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Special Section
Lovely Weather Artists and Scientists on the Cultural Context of Climate Change
Editorial Committee: Julien Knebusch, Ramon Guardans, Annick Bureaud, John Cunningham, Andrea Polli, Janine Anderson, Jacques Mandelbrojt
Call for Papers
Leonardo seeks to document the ways in which artists and scientists are addressing climate change in a cul- tural context. As contemporary culture grapples with this critical global issue, this 3-year project will docu- ment cross-disciplinary explorations by artists, scientists and engineers, working alone or in teams, addressing themes related to global warming and climate change.
Partial list of Leonardo articles and projects concerned with global warming, climate change and related issues:
George Gessert, "Gathered from Coinci- Andrea Polli, "Atmospherics/Weather Janine Randerson, "Between Reason and dence: Reflections on Art in a Time of Works: A Spatialized Meteorological Data Sensation: Antipodean Artists and Cli- Global Warming," Leonardo 40, No. 3, 231-- Sonification Project," Leonardo 38, No. 1, mate Change," Leonardo 40, No. 5 (2007). 236 (2007). 31--36 (2005). Ruth Wallen, "Of Story and Place: Com- Julien Knebusch, "Art & Climate Change," Andrea Polli, "Heat and the Heartbeat of the municating Ecological Principles through Web project of the French Leonardo City: Sonifying Data Describing Climate Art," Leonardo 36, No. 3, 179--185 (2003). group Leonardo/Olats (l'Observatoire Change," Leonardo Music Journal 16 (2006) Leonardo pour les Arts et les Techno- pp. 44--45. Angelo Stagno and Andrea van der Sciences),
We welcome manuscripts and Gallery proposals. Please send inquiries to
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EXTENDEDSection ATitleBSTRACT
ART AND CLIMATE CHANGE ART AND CLIMATE O-24 LICHT: A PROJECT COMBINING ART AND APPLIED RESEARCH
Angelo Stagno, Kaiserstr. 32/25, A-1070 Vienna, Austria. E-mail:
Due to climatic and economic changes resulting from post-capitalist globaliza- tion, the exploration of new forms of energy beyond conventional fossil fuels such as petroleum, coal and gas is gain- ing importance. There is a concurrent movement in architecture to develop more sustainable building materials. To date, however, efforts to implement both alternative energy sources and building materials in construction plans have been possible only in very limited ways. The project 0-24 Licht, by the archi- tect-and-artist duo stagno/van der straeten, evolved from a concept devel- oped by Angelo Stagno in 1999 for a high-rise building in Vienna [1]. The proposed structure, in addition to incorporating alternative building materials, envisioned new infrastruc- tural technologies, including methods of transporting light. A competition calling for an art installation for Vienna’s new Haus der Forschung (House of Scientific Research) offered us the chance to realize part of Stagno’s proposed infrastructure (Fig. 1). “Why are the cables hanging down from the ceiling? Are they live? Isn’t the Fig. 1. stagno/van der straeten, 0-24 Licht, installation at Haus der Forschung, Vienna, building finished yet?” These are ques- Austria. (© stagno/van der straeten) Sidewalk view of Haus der Forschung, with 0-24 Licht components visible on the roof. tions asked by visitors when they first view the 0-24 Licht installation in Haus der Forschung (Fig. 2). If at first glance light is fed into fiber optic cables that Fiber optic cables have (as yet) no the installation appears careless and bring the sunlight into the interior of storage ability. However, should haphazard, closer examination reveals the building (Color Plate D). The sun- research succeed in creating better, it to be both extremely precise and light emerging from the cables hanging farther-reaching fiber optic cables and highly innovative. from the foyer ceiling can actually be ways of storing this “captured” light— 0-24 Licht transforms solar energy seen and touched. It is a cold light. as the latest developments appear to through the direct conduction of sun- The transmission by cable of light from indicate—the project could well be light rather than through traditional the roof occurs instantaneously; if a adapted to incorporate these techno- photovoltaic systems. A heliostat cloud passes in front of the sun, the logical advances. installed on the roof of Haus der light from the cables immediately weak- The installation’s innovative method Forschung captures natural light and ens. Even in the case of diffuse light, of sunlight transport relies on a new transmits it via systems in place over the however, the luminescence emerging combination of existing infrastructure entrance to the building, by which the from the cables is still perceptible. system components that have been
440 LEONARDO, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 440–441, 2007 ©2007 ISAST
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Fig. 2. stagno/van der straeten, 0-24 Licht, installation at Haus der Forschung, Vienna, Austria. (© stagno/van der straeten) Fiber optic cables hanging from the ceiling of the Haus der Forschung lobby.
applied only recently. The Austrian cally into the building in a discreet and References and Notes lighting company Bartenbach LichtLa- efficient way. 1. See Angelo Stagno “Torre del vento in Vienna,” bor has been working on methods of As the first known application of L’ARCA, The International Magazine for Architecture, De- conducting sunlight and prismatically sunlight transport using this combina- sign and Visual Communication, No. 215, 38–41 ( June 2006), and Angelo Stagno, “Il vento, la torre (Wind refracting it for potential illumination tion of technical components, 0-24 Tower),” L’ARCA PLUS, No. 50, 12–15 (September and utilization of large spaces; the Licht in its current incarnation remains 2006). Swedish company Parans Daylight AB a prototype system with all the conse- 2. 0-24 Licht came to fruition thanks to the enthusi- makes Skyport systems that supply fiber quent costs and risks, both technical asm and cooperation of all the partners concerned: optic cables with sunlight. 0-24 Licht and financial [2]. 0-24 Licht now BIGart & Architektur, who initiated the competition and funded the project; the architect-and-artist duo combines these systems with a sensor- requires further research and experi- stagno/van der straeten for the idea, concept and controlled heliostat system, made by mentation to extend the economic design of the installation; and Bartenbach LichtLa- SMS-Solar of Switzerland, that makes possibilities of any future applications. bor, Tyrolia for the engineering and for seeking out and coordinating the international partner firms it possible to channel the light across a It is not inconceivable that in the future who worked on the project: Parans Daylight AB, the distance of 25 meters from sunrise to this use of light energy, thanks to new Swedish supplier of the fiber optic cables and light- sunset with constant intensity (barring materials and techniques, will become feeding systems and SMS-Solar of Switzerland, which supplied the heliostat equipment installed on the any cloudiness) through cables into an innovative, revolutionary element of roof. the interior of the building; the system infrastructure in buildings and public works autonomically and blends techni- spaces.
Stagno and van der Straeten, 0-24 Licht 441
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ARTIST’S ARTICLE Between Reason and Sensation: Antipodean Artists and
Climate Change ABSTRACT CHANGE ART AND CLIMATE
The author, drawing on her experience as a New Zealand artist who has collaborated Janine Randerson with meteorologists, suggests that artists may enter climate change discourse by translating (or mis-translating) scientific method into sensory affect. She examines three recent art projects from Australasia that draw on natural phenomena: he current proliferation of voices on climate nation [2]. If the current trend of her own Anemocinegraph T (2006–2007), Nola Farman’s change places under scrutiny the relationship between human high greenhouse gas emissions con- beings, techno-science and “nature.” Drawing on my experi- tinues, by the year 2100 we can ex- working prototype The Ice Tower (1998) and Out-of-Sync’s ongo- ence as a New Zealand artist who has collaborated with mete- pect a 40- or 50-centimeter rise in ing on-line project, Talking about orologists, I suggest that artists may enter climate change sea level and a loss of an estimated the Weather. The author cites discourse by translating (or mis-translating) seemingly objec- 13 meters of our coastline due to Herbert Marcuse’s 1972 essay tive scientific methods and technologies for reading natural the melting sea ice and expanding “Nature and Revolution,” which argues that sensation is the phenomena into sensory affect. This article examines three waters of the warming ocean [3]. process that binds us materially recent projects from the Antipodes: my work, Anemocinegraph New Zealand’s peripheral geo- and socially to the world. (2006–2007) (Article Frontispiece), Nola Farman’s The Ice graphical and cultural status as a Tower (1998) and Out-of-Sync’s on-line project Talking about small Southern nation has in the the Weather (2006–ongoing). A comparison is made between past allowed us to feel buffered these works and a community art project on global warming against the polluting excesses of the North. Indeed, our tem- published in the Southern Polynesian on-line magazine Small peratures are rising more slowly than those of the high North- Islands Voice. The artists’ strategies include the construction of ern latitudes, but there is still scientific agreement with pseudo-scientific instruments and poetic mis-readings or re- “moderate certainty” that the east coast of New Zealand will versals of scientific methodologies. Although the works en- become hotter and drier, while the west coast will see increas- gage with logocentric scientific practices, their analogical ing westerly winds, frequent heavy rainfall, flooding and a interpretations of data have the potential to destabilize the higher risk of subtropical cyclones [4]. A New Zealand clima- classical reason/emotion binaries of Western thought [1]. The tologist recently called climate change research a “trans- Western dualism that separates art into the realm of the sen- disciplinary” [5] science, as it has ramifications for the econ- sual and science into the rational sphere has historically de- omy, politics, social relationships and ethics. Bruno Latour nied artists the possibility of logically apprehending scientific also warns that we must (in the manner of an anthropologist) information. However, the artworks discussed here operate in “take laws, power and morality into account in order to un- a discursive space between reason and sensation and nature derstand what our sciences are telling us about the chemistry and culture, where each may alter the other. of the upper atmosphere” [6]. The question of how one can Although our popular media feeds on the threat of global mitigate radical environmental change and process its ac- warming, New Zealanders have been complacent about tak- companying rhetoric emerges across these diverse areas, in- ing action to reduce carbon emissions to slow the concentrated cluding art practice. build-up of greenhouse gases. Our high energy consumption, Given this context, I was drawn to the fusion of critical the- greenhouse gas emissions (which are actually increasing) and ory and radical politics expressed in philosopher Herbert Mar- the government’s incoherent policy framework for managing cuse’s 1972 essay “Nature and Revolution.” A return to the climate change undermine our “clean green” environmental discourse of Marcuse might seem anachronistic; his persona image. Despite a history of mainstream dismissal of ecological and work are often evoked as symbols of the utopian radical- concerns as dispensable sentiment, now even conservative ism of the 1960s and 1970s. Marcuse goes further than other politicians are paying lip service to the issue of climate change; Frankfurt school philosophers with his emphasis on “the suddenly it is a real economic threat to a farming-dependent radical transformation” of our relationship to nature as “an in- tegral part of the radical transformation of society” [7]. Post- Janine Randerson (artist, educator), School of Art and Design, Unitec, Carrington modernist discourse has often been politically neutral, whereas Road, Mt. Albert, Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail:
©2007 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 442–448, 2007 443
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technologies. The idea that art can be an face observation of eddies and in the period of my residency. The weather data agent for social interaction, rather than animation of satellite imagery I wanted was captured by an eddy logger, turned existing in a self-referential space, has to create a mediated encounter with into a wave form with the software Mat- contemporary resonance. In addition, to the “effervescence” of atmospheric phe- Lab and exported as an audio file to be take a Marcusian perspective on con- nomena. used in the sound composition for Ane- temporary digital culture is to be aware The issue of climate change emerged mocinegraph. of technology’s potential for fostering through my research on intimate-scale As well as examining current scientific
ART AND CLIMATE CHANGE ART AND CLIMATE both progressive social change and, con- weather fluctuations. David Campbell practices in meteorological instrumen- versely, more streamlined forms of social at the Earth and Ocean Sciences De- tation, I researched the historical devel- control. When Marcuse refers to a “per- partment at the University of Waikato opment of meteorology, with a focus on manent revolution,” he does not mean a introduced me to the science of micro- the period in which the goals of artists quest for paradise, but more simply, “a meteorology. He invited me to a weather and scientists were closely linked. In the more joyful struggle with the inexorable station research project he was supervis- 19th century, natural philosophers could resistance of society and nature” [8]. ing for his student Susanne Rutledge be artists or scientists, as both carried out While there is (quite rightly) little place (Fig. 1). The project monitors carbon similar empirical investigations into the in postmodern thought for grand claims emissions from soil respiration in an area phenomena of the natural world. Louis of emancipation through art, or even any mined for peat in Torehape on the cen- Daguerre’s astrophotography [13] and pure separation between nature and cul- tral North Island of New Zealand. Ac- the painter J.M.W. Turner’s studies of at- ture, there are emerging areas of art prac- cording to Rutledge’s research for her mosphere were of interest to their con- tice that generate “micro-utopias, and doctoral proposal, soil respiration is the temporaries from both art and science interstices” within the social corpus, to main pathway for carbon moving from disciplines as means of “getting to know” borrow art theorist Nicholas Bourriaud’s the ecosystem back into the atmosphere. the world. In a book on the development terms [9]. In recent years the eddy covariance tech- of meteorological instruments, I found a nique has emerged as an alternative way description of an eccentric instrument to assess carbon exchange between the called the anemo-cinégraph, developed by ANEMOCINEGRAPH atmosphere and the land surface [12]. Richard Frères in the late 19th century, While on an artist’s residency in 2006 at Natural peatlands are an important sink “which makes it possible to record the in-
the University of Waikato in the central for carbon dioxide (CO2), but peatlands stantaneous speed of the wind” [14]. The North Island of New Zealand, I began to that are drained, harvested and finally installation that developed from the res- investigate technologically mediated nat- abandoned are often found to be a per- idency imagined this undocumented in-
ural phenomena through macro-scale sistent emitter of CO2. Measurements at strument as somewhere between an images from satellites and the more inti- Torehape’s solar-powered weather sta- anemometer for monitoring wind data mate scale of surface weather observa- tion are made with a sonic anemometer and a connecting vehicle between sen- tions. I was interested in scientific data and an open path gas analyzer; these two sory experience and technologically me- collection via the “top down” remote per- instruments combine to measure the diated nature.
spective from space and the terrestrial heat flux and CO2 flux as a measure of In addition to responding to the sci- process of surface recording. As Lisa soil respiration. Campbell provided me entific data about the physical world Parks suggests, satellite discourse, origi- with audio data from this site during the from Torehape and from Landcare Re- nally reserved for scientific, military and corporate information, has now been opened to a wider range of “social, cul- Fig. 1. Susanne Rutledge at Torehape weather station, New Zealand, 2006. (Photo © Janine tural, artistic and activist practices” [10], Randerson) Earth scientists Susanne Rutledge and David Campbell provided the data that partly through Internet access to this became the soundtrack for Anemocinegraph. This is their “Wild West”–style solar-powered data. My study examined the perceptual micro-meteorology station, which records carbon emissions in an area mined for peat at Torehape on the central North Island of New Zealand. narratives created by using these instru- ments to augment the senses and how scientific forms of data collection may be married to unaided, empirical observa- tions of meteorological phenomena. The project involved collecting from the Landcare ResearchNZ database images from Satellites NOAA-17 and NOAA-18 on their southern orbits. At the opposing end of the scale I collected video obser- vations of surface “eddies,” small diver- gences in flow that cause a current to double back on itself in water or air, from my local environment. In a chapter of his recent book Eco Media (2005), Sean Cubitt pulls apart the historical idea that nature is “Other” without a signifying function. He suggests that, in fact, the world does nothing but signify. He writes, “To be a world is to effervesce with an excess of signification” [11]. In the sur-
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cient view but rather in a series of view- ing positions that move between prox- imity and distance. This idea parallels Marcuse’s writing on embodied subjec- tivity, which undermines the notion that reason and the senses can be separated.
NOLA FARMAN’S THE ICE CHANGE ART AND CLIMATE TOWER PROTOTYPE Whereas I used an early anemometer as a starting point for Anemocinegraph, Aus- tralian artist Nola Farman employed the functional aesthetic of a scientific appa- ratus to create a pseudo-measuring in- strument in her project The Ice Tower (Fig. 3). In 1997 Farman and oceanographer John Bye received a grant from the Aus- tralia Council and Flinders University in Adelaide to construct a fully functioning prototype for a kinetic tidal fountain. They designed this instrument to re- spond to the movement of the tides Fig. 2. Janine Randerson, detail of Anemocinegraph, installed at University of Waikato, 2006. around subantarctic Macquarie Island, (© Janine Randerson) Remote meteorological patterns and micro-scale surface observations of weather are projected onto the hemispherical screens. in the Southern Ocean. The idea for The Ice Tower emerged as the overwhelming weight of evidence to support global searchNZ, I wanted to create a space of ception, so there was something trans- warming became public in the late 1990s encounter for the aural and visual senses gressive for me about fusing these [16]. The work consists of a central clear outside of the Cartesian grid of the tele- observation systems together. The sus- glass tube in which water rises and falls. vised meteorological image. The result- pension of the screens allows the viewer At spring tide the water flows over the top ing installation includes projections of to circumnavigate the anamorphic im- of the tube and forms an icecap. Farman slow-moving animated satellite images age. I was not interested in one omnis- based the proportions of the main stain- onto round perspex screens, tracing the synoptic scale weather shifts of every 4 hours of each day that I spent in the Waikato. The soundbed for the audio track is based on micro-meteorological Fig. 3. Nola Farman, wind data from Torehape and live surface The Ice Tower, proto- sounds of weather collected from sites in type made of steel, aluminum, plastic tube, the Waikato, edited into an abstract com- ice, refrigeration position by sound artist Jason Johnston. system and electronic The hemispherical screen shapes sensors, 1998. (© Nola in Anemocinegraph (Fig. 2) imagine the Farman. Photo © Anna semiotician Yuri Lotman’s concept of Gibbs.) Farman collab- orated with scientist the “semiosphere.” Lotman writes, “The John Bye while on a semiosphere is the result and the condi- residency at Flinders tion for the development of culture; we University in Adelaide justify our term by analogy with the bio- to construct a fully functioning prototype sphere” [15]. The semiosphere contains for a kinetic tidal foun- overlapping clusters of semiotic spaces tain. This instrument that operate as interconnected forms of was designed to communication, just as the biosphere has respond to the move- interrelated parts that provide the con- ment of the tides around subantarctic ditions for the continuation of life. The Macquarie Island in five smaller screens are empirical video the Southern Ocean. documents of surface observations of eddies in clouds, water and air; the pro- jected images on these smaller spheres overlap at their peripheries as images dissolve from one screen to the next (Color Plate A). The unaided eye or ear is often considered an unreliable, sub- jective source of data when compared to augmented visual or auditory per-
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less steel stem of the tower, including the the aesthetic of the sublime, are fre- cols, Out-of-Sync works outside these top, on the Fibonacci scale, in reference quently invoked to describe art that institutions by entering the community to the system of mathematical measure- responds to natural phenomena. Talk- to ask passersby to participate in their ment that is also evident in many natural ing about the Weather aims to poetically social project. In Relational Aesthetics, systems. Initially Bye was a scientific ad- demonstrate the “widespread effect we Bourriaud identifies modes of art prac- visor on the project, but he quickly be- unwittingly have every day on the planet, tice that employ social interaction as an came a collaborator with input into the by collecting breath, both metaphorically aesthetic arena. He articulates a more
ART AND CLIMATE CHANGE ART AND CLIMATE science, electronics and facilitation of the via a written blog and by personal en- self-reflexive, less radically inflected re- project. He formed the connection with counters with people on the streets” [24] turn to the political and social engage- the Australian Tidal Measurement group, (Fig. 4). ment advocated by Marcuse [26]. While who agreed to provide the flow of tidal On the Out-of-Sync blog, participants critic Julian Stallabrass warns that the data via remote satellite. The Ice Tower has can enter a description of their breath trend for participatory art projects may scientific application, but it also drama- and contribute to the “world’s largest risk dismissal as merely gestural responses tizes a natural occurrence in a way that breath collection” [25] to metaphorically to political issues [27], Out-of-Sync’s vox could be described as “parafunctional,” counter the effect of the carbon we re- populi method of breath collection, as or existing without specific rationale, in spire into the biosphere. The artists also well as its use of a blog, sidesteps con- Anthony Dunne’s [17] sense. collect the sound of breath by asking peo- ventional art world structures to allow David Cranswick observes that many of ple on the street to breathe into a mi- genuine community participation. In Farman’s environmental sculptures refer crophone. Their recent installation at Marcusian terms, a “radical sensibility” to “the irrepressible quality of water and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in Taranaki [28] appears to shape this project. This the process of change” [18]. As silent wit- included chemist’s phials of captured mode “stresses the active, constitutive ness to what Marcuse terms “the impen- breath, plinth boxes of breath (report- role of the senses in shaping reason.” For etrable resistance of matter” [19], the edly) and installed wall speakers that Marcuse, “the senses are not merely pas- tower records the inexorable rise of played the sound of breath from their sive, receptive; they have their own ‘syn- the sea level regardless of human inter- Taranaki street encounters with locals theses’ to which they subject the primary vention. According to Farman, her work (Fig. 5). The accompanying wall texts data of experience” [29]. To ask partici- “represents an opportunity to bring to contained descriptions of collected pants to donate their breath to combat the public an idea of the relationship of breath printed out from their blog. The climate change is illogical, yet the visceral science to everyday life. Art becomes a artists offer the reassurance that the experience of breathing allows a “mo- particular tool in the dynamic represen- stored breath will eventually be used to ment of sociability” [30], which creates a tation of this idea” [20]. In her work she “blow back” global warming, a proposi- connection with the atmosphere that sus- provides a space for nature as a subject, tion no less far-fetched than some more tains us. a performer rather than a detached object scientific ideas for carbon emission re- of study. The anxiety-producing overflow duction. of water and the “cold” sensation of the Terrified by a lack of policy initiative THE SMALL ISLANDS VOICE frozen cap suggest fears of a changing cli- to reduce carbon emission levels despite WEB SITE mate, countering the impassivity of a con- the pledge of the New Zealand and Aus- Another example of an on-line, practical ventional scientific measuring tool. tralian governments to the Kyoto proto- community intervention is an art com-
OUT-OF-SYNC’S TALKING Fig. 4. Out-of-Sync, Talking about the Weather, installation at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Taranaki, New Zealand, 2006 (© Out-of-Sync. Photo © Bryan James, Govett-Brewster Art ABOUT THE WEATHER Gallery.) The installation included chemist’s phials of captured human breath, empty plinth To express a scientific concept in the lan- boxes of breath and installed wall speakers that played the sound of breath collected from guage of art can allow for an alternative street encounters (see Fig. 5). The breath collection will be used to metaphorically “blow back” global warming. understanding of that idea. Yuri Lotman suggests that “translation is a primary mechanism of consciousness” [21]. At the 2006 SCANZ artists’ workshop in Taranaki, on the west coast of New Zea- land, I met the Australian artists Maria Miranda and Norie Neumark, of the art collective Out-of-Sync. They translate scientific rhetoric and public paranoia surrounding climate change into art ma- terial. The motivation for their current project, Talking about the Weather (2006), is “sheer terror” [22] at the threat of global warming. Large parts of Australia are in an almost permanent state of drought and the country is starting to lose the necessary conditions for crop growing. As in New Zealand’s climate, Australian average temperatures have risen by 0.7ºC over the last century [23]. Terror, awe and wonder, the language of
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ture has historically been considered the sensual counterpart to the North. See
2. In 2006, John Key, the new leader of the center- right National party in New Zealand, began cam- paigning to raise awareness of climate change issues, whereas a year earlier he had been a climate change skeptic. See Kevin List, “2005 Vs 2006: Key and Cli- mate Change,” Scoop Independent News, 29 November
2006,
3. This data is based on prediction models set out in a talk by scientist Richard Warrick from the Univer- sity of Waikato. “The Impact of Climate Change on the New Zealand Environment,” A Workshop on Global Climate Change, Auckland, New Zealand, 26 August 2006.
4. David Wratt, “The Science of Climate Change,” A Workshop on Global Climate Change, Auckland, New Zealand, 26 August 2006.
5. Warrick [3].
6. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991) p. 7.
7. Herbert Marcuse, “Nature and Revolution,” in Fig. 5. Out-of-Sync, Talking about the Weather, video still, 2006. (© Out-of-Sync) This video Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston, MA: Beacon still was taken in New Zealand while the artists collected carbon from the breath of passersby Press, 1972) p. 59. with a microphone during the SCANZ artists’ residencies in Taranaki in 2006. 8. Marcuse [7] p. 71.
9. Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Dijon, petition, open to Rarotongan school- homeland to find the places they used to France: Les Presses Du Réel, 2002) p. 70. children in Avatea and Takitumu, to de- live now under water. 10. Lisa Parks, Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Tele- sign a poster on the theme of climate For Marcuse, only a reconciliation be- visual (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2005) p. 15. change. According to project convener tween human beings and nature will al- 11. Sean Cubitt, EcoMedia (Amsterdam and New Imogen Isaci, “the contest encouraged low real freedom. The Maori word York: Rodopi, 2005) p. 117. children to look at what individuals can “kaitiakitanga,” which embodies notions 12. Susanne Rutledge, “Nutrient Limitation on Or- do to lessen the impact of climate change of responsibility to the Earth as a living ganic Matter Decomposition by Microbes,” Research on our islands” [31]. The Small Islands Proposal for Ph.D. diss., University of Waikato, 2005, subject rather than as a provider of raw p. 5. Voice web site published the competition material, correlates to Marcuse’s idea. results for on-line distribution. Lazaro This Maori world view, also shared by 13. See Esther Leslie, “Twinkle and Extra-Terrestri- ality: A Utopian Interlude,” Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Unuka’s crayon drawing represents Earth Pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand, ac- Art and the Chemical Industry (London: Reaktion as if viewed from space, suggesting a satel- knowledges that humans are only one el- Books, 2005) p. 100. lite image. The poster depicts carbon- ement of the given world. Artists have the 14. W.E. Knowles Middleton, Invention of Meteorolog- belching cars, a smoking First World potential to create social spaces of dia- ical Instruments (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, urban metropolis and a bomb falling on logue to offset the sometimes alienating 1969) p. 222. a South Sea island. Around the edges of effects of scientific practices or political 15. Yuri M. Lotman, Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic the Earth are arrows to demonstrate the Theory of Culture, Ann Shukman, trans. (London: I.B posturing surrounding climate change. Tauris, 1990) p. 124. Cited in Cubitt [11]. interdependence of Earth and the bio- Linear reason can be transformed into sphere. Pauline Pickering’s drawing is di- sensory affect, the cautious warnings of 16. Nola Farman, e-mail correspondence, 2 Sep- tember 2006. vided into three sections that represent scientists can be amplified or mediated, an idyllic island, the island after the in- data can be transformed or playfully mis- 17. Anthony Dunne, Hertzian Tales: Electronic Prod- ucts, Aesthetic Experience and Critical Design (London: troduction of livestock (which devastated interpreted. To follow Marcuse’s idea, the Royal College of Art, 1999). many Pacific Island ecologies) and finally artist’s imagination can become knowl- 18. David Cranswick, “Bridging Art and Ecology,” the cyclone-battered island engulfed by edge, an alternative means of knowing ArtLink 18, No. 2 (1998) p. 47. waves, accompanied by the slogan “What the world by using aesthetics as subver- 19. Marcuse [7] p. 69. effects will our actions today have on to- sive agent. morrow?” These images are graphic 20. Nola Farman, Landscape and Environmental Art- demonstrations of the negative effect works (Australia Council, 1999) p. 1. Acknowledgments Western instrumentalist rationalism has 21. Lotman [15] p. 127. had on the life-giving conditions of the I wish to acknowledge the support of the digital artist- in-residence program at the University of Waikato 22. Out-of-Sync, artists’ presentation at SCANZ (So- Southern hemisphere. The loss of land and my colleagues at Unitec for their support of my lar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand), Western Institute due to a rise in sea level is particularly research. I would also like to thank the Octubre foun- of Technology, Taranaki, New Zealand, 6 July 2006. dation in Barcelona and Leonardo/Olats for invit- highlighted by recent immigration trends 23. Barrie Pittock, ed., “Climate Change: An Aus- ing me to the “Expanding the Space” conference in tralian Guide to the Science and Potential Impacts,” to Aotearoa New Zealand from the island Valencia, Spain, 4 October 2006, where I presented Australian Government Department of Environment the paper on which this article is based. nation of Tuvalu. In the last 10 years the and Heritage, 2003,
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26. Bourriaud [9] p. 9. tions Decided by Nationality and Financial Year Manuscript received 6 November 2006. of Decision ( July 1997–September 2006),”
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