www.yellowbirdartscape.org

Employment
W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University 2010-2020; Professor European Studies; Professor of Art 2009-2013; Affiliated Faculty, Department of Art, Vanderbilt 2013–;

Books 
Time after Time (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007) Ch. 12, “Art as Event” – on Smithson, Duchamps, Newman

Recent Books
* Eco-Deconstruction: Derrida and Environmental Ethics, eds. Matthias Fritsch, Philippe Lynes and David Wood, Fordham, 2018

* Reoccupy Earth, Fordham, 2019
* Deep Time, Dark Times: On Being Geologically Human, Fordham, 2019

• Thinking Plant Animal Human: Encounters with Communities of Difference, Minnesota, 2020

Books Under Construction
* Things at the Edge of the World
An investigation of those things in the world that themselves contain, project or sustain worlds of their own [including works of art] – a fractal ontology.

* Thinking Art: The Philosophical Significance of Seven Artists: Joseph Beuys, Alberto Burri, Chris Drury, Andy Goldsworthy, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Smithson

Interviews

Interview with Joe Gelonesi, Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Radio Network, broadcast May 2015.

Interview with Robert Schutt, Orbis (Vanderbilt), April 2015.

“Problems with Progress”‚ Interview with Zan Boag, New Philosophy magazine, #6, Sydney (Australia), Nov 2014, pp.78-85

Interview with Michelle Jones, Tennessean (Nashville) on “Heliotrope” (Floating sculpture installed at Lake Watauga, Parthenon, Centennial Park, Nashville). Sunday Sept 12, 2010.

Interview with KQED TV (on Land Art installation “Spiral Resonance Field”), Albuquerque, New Mexico, August, 2009

‘Art for the Imagination’, interview by William McClure, Journal of Visual Culture, London, Fall 2002

‘The Art of Time’, interview by John Dalton, Contretemps: An Online Journal of Philosophy, Sydney, Australia, Summer 2002

Interview with Michelle Jones, Tennessean (Nashville) on “Heliotrope” (Floating sculpture installed at Lake Watauga, Parthenon, Centennial Park, Nashville). Sept 12, 2010.

Interview with KQED TV (on Land Art installation “Spiral Resonance Field”), Albuquerque, NM, Aug, 2009

Published (and forthcoming) Papers

“Earth Art: Space, Place, Word and Time”, Epoché (journal), Forthcoming Fall 2017

“IntraTerrestrials: Landing Sites” in Place and Phenomenology, ed. Janet Donohoe, Fordham University Press, 2017

“Is Art Dead? Can Art Save the Earth?, Environmental Aesthetics. Crossing Divides and Breaking Ground”, ed. Martin Drenthen and Jozef Keulartz, Fordham, (in press 2015).

“Touched by Touching”, in Carnal Hermeneutics, ed. Richard Kearney and Brian Treanor, Fordham University Press, 2014

“Derrida Vert”, in Oxford Literary Review 36.2 (2014): 319-322

“Comment ne pas manger–Deconstruction and Humanism”, trans into Italian, Animot journal, Turin, Italy 2014

“Humanimality: The Silence of the Animal”, PhiloSophia, 3, #2, 2013

“My Place in the Sun”, in Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics, eds. Forrest Clingerman et al., New York: Fordham, 2013

“If a cat could talk,” London: Aeon, July 2013
http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/can-we-ever-really-know-a-cat/

“The Lure of the Writer’s Cabin”, New York Times (Opinionator), December 2012

“Toxicity and Transcendence: Two Faces of the Human”, Angelaki 16, no.4, 2011
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0969725X.2011.641343#preview

“Mirror Refractions in the Yucatan (After Robert Smithson)”, Journal of Visual Art Practice, Vol. 9, Issue 1, 2010
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/jvap.9.1.69_1?journalCode=rjvp20#preview

“Thinking Landscape Art: Unfolding Angel Spiral”, in Antje Kapust / Bernhard Waldenfels eds., Kunst. Bild. Wahrnehmung. Blick: Merleau-Ponty zum Hundertsten, München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2008.

“A walk in the woods”, Sculpture Journal, volume 15.1 [2006]

“Distance in Dwelling”, Cogito (Journal of Art and Philosophy), Istanbul, Turkish trans by Refik Guremen, 2006

“Connections in Time: Notes on the Kuusiluoto Island Chronopod”, Framework: The Finnish Art Review, Helsinki, 2004

“Time-shelters: an essay in the poetics of time”, in Time and the Instant, ed. Robin Durie and David Webb, Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2000

“Escher and Calvino: Thinking Eccentrically about Time” in Journal of Philosophy and the Visual Arts, ed. A. E. Benjamin, (London: Academy Editions, 1989).

“Art-Language”, Studio International, Jan 1973.

Selection of Papers Delivered

Upcoming. “Natures of Space, Spaces of Nature”, Invited Lecture, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Citta di Castella, Italy, July 2017

Keynote Address. “Thinking Like a Sand Crab (Can a tiny crustacean be an artist?”, Living With Animals Conference. EKU, Richmond, KY. March 2017

“Art for the Anthropocene” (panel on Land Art with Gary Shapiro and Amanda Boetzkes), IAEP, Salt Lake City, Oct 2016
“Earth Art: Space, Place and Time”‚ The Idioms of Ethical Life Conference in Honor of Dennis Schmidt, Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State University, Oct 2016

“Some Notes on Art”, Emory Annual Undergraduate Conference, Oct 2016

“Disconcerting Experience”, Lecture, Oregon State University at Corvallis, Jan 2015

Public Lecture, “Mission to Earth: Land Art, IntraTerrestrials and Other Attempts at Reinhabiting the Earth through Art”, Arts Center, University of Oregon, January 2015

“The Art of the Im-possible”, Mellon Environments & Societies Colloquium, UC Davis, May 2013

“The Art of the Possible,” IAEP, November 2012

‘Art and Resistance’, Nature in Art and Culture conference, University of Helsinki, 2012

“Violence and the Image”, University of Bochum/Cubus Art Conference, 2012

“Art and Truth” invited lecture, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Citta di Castella, Italy, July 2011

“Reinhabiting the Earth”, British Society for Phenomenology, Annual Conference, St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, April, 2011

“What is Eco-Phenomenology?” IAEP session, APA, Boston, Dec 2010

“Art and Truth” invited lecture, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Citta di Castella, Italy, July 2011

“Is Art Dead? (Or could it Save the Earth?)” Honors Program Distinguished Speaker, De Paul, Chicago, May 2010

Keynote Conference Speaker and Coastal Installation, “Can Art Save the Earth?” & photographic presentation: “Imagination Displacement Transformation: A Photographic Essay” at Thinking the World in the 21st C (Conference), University of Tasmania / Australian Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Association (APHA), Hobart, Tasmania, April/May, 2010

Installation and Lecture to Land Art and Landscape Seminar, University of Richmond, March 2010

Keynote Address at Visual Intelligence and The Sense of Art: Philosophy and Art in Conversation with Experience conference, CSU Stanislaus, Nov 2006

Keynote Address, “Liminal Philosophy: Negotiating Resistance at the Limits of Representation”, North Texas Philosophical Association Conference, UNT Denton,
April 2006

“Beyond Hegel and the End of Art: Heidegger and Earth-Art”, Public lecture, Galatasaray University, Istanbul, Turkey, Jan 2004

“Art for Earthlings”, & “The Future of Thinking”, University of Helsinki, Oct 2003

“Earth Art Sky: Distance in Dwelling”, SPEP 39th Annual Meeting, Penn State, Oct 2000 and Arts Faculty Research Seminar, Univ of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, Nov 2000

“Experience: Folded and Unfolding”, Art and Experience Conference, University of London, Nov 20 1999

“Unlocking the Image in Thought”, International Conference on Art and the Image, Tate Gallery/University of London, May 1997

“The Poetics of Time”, Vanderbilt University, October 1991

“The Strange Loops of Escher and Calvino,” Calvino Conference, University of Warwick, 1987

“Philosophy as Performance,” University of East Anglia [1982].

Art Activity and other forms of Creative Expression

Director. I direct Yellow Bird Arts, 501 © 3, a non-profit arts organization, with a program of outdoor art, installations, events and artists-in-residence. In addition, classes from Vanderbilt departments of Art, and English, and from Blair School of Music have visited.
See www.yellowbirdartscape.org

Yellow Bird Artscape. A 175 acre Gesamtkustwerk in rural Tennessee. 2010- ongoing

Curator. Silvan Laan and Emily Thomas, Virgo Rising, Cardinal Crossing and Inverted Bird Blind, three art works/events/installations, Yellow Bird Artscape, Sept 2016 (Equinox)/Spring 2017.

Passing TransFigures. Major sculpture installation, , 10 large white painted geometrical wooden outdoor sculptures, Yellow Bird Artscape, March 2017

Awakening: Heliotrope III (a large earth art installation), Reinstallation and reconstruction, Peace Circle,Yellow Bird Artscape, March/April 2017

Being with Animals (my current art portfolio), Art presentation and subsequent critique by David Roon. Living With Animals Conference. EKU, Richmond, KY. March 2017

Notes from Underground: A Modern Kiva a multi-media art installation in collaboration with international earth artist Chris Drury, and composer Michael Rose (Blair School of Music). Spring/Fall 2017

IntraTerrestrials: Landing Sites (a multi-site art project) – ongoing.
See essay “IntraTerrestrials: Landing Sites” in Place and Phenomenology, ed. Janet Donohoe, Fordham University Press, 2017
.
Curator. Art exhibitions by Lily Erb, Lexie Johnson, and Avery Rose Glenn at Yellow Bird Artscape, 2013-16

FireFlash, 12 10’ vertical crimson painted boards hanging among cedar trees, Yellow Bird Arts, 2015

Druid Circle, 12 5’ yellow figures conspiring in a circle in the woods, Yellow Bird Artscape, 2016

Seven Postcard Tables, write home with chalk messages. Yellow Bird Artscape, 2016

Wordscape . 222 cedar boards with carved words distributed in a rural setting. Yellow Bird Artscape, 2014- continuing

A Sense of Place [documentary film on my art work], Artist/Producer, dir. Robert Verheij, 2014/15.

Eternal Return, Video Installation, Goethe Institute, MatraLab, Montreal, Canada, Oct 2013

IntraTerrestrials: Landing Sites, #8, ongoing series., Cappadocia, Turkey, Nov 2014

WORDSCAPE: Homage to Ian Hamilton Finlay. Yellow Bird Art Farm, Vanderbilt Workshop, April 2014

IntraTerrestrials: Landing Sites, on going installation series. #7 near Po Lam Zen Monastery, Lantau Island, Hong Kong April 2013

Thinking Like a Sand Crab, Exhibition and Keynote lecture, Stony Brook Manhattan Philosophy and the Arts Annual Conference, “Still Life”, 2012.

Heliotrope IV, Arts Center of Cannon County, Woodbury, TN, 2011-2

Cheekwood HeliotropeTwinstallation: “Awakening” *(Sculpture Trail) and “Reflections” (Lower Pond), Nashville, 2011

Awakening, Heliotrope III (Nov 2010 – Jan 2011) Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Building/ 25th Ave S, Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Wood, wire, laser discs, solar lights, 41’ diameter, 2” thick, with inscribed poem “Awakening Words”. In three phases.

Participant in Sao Paulo (Brazil)/Vanderbilt Art exchange: Fall 2010 with funding from Vanderbilt

“Heliotrope II” (Fall 2010) Parthenon, Lake Watauga, Centennial Park, Nashville. Floating sculpture. Wood, steel, aluminum, wire, laser discs, solar lights, 40’ diameter, 40 spokes. In two phases.

“Art as ark”, Bangladesh Art Project, Dhaka, March 6-14, 2010. Water video-interviews with villagers; sculpture and photography.

Coastal Installations and photographic presentation: “Imagination Displacement Transformation: A Photographic Essay” at Thinking the World in the Twenty-First Century (Conference), University of Tasmania / Australian Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Association (APHA), Hobart, Tasmania, April 30th and May 1st, 2010

Installation of “Heliotrope” on Westhampton Lake, University of Richmond campus for Land Art and Landscape Seminar, University of Richmond, March 2010
http://picasaweb.google.com/111369049772123131327/Heliotrope3152010#
http://picasaweb.google.com/111369049772123131327/HeliotropeWaterInstallation#

“Weerewaa Vortex” (2009), Lake George, Canberra, Australia, 2009. 600 CDs arranged in a triple spiral in a dried-up lake bed. 250’ diameter.

“Spiral Resonance Field: Glint of Sun, Voice of Wind”( Land Art) Anderson-Abruzzo International Balloon Museum, Albuquerque, NM / Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM /Mountainair NM [virtual installation], July-Nov 2009. Part II was acquired by the Center for Contemporary Arts (Santa Fe), for its permanent collection. Stainless steel, iron, aluminum, PVC, nylon, wood. 300 solar lights, atop 300 undulating white PVC poles 1’-12’ high, set on laserdisc lily-pads, and arranged in a double spiral, with a pair of Aeolian harps, invitations to the wind. The whole installation was curated by LandArt New Mexico, 516Arts.

“Projected Framescapes”, Writer’s Cabin site with surreal viewing windows, 2012 (YB)

“Floating Gallery”, Natural objects find themselves unexpectedly surrounded by a gallery space, 2012 (YB)

“Mirror Refractions in the Yucatan (After Robert Smithson)”, Art/Text performance piece, The Animal Gaze conference, London Metropolitan University, Nov 2008

“Spiral Jetty Redux”, 2006 Great Salt Lake, Utah: a reworking of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.

“Solar Spiral” – steel, mirrors, diameter 1280’ – New Mexico
June 2009

“Mirror Refractions in the Yucatan (After Robert Smithson)”, Art/Text performance piece, The Animal Gaze conference, London Metropolitan University, Nov 2008

“Angel Spiral”, 200’ diameter, mirrors, Great Sand Dunes, Colorado, 2005

Kyoto 7000 Tree-Rhizome Project: Homage to Joseph Beuys [Fall 2004]

Other activities

Director, Yellow Bird Artscape, (501©3) Woodbury, TN
[Gesamtkunstwerk, Art Farm and Sculpture Park]
including ongoing Artist-in-residence program

www.yellowbirdartscape.org

Curated “Virgo Rising” Equinox Art Event, Yellow Bird, Sept 2016 (with artists-in-residence Sylvan Laan and Emily Thomas)

Initiator and convener, Off the Wall – Spring series of lunchtime talks at the Frist Center for the Arts, Nashville (with Vanderbilt Faculty). 2003-5

Professional Service at Vanderbilt
Dean’s Search Committee, Fine Arts Chair Spring 1998

External Examining
Faculty of Art & Design [Fine Art] (Conceptual Art program) Lanchester Polytechnic, (1975-8)

Ongoing and Future projects

Intra-Terrestrials: Landing Sites (ongoing, global reach)

Wordscape. Installation of 200+ magic words at Yellow Bird.

Yellow School Bus. Magic art space for children.

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*This Art Vita includes work directly and indirectly related to Art (e.g. on space and time).