2018 Conference Schedule
Join us for a weekend of forging and ratifying a new collaborative model for artists and scientists addressing climate change.
This inaugural program (interchangeably called by the team as Proto Broto or Tasting Menu Broto) is designed to introduce a lot of ideas, with the goal of deeper dives into the content in future conferences and meetings and online. This initial conference agenda is, therefore, designed to set a tone and a long-term path and leave the door open for longer discussions as we develop.
Our main goal: To establish a set of guidelines that allows “substantive, mutual, real-time and credible” collaboration to flourish.
You can buy an All-Event pass for everything, or purchase off the a la carte program menu.
Here is what we have planned so far. Schedule is subject to change.
Venue: All Broto program highlights take place at Sage Inn/Pilgrim House.
336 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657
(508) 487-6424 | info@sageinnptown.com
May 4: Broto’s Opening Celebration
4 PM – 6 PM Early Bird Gathering/Registration
An early chance to mix and mingle with our Broto attendees and team, sign in to the conference and begin your Broto: Art, Science & Collaboration weekend. Registration will be available all weekend.
7:30 PM-9:30 PM Launch Party
Join us for the official launch of Broto: Art, Science & Collaboration – a new venture that builds on Cape Cod’s rich art and science history and provides new tools toward new solutions for our collective climate change challenge. We’ll set the tone for the weekend’s work and introduce our big idea to our guests and the world. Hors d'oeuvres.
Keynote Speaker: Dehlia Hannah, PhD and Research Curator for the Centre for Environmental Humanities, on her project A Year Without a Winter -- a transmedia thought experiment bringing together philosophy, science fiction, scenario planning, biogeochemistry, environmental history, visual art and architecture.
May 5: Conference Day 1, Building the Blueprint
8 AM Morning Coffee Gathering
8:45 AM Day 1 Welcome
We have a brisk, intense, high-level day-and-a-half program for our first Broto: Art, Science & Collaboration conference. We’ll lay out the goals of the weekend and the scope of the challenge.
• Speaker: Ian Edwards, Broto Director
9 AM Panel 1: Using Art to Inform Science
Already scientists and their scientific explorations are benefiting from the insights they gain from art and art collaborators. We’ll hear from scientists working this way today.
• Speakers: Dhruba Deb, Cancer Researcher, UT Southwestern Medical Center; Jose Contreras-Vidal, Neuroscience Engineer, University of Houston; Josh Willis, Climatologist, NASA
• Moderator: Julia Buntaine, Director, SciArt Center
10:15 AM Speaker: Art & Science in Sustainability
What’s the impasse that the Broto initiative addresses? We’ll review the status of climate change work, the contributions of art and science in sustainability and an exploration of how they coexist.
• Speaker: Edgar Cardenas, PhD, University of Michigan
10:45 AM Break
11 AM Panel 2: Merging Artistic and Scientific Methodologies
Before we explore an actual collaboration framework, we’ll hear from our pilot project collaborators, along with experts on the intersection of art and science to explore how we might tackle hybridized, shared-intention process.
• Speakers: Joerg Dressler, Artist; Mark Borrelli, Coastal Studies; Elizabeth Bradfield, Author; Stephanie Vasko, Managing Director, MSU Center for Interdisciplinary
• Moderator: Mark Adams, Painter and Cartographer, National Park Service
12:15 PM Lunch Break
Go out and enjoy Provincetown. Mingle. Network. Lots of great lunch options nearby.
1:30 PM Workshop 1: Evaluating/Refining the Broto Blueprint
What is the Broto-minted collaboration model? This 90-minute, interactive, participatory workshop with the Broto attendees is our focus on the draft guidelines – with discussion and brainstorming from our assembled group. Attendees will get a chance to dissect the draft blueprint and offer refinements in advance of a vote Sunday to ratify the first guidelines.
• Facilitator: Edgar Cardenas, PhD
3 PM Break
3:15 PM Speaker: PlanetWorks
A principal of Arizona State University's PlanetWorks discusses that project's work and impacts.
• Speaker: Hilairy Hartnett, PhD, Arizona State University
3:45 PM Panel 3: Imagining a World Already Made Sustainable
What leapfrogs us to the end game of our sustainability efforts? We might innovate more effective climate change solutions if we imagine a future already made environmentally and socially sustainable and the brave steps we took to make it happen.
• Speakers: Tobias Buckell, Author, Hilairy Hartnett, PhD, Arizona State University, Dehlia Hannah, PhD and Research Curator for the Centre for Environmental Humanities, Vandana Singh, Chair of the Department of Physics and Earth Science at Framingham State University and a science fiction writer
• Moderator: Julia Buntaine, Director, SciArt Center
5 PM Day 1 Close
We’ll review a top line summary of the day and look ahead to Sunday’s program.
• Speaker: Ian Edwards, Broto Director
7 PM Roast! Celebratory Dinner
Broto’s Roast! evening begins with a roast-inspired menu at Pilgrim House. Join us to celebrate the day’s work in exploring our Art-Science collaboration blueprint. Dinner attendees will get VIP seating for the follow up Roast! Climate Change Comedy Nite event.
8:30 PM Roast! Climate Change Comedy Nite
Broto’s Roast! evening closes with a cabaret-style comedy night event – part social commentary experiment, part exploration of the power of humor to make climate change mainstream, all smart entertainment. Join us for a provocative evening with accomplished comics.
May 6: Conference Day 2, Ratifying the Blueprint
8 AM Morning Coffee Gathering
8:45 AM Speaker: Broto’s Digital World
Broto: Art, Science & Collaboration has a robust digital platform for engaging, encouraging and cataloguing collaboration – through a shared work platform, digital outreach and social media. Broto-minted collaboration can happen anywhere and we’ll explore the digital tools as part of our Day 2 Welcome.
• Speaker: Matt Clark, The Narrow Land
9 AM Speaker: Hemlock Hospice: landscape ecology, art, and design
Hemlock Hospice is an art-based interpretive trail and immersive, site-specific science-communication project at Harvard Forest at Petersham, MA. It tells the story of the ongoing demise of the eastern hemlock tree by an aphid-like insect. The project addresses larger issues of climate change, human impact, and the future of New England forests.
• Speakers: David Buckley Borden, interdisciplinary artist and designer, Harvard Forest and Aaron Ellison, Senior Ecologist, Harvard Forest
10:15 AM Break
10:30 AM Workshop 2: Ratifying the Broto Blueprint/Exploring Broto’s Community Quest
This 30-minute, interactive, participatory workshop revisits the top-line ideas and revisions to the Broto Collaboration Blueprint, the goals and the next steps – and ends with a vote among attendees to ratify and sign the 2018 draft to begin the journey. A show of hands, please! And, as just the very beginning of a much longer and involved discussion about our Broto community and its vision, we’ll explore the initial impressions in conversation with attendees. What are your initial comments?
• Facilitator: Ian Edwards, Broto Director
11:00 AM Panel 4: Worlds Collide
Leveraging the themes and ideas from the Broto conference, we'll put them into action with artists and scientists collaborating on the spot in an art-sci mash up. Part-game show, part-flash mob, part-creative brainstorming, participants will have the chance to dream up solutions on the fly in five-minute collaboration pairings. No prizes, unless we save the world. That's a prize.
• Players: TBC
• Moderator/Host: Jay Critchley
12:15 PM Conference Close
A thank you to our attendees and supporters who made Broto’s inaugural conference come together – and a look toward 2019.
• Speaker: Ian Edwards, Broto Director