Designers of the Anthropocene- Our Joint Future [in:] Designers of the Anthropocene, Copernicus Science Centre 2015 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Earthing the Anthropos? From ‘socializing the Anthropocene’ to geologizing the social
European Journal of Social Theory, 2016
Responding to claims of Anthropocene geoscience that humans are now geological agents, social scientists are calling for renewed attention to the social, cultural, political and historical differentiation of the Anthropos. But does this leave critical social thought's own key concepts and categories unperturbed by the Anthropocene provocation to think through dynamic earth processes? Can we `socialise the Anthropocene' without also opening `the social' to climate, geology and earth system change? Revisiting the earth science behind the Anthropocene thesis and drawing on social research that is using climatology and earth systems thinking to help understand socio-historical change, we explore some of the possibilities for `geologising' social thought. While critical social thought's attention to justice and exclusion remains vital, we suggest that responding to Anthropocene conditions also calls for a kind of `geo-social' thinking that relates human diversity and social difference to the potentiality and multiplicity of the earth itself. Anthropocene, Holocene, earth science, geology, climate change, deep time, social difference, geo-social futures 'The Earth is one but the world is not' (1987: n.p.). So opens Our Common Future, the 1987 report of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development. Although ecological issues at the time had already begun to chafe against disciplinary boundaries, for that small minority of social scientists drawn to the environmental field, the Commission's premise most likely seemed unproblematic. The earth-whole, integrated, singular-was the domain of the natural sciences. Social worlds-multiple, divided, contested-were the realm of the social sciences. Thirty years later, things are more complicated. Social worlds are no less fractious, but something is shifting in the way the earth is understood. As stratigrapher and Anthropocene Working Group chair, Jan Zalasiewicz recently put it: '…the Earth seems to be less one planet, rather a number of different Earths that have succeeded each other in time, each with very different chemical, physical and biological states' (cited in Hamilton, 2014: 6). For most of the last two centuries, with some exceptions, social thought has not given serious attention to the earth sciences. While the social sciences and humanities have conversed productively with biology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, complexity studies and even mathematics, the geosciences seem to have offered less fertile ground for engagement (Clark, 2011: 7-11). One reason for this may be that our planet-as presented by the scientific disciplines specialising its study-has appeared to change so gradually that it can largely be taken for granted as the static backdrop of social existence. Perhaps more importantly, in its very obduracy the earth has generally signified inertia and stability-such that any association with social life has usually been taken to imply a 3 limitation or closure of the possibilities open to collective social action. These assumptions are now under serious revision. With a nod to Donna Haraway (1991: 152), it might be said that our earth now looks disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert. First came the threat of human-induced climate change-which soon developed to into the abrupt climate change thesis. Shortly afterwards, expanding on the notion of thresholds in global climate, came the idea of human-triggered transitions in the overall state of the earth system-the crux of the Anthropocene thesis. And in this way-through the proposition that humans have become geological agents-the Anthropocene thematic has drawn earth scientists into making substantive claims about the behavior, dynamics and trajectory of humankind: terrain that social thought has historically considered its own. Unsurprisingly, this move is attracting considerable interest from the social sciences and humanities. This reception of the Anthropocene already covers a broad spectrum, much of it endorsing the urgency and severity of the global environmental problems that physical scientists have been highlighting. There has also been a growing tendency, especially in the arts, architecture, literary studies and philosophy, to engage more speculatively with material generated by the earth sciences. Social scientists, on the other hand, have been more likely to cleave to a critical agenda, probing the political implications of Anthropocene science, particularly with regard to the way it constitutes `the human' or `the social'. Confronting the inclination of geoscientists to frame humanity as an undifferentiated whole, they have responded by affirming a vital role for critical social inquiry in interrogating the social, cultural and historical differences and the uneven power relations that divide the Anthropos
Umjetničko-znanstveni skup Land Art, Earth Art, Earthworks: z/Zemlja i antropocen / Art and Scientific Symposium "Land Art, Earth Art, Earthworks: e/Earth and the Anthropocene", 2019
GREEN PREFACE Art and Scientific Symposium “Land Art, Earth Art, Earthworks: e/Earth and the Anthropocene” The idea of the first art and scientific symposium to focus on land art projects in Croatian visual practice emerged from spontaneous discussions, direct action and considerations of a number of land art theorists and artists dealing with the phenomenon of land art over the last couple of decades. The fact is that in Croatia there is neither systematic theoretical elaboration, nor systematic monitoring and documentation of land art projects, nor monographs that would consolidate and analyze land art actions from the beginnings of this art practice to the present. Obviously, interest in this kind of art has been renewed recently and is constantly increasing, and the need to explore, present and indirectly historicize this segment of artistic action is evident. The idea of this art and scientific symposium is aimed at two key institutions: the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Also participating in the symposium’s organization are the Town of Ozalj and Jakovlje Mansion and Sculpture Park, as sites for land art execution and in-situ collaboration during the symposium, and the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb. Land art projects will also be executed by students from two key institutions, the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, and the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. “Land art, Earth Art, Earthworks: e/Earth and the Anthropocene” is the title of this project, but also a stimulating set of concepts and contents that open possibilities for reflection, extending from ancient geoglyphs, large figures made in the soil, all the way to recent art practices. The geoglyphs in Peru, also known as the Nazca Lines, are the best visible monument of the ancient Nazca civilization. These huge drawings in the soil depict figures or motifs consisting of geometric shapes, lines, and zoomorphic figures, such as spiders, pelicans, lizards, and hummingbirds, dating from between about 500 BC to 650 AD. Among the first to work on land art projects in these parts was the multimedia artist Vladimir Dodig Trokut. He executed them between 1968 and 1969, together with the Faction of the Red Peristyle Group, founded on February 10, 1968, a month after the Red Peristyle action/intervention. Fifty years later, through reflection at the theoretical level, through collection (documentation and archiving), as well as through land art performances at two sites (around Ozalj and around Jakovlje – on the doorstep of the capital, while along the lines of the green) – opens what we have called an INTRODUCTION to the large field of “Land Art, Earth Art, Earthworks: e/Earth and the Anthropocene.” The art and scientific symposium brings together participants who, from their own interpretive perspectives (visual arts, art history, landscape architecture, culturalanthropology, musical art, etc.), examine the correlation between the e/Earth, the Anthropocene and the art practices. Emphasis is placed on how local artists treat the natural environment—a non-urban space—as a land art (Earthworks) phenomenon, as well as on the ways in which land art has been critical of global phenomena, where we can say, to quote Ulrich Beck —one of the characteristics of globalization is also the global destruction of the environment. Unlike the land art concept of the 1960s, when the aforestated conceptual strategy was generated as an implementation of the dematerialization of the classical (or traditional) conception of artwork, as well as a negation of the principles of commercialization and institutionalization through museums and galleries; today, land art, as the art and performance of the Earth, must surely also comprise a critical dimension with regard to the aforementioned determinant of globalization, a phenomenon that also involves systematic environmental degradation. How pressing this topic has become is seen in recent events. Specifically, 2019 will be remembered as the year of catastrophic fires in the Amazon, often called the “Lungs of the World.” That largest rainforest in the world, about half the size of the United States, produces more than 20 percent of the world’s oxygen. As of August 29, 2019, more than 80,000 fires have been reported across Brazil, where 60 percent of the Amazon lies. As for local history, it is certain that this year will be remembered by the question, to quote journalist Nenad Jarić Dauenhauer, “what is behind the relentless logging of Croatian forests?” because of a worrisome illegal deforestation trend in Croatia. It suffices to visit Sljeme or Marjan or Zagreb’s Square of the Victims of Fascism, so let us paraphrase Hamlet’s observation, “Something is rotten...” In the sequel to the symposium that will follow in 2020, we believe that the aforementioned green art and artivist (art + activism) practices—from the very beginning of the New Art Practice to the present—will be both monographically documented and systematically theoretically elaborated. Assoc. Prof. Zvjezdana Jembrih, MFA Assist. Prof. Suzana Marjanić, PhD
Asking questions on the Anthropocene
What can we say about ecology? In its original sense, this buzzword, used on a daily basis by political leaders, economists, the media, and the leaders of the world's largest religious communities, has a double root. It refers both to the Greek oikos, or 'household' and to logos-a rather complex and open word with a vast array of meanings, ranging from study or doctrine to philosophically more abstract concepts such as 'sense' or even 'essence'. This hasty etymological survey suffices to raise a series of questions. What or whose household are we referring to? And can some sort of underlying logic or even essence of our household conceivably be defined? Are there any universal principles or regulations that can be detected? And, to take it a step further: how should we cope with the fact that, while oiko-logia and oiko-nomia share the same original root, today's ecologists and economists often seem to regard one another as antagonists? What does it mean 'to be human' in an era marked by the effects of unbridled consumerism and anthropogenic climate change? foreword asking questions as a means to (re)connect the dots of scholarship Karim Schelkens an interschool symposium asking questions about asking questions 8 9 Prior to the symposium, which was held in June 2022, all contributors were asked to reflect, not just on the general theme of ' Asking Questions', but on how this could be connected with one of the most pressing needs of our era. Without much hesitation, the contributors engaged in an exercise in reflexivity on our common horizon of epochal transition, marked by drastic changes in climate, culture and geology, and our festive occasion became more than a mere leisurely activity. Questioning 'science-as-usual' turned out to be an urgent necessity. In his recent essay collection, Verschuivingen or 'Shifts', the novelist, poet and philosopher Stefan Hertmans depicts our world as a place marked by shifting grounds. 2 Geographically so, as landscapes are literally changing, but also on the levels of political discourse and media communication, and in the fields of law, philosophy, and religion. What we are facing is a profound reconfiguration of our worldviews, which have been human-centered for centuries. Rethinking these not just means reconsidering habits and customs, but reassessing the horizon against which we act, think, speak and believe, and our own role. This demands courage, and the wisdom, as Sophocles already indicated, to combine the old and the new. New models, skills and technologies are needed, but blindly rejecting values and insights of the past is not an option either. 2 S. Hertmans, Verschuivingen, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2022. Clearly, there is no shortage of questions, and this foreword cannot aspire to provide full-fledged answers. More relevantly, it wishes to point out that this multitude of question marks is consistent with the attitude of curiosity that lies at the very heart of scholarship and intellectual debate. Underneath today's scattered academia, marked by hyper-diverse research cells, international rankings, impact factors and micro-credentials, pressure on outreach, trainings in skills and practices … curiosity is what still connects researchers. 1 Even if this interconnectedness is facing ever greater obstacles, it is rediscovered and nurtured time and again. In our age, currents such as Team Science reconnect us with the age-old tradition of arguing and questioning in an atmosphere of dialogue and exchange across disciplinary boundaries. In this sense, the old medieval notion of the university as an 'integral' center of learning, connecting the universitas scientiarium, may still inspire us. This reference to the ancient roots of scientific endeavor is not made randomly, of course. The current book is part of the celebrations marking the fifteenth anniversary of Tilburg's School of Catholic Theology, which, as the reader will discover in the last contribution to this volume, is our University's youngest and oldest school. In the preparations for this event, during which we had the assistance of Professor Bart Koet, we decided not to celebrate the anniversary on our own. Instead, we chose to organize an interschool symposium on 'asking questions', and to invite scholars from all Schools for a common reflection. The aim of our anniversary committee (consisting, beside the editors of this volume, of Quirien Hagens MA, Dr. Sam Goyvaerts and Dr. Stefan Gärtner) was to build bridges and to (re)connect the dots between the various islands in the academic archipelago. Initially, we had not planned to publish anything, but precisely the atmosphere of open exchange among a panel of scientists, led by Dr. Roshnee Ossewaarde, spontaneously inspired us to introduce this event to a wider forum as a form of academic best practice, at a time when Tilburg University seeks to promote interdisciplinarity and interschool collaboration. 1 Cf. W. Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, New York: Free Press, 2014. an interschool symposium asking questions about asking questions 10 11 In presenting this book, and mindful of everyone who helped prepare our fifteenth anniversary, Tilburg's School of Catholic Theology wishes to offer the University a gift as a sign of the importance of building bridges, in society, in academia, and in faith communities. The latter point brings me back to the Greek etymological roots. Like oiko-logia and oiko-nomia, the word 'Catholicity' is not, as is often thought, a closed and static term. Catholicity similarly involves the work-in-progress of combining unity and diversity, in ever new contexts. The novelist Hertmans has understood the inclusiveness this requires, as he writes that 'nowadays, a different kata holos has emerged: that of all the inhabitants of the earth, united by the great extinction that threatens us, the crisis of an entire planet'. If the era of the Anthropocene calls for a new response, it may precisely be such a holistic take on things, in the knowledge that the open space created by those who dare to ask questions is, to quote the philosopher Ernst Bloch, part and parcel of a cultural praxis of hope.
The Earth Sciences and Creative Practice: Entering the Anthropocene
The Anthropocene is being suggested as a new geological age replacing the Holocene and is a description of a time interval where significant conditions and processes are profoundly altered by human activity. Artists interested in the earth sciences are using digital media to provide audiences with ways of understanding the issues highlighted in discussions about the Anthropocene. These artists are harnessing data through visualisation and sonification, facilitating audience participation, and are often working in art-science collaborations. These activities demonstrate a transdisciplinary approach that is necessary for confronting the world's most pressing problems, such as climate change. After a discussion of the opportunities provided by visualisation technologies and an overview of the Anthropocene, this chapter explores the following interrelated themes through examples of creative works: (1) nanoscale, (2) geology and deep time, (3) climate, weather, and the atmosphere, (4) extreme places – beyond wilderness, and (5) curatorial practice as environmental care.
of the Anthropocene NODE: «ART MATTERS»
2015
The hypothesis of the Anthropocene signals human activity, particularly the social, political and economic sphere, as the new biogeophysical force whose impact allows the scientific community to speak about a new era in the geological time-scale. The assertion of the abandonment of the Holocene implies not only access to a new physical, but also a cultural space that has not yet been experienced. However, while contributions from the field of natural sciences to the analysis of the phenomenon have been significant, literature generated from the Humanities and Social Sciences shows that much work remains to be done. In this current scenario where increased global connectivity operates as the ground for interconnected large-scale risks and shocks, we are compelled to take into account transversal thinking across different ideas, meanings and fields that can help understanding the social, the economic and the political relations at stake. Drawing from recent investigations from the fie...
Anthropos-Anthropotechnics-Anthropocene Encounter between Peter Sloterdijk and Bernard Stiegler at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 27-28 June 2016. On the 27th and 28th of June 2016, the Radboud University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands) will organize, in cooperation with the Nootechnics Collective, an encounter between German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk and French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. This two-day encounter will consist of a public debate between these two thinkers, to be held in De Vereeniging in the city of Nijmegen during the evening of Monday the 27th of June, flanked by two expert seminars, one on Monday the 27th in the morning and the afternoon and one on Tuesday the 28th, also morning and afternoon, on the campus of the Radboud University (in these two seminars, some time will also be reserved for interventions from students of the Faculty ofPhilosophy, Theology and Religious Studies as well as master students who have followed an honours course on the work of both thinkers especially related to the theme of the encounter). The title of the encounter is ‘Anthropos-Anthropotechnics-Anthropocene’ and this means that it will be thematically devoted to the relation between humanity, technolog yand ecology in the work of both Sloterdijk and Stiegler and more specifically to an exploration of the changing relations between the human and technology within the emerging context of the anthropocene – i.e., the new geological epoch proposed recently by geologists and earth systems scientists in which ‘the human’ has supposedly become the most important geological (f)actor. The emergence of the anthropocene as an event of a truly anthropological magnitude, possibly representing the first genuine anthropological crisis and signaling the necessity of humanity to become fully mature and assume responsibility for its own fragile oikos, thereby establishing an ethical imperative with an absolute and universal appeal, as Sloterdijk claimed in You must change your life. As he wrote in a recent essay: ‘The coining of the term “Anthropocene” thus inevitably obeys an apocalyptic logic: it indicates the end of any peace of mind in the cosmos, on which historical forms of human being-in-the-world rested’. Stiegler also stresses the gravity of the ‘anthropocenic event’ (Bonneuil & Fressoz) and considers it to represent ‘a state of extreme urgency’. He points toward the duty of philosophy to live up to the urgency and gravity of this event by trying to think it and propose a strategy for exiting or overcoming the anthropocene and inaugurate what he calls the ‘neganthropocene’, which would consist in a global organological revolution. As he wrote in a recent lecture on the anthropocene given in 2014 in Canterbury: ‘The singularity of the Anthropocene as an organological epoch lies in the fact it has generated the organological question […] bringing with it something new: its negative protention and the necessity of overcoming itself’. Given the many remarkable parallels but also salient divergences in their respective, i.e., ‘sphero-immunological’ and ‘pharmaco-organological’ philosophical conceptualizations of the anthropos, its technogenic evolution and thoroughly technical condition as well as their estimations of our current global ecological predicament, we believe this encounter will most surely provoke many interesting and urgent philosophical questions and can provide crucial insights for the new self-understanding of the anthropos and its totally novel anthropotechnic situation emerging from the context of the anthropocene and thus for the question of how to deal, technologically but also culturally and politically, with our current situation and future destiny in view of the emerging anthropocenic condition.
Challenges of the Anthropocene - Between Critique and Creation
The Anthropocene refers to the geological epoch where human activities have turned into a geological factor. The paper discusses some of the questions that emerge with this concept, related, especially, to antireductionism, transdisciplinarity and the modern notion of freedom. An important dimension is the eco-philosophical critique of modern knowledge systems and what is seen as exploitative and dominating forms of knowledge. In this literature, capitalist expansion, colonization and fossil fuel consumption are seen as historically connected and supported by scientific forms of rationality that have proven to be harmful. While sharing many of these eco-philosophical concerns, I argue that the sciences may still harbour the resources necessary to recreate themselves in response to contemporary challenges. One example is Terrence Deacon’s autogenic theory of life, where the relationship between life and non-life is seen as continuous and historical, not abstract and metaphysical. The notion of Anthropocene has also inspired many artists who work, sometimes together with scientists, at creating new forms and significations. Taking this as an opening for greater social transformations, the paper discusses how the Anthropocene can become part of a social movement while maintaining creativity, complexity and commitment to reason.
L. Valera and J. C. Castilla (eds.), Global Changes, Ethics of Science and Technology, 2020
The Anthropocene-term proposed by the scientific community for the current geological epoch to signal humans as a leading geological force in earth history-has open intense debates across the sciences and humanities, in that the traditional gap between natural and social phenomena, occurring respectively at slow and fast temporal rates, have been questioned. Despite the enthusiasm, an irre-solvable conceptual limitation marks the term. Irrespective of the very heterogene-ity-human and other-than-human-that is currently at risk in this new epoch, the term often refers to a universal male human, sitting above nature. Humans are to be found simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, which risks diluting environmental responsiveness. This global dilemma resonates with the epistemic distance on which knowledge of the Anthropocene is constituted, which requires achieving a cosmic view on earth at the expense of ecological intimacy. Such cosmic view resonates, in turn, with the place the built environment affords humans, as ex-habitants of the earth. Yet, life-human or any other-is not lived on the exterior of a globe but in the Earth, nurtured by sensory attunements to the material transformations of an environment in constant becoming. Acknowledging the immanence of life, this chapter argues, requires a redefinition of what it means to be human. It is through this immanence that environmental responsiveness remains possible in a world in crisis. The chapter concludes by distinguishing responsibility from responsivity, two contrasting modes of engaging with environmental change, defined respectively as a retrospective act resulting from the achievement of epistemic distance and a forward-looking capacity related to knowing intimately the ongoing transformations of the environment.
British and American Studies, 2022
In official geologic terms, our age is known as the Holocene, but, unofficially, the term Anthropocene is more and more frequently used to refer to the recent centuries and decades, in which the human impact on the planet, its climate and ecosystems, has had visible and irreversible effects. Ironically, the rise of rationalism, the triumph of science and the advances in technology have been responsible both for progress, improving living standards and enlightenment, and also for the confirmation of the destructive power of the human species. Reacting against the effects of industrialization and urbanization, the Romantic poets and artists were, in many ways, the first environmentalists. Their nostalgia for a preindustrial world, for the natural rhythms of life and work, their belief in the protection and love God offers all creatures, animals, and plants, all follow intuitively the principles much more recently outlined by eco-ethics. The book edited by Carmen Concilio and Daniela Fargione, academics at the University of Turin, Italy, in the Environmental Studies series of Lexington Books goes beyond the abstract purposes of literary criticism and theory, in a successful attempt to draw the readers' attention to important and urgent contemporary concerns. As philosopher and cultural critic Santiago Zabala argues in the Foreword, the relevance of this volume lies in its powerful evocation of an emergency which most of us do not confront directly. But the absence of urgency doesn't make silent emergencies any less serious. If in 2020 the pandemic grabbed us all, more or less symbolically, by the lapels, after it had been an ignored emergency for years, the same can be said about the environmental crisis humanity is facing at the beginning of the third millennium. At the same time, the value of this book consists in its capacity to demonstrate that, while science follows its own path, often inexorably, literatures and arts are more capable of raising public awareness, because of the emotional hold they have on the public. If scientists can barely make their warning reach our ears, written stories, poems, photographs and music will hopefully reach our hearts. In Santiago Zabala's words, "while science seeks to rescue us from emergencies by improving and preserving knowledge, the arts rescue us into emergencies, calling for our intervention, as this book does."