Climate Change: A Different Subjectivity? Author Taplin, Roslyn Ellen Published 2015 Thesis Type Thesis (Professional Doctorate) School Queensland College of Art DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2777 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365822 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Climate Change: A Different Subjectivity? ROSLYN ELLEN TAPLIN BSc (Qld), BA Hons (Macq) MEnvSt (Tas) MArtAdmin MArt (UNSW) PhD (Griff) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF VISUAL ARTS Queensland College of Art Arts, Education and Law Griffith University February 2015 Illustration 1 Copenhagen Plenary, 2009, digital image ii SYNOPSIS The issue of first emerged as a focus in contemporary art practice in the 1970sthe environment . However, has climatebeen an area of change art assignifi a newcant directionfocus since inthe early 2000s environmental . As a creative art only intervention, it is a reaction to the global phenomenon of he build up of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, the urg t ent - need for greater diplomatic cooperation internationally and sustained domestic policies and programs to mitigate and adapt to climate change. This doctoral research explores the role of visual art in producing new strategies to mediate the urgency of the climate change issue. My studio practice involving drawing, digital imagery, video and installation has been plaited with three lines of inquiry. First, how may contemporary art address speeches and reports associated with negotiations on climate change? Second, how may people living in contribute to varyingmitigating climate change impacts via their multiple efforts? Third, i localities and communities across the globe s it possible that climate change art may contribute to subjectivity within viewers some realisation of future implications an altered of climate etandhics of inaction? change and the My approach has been transdiciplinary and experimental. My transdiciplinary inquiry has drawn on aspects of the current international climate change political and policy making process, together with climate science and modelling developments and findings- about Earth-ocean-atmosphere impacts. My experimental focus has iii involved analysis of the political discourse associated with . Discourse analysis is a lens and experimental climate changeapproach I have employed looktherefore beneath the text of an climate change speeches and scientific publications . I to explore meanings shared , generating a critical visual analysis of the global discussion taking place. Text incorporation in my studio practice has involved use of dialogue selected mainly from United Nations climate change speeches but also from scientific papers and UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. I have highlighted discourses that are directed towards enabling climate change mitigation action – the discourses that have been often ignored and politically obstructed. My practice has developed with drawing at its core but also includes the forms of digital imagery, video and installation. With climate change as the central focus, I have intended my creative contributions as a personal, intellectual and political intercession – an ethico-aesthetic mediation in the production of subjectivity about climate change. I have considered social learning of community members and the importance of polycentric local action as Ostrom advised. I have argued that transdisciplinary and experimental Consequentlyvisual arts contributions may have a role in speaking to spectators and in turn eliciting personal and potentially community responses. Using perspectives drawn from Deleuze and Guattari, as interpreted by O’Sullivan in relation to contemporary art, it can be argued that climate change art has the p to open up new possibilities for perceiving and to contribute to aotential new minor literature and a new subjectivity. Climate change art op- erates on the cusp of the future and its of key cultural significance. role is and environmental iv STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. (Signed)_____________________________ Roslyn Ellen Taplin v Illustration 2 Oxfam bears at COP15, 2009, digital image vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages Synopsis iii v Statement of Originality List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements x xii Acknowledgement of Published Papers PART I Chapter 1 Climate Change, Ethico Aesthetics & Transdisciplinary Inquiry- 2 PART II Chapter 2 Art & Language 22 Chapter 3 People, Policy & Politics in Future 32 Chapter 4 Contemporary Climate Change Art Climates 52 PART III Chapter 5 Towards a Different Subjectivity 56 BIBLIOGRAPHY 68 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 1 Copenhagen Plenary, 2009, digital image Illustration 2 Oxfam bears at COP15, 2009, digital image Illustration 3 Sidney Nolan Drought, 1953, oil, gold paint on paper, 25.1 x 30.1 cm Chapter 1 Illustration 4 Helen Harrison and Newton Harrison Peninsula Europe: The Force Majeure, 2007-8 Chapter 2 Figure 1 * Kathy Barber Here Today, 2005, installation, neon, solar panel, cabling and battery Figure 2 Kathy Barber Here Today, 2005, detail Figure 3 David Buckland and Amy Balkin Ice Text, 2007, video-still Figure 4 Greg Pryor Black Solander, 2005, detail installation, black ink on black sugar paper Figure 7 Copenhagen 2009 #1 2010, mixed media on paper, 81 x 93 cm Figure 8 Copenhagen 2009 #2 2010, mixed media on paper, 81 x 93 cm Chapter 3 Figure 2.1 Eleanor Rhode and Vikki Peter Climate Change Timeline 2011, digital print in 2 parts, 21 x 28 cm Figure 2.2 Jean-Pascal van Ypersele AR5 Synthesis Report to be Dedicated to Steve Schneider’s Memory, 2010, digital image * Figures 5 and 6 not included as completed prior to DVA candidature. viii Chapter 4 Fig. 1 Adriane Colburn Up from Under the Edge 2009, installation, paper, aluminium, inkjet prints, video, mylar and mirrors, 335 x 550 cm Fig. 2 Gondwana Sensitivities 2013, video-still Chapter 5 Illustration 5 Vincent J.F Huang Modern Atlantis 2013, installation, aquarium, fish, coral, sculpture miniatures, from Destiny‧Intertwined, Tuvalu Pavilion, Venice Biennale Illustration 6 Red rock beach #1, 2010, Indian ink and crayon on paper, 100x187 cm Illustration 7 Durban 2011 #1, 2012 and Durban 2011 #2, 2012, Indian ink and crayon on paper,76x102 cm , Illustration 8 inlandsis, 2015, installation , Indian Ink, ancient ink, natural chalk and pumice primer on sugar paper, 250x250 cm detail Illustration 9 Warrie, 2014, phemeral field installation detail, Springbrook National Park, Border Ranges, south-eeastern Qld, 2014, digital image ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Completing this doctoral project would not have been possible without the help of many people. I am very grateful to my supervisor, Professor Ross Woodrow, Deputy Director, Queensland College of Arts, Griffith University for his support, beneficial advice and creative critical input and insights during all phases of my research. Also I am appreciative of the help provided by Dr George Petelin who contributed to the intellectual atmosphere that allowed my initial to evolve. theoretical ideas for the research From my time as a Master’s student at the College of Fine Arts (COFA), University of New South Wales and more recently, several of the staff there have provided on-going encouragement and motivation. These have included Peter Sharp, Gary Carsley and Wenmin Li during my Masters studies. They set me on the path that has culminated in this visual arts doctoral research. More recentl , Louise Fowler Smith y - , Directorhas provided mu of COFA'sch valued Imagingfriendship and the Land Internationalinspiration. Research Initiative, I also wish to express a great deal of appreciation to my long-term mentors and friends, Ann Henderson-Sellers and Ken Walker, who have backed me and encouraged me in all my research endeavours over many years. Also I am very grateful to former Bond University colleagues, Ned Wales and Lynne Armitage for their support and interest. Finally, I would like to thank my family. I am most grateful to them for constantly supporting me in many different ways throughout this undertaking: James Cresser (for always giving loving support), x Paul Taplin (for his wonderful generosity a spacious studio at St Peters for me to work in, and ongoing help with in providing practical studio assistance and exhibition installations), Stephanie Tighe (for her constructive appraisals and video editing advice and collaborations) and Matthew Amery (for his musical inspiration), and Jeffrey Tighe and Minji Kwon (also for very helpful discussions, productive critique and studio assistance). Illustration 3 Sidney Nolan Drought, 1953, oil, gold paint on paper, 25.1 x 30.1 cm xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF PUBLISHED PAPERS Included in this thesis are papers in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of which I am the sole author. The bibliographic details/status for these papers are: • Chapter 2: ‘Art and language: Using text art to relay concerns over climate change’, Studio Research, #0, 2011, 41-49. Copyright © 2011 Studio Research: Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. • Chapter 3: ‘People, policy and politics in future climates’, in A. Henderson- Sellers and K. McGuffie (eds)