The Daily Cougar: What is the purpose of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts?

Karen Farber: The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center was founded to break new ground in the arts at UH. We cultivate collaboration among the performing, visual and literary arts by inviting major visiting artists to develop new work with us. Then we present these visionary new works to the UH community and the public. While artists are in residence with the Mitchell Center, they interact with UH students and faculty in a variety of ways. By focusing on interdisciplinary collaboration, the Mitchell Center aims to open us to new ways of seeing and understanding the arts … and the world around us.

We are the product of a $20 million gift that was made to UH in 2003. Some of that gift formed a generous endowment for our programming. We work on innovative projects with our member departments at UH: the Schools of Art, Music, and Theatre and Dance, as well as the Creative Writing Program and the Blaffer Art Museum.

2. How can UH students get involved?

The most direct way to get involved is to take an interdisciplinary art class. IART is open to all majors, and is offered as a minor for undergraduates. Each course is offered to graduate students as well. One of our courses, collaboration among the arts, provides funding for small groups to create interdisciplinary art projects over the course of the semester. Our guest artists visit IART classes and connect with students throughout the semester. Of course, we hope all UH students will attend our events, most of which are offered free of charge. Visit our website at www.mitchellcenterforarts.org for upcoming events.

3. Is there a past event the center is particularly proud of hosting? One that was most memorable?

There are many: a talk entitled “Creativity and Collaboration” by the world-famous composer Philip Glass; a residency and culminating exhibition at Blaffer Art Museum by the conceptual art collective; The Center for Land Use Interpretation, titled “Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry”; our recent presentation of performing artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s amazing new performance work “red, black, and GREEN: a blues,” which was the product of his three year residency in Houston; the 2011 screening of films aboard a floating screen on the Tex Hex, a Mitchell Center-commissioned artist made boat, an event that was organized by our program director Bree Edwards.

4. What kind of events can students look forward to this spring?

On April 20 we will present “En Masse,” a grand spectacle at Discovery Green, featuring the UH Cougar marching band playing music we have commissioned for them by New York-based Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Roumain will perform on violin at the park as well. It will be like a deconstructed parade — completely surreal. The event lasts four hours and visitors can follow members of the band around the park throughout the day, and come and go as they please. Roumain is in residence with us, embedded with the band, for the next two years.

5. What message do you have for students who don’t know a lot about the center? Is there anything you’d like them to know?

Art is for everyone. The more experimental art is often easier to relate to, not harder. It is about the contemporary, the world right here in front of us. These are artists living among us and telling our stories. We are particularly committed to presenting artists of color and artists from other parts of the world, to keep UH engaged in a global conversation.

The Mitchell Center’s events are almost all free and open to everyone. Come as you are, with your friend, your dog, your little sister, anyone. In this day and age, we are all artists. We make films, take pictures and tell stories daily through our mobile devices. The Mitchell Center is dedicated to elevating the art of our time and continuing to show us how to connect with it as an essential part of becoming ever-more creative and forward-looking in our lives and careers.

With 12 to a table and three minutes to talk, students launched into discussions ranging from favorite TV shows to bad habits during GLOBAL’s speed dating event Thursday in Multipurpose Room 1 at the Calhoun Lofts.

“Every year on Valentine’s Day, we invite our members and other students on campus to participate in our speed dating event. It is meant for our members to get to know each other better and also for them to meet other UH students who are not affiliated with GLOBAL,” said Huy Truong, business junior and GLOBAL president.

“It is also our organization’s way of celebrating love since it’s even harder for us queer folks to find it.”

For those who had trouble getting a conversation started, there were four pages each containing 10 questions taped that were at every other chair.

A couple of questions that were included are, “What is the weirdest Valentine’s Day gift you’ve ever received,” and “What is one thing I should know about you?”

“I enjoyed the speed dating activity because it gave me an opportunity to get to know more about the new GLOBAL members,” said Dulce Alonzo, an interdisciplinary studies alumna.

Alonzo was introduced to GLOBAL five years ago by a close friend.

“At some point, I felt Global was like a second home because when I attended the meetings, I also got to see my close friends and catch up on what was going on in our lives.”

“It’s more like speed friending for me, though,” Alonzo said.

“It’s a fun way for the members to get to know each other,” said Miranda James, German sophomore and GLOBAL’s webmaster.

Most students agree and feel as though this is a more casual, friend-type event, where they end up with more friends instead of ending with a date.

“I had a blast at GLOBAL’s speed dating event and went in the hopes of meeting new people and expanding my social circle as well as having a fun time with friends,” said Ramon Marquez, a chemical engineering junior.

arts@thedailycougar.com

Associate professor Wendy Fok and Lucy Bullivant discussed her new book “Futures.”

Cities can no longer rely on master plans that simply copy other cities to deal with complex economic and natural problems, said internationally published author, critic and curator Lucy Bullivant in a lecture she gave Tuesday at the Gerald D. Hines college of Architecture.

Lucy Bullivant, an internationally published author, critic and curator, examined the evolution of urban cities through their master plans. She studied the benefits of progressive planning strategies including the ability to be custom designed. She also analyzed the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Moscow, the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin and several other plans that utilized the cities’ ecological foundations.

“Master planning is defined as a set of tools that bring about certain change,” Bullivant said. “It must respond to the cultural diversity across continents.”

She focused on whether humankind has the luxury to equalize the developed and developing worlds.

“New technology can really change the way we understand the city, but the idea of cloning cities isn’t going to solve the economical and natural problems,” Bullivant said. “The evolution of master planning isn’t about rigid blueprints anymore but instead integrating loose knit frameworks so agencies and frameworks can communicate better.”

Kevin Hai Pham, Architecture junior, was intrigued by Bullivant’s dialog between traditional master planning and the idea of adaptive planning.

“Instead of having plans meant for a singular urban condition, it becomes vital to think about relational urbanism and the role it has on urbanism,” Pham said. “We no longer have a singular tree of life, but a web of life where different elements of an increasingly globalized society are connected.”

Pham expressed his ideas on the advantages of master planning and its future in the contemporary society.

“I do think that master planning can ‘equalize’ the world from a socio-spatial perspective because adaptive planning brings the potential for formerly separated socio-cultural systems to exchange between different agents,” Pham said. “Master planning could create porosity in the walls of a previously separated hierarchical system.”

A recent graduate from the UH College of Architecture, Thomas Pham, said he was enlightened by Bullivant’s concern for the practice of urban design in this century.

“The lecture has taught me that the designing of the built environment is still relevant,” Thomas Pham said. “The breadth of material that her analysis covered is something that can only be remedied through the informed collective agency of citizens, urban planners and developers.”

Bullivant said the solution is not master planning, but a clear understanding of the ecological foundations of the world.

arts@thedailycougar.com