo-slideshow format of the first show and began work on animated photography, video, and text that bore a more significant connection to the narrative.  Relying on feedback from audience members, we began refining our explanation of the project and improved our promotional efforts.  We began to call our collaboration Black Lantern Synergy. 

In December 2009, Jeff and I began substantial work with Matt and Charlie Vega on the design of a flash-based website for BLS.  We worked feverishly for about seven weeks from the initial design (making great use of Google Wave, R.I.P.) to a working flash site that reflected the imagery and mystery of the project.  The website was our original work from the ground up, with its own unique menus and navigational concepts based on inspiration from R. Buckminster Fuller.  Chuck did great conceptual and design work, I chose images and wrote the narrative for the site, Jeff did substantial page and transition development, and Matt somehow put it all together.  To commemorate the launch of the site and to help in the search for shows, Jeff and I worked together to design a short teaser trailer.

On the heels of that effort, we secured two shows for Spring 2010:  one at Lewis and Clark Law School and another at Lewis and Clark College of Arts and Sciences.  We got support from and worked with some great groups of students on both campuses (Students Engaged in Eco-Defense [Zach Holz], the Environmental Law Caucus [Jen Herbst, Tara Gallagher], Northwest Environmental Defense Center [Roberta Traverso-Estes], Environmental Law and Natural Resources Department [Lin Harmon]).  Together with our sponsors, we engaged in an improved promotions strategy that included posters, web elements, and email invitations.  In March and April we performed for two very engaged audiences, and the new format for the show was well received.  A bright and environmentally active undergraduate student, Zach Holz, described the show as “a call of passion to not only re-think our current environmental conundrum, but to re-feel it.”  The comment and his feedback reshaped the way we talked and thought about our own project.

We officially formed Black Lantern Synergy immediately after the Lewis and Clark shows in April 2010 and recommitted to advancing the project by way of additional live performances.  Our long-time mutual friend, Matt Vega, officially joined the project to provide his valuable perspective on the theory and philosophy of CEFD as well as to lend his internet prowess.  We embarked on a three-pronged approach:  Jeff continued to develop more dynamic material for the show drawing on our photography and video from backcountry hikes, Vega began significant work maintaining and updating the website for the project, and I began looking for venues.  We set goals, including our aim to perform at large public universities, law schools, and to develop something big for Earth Day 2011. 

By mid-summer, we had a three-date Midwest tour set for the Fall, including shows at public universities Missouri State and Kansas State as well as a performance for a group of young design professionals in Kansas City–the Young Architect’s Forum, a division of the American Institute of Architects.  We made significant improvements to almost every aspect of the show over the summer and worked feverishly right up to the dates of the performances in September (Jeff was still editing and compositing show elements in the car as we drove to K-State on about 3 hours of sleep).  Our improved promotional efforts (including video web-meetings with student groups) paid off, and we drew large crowds at each venue–students, professors, and community-members attended the show and contributed to a rich dialogue about the show and the issues raised. 

That Fall trip was important for the engaging support and the network of people we met. At KSU, the Students for Environmental Action (Zack Pistora, student representative, and Gerry Snyder, faculty representative) and the students and faculty were incredibly engaged and lent valuable feedback.  The faculty of the MSU communications department, led by Dr. Eric Morris, supported the show by having their students attend and analyze the presentation from a rhetorical and persuasive-methods perspective.  MSU student Nate Bassett made a compelling and impressive short documentary about our show.  Local photographer Shannon Alexander worked with us to provide some amazing pics of the event.  We got radio and TV coverage in Springfield. We met Lion Architecture founder Matt Teismann, current Badseed Farmer Mark Ruzicka, and  founder of the Movement of the Unified Voice, Dane Zahorsky, among many others.  Great and lasting partnerships were born.

With all the new materials and developments with the project, we quickly outgrew our ability to update the flash site.  All the flash coding was a nightmare.  We consulted with our old friend Brian Maschler of Bulldog Solutions out of Austin, Texas, who helped pave the way to our decision to move away from the flash format and toward a website on the WordPress platform.  So, for the second time in 2010, we designed a website for BLS.  We spent October and November designing and completing the site you now see with lots of new and updated material.  Thus was born the BLS Blog, the Shot in the Dark, etc.  Once again, Jeff made a great teaser trailer to commemorate the site’s launch.  Now in its tenth month, the site continues to grow and become more a project of its own with each passing day.

While the site was under construction, I began searching for venues for 2011.  We wanted to do something big for Earth Day, and I had been quietly working on a new element of the CEFD project in the hopes it could play a role in landing a big show.  I spent time reducing CEFD to its basic elements–attempting to slim down the hour-long, seventeen-page script to four or five pages that could represent the project’s roots.  Then I selected six photographs to fit the theme of each of the six sections of the project (Culture, Law, Economics, Logic, Humility, and Darkanism) and came up with a basic design that incorporated the images as backdrops for the text.  I approached Charlie Vega of Lion Architecture to lend his amazing sense of structure, his wonderful comprehension of the project, and his unsurpassed work with fonts and text.  After several months of previsualization, we spent nearly a month on each of the six images drafting, editing, redrafting, re-editing.  The result was a sort of new-format photographic essay that we call Cartesian Eco-FemDarkanism: Radix.

By late 2010, I had secured a three-show set for the Spring semester:  we would reunite with SEED and Zach Holz for a show at Lewis & Clark College, head East to unite with ally Professor Keith Hirokawa for a show at Albany Law School in upstate New York, and would close the semester on Earth Day at the University of California at Berkeley.  The show at Lewis & Clark in February was amazing.  We got to do more student engagement with the members of SEED (Zach Holz, Caitlin Piserchia, Adrian Guerrero, Lucy Roberts, Julia Huggins, and many more) than ever before, meeting several times on campus with students to discuss the show and plan promotional concepts.  We got great support with outreach, designed incredible promotional materials, and it all paid dividends.  We had an large and diverse crowd on a rainy and cold Monday evening in Portland.  I think it was our best performance of CEFD ever, and the energy from the crowd had a lot to do with that.   Local photographers Tom Good and Megan Price lent their vision of the Black Lantern’s performance.

In March we visited the cold but beautiful Northeast for a show at Albany Law School where we worked with Professor Hirokawa, an impressive law professor, scholar, and “visionary pragmatist,” who teaches Cartesian Eco-FemDarkanism in his environmental law classes.  Through Professor Hirokawa, we met up with the students of the Environmental Law Society at Albany Law (President Genevieve Trigg, Charlie Gottlieb, Anna Binau, Erica Nicole, and others).  The show sparked some incredible conversation, and for the first time, spawned an after-show event where we could continue the dialogue.  Also for the first time, BLS received community sponsorship for a college show from the Environmental Advocates of New York, a group that has been actively engaged in the protection of New York’s environment for more than 40 years.  EANY representative Marcy Stenger was very supportive, and it has been a pleasure to follow their successes.  

Finally, on Earth Day in April, we performed at the University of California at Berkeley as a cornerstone event for their annual Earth Week celebration on campus.  We spent two full days on campus at a booth for our hosts, Berkeley’s Sustainability Team.  We spoke with many students and faculty about our project and engaged other groups on campus that were actively seeking a better future on many fronts.  Just being on the Berkeley campus in Spring was electric. Our STEAM liasons, Michelle Choi and Michelle Lowe (Earth Week Coordinators), were wonderful to work with and put a lot of energy into making BLS feel a welcome part of Earth Week.  The show on Earth Day capped off a nine-month blizzard of hard work, travel, and creativity. 

With all of the hard work and the successes, the best parts have been the moments in the experience:  the anticipation that builds at the beginning of the show as the thunder and Fever Ray roll; the palpable feeling that sweeps over the room when Jeff and I get sync’ed tight on a connection between spoken word and image; the feeling near the end of the show when the hour-long build we have labored so hard to create takes hold and it seems the whole room might spontaneously combust with the energy of it all; the warm handshake, kind comments, and gentle wisdom of an elder audience-member in Kansas City; the multiple post-show discussion groups that broke out after the show at K-State; the long phone calls, late-night work sessions, and enduring inspiration that have been such a big part of this project.    

It is time now to begin again.  We must go back to the art, back to the thinking and inspiration, to create new directions, new projects.  The last two years have been amazing, and we extend our sincere gratitutde to those who attended shows, helped make shows possible, gave us thoughts and feedback, visited the website, and generally fed us with the energy and support we needed to make this project possible.  If you have thoughts or recollections about the show or the project generally, please feel free to leave them below or email them to us…

More to come.