Art and the Anthropocene

https://saudipavilion.org/pedagogies-of-proximity-and-relation/
Venice Architecture Biennale, 2025
Pedagogies of Proximity and Relation
Prototyping Alternative Education
October 10–12, 2025



Building on the discussions of previous encounters, this part of the program looks to position the school as a driver to rethink architectural education as an integrated set of forms and modes of knowledge focused on collaboration and cocreation. The activities center the notion of a safe space within a culture of relatability, harnessing multidisciplinarity, hospitality, and mentorship-over-professorship, while honoring contextual legacy and empowering transgenerational transmission of knowledge and forms of embodied learning.

Contributors will reflect on the programmatic outlines and architectures of educational contexts to shape novel agendas and methodologies that reimagine pedagogical roles, integrate critical, emotional, and experiential knowledge, and bring renewed relevance to architecture as both a spatial and cultural practice of purpose and collective care.  Details on the public session will be made available here closer to the date.
Pedagogies of Proximity and Relation includes contributions from:

Caline Matar / Earshot
Faysal Tabbarah /Architecture and Other Things
Cruz Garcia And Nathalie Frankowski / Loudreaders
Matylda Krzykowski / CIVIC
Rosario Talevi / Floating University
Setareh Noorani / Nieuwe Instituut
Uns Kattan / Art Jameel
Pelin Tan
Nzinga Biegueng Mboup

Lab Leads: Institute for Postnatural Studies (Gabriel Alonso, Yuri Tuma, Daniel H. Rey).

Leading Bangladeshi English-language poet Kaiser Hamidul Haq, popularly known as Kaiser Haq, is famed for his postcolonial and cosmopolitan poems grounded in the culture and nature of Bangladesh. Using an idiosyncratic diction manifesting intellectualism, scholarship and humor, his poetry arouses thoughts, evokes memories, and provokes action. For example, his seminal poem "Ode on the Lungi-which critiques colonialism, neocolonialism and neoliberalism, celebrates national and local culture, and posits a decolonial/postcolonial praxis-has also motivated what is termed as "Lungi activism." The title poem of his latest book of prose and verse titled The New Frontier & Other Odds and Ends in Verse and Prose presents the climate change issues unfolding in the ongoing Anthropocene era. Due to global warming, the world is confronted with rapid melting of the polar and mountain ice deposits. This causes a steady increase in the seawater level, inundating the low-lying regions of the Global South including Bangladesh, Maldives, Indonesia, Caribbean islands, Micronesian and Polynesian countries, and parts of India. The continuous climate injustice exacerbates the already precarious situation as the melting Arctic unfolds as a new frontier for the global powers. Applying insights from different critical theories, mainly ecocriticism and hydrocriticism, and employing textual analysis of "The New Frontier," the title poem of the volume The New Frontier & Other Odds and Ends in Verse and Prose, this qualitative paper will endeavor to critique climate injustice and globalized capitalism, and explore the eco-pedagogical potential of the long poem.

Em 2024, a sensação de estarmos vivendo a crise climática tornou-se mais evidente. Em função da maior enchente da história de Porto Alegre, e do Rio Grande do Sul, e da fumaça tóxica das queimadas que tomou conta do ar do país, sentimos nossa rotina e nosso próprio corpo sendo atravessados por algumas das consequências do aumento da temperatura da Terra. E tais consequências, é importante destacar, não são necessariamente iguais para todos: gênero, raça, classe são alguns dos fatores que impactam as formas como cada indivíduo é mais ou menos atingido. Mais do que nunca, assim, é preciso encontrar palavras, imagens, pensamentos e movimentações que nos ajudem a assimilar o que estamos vivendo e agir. Foi a partir de algumas dessas reflexões e desse contexto que nasceu o projeto Cultura no Antropoceno, idealizado pela Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, instituição da Secretaria de Estado da Cultura do Rio Grande do Sul, e uma das tantas atingidas pelas enchentes de maio do ano passado. "Antropoceno" é o conceito que tem sido usado por alguns cientistas para descrever o momento atual da história geológica do planeta Terra, que significa, justamente, o momento em que o ser humano e seus feitos são entendidos como força geológica capaz de provocar alterações no clima, desafiando nossas maneiras de viver até então. Parte do problema é como a própria humanidade se colocou no centro, a ponto de ignorar outras espécies e modos de vida que não os estipulados pelos padrões europeus, brancos e patriarcais. Cultura no Antropoceno consistiu numa série de encontros e ações realizados entre outubro e dezembro de 2024 dedicados a pensar temas caros à crise que estamos vivendo e que, portanto, se mantêm mais vivos e necessários do que nunca. Entendendo a linguagem artística como fundamental para extrapolarmos a dimensão racional e alcançarmos a dimensão sensível das coisas, foram oferecidos espaços de diálogo compostos por artistas e pesquisadores de diferentes áreas, tais como literatura, arquitetura e urbanismo, artes visuais, geologia, biologia. Neste documento, estão reunidos os resumos das reflexões, especulações e proposições dos intelectuais que formaram essa programação e que são aliados na construção de caminhos alternativos para a nossa existência. O ciclo de eventos teve como abertura oficial a conferência Antropocenos do Sul: Crises e criações para um novo regime climático, do professor e pesquisador André Araújo. O projeto ainda contou com a conferência Cosmópolis: Metamétodo, da pesquisadora Rita Velloso e, em seu encerramento, O tekoá e o bem-viver: um caminho para a sustentabilidade no antropoceno, proferida por Kaká Werá Jecupé, escritor e intelectual indígena.

In 2015, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) commissioned John Holden, visiting professor at City University, London, and associate at the think-tank Demos, to write a report on culture as part of its Cultural Value Project. The claim within the report was to redirect culture away from economic prescriptions and to focus on ecological approaches to ‘value’. Holden considers the application and use of ecological tropes to re-situate culture as ‘non-hierarchical’ and as part of symbiotic social processes. By embracing metaphors of ‘emergence,’ ‘interdependence,’ ‘networks,’ and ‘convergence,’ he suggests we can “gain new understandings about how culture works, and these understandings in turn help with policy information and implementation”. This article addresses the role of ‘cultural critique’ in the live environments and ecologies of place-making. It will consider, with examples, how cultural production, cultural practices, and cultural forms generate mixed ecologies of...

This article formulates digital twins as planetary media-an assemblage of human and nonhuman elements that emerges from planetary-scale computation to observe and predict changes in the Earth's human, geophysical, and socioeconomic spheres. It aims to revise Gabrys' original concept of planetary media by revealing the collapse of the globe (as capitalist and human-centered) and planet (as geological and ecological) in digital twins applied to both Earth System Science and socioeconomic domains. Their collapse is also evident in scientific papers related to EU's Destination Earth and China's Digital Earth, policy reports on EU's green/digital transition and China's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and documents on the smart cities in both regions. All of these share optimization and resilience as not only digital twins' technical requirements but also key values for establishing them as sociotechnical imaginaries of transforming the Earth's human activities and natural environments in the service of its sustainable future.

İnsanın dünya üzerinde temel değiştirici, dönüştürücü fail konuma gelmesinde kendi ilerlemesi ve gelişmesi önemli rol oynamıştır. Zaman içerisinde insanlık, sosyal ve politik örgütlenmesini elde ettiği teknolojiler ile ileriye taşıma hevesini içinde saklı tutarken, bu teknolojilerin yıkıcı gücünden de kaçamamıştır. Uzun bir süreye yayılan Avrupa modernitesi, temelini Aydınlanma fikirlerinde bulurken, sanayi devrimi ile gelen kapitalleşmenin getirdiği zenginliğin kaynağını diğer ülkelerin ve milletlerin sırtından elde ettiği yoğun sömürgecilik politikaları ile elde etmiştir. Ancak, politika ve ekonomik örgütlenmedeki gelişmeler ve diğer ülkelerin Avrupa egemenliği altına alınarak sömürülme çabaları Dünya Savaşları’nı ortaya çıkarmakla kalmamış Avrupa modernitesinin içine bir de Holokost eklemiştir. Batı aydınlanması aynı zamanda aydınlanmanın karanlık yüzünü de içinde barındırmaktadır. Bilim ve teknikteki gelişmeler insanı bir adım öteye götürürken, aynı zamanda yok oluş senaryolarını da içermektedir. Bu da insanın hem yer, gök ve atmosferin geleceği hem de kendi geleceği açısından temel belirleyici olduğu döneme işaret etmektedir: Antroposen çağına, yani insan çağına.
Antroposen çağ, insanın Dünya üzerinde en başat jeolojik kuvvet olduğu bir dönemi işaret etmektedir. Burada insan yapımı nesnelerin ağırlığının dünyadaki tüm canlı türlerinin ağırlığını 2020 yılı itibariyle geçtiği ve gidişatın devam ettiği takdirde yirmi sene sonra da bu nesnelerin ağırlığının 1.1 teratondan 3 teratona çıkacağı düşünülmektedir. Senede 30 milyar ton ağırlığındaki nesne dünyaya katılacaktır (Briggs, 2020). Antroposen dönem, insanın doğa üzerindeki hâkimiyetinin sonuçlarının geri döndürülemez bir sürece girdiğini de göstermektedir. Çevresel tehditlerin gün geçtikçe artmaya devam ettiği bir süreç yaşanmaktadır. Birleşmiş Milletler Genel Sekreteri Antonio Guterres küresel ısınma çağının sona erdiğini ve “küresel kaynama çağının” başladığını ve dünya ülkelerinin olası iklim değişikliği sonuçlarından kaçınmak için acil önlem almalarını gerektiğini ifade etmektedir (bbc.com, 2023). Guterres Nepal’in Himalaya bölgesini ziyaretinde de iklim krizi için “Bu deliliği durdurmalıyız” çağrısı yaparak tekrardan iklim değişikliğinin kötü sonuçları hakkında uyarı yapmıştır (Akcan, 2023). Guterres’in ‘küresel kaynama çağı’ ya da ‘bu delilik’ ifadeleri sorunun ne kadar önemli olduğuna ışık tutmaktadır. Buradaki temel unsur insanın antroposen ile eninde sonunda yüzleşmek zorunda oluşudur. Tabii ki yüzleşmek aynı zamanda bir farkındalık gerektirmektedir. Guterres’in ülkelere yönelik acil eylem çağrıları aynı zamanda bu farkındalığın tüm insanlık nezdinde oluşmasına yönelik bir yardım çığlığıdır. Bu çalışmada konuya bir farkındalık getirmeyi amaçlarken bunun sanat aracılığıyla gerçekleşeceğine yönelik bir öngörü içerisindedir.
Ekolojik değişimler ve insanlığın içerisinde bulunduğu durum, birçok alanda kendine yer bulabilmektedir. Temeldeki amaç, bir taraftan dünyanın içerisinde bulunduğu durumu göstermeye çalışmak iken diğer taraftan gelecekte insanlığı bekleyebilecek muhtemel senaryolara ışık tutmaktır. Sanat, insanlığın doğa karşısındaki üstünlüğünü, acımasızlığını ve doğanın bir parçası olarak bizatihi insana verdiği zarar üzerine bir eleştiri getirmektedir. Antroposen eleştirisi insanın jeolojik bir kuvvet haline geldiği jeobilimsel eleştiri düzleminden sosyal, politik ve kültürel bir düzleme taşınmaktadır.  Bu bağlamda, başta doğa bilimlerinde gündeme gelen ve sonra popüler bilim medyasında da öne çıkan antroposeni sanat, beşeri bilimler ve sosyal bilimlerde Bruno Latour, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Donna Haraway ve Anna Tsing ele almış, The Anthropocene, The Anthropocene Review ve Elementa gibi yeni bilimsel dergiler konuya yer vermiştir. Günümüzde de trend kültürel üretimler, sergiler ve katalog yayınlarla antroposene yönelik üretimler sürmektedir (Demos, 2017, s. 9).
Çalışmada, antroposen hakkında bilgi verildikten sonra antroposen dönemin eleştirisi olarak sanatın buna verdiği tepkiler üzerinde durulacaktır. Burada sanat, dijital sanat ve antroposen kavramları üzerinde durulmakta ve dijitalleşme döneminde bir eleştirel konum alan sanatın insan çağına yönelik eleştirisi irdelenmektedir. Çalışma konuya antroposen sanat örnekleri üzerinden değil, daha çok yapısal değişiklikler üzerinden yaklaşmaktadır.  Küresel ısınma çağından küresel kaynama çağına geçilen bir dönemde antroposenin ekolojiyi getirdiği yer bir kurtuluş söyleminin gerekliliğini de ortaya koymaktadır. Sanat da tam da bu noktada o kurtuluşu sağlayabilecek bir alan olarak görülmektedir.

Enki Bilal'sgraphic novel Animal'z portrays apost-apocalyptic cli-fiscenario that is symptomatic of the Anthropocene imagination. In this narrative, the few humans that still liveafter the "coup de sang," the environmental phenomenon that has devastated the Earth,haveadoptedahybrid human-animal mode of existence in adesperate attemptfor survival. These hybrid beings, like human-dolphin hybrids, are testimony of an advanced transhumanist industry based on human experimentation and technological body modification. This hybridism, in turn, poses interesting questions from acritical posthumanist perspective, since it blurs existing boundaries between the human and the nonhuman and emphasizes multispecies entanglement, while also interrogating the nature of humananimal relationships.

Finding avenues of communication to get different members of society to commit to engage in personal actions to determine the outcome of climate change is of great concern and priority to all communicators. The academic literature suggests that research has demonstrated that in order to access a people's desire to change is most successfully reached if they are given different alternatives and decision-making power in addition to addressing their emotions using images and the imagination. Art, as history has demonstrated when it engages in a dialogue with its viewer, has tremendous power to encourage people to reflect on their thoughts and actions, and can act as a catalyst for change. Art is also an intrinsic tool for human communication and education. The purpose of this research was to achieve a deeper understanding in the importance that art can play in engaging people in climate change action by delving in an analysis of the inquiry process of the artist. This research employs a qualitative methodology. One on one interviews were conducted with nine artists working in different artistic medium, but share the need to dialogue with their audience their concerns for the environment. Secondary source data was added by interviewing three scientists working in fields of study that concerned climate change issues. The research analysis gives insight into the importance of considering artists as key communicators when looking for effective strategies to educate, raise awareness and encourage pro-environmental action. The process of getting an idea and realizing it into an art piece that is to be viewed by an audience is directly connected to the artist's participation and expressing issues of society, which climate change is.

The essay reflects on burnout in the art world as both a personal and structural phenomenon. Through examples from recent major exhibitions and works by artists such as Hito Steyerl, Roman Ondak, and Sláva Daubnerová, it examines how contemporary art addresses planetary exhaustion, digital alienation, and the collapse of meaning. Burnout emerges not only as a symptom but also as a potential site of transformation.

This volume has been meticulously organized into three distinct sections, namely: “Human-Plant and Territoriality”, “Human-Plant and the Literary”, and “Human-Plant and Transfiguration.” Each of these sections holds significant importance in elucidating the multifaceted relationship between humans and plants. Within this structural framework, a total of eleven chapters are distributed. This deliberate arrangement underscores the thematic coherence and scholarly rigor of the volume. The first chapter, “Charles Edenshaw’s ‘Fungus Man’ Platters & Tlingit Grave Effigies: Exploring Human-Fungus Relationships through Agarikon Art,” authored by Alexandra M. Peck, belongs to the section entitled, “Human-Plant and Territoriality.” It is a profound inquiry to explore how within Haida and Tlingit societies, life and death are intricately linked to a particular fungus, known as Agarikon (Laricifomes officinalis). This chapter explains how this woody conk features prominently in Haida origin stories, where Agarikon is anthropomorphized as the legendary “Fungus Man” character, whose bravery and power are credited with the creation of women. Amongst the Tlingit, Agarikon plays a complementary role and was employed in pre-colonial mortuary settings, where the fungus offered protection for the deceased. Examining 19th century Haida artist Charles Edenshaw’s carved argillite platters that depict Fungus Man, as well as ancient Tlingit grave effigies carved from actual Agarikon, this chapter draws upon traditional ecological knowledge, oral history, mycology, and material culture to explore the unique spiritual, symbiotic relationship between fungi and First Nations. As further evidence of its protective qualities, Agarikon possesses properties that fight against tuberculosis and smallpox, both diseases that significantly affected Native nations after contraction from European settlers. Now critically endangered because of logging and timber industries—a visceral reminder of settler colonialism’s extractive impact on the Pacific Northwest’s lush rainforests—Agarikon’s future is uncertain. Nevertheless, the fungus remains spiritually, cosmologically, and culturally significant to the Haida and Tlingit, even as Agarikon becomes increasingly associated with a pseudo-mythical, pre-colonial past.

Just as Agarikon was responsible for creating women, the life-givers and cultural caretakers of Haida society, the fungus was a meaningful Tlingit reminder of death and dying. As we grapple with the modern Anthropocene and accompanying dystopian events (climate change, old growth forest devastation, disease epidemics) that have disproportionately impacted and forever altered Indigenous nations, material reminders of Agarikon offer a new lens through which to view these challenges. Unlike other studies of human-fungi relationships that emphasize solely the medicinal, culinary, or hallucinogenic uses of mushrooms, this case study represents a deeper, more nuanced example of how human and fungus or plant-like entities are intertwined and dependent upon each other. Agarikon reminds us that we cannot reference human origins or even death without acknowledging the agency and influence of local ecology.

Konparu Zenchiku (1405-c. 1470) was the son-in-law of Zeami Motokiyo. Zeami is the most famous nō actor-writer-composer-showman-impressario, but Zenchiku brought nō back from the shōgun's court to the temples, effectively resacralising the art form for a troubled, violent age. This paper asks whether Zenchiku's approach to theatre has anything to teach us as contemporary creators and audiences in our own unstable era and, simultaneously, whether contemporary modes of interpretation, such as queer musicology, can highlight new aspects of Zenchiku's work.

Focusing on the under-studied and under-performed play Mekari-which dramatises a ritual cutting of seaweed at the Kanmon Strait between the islands of Kyūshū and Honshū as the new lunar year dawns-this paper explores how Zenchiku's work plays with-crosses back and forth over-multiple physical, temporal, and spiritual boundaries in both its text and performance, leaving the audience with a sense of ambiguity and questioning the received wisdom of conventional capitalist reality. This paper concludes with a look at Kyōto School philosopher Ueda Shizuteru's concept of the hollow expanse, or a place of limitless possibility. This paper argues that the audience viewing these ambiguities cultivated by Zenchiku's sacred dramas-via the music, words, and staging together-might themselves be given a glimpse into the radically open place of the 'hollow expanse'.

The first full English translation of Mekari is included in Appendix A.

The article draws on personal narratives as a substantial source for the study of subjective emotionalities involved in the experience of dwelling. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the neighborhoods bordering the Port of Riga, this study situates oral eco-narratives at the intersection of perspectives derived from posthumanism, post-phenomenology, and affective ecocriticism. It focuses on the centrality of sensory impressions-sounds, smells, and sights-to human-environment relations as manifested in the stories people tell. Inhabiting suburbs that shelter both housing and industry, the residents of the studied localities have been subjected to displacement, territorial restrictions, landscape transformation, and repeated ecological accidents. Oscillating between strong place attachment and a sense of being expelled, they report their dwelling experience in narratives of nostalgia, solastalgia, and environmental concern. By addressing the transcorporeality of these narrated states, the article contributes to research on ecological affects originating from the embodiment and embeddedness of human existence.

Art and design have become platforms for discussing the long-term implications of technology and modernity, most recently in relation to ecological crisis and the Anthropocene. While artists, designers and curators seek to raise awareness of the Anthropocene, it is important to remain critical of the narratives these practitioners develop. This paper provides a brief critique of how these issues are being addressed in the cultural sphere, suggesting that works of critical, conceptual and speculative design may be best suited to addressing the Anthropocene as they foster critical thinking about how we relate to technology and science, how we organize ourselves politically and socially, and how we define ourselves in the broader ecological assemblage. Artists and designers discussed include Marina Zurkow, Una Chaudhuri, Oliver Kellhammer, Fritz Ertl and Sarah Rothberg; Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby; and Jae Rhim Lee.

Learning in and about physically, culturally, and technologically determined geographies always involves processes of reflection and sometimes of unlearning. Only by overcoming ingrained habits of perception and trying out alternative approaches can space be created for new perspectives and learning progress. In Western culture, natural and cultural geographies today are strongly influenced by the models of flora and fauna. We tend to think and act according to a logic of hierarchical family trees and competing individuals that follow straightforward lines of development. With the philosophy of the Enlightenment, it was largely forgotten that the funga, the world of fungi with their widely ramified subterranean networks and strategies of symbiosis and interdependence, might also be considered as a model for development and learning processes. Fungi are masters of collaboration and can easily adapt to new situations and conditions by developing exchange strategies and forms of coexistence with other species. Along the theoretical approaches of Anna Tsing, Roger Caillois, Jacques Rancière, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez, the article makes a multisensory examination of the world of fungi the starting point for learning concepts that are based on forms of collaboration, sharing, and caring.

This article is a crossing through the Anthropocene. Between the body and the landscape, between the past and the future, between concepts and dances, between Edouard Glissant and the Atlantic Ocean, between tremor and uncertainty, between the Forest and Monoculture, between dance and the visual arts, between poetry and concepts, between the body and philosophy, between the animal and the plant, between what I desire and what I get, between Emanuele Coccia and the butterfly, between the thousand names of Gaia, the anthropology and what remains of our planet. They are letters thrown into the sea, directed to the landscapes that inhabit me, written with pieces of images and sounds that were inside my body/computer in these last years of journey. Shared in a list, like an alphabet in ruins, a (un)alphabetical order. Each letter carries a journey in itself: a way of doing and thinking about dance, an invention of a world that is possible to imagine today.

Preface: Manifesto Bearings " 'Off-modern' is a detour into the unexplored potentials of the modern project. It recovers unforeseen pasts and ventures into the side-alleys of modern history at the margins of error of major philosophical, economic and technological narratives of modernization and progress." Svetlana Boym DeTourism attempts one such exploration, a tentative recovery of unforeseen pasts and an estrangement toward the margins of errors that led us here. I hope to illuminate modern tourism as a cultural inversion on the scale of weather and to suggest that it is, like weather, emblematic of a dawning denouement. The first inversion is this, that money is time, not the other way around. There is no limit to how rich or poor we may grow, but we can only live so long, never always, seldom enough. Our end, or to use Simone Weil's termnecessity-is our one inescapable, guaranteed given. Capital-accumulation-affords one at least a chance at living some of life on one's own terms. Beyond frugal necessity, we sell our time to make time for our selves. Tourism takes time. It consumes financial reserves or compounds debt for its own sake and on its own terms. Within the culture of Tourism, money and labor are redistributed enthusiastically in a pro-sumptive, mutually supportive economy of manufactured anticipation and staged authenticity. To that degree, Tourism is the amoral equivalent to War as organizing force of human time and the largest and least productive industry in the world, larger even than Big Oil. War and Tourism, like oil and water, don't mix temporally, yet. They are still sequential; for a century now, from Verdun to Vietnam, armies have proven themselves the avant-garde of Tourism. So money is time. I collect postcards, a detritus of tourism, and I've done this all my adult life. My price point remains, through both circumstance and nature, that of a bottom-feeder. Offerings are random and rarely exceptional. I've no itinerary, specialization or bucket list; I've trained and trusted my eye and in the course of a half-century and several million decisions have accrued an atlas, uncharted yet global, from which to draw Tourism to a close. The second inversion is this: want not, waste not. To turn away from endless acquisition, to re-use,-consider,-cycle,-pair,-cover,-turn,-inhabit,-value,-create and-possess ourselves. It's a small world after all, in very real time now. DeTourism maps an alternative sense of direction, a "swerve" across once familiar territory, an " exactation" that

The Anthropocene denotes the period in planetary history when human beings have become the most important force of planetary transformation. True, humans have altered their environment at least since the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic, and perhaps even earlier. Some even suggest that the global warming resulting from the intensification of agriculture some 3000 years ago played an important part in postponing a new Ice Age and thus prolonging the favourable conditions of the Holocene (the period preceding the Anthropocene, running from the last Ice Age to, most would say, the industrial revolution of the 1750s). However, all agree that the onset of the industrial revolution entailed a qualitative change. Sometime in the late 18 th century, all the curves depicting human impact on the planetary environment (greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, population size, urbanization, agricultural land use etc.) begin to take off, to reach their 'hockey stick' phase of acceleration in the 1950s. 1 In other words, the industrial revolution transformed humanity from one actor among many others, to a significant actor, or perhaps an 'overwhelming' one, to

The Uncanny, according to Freud, belongs to the realm of an upsetting, and horror that humans were previously familiar with but, due to constant repressing, has now turned into 'unheimlich' (unhomely). This horror is often located on the 'other' human being as impairments mark their bodies. The uncanny aspect of disability is experienced when the abled body, whose subjecthood and identity is emphasised in Modernist literature, is challenged by its confrontation with a 'disabled' human body. This confrontation with the unfamiliar body, away from the perceived 'normal,' leads to the uncanny experience of horror or fear in the 'abled' person. However, this fear has always been present instinctively in all individuals. When they confront that fear being concretized in a physical form in a person with disability, they tend to repress it further or distance themselves by simply converting a disabled body into a non-human entity that is itself problematic (as will be discussed in the paper). In Modernist literature, the presence of a 'disabled' person in the narrative presents an 'absent-otherness' of modern ideas and aesthetics that one attempts to avoid consciously but that nevertheless exists. In such a scheme of things, this paper focuses on analysing this aspect of disability as the uncanny other of the modernist ideas and objectives, through H.P Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu. It proposes to do so by comparing the figure of the 'damaged' embodiment as opposed to the socially and culturally accepted 'abled' body.

Building on Pratt and Haraway's ideas of the contact zone, we examine the soundscape in two maritime boundaries: the Bali Strait and the Strait of Georgia. Both places, imbued with colonial histories, are rich in ecological diversity and signify different degrees of violence perpetuated against those who attempt to cross their geopolitical boundary zones. Using practices taken from sensory, multispecies, sonic and autoethnography, we explore how sound and listening offer a textural analysis of space, a way to sense and experience histories and the possibility of listening as activism.

White clay and black coal. In the Illawarra, 'Australia', the upper edge of these black coal lodes laid down by deciduous Glossopteris forests of Gondwana point to the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, the Third Mass Extinction on Earth. Now, their rich carbon archive, aired, fired, enmeshes them with a Sixth.

Vorbemerkung Der nachfolgende Beitrag ist die erst im Nachgang verschriftlichte Form eines Vortrages gleichen Titels an der DArV-Jahrestagung "Archäologische Feldforschung im 21. Jahrhundert zwischen Klimawandel, Krisen und neuen Herausforderungen" vom 5. bis 7. Juli 2024 an der Universität Bochum. In Panel III "Archäologie unter extremen Arbeitsbedingungen" waren thematische Beiträge zu besonderen Milieus (Wüste, Feuchtboden/Gewässer, Salz sowie Gletscher/Eis) subsummiert, die sich vor allem durch hervorragende Erhaltungsbedingungen für organische Materialien auszeichnen. Die durch den anthropogenen Einfluss zusehends veränderte Umwelt bringt für die archäologische Feldforschung bzw. den (boden-)denkmalpflegerischen Umgang mit derartigen Kulturlandschaften allerdings neue und vielfältige Herausforderungen mit sich. Eine geradezu idealtypische und vergleichsweise kurze Episode stellt in diesem Zusammenhang die sog. "Gletscherarchäologie" dar, die nicht nur faszinierende Einblicke in kaum bekannte frühere Lebenswelten, sondern auch innovative Analysen sowie wichtige Umwelt-und Klimadaten ermöglicht. Allerdings wird sich das Zeitfenster für die Gletscherarchäologie durch den weltweit zuletzt stark beschleunigten Zerfall des Eises in naher Zukunft schließen. Die hier formulierten Ausführungen und Gedanken zur Gletscherarchäologie-und allgemeiner zu einer "Archäologie im Anthropozän"-wurden vom Autor bereits an anderer Stelle veröffentlicht (s. Literaturverzeichnis), haben aber nicht an Aktualität und Dringlichkeit verloren.

In May 2022, we began a conference on Shakespeare and the Politics and Poetics of Relevance, as so many academic and institutional venues currently do, with a "land acknowledgment." While a relatively recent occurrence at such gatherings, these quasi-ceremonial land acknowledgments have become de rigueur in academia. In short, such remarks at the beginning of public gatherings mean to be a recognition of the fact that academic institutions, museums, civic centers, and indeed all the United States and Canada occupy Indigenous lands. The practice has Aboriginal roots in Australia, another settler colonized nation state, where a traditional "welcome to country" was practiced by Native peoples when visiting one another's territory.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a cruel reminder of how authoritarianism adds fuel to the fire of global warming. In this paper, I discuss how democracies vulnerable to authoritarian regimes can address the twin challenges of the climate emergency and ensure the protection of their sovereignty.

On one hand, the military is called on to rescue civilians exposed to climate change-related disasters (mega-fires, giant typhoons and floods), long droughts, and rapid sea rise; the military must also cope with an increase in conflicts caused by increasing pressure on natural resources.

On the other hand, due to its heavy reliance on fossil fuels, the military itself has a heavy carbon footprint. Through a literature review and empirical research on the case of Taiwan, which faces rapidly growing military pressure from China, this paper aims to contribute to the theoretical framework of this new field of research at the crossroad of environmental sociology and geopolitics.

Through an analysis of two threads of surveys, one related to war scenarios with China, the other to climate change and other environmental issues, this essay offers insights of comparisons and conceptual bridges through notions such as disaster resilience.

Artykuł dowodzi, że spekulacje na temat świata po antropocenie są nierozerwalnie związane z kwestionowaniem dominujących w zachodniej nowożytności konceptualizacji ciała ludzkiego jako bytu mającego nieprzepuszczalne granice, oddzielające organizm od otoczenia. W tym kontekście autor przygląda się dwóm najnowszym projektom performatywnym, które do tworzenia spekulatywnych światów wykorzystują technologię wirtualnej rzeczywistości (VR). Wytwarzając intensywne doświadczenia wielozmysłowe i afektywno-kognitywne, stwarzają one warunki do „egzosomatyzacji” (Stiegler), które pozwalają osobom uczestniczącym wcielić się w inne istoty i doświadczyć własnego ciała jako wielości. Analizując instalację Symbiosis (2020) interdyscyplinarnego kolektywu Polymorf, autor pokazuje, że doświadczenie to problematyzuje dominujące w humanistyce środowiskowej sposoby myślenia o relacjach ludzi i więcej-niż-ludzi. Przyglądając się zaś instalacji Alienarium 5 (2022) Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, dowodzi, że doświadczenie ciała jako wielości wymaga nie tylko konkretnych „materii troski” (Puig de la Bellacasa), lecz także nowego sposobu myślenia o czasie i doświadczania go.

Niniejszy artykuł zarysowuje perspektywę stworzenia modelu afektywnego, ucieleśnionego i sytuowanego poznania w relacji z kamieniami. Prezentuje on alternatywę dla nowoczesnego paradygmatu epistemologicznego, zgodnie z którym osoba badająca wytwarza obiektywną wiedzę o świecie, badając go z chłodnego dystansu. Nowy model jest istotny zwłaszcza w kontekście antropocenu, czyli kolejnej epoki w dziejach Ziemi, w której człowiek staje się dominującym czynnikiem geologicznym i meteorologicznym. W tym kontekście myślenie z kamieniami stanowi strategię dekolonizacji natury, która służy ujawnieniu związków między szkodliwymi ekologicznie praktykami zachodniego kapitalizmu i globalnymi nierównościami społeczno-ekonomicznymi oraz tworzeniu takich sposobów myślenia o świecie, które kwestionują binarną opozycję. Analizując film dokumentalny Czarodziejska góra Eitana Efrata i Daniela Manna w kontekście najnowszych teorii posthumanistycznych i dekolonialnych, autor omawia trzy aspekty myślenia z kamieniami, które pozwala rejestrować sprawczość nie-ludzi, wytwarza specyficzne podejście do troski i oferuje nowy afektywny tryb dostępu do przeszłości naszej planety.

Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie W "pułapce tożsamości". Przypadek bohaterów Transfugium Olgi Tokarczuk Tożsamość to pojęcie wieloznaczne, które od wielu lat interesuje nie tylko badaczy różnorodnych dyscyplin naukowych, ale także pisarzy, poetów, ludzi zajmujących się sztuką. Problem tożsamości w kolejnych dekadach zyskiwał coraz większą wagę, co wiązało się również ze zmieniającym się paradygmatem myślenia o człowieku. Kim jest człowiek i co odróżnia go od innych istot na świecie? Te pytania wydają się wciąż wybrzmiewać i trzeba przyznać, że nadal są niezwykle ważne. Zagadnieniami tymi zajmował się chociażby Giorgio Agamben, który w swej pracy Otwarte. Człowiek i zwierzę opisuje, jak przez wieki zmieniała się definicja człowieka. Filozof skoncentrował swą uwagę na kluczowej w myśli zachodniej dychotomii, a mianowicie dowodził on, że uniwersalnie pojmowane człowieczeństwo przez wiele lat wytwarzane było w konfrontacji ze zwierzęcością 1 . Produkowanie, umacnianie i sankcjonowanie granicy między człowiekiem i zwierzęciem byłowedług Agambenagłównym celem funkcjonowania "maszyny antropologicznej", czyli czegoś, co służyło wytwarzaniu humanitas 2 . Tak rozumiana maszyna antropologiczna działa w naszej kulturze w dwóch wariantachnowoczesnym i starożytnym. Pierwszy z nich charakteryzuje się wytwarzaniem ciągłych podziałów i odgraniczeń, funkcjonuje: wykluczając poza siebie jako (jeszcze) nieludzkie to, co już jest ludzkie, czyli animalizując to, co ludzkie, izolując nie-ludzkość w człowieku […] 3 . Starożytna maszyna działa na odwrotnej zasadzie, chodzi w niej o szukanie w samym człowieku tego, co zwierzęce:

Call for Papers
ASCA Workshop 2025:
Re-Imagining Universality in the Pluriverse

Organizers: Laila Bouziane & Serra Hughes. Call for Papers ASCA International Workshop 26-28 May 2025 | Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2025 | Contact: ascaworkshop2025@gmail.com

El vocablo neoliberalismo padece su propio éxito. Movilizado ampliamente y en los ámbitos más diversos de las prácticas comunicacionales contemporáneas -desde las teorías económicas a la filosofía política, del pensamiento crítico a la adjetivación espontánea-se encuentra internamente torsionado por la historia de sus usos. El carácter difuso de su trama pragmática y la amplitud de su polisemia señalan no sólo su eficacia ideológica sino, además, un enigma y una serie de controversias en torno de la relación entre tiempo y pensamiento que el término concita. Paradójicamente, quien mejor captó la ambivalente semántica del término fue uno de sus célebres divulgadores, Francis Fukuyama, en el volumen El Fin de la historia y el último hombre (1992), donde la idea del "fin" -vaga y confusamente asociada a la filosofía de la historia hegeliana-remite simultáneamente a la idea de cesación del tiempo (entendido como movimiento, transformación) y a la figura de la culminación de la obra filosófica de la civilización (liberal, capitalista). En este sentido, podríamos decir, que ese escrito canónico de divulgación de la ideología neoliberal es índice de un problema que el campo del pensamiento crítico, desde diversas perspectivas, ha intentado pensar en torno al neoliberalismo: su doble condición, como contorno de una época histórica y como límite de un régimen de historicidad o incluso como cesación de un tipo de relación específica entre razón, experiencia y tiempo. Partiendo de su composición lexical, este neologismo convoca ya una cuestión de índole temporal porque se cierne en una cierta tensión entre el pasado y el futuro. El prefijo neo proveniente de la expresión griega νέος, asociada al indoeuropeo newo, modula la palabra latina liber, de un modo tal, que sugiere renovación, recomienzo y, por lo tanto, también herencia, revisión. El sufijo ismo, ισμος, da cuenta de su devenir doctrina: cuerpo de ideas entre otros cuerpos de ideas, más o menos identificables en su fuerza nominativa y prospectiva. La pertinencia de este vocablo en el Lexico que lo recoge resulta clara, ya, desde su morfología. Neoliberalismo es el nombre de un cierto borde temporal, una operación de herencia y recomienzo que lleva las marcas de la historia de las ideas en aquello que ésta porta de historia material o de historia a secas. Pero no sólo eso, en su pretensión doctrinaria, este neologismo se

El vocablo neoliberalismo padece su propio éxito. Movilizado ampliamente y en los ámbitos más diversos de las prácticas comunicacionales contemporáneas-desde las teorías económicas a la filosofía política, del pensamiento crítico a la adjetivación espontánea-se encuentra internamente torsionado por la historia de sus usos. El carácter difuso de su trama pragmática y la amplitud de su polisemia señalan no sólo su eficacia ideológica sino, además, un enigma y una serie de controversias en torno de la relación entre tiempo y pensamiento que el término concita.

En mars 2025, dans le cadre d’une chaire ArTeC, l’artiste de l’écoute Budhaditya Chattopadhyay présentera plusieurs dimensions de son travail de recherche-création autour de la psychogéographie : marche sonore, enregistrement de terrain, perception adaptive, composition à partir d’archives sonores...  Le programme de cette chaire internationale s'inscrit dans le programme du Master « cinéma documentaire et anthropologie visuelle » de l'université Paris Nanterre.

This Introduction makes the case for a more critical engagement with
oceans and the maritime within critical heritage theory. We lay out a
research agenda that more consciously foregrounds aquatic domains in
debates about conservation, sovereignty, governance, state power, and
the politics of memory. In laying the ground for the papers that follow, we
portray oceanic geographies and maritime heritage as politically and
culturally charged arenas in order to argue that oceans are far from
neutral or culturally egalitarian spaces and are subject to human-imposed
hierarchies and competing ontologies. We scrutinize the dynamic interplay
between maritime and marine realms to challenge conventional
understandings of space, territory, and ownership, advocating for a reimagined
approach to heritage that recognizes the ocean’s pivotal role in
shaping human history and culture.

For "Art after Fukushima Art after Fukushima Imaginations of the Atomic Age in the Anthropocene Imaginations of the Atomic Age in the Anthropocene"
Organized by Toni Hildebrandt, Walter Benjamin Kolleg, University of Bern, Switzerland
December 19, 2024

In the Anthropocene, humanity's profound impact on global systems has generated an overwhelming abundance of data about pressing ecological and social issues. This paper argues that while this information is crucial, its sheer volume often leads to emotional detachment and inaction. Art emerges as a powerful antidote to this desensitization, capable of transforming abstract data into tangible, emotionally resonant experiences. Through an examination of works by the contemporary artists Maya Lin, Laurie Frick, Trevor Paglen, Refik Anadol, Agnes Denes, Nathalie Miebach, and Olafur Eliasson, this paper demonstrates how art can reconnect us with the urgency of our time. These artists convert complex information into sensory experiences that foster deeper reflection, expose hidden systems of power, and pose ethical critiques. By creating immersive aesthetic experiences, art provides a crucial lens for understanding and feeling the weight of the Anthropocene, inspiring critical reflection and action. The paper concludes that art's ability to elicit emotional engagement is essential for cultivating a more empathetic and ethically informed response to the complex challenges we face in this era of human influence.

Dr. Piotr Bockowski's narrative bridges biological systems and cosmic phenomena, emphasizing the interplay between environmental decay, microbial evolution, and the persistence of life across vast distances. His writing aligns with Carl Sagan's view on panspermia, where life is seeded by cosmic forces, and Freeman Dyson’s notion of life as part of a "long cosmic evolution." Bockowski’s portrayal of life as a transforming and entropic system reflects the decentralized, ever-changing nature of microbial existence, drawing upon concepts from Lynn Margulis, Richard Dawkins, and James Lovelock. The grotesque imagery in Bockowski’s work, such as mold, slime, and decaying humanoids, illustrates a universe in which life continually regenerates through cycles of decay and mutation. This speculative framework, enriched by the eroticization of decay and transformation, suggests a profound interconnectedness between life and its environment, whether terrestrial or extraterrestrial.

This study set methodological precedents and opened up new vistas on public engagement theory and practice in pursuit of solutions to challenging social problems such as street drinking. A live webcast, a health-assets mapping and exploration of a virtual community resource were combined with socio-cultural and Christian ethical analyses. The combination of social science and arts and humanities approaches provided in-depth understanding of affective, aesthetic and ethical complexities, including unarticulated, often unconscious, dispositions and processes. How virtual and real audiences establish presence with one another would bear further research. So too would the ways in which the debate about street drinking and old/new media groupings polarised. This reflects deeper ideological battles between communitarian or Christian principles and the addictive propensities of a marketised society. Despite technical difficulties and social and emotional resistances encountered we conclude...

This article provides an introduction to Johan Ludvig Heiberg's "On the Principle of the Beginning of History" from 1843. The Danish poet, playwright and critic attended Hegel's lectures in Berlin in 1824 and returned to Copenhagen a convinced Hegelian. He spent the next two decades pursuing a campaign to spread the word about Hegel's philosophy in the Kingdom of Denmark. His little-known article on history draws substantially on Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which had been published by Heiberg's acquaintance Eduard Gans in 1837 as a part of the complete works edition of Hegel's writings. Kierkegaard makes Heiberg's article the object of criticism in The Concept of Anxiety and a draft of Prefaces. In the former he claims that Heiberg's occupation with the beginning of world history trivializes the issue of sin. In the latter he charges Heiberg with plagiarism. The present article introduces Heiberg's article and gives an account of Kierkegaard's criticism.

What if the ‘post’ of ‘post-humanism’ meant not only ‘after’ but also ‘postal’? Martin Heidegger clears this path when, breaking with previous forms of humanism, he redetermines humanness in terms of a certain sending and receiving. Like a lost letter, however, the postal structure of ‘post-humanism’ also exposes the human to the risk of never receiving its humanness. To substantiate these stakes, I turn to Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold because, although all literature – according to Jacques Derrida – has an ‘epistolary’ structure, the double sense of ‘post-humanism’ plays out in this novel with particular force and clarity.

Mit dem Terminus (Neo-)Extraktivismen wird eine hegemoniale Mentalität beschrieben, die sich vor 500 Jahren entwickelte und heutzutage global dominierend ist. Die kapitalgesteuerte Aneignung und Ausbeutung kann dabei viele Facetten annehmen. In der Gegenwartskunst wird dieses Paradigma von Künstler*innen und Kollektiven auf unterschiedliche Weise reflektiert. Der Beitrag ver- sucht einzuordnen, welche Aspekte den Begriff der (Neo-) Extraktivismen ausmachen und was die möglichen Gründe dafür sind, dass sich in der zeitgenössischen Kunst zahl- reiche Werke explizit mit (neo-)extraktivistischer Theorie und Praxis auseinandersetzen. Außerdem wird Einblick in die verschiedenen Strategien gegeben, wie sich die Kunst der Gegenwart dem komplexen Thema der (Neo-) Extraktivismen nähert.

No conocemos el nombre de la tierra pero la nombramos. Y en ese nombrar se instalan relaciones de poder y de fuerza. En este ensayo indagamos en los nombres que le damos a la tierra y sus implicancias políticas. Planteamos el problema del nombre propio ligado al estatus de persona. La persona, en tanto dispositivo jurídico, aparece como una máscara y el nombre como su representación. Mencionamos los intentos por personificar a la tierra nombrándola con mayúscula. Estas propuestas se contraponen con los nombres telúricos en minúscula que nos llegan de los feminismos, de los ecofeminismos y del pensamiento amerindio. Este ensayo es una invitación a reflexionar cómo la tierra con minúscula nos instala frente a otro tipo de amabilidad lingüística y relacional, transladándonos de una política de la representación a una política de la presencia. Prescindir de la mayúscula es un pequeño desvío para poder entonar otros estribillos, como pretende esta convocatoria. Es la confluencia para poder pensar la educación ambiental más allá de la toma de conciencia. Es la apertura a la experiencia, al encuentro y a la materialidad de los cuerpos.

At the time when COVID-19 was in the process of taking the shape of a pandemic at the end of 2019, Lijo Jose’s Malayalam film Jallikattu and Galder Gaztelu Urrutia’s Spanish film The Platform were released. Interestingly, there is a striking similarity between the present (ongoing) pandemic and the two movies. The worlds depicted in the films, although fictional and impossible, soon turn into a reality with surging Covid-19 cases, increasing human paranoia, xenophobia, communal hatred, and more ethnocentric nationalism. The ultimate selfishness in man, which makes him cruel, depicted in the two movies, became a living reality for all of us who survived (and are still surviving) the pandemic-affected year 2020. By taking into consideration the thematic similarities of the two movies, the paper will argue, by using the theoretical framework of antihumanism (an offshoot theoretical development to posthumanism), how the films expose a prehistoric nature in man—the raw and wild, which was always there in a state of dormancy. Thus, the paper will go on to argue that Civilisation has collapsed and man has returned to the prehistoric form of existence where survival by any means is the only mantra. Moreover, the paper proposes to explore the ‘experience’ of the ‘impossibility’ that penetrates real life and how we, the spectators at online platforms, make out of the dystopia offered in the two films. The paper shall be divided into three parts. In contrast, the first part will focus on exploring the dystopia in the two movies and how it can be correlated with the present pandemic, the second part will focus on antihumanism and explore how it can define the dystopian nature in the selected films. Finally, the third part will try to explore the praxis of the experience of watching dystopian films at the time of a pandemic.