STUDIOTOPIA RESIDENCIES
25.01.2021
Unraveling Interdependecies
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by: Andrew Newman, Coordinator of the STUDIOTOPIA program at Ars Electronica 25.01.2021 |
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We face a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” unless we grasp the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises. In a recent report in Frontiers in Conservation, an international group of scientists warned that “delays between ecological deterioration and socio-economic penalties” have disguised just how vast and dangerous the problems we face are, “despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization.”
"We face a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” unless we grasp the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises"
International ambitions to stem the crises are falling far short, with the scientists arguing that many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are on track for failure "because most SDGs have not adequately incorporated their interdependencies with other socio-economic factors.” It is in this setting that the artists and scientists participating in the STUDIOTOPIA Art&Science residency programme have started their collaborations, in hopes that by working together and sharing their expertise they can help unravel these interdependencies, and further contribute to a mainstream understanding of the urgency of the crises that are intertwined with every aspect of our existence.
STUDIOTOPIA seeks to subvert a pervasive anthropocentric understanding of the world that disconnects the cultural from the natural. It is with such dichotomies that we unconsciously, and sadly sometimes consciously, absolve ourselves from the implications of our actions on the world we live in. Our social, political, and economic systems do not operate along some alternative plane of existence, disconnected from the living breathing ecosystems we inhabit. Culture is entangled with nature, and humanity is entangled with the Earth. A sustainable existence and our future necessitates that we recognize and understand that we are part of a vast interconnecting system.
"The scientists who responded to our open call were willing to travel beyond the centers of their expertise and traverse the boundaries"
It may seem unfathomable that we could ever grasp the sheer complexity of the interdependencies of Ecosystem Earth. Each and every one of our quantum computers would crash when faced with the task of mapping all interactions from our microbiomes to the zonobiomes. One human mind cannot comprehend it all, but multitudes of minds have tirelessly worked towards contributing to a shared scientific knowledge that together unravels these interdependencies. Standing on the shoulders of giants is the metaphor so oft used, originating with Bernard of Chartres who described how “we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature”. And we have been borne so far aloft, our bodies of knowledge bringing us into the celestial bodies, where we could look back and see the whole Earth - a blue dot in the beyond. It is an image we now take for granted, but the first colour photograph of the whole Earth published in 1967 gave humanity a perspective it never had. Stewart Brand who campaigned for NASA to release the photograph and later used it as the cover of the Whole Earth Catalog, believed the “image might be a powerful symbol, evoking a sense of shared destiny and adaptive strategies from people”. It is an image formed from scientific knowledge yet which also forms aesthetic knowledge. A knowledge not antithetical to scientific knowledge, yet also should not be perceived as nought but a communicative vessel for scientific knowledge. It is a knowledge Baumgarten termed as ‘sensuous’ and ‘sensitive’ and it is how we could look on with both wonder and terror at this image of Earth, suspended alone in the vacuum of space, and ‘sense our shared destiny’.
"...this image of Earth, suspended alone in the vacuum of space, and ‘sense our shared destiny’"
It is with the tacit and embodied knowledge that comes with aesthetic knowledge that we can grasp the web of interdependencies of life on Earth. Yet the absolute urgency of the climate crisis demands we experiment beyond an aesthetic knowledge situated in experiencing the sublime. Jill Bennett proposes a practical aesthetics that is “informed by and derived from practical, real-world encounters, an aesthetics that turns capable of being used or put into effect in a real situation”. It is our hope that the encounters between the artists and scientists within STUDIOTOPIA can stimulate such a practical aesthetics that can affect real change. As Bennett writes, “Change occurs at the edges of disciplines and practices, not only because it is here that those ill-served by the center congregate but because license granted in one filed is withheld in another”. The scientists who responded to our open call were willing to travel beyond the centers of their expertise and traverse the boundaries. Here at these edges they will meet artists, and together they are creating an experimental space, a STUDIOTOPIA to explore.
In the 13 residencies within STUDIOTOPIA, the teams of artists and scientists are examining the oceans and the Arctic, time and space, AI and animals and beyond. We will hear from each of them within this blog, and while we cannot expect them to unravel all the interdependencies of our world, we hope that they will contribute to building the giants we can stand on top of to see a surviving sustainable Earth.
The Earth image by NASA, 1967 |
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