I’m currently working on the conclusion to the first volume of the “Humanist Anthropocene” trilogy, getting inspiration from several places.
Chinese artist Liu Bolin’s “Hiding in the City No. 95 – Coal Pile” (viewable here) is particularly close to my thoughts: the piece shows Bolin covered in (what I assume to be) coal dust stood in front of, and somewhat indistinguishable from, the pile of coal behind him. Although part of the huge and ongoing series that Bolin the title “The Invisible Man,” this particular image seems to stand also as a representation of our complete reliance on fossil fuels, on the way that things dug up from the Earth infiltrate all aspects of our life each day. In a similar vein, I’ve been looking at the art of Svetlana Ostapovici, in particular this image of Rodin’s thinker in a trash heap (viewable here). I like the fact that we see something strange here, i.e. a juxtaposition of the sculpture and “trash”—but we might also force ourselves to read it differently, i.e. as bringing out the materiality of the sculpture, itself made of matter dug from the ground. The question pertains to our increasing use of rare earth metals in various electronic items, which becomes a problem especially--as this article in the Guardian notes—in the context of the trend to replace perfectly working IT solutions with new ones, e.g. Apple withdraws support for discontinued products 7 years after they are discontinued. We’ll see where the conclusion takes us Rolling Stones Magazine announces that "Historians may look to 2015 as the year when shit really started hitting the fan." The article quotes James Hansen's conclusion that, if emissions aren't cut, then: "If emissions aren't cut, "We conclude that multi-meter sea-level rise would become practically unavoidable. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea-level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization."
Apollo's Eye just moved further away! The Guardian announces how the "US space agency has released a picture" of the dark side of the moon, "taken from its Deep Space Climate Observatory showing the moon as it moves in front of the sunlit side of Earth." The image was taken about a million miles from Earth.
President Obama announces major action on climate change.
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Project THE HUMANIST anthropoceneis a thought archive and workspace of Phillip John Usher (NYU) at the crossroads of early modern humanism and the problems and insights of the Anthropocene. Main Research Page. Categories
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