University of Glasgow

Pattern & Process: Art, Science & Geography in the Anthropocene

Research Interests:

• Geographies of the Anthropocene
• Art-science collaborations
• Experimental geographies
• Landscape writing
• Sonic geographies

Supervisors:

Prof Hayden Lorimer

Prof Deborah Dixon

Dr Minty Donald

Research Projects:

My research broadly examines (and experiments with) interdisciplinary responses to environmental issues: creative & collaborative practices for complex problems. 

Based in a geography department, but drawing approaches from ecology, arts & humanities, my research is partly archival, examining the art-science collaborations fostered by György Kepes at MIT in the 1960s; & partly based on fieldwork, most recently experimenting with art-geography approaches to understanding & representing the former military island of Örö on the Finnish Archipelago. 

I'm fascinated by ongoing debates over the Anthropocene, & how we dwell in (& remake) muddled, multi-species & ruined landscapes.

Participatory installation at Switch House, Tate Modern in December 2016, involving collaborative cairn construction, interactive sound sculpture and installation film of ecologically-altered Super 8.

Edited book "Score Tae The Toor", published May 2016.

Site-specific sound installation at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (throughout 2015) controlled by the tide, the weather & audience interactions. Publications of writing, art prints & 12" LP (September 2015)

Surface Tension

Book publication (April 2015), exhibitions of prints & writing at Stour Space Gallery, London (April 2015) & The Lighthouse, Glasgow (July 2015)

Interview about the project on the British Library website:

Part 1: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/sound-and-vision/2015/08/surface-tension-a-conversation-with-rob-st-john-part-1-.html

Part 2: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/sound-and-vision/2015/09/surface-tension-a-conversation-with-rob-st-john-part-2.html

Talks & Lectures:

10 December 2016: “Emergent Landscapes artist talk”, Tate Modern, London

22 October 2016: “Sound and oil: the legacies of the Sea Empress disaster”, Manorbier Reading Room, Pembrokeshire

31 August 2016: “Archipelago thinking: art-geography experiments on a Finnish island”, Royal Geographical Society Conference ‘Beyond interdisciplinarity: Situating practice in the art-geography nexus’, London

23 February 2016: “Creative islands: developing transdisciplinary practices on Örö” ‘Conceptualising Islands in History’, University of Leicester

11 November 2015: “Sounding environmental complexity”, 'Life on Earth - Debating the Anthropocene’, University of Glasgow

17 October 2015: "The site-specific-non-specific: interdisciplinary practices for a sited sound installation", EcoCultures Conference, Pearce Institute, Glasgow

10 September 2015: "Concrete Antenna artist talk", Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh

2 September 2015: "Sounding water: creative geographical approaches to human-water relationships in the Anthropocene", Royal Geographical Society Conference, 'Wet Geographies', University of Exeter

14 May 2015: "Environmental complexity + environmental creativity", Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network, Edinburgh College of Art

22 April 2015: "Surface Tension: experimental geographies in the Lea Valley", Stour Space Gallery, London

Academic History:

2009-2010 University of Oxford, MSc Biodiversity, Conservation & Management, Distinction 

2004-2008 University of Edinburgh, BSc Geography, First Class

Contact Details:

Address: School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, East Quadrangle, Main Building, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ

Email: r.stjohn.1@research.gla.ac.uk

For professional practice, projects & publications please see http://www.robstjohn.co.uk/

First published: 1 October 2014