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ISEA2010 RUHR Conference
P14 The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis
Tue 24 August 2010
10:00–12:00h
Volkshochschule Dortmund, L 103
Moderated by Søren Bro Pold (dk)
Besides mediating science and politics, how is the climate crisis intrinsically related to the form and functioning of digital art, what are the criteria for evaluating and critically discussing climate art? This panel aims to discuss both epistemological issues and broader cultural, political issues in order to examine the particular contribution of digital art to the climate crisis. Relevant questions are how digital art can contribute to questions around how we hear, see, sense climate change, how we experience a post-crisis environment, and how we debate and act facing climate change? The format of the panel will be that of an Unpanel which aims at engaging the audience directly. It will include strategies from the presented projects interjected as creative interruptions, glitches, crises and confessions. Thus the participants will experience the delicate balances and tipping points of both our climate and the role of art in relation to it.
- 10:00h | Søren Bro Pold (dk): The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis & | Lars Bo Løfgreen (dk): A Project of Disjunction and Conjunction. On the Aesthetics of Climate Change
- 10:20h | Morten Breinbjerg (dk): From Representation to Action. How Art Addresses Climate Change
- 10:30h | Jonas Fritsch (dk): CO2nfession/CO2mmitment. Experimental Urban Media in the Climate Change Debate
- 10:40h | Christian Ulrik Andersen, Søren Bro Pold (dk): Participatory Pyramids. An interface for Climate Change?
- 10:50h | The People Speak (gb): Round-up and Unpanel: Open discussion with audience and panel on the digital aesthetics of climate crisis
ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | P14 The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis (PDF, 103.48 KB)
Søren Bro Pold (dk)
The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis
Besides mediating science and politics, how is the climate crisis intrinsically related to the form and functioning of digital art, what are the criteria for evaluating and critically discussing climate art? This panel aims to discuss both epistemological issues and broader cultural, political issues in order to examine the particular contribution of digital art to the climate crisis. Relevant questions are how digital art can contribute to questions around how we hear, see, sense climate change, how we experience a post-crisis environment, and how we debate and act facing climate change?
ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis (PDF)
Søren Bro Pold has done research in media-, digital and interface aesthetics and art currently mainly related to urban and public interfaces. Forthcoming is Interface Criticism - Aesthetics Beyond the Buttons, co-edited with Christian Ulrik Andersen.
Further Information: person
Lars Bo Løfgreen (dk)
A Project of Disjunction and Conjunction. On the Aesthetics of Climate Change
In a way it is all a matter of aesthetics. In a way climate change is all a matter of sense perception. Whether talking about changes in the level of CO2, variations or deviations in the Earth's orbit, mountain-building, continental drift or solar radiation, the question about what to do implies a clear understanding of what is happening. That question is a question of aesthetics, that question is a question for art.
Lars Bo Løfgreen is a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Information and Media Studies at Aarhus University. Current research interests include the aesthetics of resistance, locative media art, philosophy of aesthetics as well as the interplay between historical and neo avant-garde movements.
Morten Breinbjerg (dk)
From Representation to Action. How Art Addresses Climate Change
At the climate summit meeting in Copenhagen 2009, the public art installation Atmosphere, placed at the town hall, measures the amount of CO2 in the air over Copenhagen and converts the data to sound and visuals. This paper discuss how such types of aesthetic interfaces by presenting to the public information of otherwise non-sensuous aspects of the environment concerns the relationship between measurement, representation and reality and also the relationship between technology, perception and cognition, and how art hereby enters scientific and political forms of representation and action.
Morten Breinbjerg is an associate professor with a Ph.D. in computer music aesthetics at the Institute of Information and Media Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research is in the field of computer music, digital aesthetics and software culture.
Jonas Fritsch (dk)
CO2nfession/CO2mmitment. Experimental Urban Media in the Climate Change Debate
When debating the concurrently very palpable and extremely abstract reality of climate change, the individual and incitement for individual change can get lost in the discussion. CO2nfession/CO2mmitment is an advanced video installation adding a participatory and personal element to the climate debate. People can confess their climate sins, create their own climate narratives using various props and commit themselves to fight for a better climate. The confessions are recorded, edited and distributed on multiple screens all over the city of Aarhus to foster engaging climate conversations.
Jonas Fritsch is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Aarhus University working on a multitudinous thinking-together of interaction design and affect theory in conjunction with practical interaction design experiments carried out at the Center for Digital Urban Living, Dep. of Information and Media Studies.
Christian Ulrik Andersen, Søren Bro Pold (dk)
Participatory Pyramids. An interface for Climate Change?
The paper raises the question whether a stage for participatory, public debate and action is needed in the climate crisis. Social web services promise new ways of forming communities with a potential for political action; a change of the world by the click of a mouse. Focusing on the art project Planetary Pledge Pyramid, the authors suggest that this can be taken one step further, creating a public Thing (Latour 2004) and a mass ornament (Kracauer 1977) for the networked masses, making the individual user recognize her role and power in the climate change debate.
ISEA2010 Conference Proceedings | Participatory Pyramids. An interface for Climate Change? (PDF)
Christian Ulrik Andersen, professor at Aarhus University and chair of Digital Aesthetics Research Center, researches within the field of interface aesthetics and criticism. He mainly works with ludic aspects and the public interfaces of digital urbanity.
Further Information: person
The People Speak (gb)
Round-up and Unpanel: Open discussion with audience and panel on the digital aesthetics of climate crisis
The People Speak (gb) brings people together to have discussions, play
and make decisions in an open-ended and fun way. Our events, methods
and technologies encourage people to express themselves, share ideas,
flirt, and be as creative as they can be. The People speak have
developed a series of tools for the world to take over itself,
including Talkaoke, Who Wants to Be and now Unpanel.
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