Online Event Duration: 5 March - 2 April 2004

Online Forum

This Online Forum is linked to a series of three lectures taking place throughout March 2004 as part of The Weather Project. In response to The Unilever Series - Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern Public Programmes and the Department of Geography at the Open University are presenting these sessions to explore further the relationships between society, space and nature.

• Register on the forum pages to join the online discussion.

Each session features a keynote presentation by a major theorist whose work bridges art and science. Each live event will be webcast in conjunction with an online forum for the duration of the season. The Online Forum is set up to enable a woven debate to take place around and beyond each of the three lectures. It is moderated by Ghislaine Boddington (shinkansen/Future Physical).

Online Events

All archives are now available for view via the links above.

If you missed any of the live events, you may review the archives at any point during the forum discussion.

The lectures are followed by discussions involving Doreen Massey (Professor of Geography at the Open University), Gísli Pálsson (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iceland) and chaired by Dominic Willsdon (Tate Modern). For the first session Olafur Eliasson will also take part.

Topics

Our ideas of nature affect the ways in which we understand many aspects of contemporary life, in relation not only to the environment but also to science, technology, human nature and art.

Nature seems partly produced by social forces, and yet continues to act upon us in many ways (disease, the weather) that resist being reduced entirely to culture and society.

The Weather Project deals with the representation of nature today, how nature can take on social and spatial forms, and how images of nature can be produced by machines and contraptions.

• What is happening to the concept of nature in the world today?
• How is it being transformed through the impact of contemporary issues, from genetic engineering to climate change?
• How do we view the difference between natural and artifice, the authentic and the simulated?
• Does the difference matter any more?

Related Links:
Olafur Eliasson: Artist Talk Archive October 18 2003
The Unilever Series - Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project

Talk Series

Nature Space Society: The Institute for Meteorological Mediation is a series of public discussions presented as part of Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project. Organised by Tate Modern and the Department of Geography at the Open University.

Follow the Online Events links above for more detail on individual talks.

Image Credits