Presentation:

Professor Bingham teaches two courses:  Concept Studio: Eco Art for freshmen and sophomores, and Advanced SIS: Environmental Sculpture, for upperclassmen.  Professor Bingham’s courses are interdisciplinary and collaborative, combining sculpture with biology and ecology, and serve an environmental purpose.

Prof. Bingham discussed his artistic projects and his biography.  He worked on an exhibit under the Brooklyn Bridge for Creative Time’s Art in the Anchorage Exhibit.  His inspiration stemmed from his experiences while living near the Pantheon in Rome.  He worked on a project with Native Americans entitled Water Rites: A Domestic Arrangement in the Catskills, to prevent land from becoming over-developed.  Between 1994-1998, Professor Bingham’s project, “An Urban Semi-Wilderness Area – Park in Pittsburgh – Letting the Greenery Grow,” allowed the community to become involved in a dedication to various causes.

The Nine Mile Run Greenway Project (1996-2000), an interdisciplinary, community-based art project, facilitated a conversation in order to design a public, urban greenway concept along a polluted stream near a new housing development on a 240 acre site on the edge of the Pittsburgh city limits. Over the course of fifty years, the site had become polluted and ruined a pristine stream valley connecting to the Monongahela River.  This four year research project led to the formation of a watershed association which then implemented the conceptual design, the largest Urban Stream Ecosystem Restoration Project in the United States.
 
Professor Bingham described the project Growth Connection (2000 & 2004): An Environmental Sculpture, in which he collaborated with Civil & Environmental Consultants Inc. to design a natural succession growth concept using a lightweight soil medium to grow harsh slag heaps. Through this work, the group planted Arostook Rye in a soil retention system, as well as a series of straw bales for soil retention. The project was very successful and enjoyed a public presence because of its proximity to a shopping plaza across the river.

In 2004, Professor Bingham worked with Mary Beth Steisslinger,a restoration ecologist with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. The project, Concept Studio EcoArt, involved eco-art students trained as volunteers to remove an invasive ground cover, and work on soil stabilization strategies to help restore five large parks in Pittsburgh adjacent to the Carnegie Mellon campus. After the first part of the semester, the students were trained in restoration ecology, creating eco-art concepts (“gestures”), proposals, and presentations of their concepts.  Examples include a water cleansing project, the planting of flowers to show evidence of the path of a stream, and the creation of a naturalistic meadow, in which plants absorb rain water into the earth rather than causing run-off and erosion.  One of the benefits of these projects was a dialogue that began with the City of Pittsburgh Parks Department for the next few years.  Professor Bingham worked on a project in 2007, the Carnegie Mellon Campus Rain Garden Proposal, a campus community project in which students worked on eco-art design and construction on the campus.

Professor Bingham described additional eco-art projects he worked on along the river front trail of the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania. 

He worked on a four year project at Carnegie Mellon, where greenery grows on a 4000 square foot roof.   This university community-based project included the Green Practices Committee, comprised of the environmental coordinator, facilities management staff, university engineer and civil and environmental engineering faculty and students.  The Environmental Sculpture class designed the living roof with the aid of a green roof consultant Jorg Breuning from Stuttgart, Germany.

The 2007 Solar Decathlon Project, Greenscape project was completed in conjunction with the School of Architecture, tasked to design and build a 1200 square feet house relying solely on solar power.  Environmental Sculpture students designed and created a three dimensional system that literally brought the landscape up the side of the house and onto a number of green roofs. This feat was accomplished by constructing modular steel frames with modular green roof units that contained the soil medium and perennial plants. It included a kitchen herb garden and a large water tank that retained the rainwater from the roof to irrigate the greenscape. The project was exhibited on the mall in Washington, DC, and donated to Powdermill Nature Reserve, a center and museum connected to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pennyslvania. 

Google Earth Camouflage, an eco-art proposal, was created to green the Garthwaite Center for Science and Art in Weston, MA.  The proposal described the creation of a sustainable building with a variety of  growing systems and alternative energy strategies, including water retention devices, all of which could be viewed from above.  The concept transformed a new white building to become camouflaged back into the woods.

Discussion:

Question: Can you swim in the stream [Nine Mile Run Gateway Project] now?

Answer: No, but you can wade after a large storm event.  There are fish coming back, and many small living critters that point to a healthier ecosystem. 

Questions:  What are the majors of the students who help you with the projects?
Prof. Bingham: We do not have general education students.  My courses are open to all students, I subtract prerequisites. Eco-art classes are offered to all students on campus, through a large grant started by the Vice Provost for Education, Indira Nair: The Greening of Early Undergraduate Education Initiative to incorporate environmental literacy across the curriculum. So this course is structured to be interdisciplinary by admitting half art students and half students from all other disciplines. So I have a variety of majors from Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, etc.

Question: How does STUDIO for Creative Inquiry operate?
Prof. Bingham:  It’s the College of Fine Arts’ version of a Research Center – getting faculty members across disciplines to collaborate on a research level; i.e. a visual artist working with a research scientist from the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition to create a visually interesting, interactive presentation as a way to entice eight graders to learn about the brain. In this case the venue was in the planetarium of the local science center and is sometimes referred to as “Edutainment.” Academically, there is not a direct connection with undergraduate students, although the working process is presented on a regular basis, open to students and often students with data visualization skills and general creative skills are hired as paid assistants/employees.

Question: Do the projects have to do with teaching?
Professor Bingham: No.  The projects are not related to undergraduate curriculum; this is for a studio research practice to create actual projects.  We have a Center for the Arts in Society, a collaboration between the College of Fine Arts and the Humanities and Social Sciences which address issues under an academic umbrella.

Question: You routinely engage in creative and unusual teaching practice. Do you feel well understood and supported, or is it a constant battle to sustain this approach?
Prof. Bingham: I feel like the most fortunate person in the world, I feel extremely supported by the School of Art, the College of Fine Arts, and the upper administration of the university.  They value innovation, creativity and the freedom to research and teach one’s passions. I was hired to teach installation art in 1989; at the time it was not mainstream. As my own art practice became more environmental, I began teaching environmental art in 1995.  Research universities want innovation.  The negative side is how to acquire research funds for the arts. In 2004, Indira Nair paid my salary and a stipend to purchase project materials to begin the eco-art course, which continues on a yearly basis with the support of the school of art. It was a valuable strategy to create new innovative classes to include non majors.

A question arose from the audience concerning the funding of new courses that encourage general education.  A member of the audience stated that the Provost funds research from a general fund for the arts at Michigan State University.

Professor Bingham recommended a “cultural tax,” which is a percentage of research funding to be paid from computer science and engineering for the Arts and Humanities.

Question: Do you extend these initiatives to other art fields?
Prof. Bingham: I had a drama graduate student who wanted to explore visual art in the Drama program where there is no room for other disciplines.  My colleagues and I helped her negotiate two strategies: one to propose a new degree, an MFA in Drama and Art, to continue in her existing program and be able to study and practice art; plus apply to the MFA program in art and start over from the beginning. The student acquired both and chose the latter.

Question:  Do you offer minors in design/art/media for students? We just instituted a performance minor in music.
Prof. Bingham:  Some students do manage minors, although it requires an intense four year program and more pragmatically requires adding a fifth year of study.  In 1999 we started a degree of Humanities and Art, a 4 year joint degree program, in 2001 we started a Science and Art program, and in 2008, a bachelor degree in Computer Art and Science.  

Question: Do they have to do a final exhibition similar to a student majoring in art?
Prof. Bingham: Yes.  The final requirements are basically the same; however, the expectations are just a bit lower because we understand that they are taking fewer classes. Although we are also discovering that their other areas of study that intellectually feed their artwork, i.e. anthropology to painting, computer science to animation.

Question: What about critiques?
Prof. Bingham: Yes, they are in the same classes as other art students.  Non-art students have different credit requirements from art students, so they are less specialized but better equipped, having one discipline affecting the other.  They are becoming more creative generalists.

Question (George Washington University): What about the idea that you don’t choose the discipline, but the discipline chooses you?  This is the idea of having a course to look at something from different points of view, and not marginalizing.  Your projects do involve various principles from different points of view. Is there educational validity to this idea, or is it a dream?
Prof. Bingham: I believe in this path.  I do not tell my students just what to do, I guide them through the process. However, some people need structure, so I am open to students coming to me for support, and I give them more structure if necessary.  Otherwise, I believe in guiding them to find their own way.  Everyone is not expected to do the same thing, or use the same skills. However, I believe it is extremely valuable to learn the creative process in a group/team environment; learn how to work together and learn from each others’ strengths.

Comment:  A faculty member from the University of Delaware started working with different art groups on campus to integrate arts into the curriculum, and encountered much resistance.  If students could have a course addressing the different ways of thinking from different disciplines, and then collaborate on a project, that seems to be a good way for them to pick their field of study.
Comment:  A faculty member from George Washington University described a course on human beings’ relation to nature that combines many disciplines.
Prof. Bingham: Some of my colleagues around the country cannot believe that I am allowed to teach the environmental design courses that I do. In 1989, Bryan Rogers, former head of the School of Art, catalyzed theme-based courses called concept studios, as opposed to media based courses. He later restructured the whole curriculum to give concept studios almost as much weight as media-based courses. We do not have majors within art, we have areas of specialization.

Question: How do Carnegie Mellon students compare to other students in terms of employment?
Prof. Bingham:  They generally do well; they are hired in a wide variety of arts related fields from galleries and museums to practicing artists and as creative problem solvers and data visualizers for gaming companies and animators, etc. Many get teaching positions in museum art programs, community-based programs, city parks, etc. I often cite the example of Diane Loviglio’s green roof project.  She worked on it for four years and obtained invaluable experience about how systems work, biological and administrative.  She now lives and works in San Francisco and runs a small start-up alternative energy company.

Question:  Do you have anecdotal evidence of students in the European exchange programs? Has anyone commented on what the students bring?
Prof. Bingham:  When they go abroad, they really focus, and do pretty well.

Question: How do we extend funding, besides a few sympathetic administrators?
Prof. Bingham:  Surge grants, when they grow larger, similar to artist’s stipends for doing exhibits in alternative spaces, the amount remains at five hundred dollars for years.

Other suggestions included obtaining research dollars for faculty, and financial encouragement to teach general education courses.

Recommendations:

• Cultural Tax – Professor Bingham’s idea to have a percentage of research funding come from computer science and engineering to benefit the Arts and Humanities
• The number of small undergraduate research grants should be increased; the amounts of the grants should be increased and some provision for extra funds should be applied to extend the research further.
• Innovative curriculum changes to allow for less specialization in majors, to encourage interdisciplinary studies and more general education. (Examples of Carnegie Mellon, College of Fine Arts degrees: BHA, Bachelor of Humanities & Art; BSA, Bachelor of Science and Art; BCSA, Bachelor of Computer Science and Art.)

Resources/References:

Websites

1. Professor Bingham’s website: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu/~bingham.
2.Background, Professor Bingham’s art practice. The Pantheozone: Temple to the Ozone, large scale installation under the Brooklyn bridge for Creative Time’s exhibit, Art in the Anchorage, 1989: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/pan_arch.html.
3. Water Rights: A Domestic Arrangement, an outdoor environmental installation at Art Awareness, a residency program in the Catskill Mountains: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/water_arch.html.
4. An Urban Semi-Wilderness Area: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/urban_arch.html.
5. Nine Mile Run Greenway Project: four year community-based environmental art project through the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/nmr_arch.html.
6. Growth Connection 2000, 2002  Advanced SIS: Environmental Sculpture class with Civil and Environmental Consultants, Inc. Succession planting technique using soil retention strategies to begingrowth on a slag heap with a thin soil medium
7. Greening of Purnell Center for the Arts-sustainable green roof proposal: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/pur_arch.html.
8. Living Roof on Hamerschlag Hall,  Advanced SIS: Environmental Sculpture.Students designed a 4000 sq ft living roof with a green roof consultant and conferred with the campus Green Practices committee and
Facilities Management Services.
http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/student_green.html.
9. Solar Decathlon Competition Project: Greenscape, Advanced SIS: EnvironmentalSculpture in conjunction with Architecture design/build studio. A modular,three dimensional, terraced wall and green roof, water retention and
irrigation system on a 1200 sq ft house run by solar energy.
http://www.talkingproud.us/ScienceSolarDecathlon.html.
10. Most recent Ecoart projects not on website: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/student_ecoart.html. http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/student_stream1.html.
http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~bingham/archive/student_shishi1.html.
11. Greening of the Early Undergraduate Education Initiative: http://education.andrew.cmu.edu/environment/The%20Greening%20of%20Early%20Undergraduate%20Education.php.