How Texas Wind Power Inspires Performance Art

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The stories of Texas’ wind farms are commonly told in terms of acres and megawatts. Artists Laura Zak and Kim Cypert, however, want to dig deeper into the cultural and social impacts of the state’s booming wind industry. Zak and Cypert are working on a performance art show incorporating insights from the digital wind energy oral history collection at Texas Tech University’s Special Collection Library, in Lubbock. The collection, which includes interviews with farmers, landowners, wind developers, municipal leaders and environmentalists, documents the experiences of those affected by wind energy development in Texas.

The stories of Texas’ wind farms are commonly told in terms of acres and megawatts. Artists Laura Zak and Kim Cypert, however, want to dig deeper into the cultural and social impacts of the state’s booming wind industry. Zak and Cypert are working on a performance art show incorporating insights from the digital wind energy oral history collection at Texas Tech University’s Special Collection Library, in Lubbock. The collection, which includes interviews with farmers, landowners, wind developers, municipal leaders and environmentalists, documents the experiences of those affected by wind energy development in Texas.

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Zak, a Lubbock native, is particularly interested in how the wind industry is changing the rural landscape, as cotton fields, yellow grasses and mesas give way to lattice, metal and wire. Zak and Cypert will be working on the performance art show as interns of Ogallala Commons, a nonprofit community development network dedicated to fostering socio-economic development in the Great Plains region.

For further information and photo: http://www.matternetwork.com/2011/11/texas-wind-power-inspires-performance.cfm