Papers from the 4th and 5th Balance-Unbalance International Conference, Part 1

The Balance-Unbalance (BunB) project aims to use art as a catalyst to explore intersections between nature, science, technology and society with the intent of engendering a deeper awareness and creating lasting intellectual working partnerships in solving our global environmental crisis.

The 4th Balance-Unbalance International Conference took place 21–29 March 2015 and was hosted by Arizona State University, in the United States, and the 5th Balance-Unbalance International Conference took place 9–11 May 2016 and was hosted by the University of Caldas in Manizales, Colombia. We are pleased to present this special section featuring selected papers from the 2015 and 2016 Balance-Unbalance Conference.

In this issue:

Ricardo Dal Farra: Balance-Unbalance: Transforming Paradigms (Art ↔ Environment)	176
Gabriel Lubell: Water Infrastructure and New Music as Agents of Environmental Awareness	178
Andrew Kruczkiewicz: Climate and Music, Beyond Sonification: Balance-Unbalance 2016	179
Michel van Dartel and Anne Nigten: The Value of Waste	181
Julián Jaramillo Arango: Esmog Data: Interpreting Air Quality Through Media Art and Design	183
Leah Barclay and Toby Gifford: The Art and Science of Recording the Environment	184
Fernando Carriazo and Jorge H García: Visualizations in Economics	185
Jaime del Val: Ontohacking: Onto-Ecological Politics in the Algoricene	187
Ignacio Nieto, Marcelo Velasco, Nelida Pohl and Graciela Muñoz: Water Issues in Chile: How Does a Dry River Sound?	189
Paz Tornero: Relationships between Art, Science and Epistemology: The Earth as a Laboratory and the "Intruder Artist"	191
Yolande Harris: Listening to the Ocean in the Desert	193
Damián Keller and Leonardo Feichas: Ecocompositional and Performative Strategies for Creative Usage of Everyday Sounds: Creative Semantic Anchoring	195
Ahmed Affan Adil: Could Human Development Be the Key to Environmental Sustainability?	197
Tiago Franklin Rodrigues Lucena, Ana Paula Machado Velho, Vinicius Durval Dorne and Diana Maria Gallicchio Domingues: The Drama of Dengue Fever: Civic-Oriented Journalists, Community and Artists Fighting Dengue	199