FRESH 2.0 by Tiffany Holmes premiered on June 10, 2008 as part of the Visual Foreign Correspondents project developed in cooperation with De Balie Centre for Culture and Politics and The Netherlands Institute for Media Art, Amsterdam. Visual Foreign Correspondents is a monthly series of audio-visual artworks for a number of screen based platforms. Distinguished artists from around the world are invited to give their personal visual commentary on events and situations from their locally situated perspective.

The Urban Screen video FRESH 2.0 by Tiffany Holmes shows nature imagery appropriated from the labels of popular brands of bottled water. The generic snow-capped mountains and gushing waterfalls seem oddly familiar. Stripped of their bar codes and corporate logos, the landscapes turn into curious symbols for a product that is proven to have harmful effects on the environment.

Holmes wants to raise awareness about the perils of the bottled water industry in countries that have access to high quality tap water. While public water is virtually cost-free, bottled water is actually more expensive than gasoline. Worse, the manufacturing process leaves behind a large carbon footprint.

Tiffany Holmes teaches at the Art Institute in Chicago courses in interactivity, environmental art and the history of electronic media. In her work she explores the potential of technology to promote positive environmental stewardship.

VFC is also set in the context of an international program of public debates ‘The Globalised Crystal Ball’, in which aspects of the new phase of globalisation is explored by panels of distinguished commentators.

This months issue:

The future and the fight against climate change
It took more than ten years to design and implement the Kyoto Treaty. And the United States and Australia did not even ratify it, and emerging countries like India and China do not have any obligations under the treaty. There are only four years left for the negations for the successor to Kyoto…..

The largest problem: convincing the United States and emerging countries to agree to significant and compulsory reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The EU and many scientific experts consider this approach the only option through which climate change can be successfully tackled. It is far from certain that other countries will agree to this.

Guests are:
Joyeeta Gupta (India) a principal author of the World Development Report 2002.
Urs Luterbacher (Switzerland) Social scientist; activist; writer
Rob Dellink (The Netherlands) senior researcher Economics and Technology at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at VU University Amsterdam

Location
De Balie
Klein Gartmanplantsoen 10
Amsterdam