Contemporary Art in the Anthropocene:
a posthuman approach of the human and animal
Case studies of Terike Haapoja, Thomas Thwaites and Pierre Huyghe
Student: Marloe Mens Student number: 10219307
Supervisor: dhr. Prof. dr. E.A. de Jong Second reader: mw. dr. M.I.D. van Rijsingen Word amount [25.119]
1
Like the earthworm that eats its way through the soil, the humans worked through the world, processing everything into products of their own culture. But what they could not see was that they were followed by eyes, eyes everywhere.1
2
Abstract
This thesis explores how contemporary artists reflect or respond to the Anthropocene Era in the last decade and focuses primarily upon the human-animal relationship within this question. A broad theoretical framework on posthuman philosophy that consists out of both the work of Bruno Latour, Cary Wolfe and Erica Fudge examines the challenged human-animal relationship in the Anthropocene and relates to topics as ethical, political and social equality. The posthuman philosophy departs from the notion that the anthropocentric worldview is no longer tenable in our contemporary society due to their claim that the human being is responsible for the environmental destruction the world is facing nowadays. Breaking down dichotomies of the subject-object, human-animal and nature-culture binaries, these attacks have a huge influence on conventional meaning of cultural concepts as art, exhibition and artistic practice. The second part of the theoretical framework shows that the artistic practice in the Anthropocene is no longer subject-oriented but object-oriented and strongly intersects with other disciplines as science and philosophical theory. The third part of this thesis consists out of three case studies that serve to test the theoretical framework and examine what notions are visible within contemporary art. The Museum of the History of the Other (2013) by Terike Haapoja and Laura Gustafsson, Untilled (2012) by Pierre Huyghe and GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being a
Human (2016) are analyzed. Bringing both philosophy, art theory and art together, this thesis argues
that the intersection between humanities and environmental issues is a valuable contribution to the environmental debate and supports a search for a sustainable world wherein both human, animal and other nonhuman entities can flourish and strengthen each other.
Keywords
3
Content
Abstract ... 2
Acknowledgments ... 5
Animals, Art and the Anthropocene: Problems and Issues ... 6
Structure and justification 9
1. A posthuman framework on the ‘human’ and ‘animal’ ... 12
1.1 Bruno Latour – The Parliament of Things 13
1.1.2. The Modern Constitution and its critique 13
1.1.2.2 The Parliament of Things 16
1.2 Cary Wolfe – No language, no subjectivity 16
1.3 Erica Fudge – On Animal Studies 20
1.4 Conclusion 23
2. The role of art in the Anthropocene: non-fixed boundaries ... 24
2.1 The Nature Tendency: Jeffrey Kastner 25
2.2 The Animal Tendency: Filipa Ramos 26
2.3 Art in the Anthropocene: Davis and Turpin 27
2.4 Art and research: Alice Smits 29
2.5 Art as the surplus: Nicolas Bourriaud 30
2.6 On Design I: Nigel Cross 31
2.7 On Design II: Kayla Anderson 32
2.8 Conclusion 33
3. Case one: History according to Cattle ... 35
3.1.1 Terike Haapoja 36
3.1.2 Laura Gustafsson 37
3.2.1 The History of Others 37
3.2.2 The Museum of the History of the Cattle 38
3.3 Conclusion 43
Images 44
4. Case two: A non-human centered exhibition ... 47
4.1 Pierre Huyghe 48
4.2 Untilled 49
4.3 Conclusion 54
Images 56
5. Case three: Becoming a non-human animal ... 59
5.1 Thomas Thwaites 60
5.2 The GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being a Human 60
5.3 Conclusion 66
4 Concluding reflections ... 71
Bibliography ... 76
List of Images ... 80
5
Acknowledgments
This thesis is the final product of my master in Modern and Contemporary Art History. It explores the respondent or reflection of contemporary artists to the Anthropocene Era and the attack on the anthropocentric worldview it brings forth. It centers around the subject of the animal and examines how contemporary art can contribute to a less-anthropocentric worldview that is – as argued – desperately needed.
Bringing together both philosophy, art theory, art and the undercurrent topic of the environmental issue, this thesis conflates all my personal interests. During my studies in Art History I have always struggled finding ways to combine both my cultural as my political and social interests. Especially interested in the environment and the sustainable movement, I could not find the intersection between the arts and ecology I was so eagerly looking for. I would therefore firstly like to thank Miriam van Rijsingen who, maybe unconsciously, brought me to find this intersection with her inspiring classes on posthumanism, New Materialism and O.O.O. It is thanks to her courses that I found a path within my master program that was both challenging, informative and so unexpectedly inspiring.
Moreover, I could not have written this thesis without the supervision of Erik de Jong. His enthusiasm and support for this subject have motivated me tremendously to pursue and conclude this research. His guidance, considerations and kindness inspired me to think beyond my worldview and rethink my ideas on nature, culture and nonhuman entities. Foremost though, I am grateful for his positive approach towards the challenged notion of nature today, that regained my hope for a better future.
Furthermore, I could not have found my way through this thesis without the support of those around me. Special thanks to Manzar Samii, for her supportive and generous comments; to Jonny Bruce and Ann Doherety for their critical editing skills. To Kiki Muyres, who inspired me with her ideas on the central role of nonhuman entities and her love for the nonhumans around her. Foremost, I thank my mother for her constant support in finding my way; and my father whose voice still inspires me to think beyond conventions.
6 Animals, Art and the Anthropocene: Problems and Issues
Image 1. Olafur Eliasson, Ice Watch. 2015. Temporal installation consisting of twelve icebergs from the waters surrounding Greenland. Each iceberg is more than twenty meters circumference. Paris, Place du Panthéon. In November 2015, the Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and geologist Minik Rosing boarded a ship leaving the coast of Greenland. In a nearby fjord, they collected a dozen icebergs which they then transported all the way to the Place du Pantheon in Paris. Here, Eliasson and Rosing placed the icebergs in a large circle that then formed the installation Ice Watch (Image 1). The meaning of the title is twofold; the ice can firstly be watched, while it slowly melts and disappears. Secondly, the twelve icebergs were placed in the form of a watch, reinforcing the notion of time within this process of melting. The timing of the installation was not accidental. During the two weeks that the icebergs decorated the Place du Pantheon, Paris was in the spotlight as the host of the COP21, or the ‘2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference.’2 This conference brought together all of the world’s leaders in order to pursue an agreement on an international climate policy. The central aim was to reach a unilateral policy that could redeem the destructive development of climate change, focusing on how humanity could change its actions to secure a safe environment for future generations. Ice
Watch is therefore not only an artwork, but also a call – or cry – for action.3
The intersection of art and ecology is not only performed by Eliasson. It appears that there is a tendency toward such intersections from within the cultural field. In this thesis, I look into this notable tendency and examine the role of the arts in relation to the destructive behavior of the human towards the environment. The introduction of the ‘Anthropocene’ seems to have catalyzed this specific cultural interest and will therefore function as the main frame of this thesis. This concept was
2 The validity of the agreement has been violated by the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump. In June 2017, he withdrew the United States of America from the agreement.
7 introduced in 2002 by the Dutch chemist Paul J. Crutzen. It defines the new and current geological epoch, an epoch that centers around the new, cene, human, antropos. The introduction of this term signifies man’s official transition from the Holocene Epoch into the Anthropocene Epoch. The Holocene Epoch describes approximately the last 11,700 years on our planet, a time that originated with the end of the last major ice age. In general, the Holocene Epoch is described as a warmer period, acknowledging the influence humanity had on this development. According to Crutzen however, the consequences of human activity, such as climate change and deforestation, have become so severe that they are now irreversible. This leads to the notion that the human being is consciously destroying the earth, transforming the human into a geological force. The contemporary epoch therefore centers around the human – Anthropocene Epoch – and implies that the environmental issues we are facing today are a product of our own making. The urgency of acting thus becomes so demanding that it seems as if it might already be too late.4
While the truthfulness and the start date of the Anthropocene Epoch are still under debate, the concept has traveled to other academic fields including the social sciences and humanities. Additionally, contemporary art historians are contributing to the upcoming interdisciplinary field, with publications like Art in the Anthropocene (2016) by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin (edit.) and Textures of the Anthropocene: Grain Vapor Ray (2015), a collection of essays that explore the Anthropocene hypothesis and the implications it has for the sciences and arts.5 It is exactly this timely
intersection – art and art history in the Anthropocene Epoch – that forms the overarching framework for this thesis. As Davis and Turpin demonstrate in the introduction of their publication, contemporary art, such as Ice Watch, plays an important role in how we, humans, come to encounter the Anthropocene. They argue, amongst other things, that an artwork is capable of communication difficult information and knowledge to a broader audience.6
In this thesis however, I will argue that the visualization and sharing of knowledge about environmental issues is not enough to create the necessary change. This does not suggest that works such as Ice Watch are not to be applauded, but rather that, in order to save our planet, a more structural change is necessary within human thinking. The introduction of the Anthropocene shows that the environmental issue is a product by humans, meaning that in order to solve the issue, it becomes important to question and examine the underlying chain of thought that has led to such destructive activities. Moreover, assuming we live in the Anthropocene Era, a question arises regarding the identity of the human. Whilst the human has been perceived as the most successful species on this planet and is therefore thought of to exist separate from other natural species, it now
4 Davis and Turpin 2016: 2.
5 The publication Textures of the Anthropocene: Grain Vapor Ray finds its origins in the two-year research project by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin The Anthropocene Project (2013/2014). | Klingan, Katrin, Ashkan Sepahvand, Christoph Rosol, Bernd M. Scherer. Textures of the Anthropocene: Grain Vapor Ray [edit.] Berlin: Revolver Publishing, 2014.
8 becomes clear that they have transformed into a geological force. What then does this blurring of the human-nature separation means for concepts as ‘humans’, ‘nature’ and ‘culture’? The present-day philosophy posthumanism departs from both these two perspectives and will therefore be used as the core theory for this thesis. To subsequently examine how contemporary artists respond to or reflect on the human-nature relationship in the Anthropocene Epoch, I will discuss multiple cases comprising contemporary artworks, linking the theory to the current art practice. Completing my research, I argue that the intertwining between the environmental issues and the academic field of humanities is crucial, showing that the critical approach that signifies the humanities is well-suited to examine – and perhaps even change – the way we think of and relate to nature.
The posthuman discourse comprises a broad range of philosophers who challenge the existing concept of the human in our contemporary society – a concept they argue to be defined by the seventeenth century philosophical framework of humanism. ‘Post’ in this case does not refer to ‘after,’ as in a chronological order, but rather as in ‘after,’ as in thinking beyond the borders of humanism. In humanistic philosophy, the concepts of the subject and the object are ontologically separated. Core thinkers such as René Descartes (1596-1650) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) distinguished the subject, the human, from the object, the nonhuman, which inevitably led to the dichotomy between human-nature or human-nonhuman. Posthuman philosophers argue that this separation has led to anthropocentrism and is responsible for human exceptionalism: the human is considered superior to all other species on our planet, legitimizing dominant behavior towards nonhuman species.7 A result of humanist philosophy is hence the mindset that dominates Western
society which presumes nature and the environment to be less important entities, leading to ecological destruction and unethical use of natural resources and animals. To solve the environmental issue, posthuman scholars argue that the human-nonhuman dichotomy must be challenged and the idea of human exceptionalism destabilized. As the American scholar and posthumanist Rosi Braidotti so eloquently summarized: ‘[…] we cannot solve the problems in the same language we use to create them in the first place.’8
A part of the posthuman discourse focuses specifically upon problematizing the distinction between the human and the nonhuman animal. These scholars depart from the notion that the exclusion of the animal from the human realm has led to a society that is built upon the systematic use of the productive capacities of animals, solely recognizing animals as a resource to fulfill human needs. Posthumanists argue that this exclusion limits the ability to acknowledge the multi-dimensional relationship between human and nonhuman actors and the fact that the human only constitutes a minor subset of all living species.9 To narrow down my field of research, I have chosen to focus upon
7 Chiew 2014: 2.
8 Braidotti in the lecture ‘Memoirs of a Posthumanist’ at Yale’s Whitney Humanities Centre (USA) for the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Online video, 2017.
9 the animal and the role it takes in the current art practice. Whilst the subject of the animal is not new in the arts, it is interesting to examine how contemporary artists deal with the animal within the Anthropocene Era. This brings me to my main question:
How do contemporary artists in the Anthropocene Epoch respond/reflect upon the human-animal relationship in the posthuman discourse?
In this thesis I primarily aim to understand what the theoretical tendency – posthumanism – means for the artistic practice in the Anthropocene, whereby I focus specifically upon the role of the animal in the current art practice. Secondly, I aim to show how art and design can contribute to the ecological issue and hope to stimulate further interdisciplinary research upon this topic.
Structure and justification
This thesis is made up of two parts: a theoretical framework and analyses of contemporary artworks. The theoretical framework helps me to understand the human-animal relationship in the Anthropocene Era and what this discussion means for the contemporary art practice. It will give me the tools and concepts to analyze the artworks discussed in the second part, which both function to visualize the theory as well as test the theory. I have chosen to analyze artworks that all included the subject of the animal in a perspicuous way and were created by three different artists: the Finish duo Terika Haapoja and Laura Gustafsson, the British designer Thomas Thwaites and the French artist Pierre Huyghe. The theoretical framework will comprise the first two chapters, followed by three chapters that all include one thorough analyzes of an artwork. In the sixth and final chapter I will conclude my findings and form an answer to my main question. All images that I refer to are incorporated at the end of each chapter.
In the first chapter I will focus upon the posthuman approach to the human-animal relationship in the Anthropocene Era. I will examine theories of three different scholars, aiming to cover multiple approaches to this theme in the cultural debate. As an introduction to the chapter I will start with the publication We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour (1991, translated in 1993), focusing specifically upon the last chapter ‘A Parliament of Things’. Although the book of Latour was published long before the introduction of the Anthropocene Epoch by Crutzen and does not link specifically to the term of posthumanism, I believe Latour is one of the progenitors of the posthuman thought. He was one of the first that began to think beyond humanism and who showed how the modern strain of thought is to be held responsible for the destructive human behavior. I have chosen to focus upon the last chapter of We Have Never Been Modern since it poignantly proposes a new political structure that does include both humans and nonhumans, a proposal that still holds its validity nowadays.
To subsequently link Latour’s work to the posthuman philosophy, I will secondly elaborate on the written works by the American scholar Cary Wolfe, a leading scholar in the posthuman and
10 cultural debate. His book What is Posthumanism? (2011) clearly sets out the definition of posthumanism and links animal studies to the philosophical strain. An interesting aspect in Wolfe’s work is that he not only elaborates on the unethical use of animals, but also broadens his arguments to touch upon social and racial inequality. For this reason, I find his work to have enormous value both for the social, political and environmental debate. I have deliberately chosen not to discuss any works that have been written intermediate between Latour and Wolfe, such as that of Donna Haraway, so I can create a framework that encompasses multiple approaches to the human-animal relationship and spreads out over multiple years.
To conclude the first chapter, I will examine Animal (2013) by the British scholar Erica Fudge who specializes in Animal Studies in the Medieval period. Her work takes a more practical approach and focuses upon the academic field of humanities itself, criticizing the conventional methods and all it means for the way we come to understand the animal, the human and nature. Since I practice as an art-historian, I find it important to understand what my academic approach tenors and what the Anthropocene and all it embeds means for this field of research.
The second chapter will consist of an elaboration on the contemporary art practice within the Anthropocene Era, linking the theory from the first chapter to current art practice. Since the foundation of the modern art practice is under attack, such as the subject-object, nature-culture and human-animal dichotomy, it becomes crucial to examine what the attack on art’s foundation means for current artistic practice. How do artists create in a period wherein humans destructive force becomes more and more visible? How do artists relate themselves to nonhuman entities when these turn out not to be excluded from the human realm, but might be more part of their identity then they have ever thought before? What do modern ideas on materiality, the role of the beholder and the categorizing into mediums still mean in the Anthropocene Era in which everything seems to be loosely defined? By discussing multiple art critics, scholars and curators, I aim to set out how people in the field relate to the Anthropocene and what is means for current art practice.
The third, fourth and fifth chapter each encompass an analysis of a case study I have chosen. Because I examine current art practice in the Anthropocene in this thesis, I selected three artworks that are all created after 2010. Each work relates to the human-animal relationship and centers the non-human animal in some way. To discuss a broad scale of artworks and understand the tendency in the current art practice, I chose artworks that each explore different questions and all approach the subject from a different angle and artistic medium. The order of the analyzes is therefore not arranged chronologically, but is based upon a logic I find in the content and significance of the artworks. The structure of each chapter is alike, consisting of an introduction of the artist(s) and their oeuvre, followed by a formal description of the work and concluding with an analysis using the theoretical framework found in chapter 1 and 2.
The third chapter elaborates on the artwork by Finish duo Terike Haapoja and Laura Gustafsson
11 theory and therefore forms a logic bridge between the theoretical and analytical part of this thesis. This – temporal – museum centers around the nonhuman entity of the cattle and aims to recreate history in a non-anthropocentric manner, framing not the animal, but the human as the other. Using the traditional format of the exhibition as its base, this work simultaneously invokes questions about the tenability of such traditional ways of presenting history.
The fourth chapter picks up Untilled (2012) by Pierre Huyghe, a site-specific ‘situation’ that was installed during dOCUMENTA (13). Likewise to the work of Haapoja and Gustafsson, this installation resembles the traditional concept of an exhibition, although in a very different manner.
Untilled combines inanimate and animate beings, such as plants, trees and non-human animals. With
the creation of a site where not humans but non-humans take the central position, the work of Huyghe is seriously interesting to discuss in light of posthuman philosophy as the criticism in the current cultural sphere on the dominant position of the human.
The fifth and last chapter comprises an analysis of GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being
a Human (2016), a work of design by Thomas Thwaites. Even though Thwaites executed the project a
few years prior to 2016, the publishing of a book with the same title as the project made it possible for Thwaites to share the project with the public. The book documents the project by combining texts by Thwaites and very beautiful photos by photographer Tim Bowditch. In the project, as the book, Thwaites explores how to transform into a goat, by not only looking like one, but actually living as and with goats. He designs an exoskeleton that imitates that of a goat and thereafter leaves to the Alps on a short ‘holiday’. The work is relevant as my concluding analysis since it is multi-disciplinary and relates both to design, visual arts and performance. Henceforth, it poses questions not only on the divisionary boundaries between humans and non-human animals, but also on those that separate artistic mediums.
In the conclusion, all discussed artworks and theories on the human-animal relationship are brought together. I hope to create a consistent answer to the main question, and simultaneously show in what ways nature and art can be intertwined in the Anthropocene in such a way that both strengthen one and other.
12
1. A posthuman framework on the ‘human’ and ‘animal’
13 This chapter comprises the first part of the theoretical framework of this thesis. To understand how art can contribute to the awareness and comprehending of the ecological crisis, I will explore the posthuman approach on the human-animal dichotomy and how this philosophy lays bare the foundation of man’s thinking that has led to this specific crisis. Elaborating on the philosophy of Bruno Latour, Cary Wolfe and Erica Fudge, this chapter does not summarize their thinking but rather shines light on aspects that expound the reasons for their criticism and the arisen of the posthuman philosophy.
1.1 Bruno Latour – The Parliament of Things
‘The Parliament of Things’ is the last and concluding paragraph in Latour’s publication We Have
Never Been Modern (1991)10. In the antecedent paragraphs of his book, Latour criticizes the contemporary, or, as he classifies it, the ‘modern’ Parliament, leading to his proposal of a new form of parliament: The Parliament of Things. Although Latour does not specify this, it is plausible that this parliament is a, like the parliaments we known in the Western society, political, national and democratic. The proposed parliament will, in contradiction to the modern parliament and our existing parliament, not only represent humans, but also things. As Latour argues, the modern parliament excludes the rights of things, objects and nonhumans, as it only centers around the human. This anthropocentric parliament, however, does not correspond to the practical way in which we, the human, currently live.11 If we want a faithful parliament – a parliament that is based upon a truthful construction – a structural change needs to occur. Nonetheless, Latour’s proposal is not fully complete, but rather a call for others to complete the proposal and find a way to execute the new construction.12 It therefore remains unclear how exactly the parliament should function, but it does become clear how the contemporary form of parliament does not function.
1.1.2. The Modern Constitution and its critique
Latour appoints the structure of the parliament in the western democracy as a modern parliament, a nomination which indicates that this form of politics arose with modernity. While Latour does not specify the time frame of this period, he plausibly refers to the general notion of modernity which originates in the Enlightenment period. To clarify what he considers ‘modern’, Latour inserts the concept of the ‘modern Constitution’. This Constitution, deliberately spelled with a capital C to distinguish this concept from a political constitution, is, unlike a political constitution, not a registered construction of rules and definitions, but does ‘define[..] humans and nonhumans, their properties and their relations, their abilities and their groupings.’13 Hence, the Constitution is a framework that dictates the concept of the human and lays out the structure of society and its politics. In contradiction
10 Latour 1993: 142-145. 11 Lash 1999, online access. 12 Latour 1993: 145. 13 Latour 1993: 15.
14 to a political constitution the modern Constitution is not based upon a written source, but is created by human beings. It is therefore impossible to define exactly who is responsible for the creation of the modern Constitution.14
Latour’s modern Constitution is based upon four ‘guarantees’, four components that construct the Constitution. Each guarantee refers to an ontological realm: the object, the subject, language and being. Since my theoretical framework focuses upon the non-human (object) and human (subject), I will therefore only elaborate on the first two guarantees. The first guarantee relates to the idea that within modernism, nature is considered transcendental. It brings forth the idea that nature exists universally in time and space and exists outside the realm of the human being. This means that within the modern Constitution, nature is considered objectively true and relates the realm of nature to the nonhuman, such as animals, objects, things and scientific facts. From this perspective, scientists are the spokespeople of nature and objects and therefore only deal with the truth.15 The second guarantee states that society is a social construct and therefore solely deals with the human. It relates only to the subject and is, in contradiction to nature, immanent. Concepts such as culture and politics are seen within this sphere, meaning that artists and politicians are considered the spokesmen for subjective facts.16 Thus, the first two guarantees ontologically separate the subject-object, nature-culture and the human-nonhuman.
However, according to Latour, this dichotomy is paradoxical and based upon a false assumption, rather than being considered a valid foundation. If we look at the first guarantee – nature is transcendent and therefore scientific facts are truthful – Latour argues that this assumption is not as solid as is surmised. Considering scientists are humans and perform their research in a constructed environment like the laboratory, scientific facts and theories are not solely a particle of the realm of nature, but also partly social constructs. Science is therefore not completely transcendental, but simultaneously immanent. The second guarantee – society is a social construct– is challenged by Latour on the notion that society not only relates to the human being, but is simultaneously enrolled with nonhumans, such as objects, things and animals. While humanism implies the idea that the human and society exist isolated from the nonhuman, Latour demonstrates how the existence of humanity is inherent to the sphere of the nonhuman. Society is hence partly immanent and transcendent. Even though the modernists might have realized this paradox, they did not act upon it, but rather tried to keep it ‘Totally Separated’. Only with this mindset were the modernists able to organize the world around them and fortify the human identity.17
14 In his publication, We Have Never Been Modern, Latour focuses upon the political philosopher Thomas Hobbs and the Irish philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle as the two main actors for the creation of humanism. The famous debate between the two philosophers/scientists is considered the origin of the modern Constitution.
15 Latour 1993: 32, Lash 1999: online access. 16 Latour 1993: 31-32.
15 Latour thus argues that the modern Constitution is based upon a false separation. Secondarily, he also argues that this Constitution makes it impossible to deal with things that seem to fall beyond the dichotomized classification of nature and society. To exemplify this, Latour refers to events that took place in 1989. While this year is known for the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was also the year that multiple conferences were held on the topic of the state of the Earth. Shocking scientific facts showed the existence of a huge hole in the ozone layer, a worrisome development for humanity. The data revealed that the hole in the ozone layer was a product of human activity, and therefore should logically be placed within the binary side of Society. But, Latour says, the hole in the ozone also relates to Nature, since the hole itself is not literally manmade, but created by Nature itself.18 This means that the hole in the ozone layer cannot be solely classified as nature, or society, but relates to both spheres. Following this line of thought, it can be stated that the existence of the hole in the ozone layer violates the binary opposition that the modern Constitution asserts. Latour defines these unclassifiable objects as hybrids, or quasi-objects.19
Since the modern Constitution is founded upon the nature/society dichotomy, it is unable to acknowledge the existence of these hybrids and quasi-objects. The strict separation therefore permits the hybrids and quasi-objects to proliferate. The modern Constitution thus creates a huge paradox: the dualism that has allowed the proliferation of hybrids simultaneously violates its existence.20 The time has come, argues Latour, that these hybrids, these quasi-objects, should no longer be denied in their existence. Since the existence of hybrids and quasi-objects is not new, but has always been ignored, we should recognize ‘that we have never been modern’.21
Forasmuch as the hybrid belongs to both the realm of nature and society, and therefore to both the realm of the object and subject, it is unfaithful to exclude these objects from the right – and political discourse. Latour clarifies this statement by using the concept of “quasi-object”, which is a kind of hybrid. This concept was introduced by the French philosopher Michel Serres.22 A quasi-object, like a hybrid, moves both within the realm of nature, as well as the realm of society. However, in contradiction to the example of the ozone hole, a quasi-object is always made out of materialistic matter. In the academic field of the social sciences, researchers consider the object to be a shapeless matter which is only significant due to the human being, a presumption that acknowledges the object as a white screen that reflects the needs of society. In the exact sciences however, the object plays a contradictory role since it is believed to be a thing that contains a form of agency and is therefore capable of affecting its surroundings. The quasi-object contains both qualities.
To exemplify the quasi-object, Serres analyzes a football. A football could be seen as shapeless matter that only becomes significant when used by humans in a football game. At the same time, the
18 Latour 1993: 6, 8.
19 For hybrid see Latour 1993: 10-11 for his explanation on quasi-objects see: Latour 1993: 51-54. 20 Lash 1999, online access.
21 Latour 1993: 10, 46-48.
16 football can be seen as an actor: without the football on the field, the people would not move as they would with the football. On the one hand, the football can be considered an object, while on the other hand, it can be considered an actor, a subject in the field.23 It is therefore unfair to exclude the quasi-object from the rights discourse, since it so clearly belongs to the realm of society.
1.1.2.2 The Parliament of Things
To summarize, the problematic aspect of the modern parliament is that, firstly, it is based upon a false separation, and secondarily excludes hybrids, leading to their proliferation. This leads to the denial of the rights of the quasi-object, such as the animal, since modernists are not able to think beyond the object/subject dichotomy. It is thus important to restructure the politics within our society and reform the parliament, so that the parliament becomes a truthful representation of our planet and society. Latour defines the Parliament of Things as follows:
Natures are present, but with their representatives, scientists who speak in their name. Societies are present, but with the objects that have been serving as their ballast from time immemorial. Let one of the representatives talk, for instance, about the ozone hole, another represent the Monsanto chemical industry, a third the workers of the same chemical industry, another the voters of New Hampshire, a fifth the meteorology of the polar regions, let still another speak in the name of the State; what does it matter, so long as they are all talking about the same thing, about a quasi-object they have all created, the object-discourse-nature-society whose new properties astound us all and whose network extends from my refrigerator to the Antarctic by way of chemistry, law, the State, the economy, and satellites.24
Latour calls for a construction that would include not only the human in the parliament, but also the (nonhuman) animal. Since the animal is not able to communicate with the human in the same language, they could not have a spokesman who could speak profoundly about their needs. While this sounds profoundly difficult, Latour emphasizes that since half of our politics is constructed in science and technology and half of our politics is constructed in society, we simply must patch the two halves together.25 If we choose not to take action and do not include the nonhuman into the parliament, the hybrids and quasi-objects will keep growing and challenge our planet and existence. Besides this, it is unfair to keep pursuing only the rights of the human, since our existence is intertwined with the nonhuman, such as the animal, and should therefore not be pushed out of our realm.
1.2 Cary Wolfe – No language, no subjectivity
The vantage point of Wolfe on the human-animal relationship is, in contradiction to Latours position, solely philosophical and focuses upon ethical questions raised from his criticism on humanism. With his publication What is Posthumanism? Wolfe aims to create a posthuman ethical discourse. Hereby he concentrates mainly on the role of the animal. Even though Wolfe admires the ambitions and
23 Serres 1982: 224-234. 24 Latour 1993: 144. 25 Latour 1993: 144.
17 values of humanism and applauds important developments like universal human rights and social equality, he argues that these exact ambitions are being undermined by the humanist philosophical framework.26 Therefore he considers it important to find a way to think beyond humanism and ‘develop a theoretical and philosophical approach responsive to our changing understanding of ourselves and our world.’27
Wolfe explains that the ethical discourse in humanism is grounded upon the ontological definition of the human, based on human qualities, such as language, consciousness, reason and reflection. 28 By defining the human, humanism ontologically separates the human from the nonhuman, such as the animal, since these species do not contain the qualities ascribed to the human. According to Wolfe, this separation led to the ascribing of rights and values based upon the classification in species, such as ‘human’ or ‘animal’. 29 ‘Speciesism’, a concept often used by animal right activists, defines the species based rights discourse and led to the determination of what is ‘human’ and should therefore be treated that way, and what is a less desirable way of ‘life’ and therefore does not necessarily deserve the same rights as the human.30 Speciesism therefore legitimizes the use of violence against the ‘less’ desirable form of subjectivity, such as the animal. The posthuman ethics Wolfe aims to reach is ‘one which will cut across species barriers and mobilize a fundamental shift in our understanding of discrimination practices and moral responsibility.’31
What is interesting in Wolfe’s criticism on speciesism is that he argues this legitimized violence in humanism is species-specific in its logic, by separating the human from the nonhuman, but not in its effects, since this species-specific rights discourse has been used to legitimately oppress both the human and the nonhuman. 32 Wolfe explains:
‘As long as you take it for granted that it’s O.K. to commit violence against animals simply because of their biological designation, then that same logic will be available to you to commit violence against any other being, of whatever species, human or not, that you can characterize as a “lower” or more “primitive” form of life.’ […] That’s why the discourse of animalization is so powerful, because it uses a biological or racial taxonomy to institute an ethical divide between who is “killable but not murderable,” those who are “properly” human and those who aren’t.’ 33
The separation and conceptualization of the ‘human’ and the ‘animal’ thus led to the legitimization of violence, racism and discrimination, against both human and animal. While most people in our society will argue they do not agree with animal cruelty, their disagreement will be based on the fact that they consider the animal as a diminished version of the human. Thus, as long as the animal is considered
26 Wolfe 2010: 16-17.
27 Back of book cover What is Posthumanism? 2010. 28 Wolfe 2010: 15.
29 Chiew 2014: 4.
30 Wolfe in Lennard, Wolfe 2017: online access. 31 Chiew 2014: 3.
32 Chiew 2014: 4.
18 an organism that possesses ‘various characteristics such as the capacity to experience suffering — and not just brute physical suffering but emotional duress as well — that we human beings possess more fully’, the human will ‘end up reinstating a normative form of the moral-subject-as-human that we wanted to move beyond in the first place.’34 In consequence, a posthuman ethics needs to think beyond the human/animal dichotomy and needs to find a new vocabulary that makes it able to value the animal in its own right, in its differences and uniqueness.35
Wolfe’s main entry point for critique on the humanist assumption that animals are less ‘normal’ then the human subject regards the assumption of language. In the humanist strain of thought, language is a specific human quality that is not possessed by animals. The dichotomy between the human and animal is partly based upon the notion that the animal lacks the element of subjectivity since they cannot speak for themselves. 36 Language is thus considered to correlate to subjectivity.37 Wolfe emphasizes a shift from the focus on human capacities to define the human and argues that especially language fails to determine the boundaries between the human and the animal.38 To criticize the notion of language as the ontological foundation of the human Wolfe relies on the theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004).
The humanist strain of thought hence considers the human as an isolated operator from the nonhuman since the animal is not able to communicate with the human through language. Niklas Luhmann opposes this assumption and shows that language is not equal to the idea of communication, an approach that differs strongly from traditional sociology. In classical sociology, a researcher considers the basic elements of a social system to be ‘persons’. With his ‘social system theory’, Luhmann however created a communication scheme that demonstrated that the human not only communicates with other humans, but also with the nonhuman.39 Simplified, he thought of the basic elements of the social system, for example a society, not as persons, but as ‘communication’. the basic elements of any social system, for example a society, are not considered persons or actions but ‘communication’. Luhmann’s social system theory therefore creates a system that functions as a web of relationships wherein no hierarchy exists between the communicating actors.40 From this perspective, communication is not limited to the notion of human language, but covers all kinds of communication, such as body language or even the exchange of materials within the cell system of a plant. The system theory of Luhmann is, unlike the humanist philosophy, not interested in old biologist taxonomies, but transcends this specific-species classification.41 According to Wolfe, the
34 Wolfe in Lennard, Wolfe 2017: online access. 35 Wolfe in Lennard, Wolfe 2017: online access. 36 Chiew 2014: 57. 37 Chiew 2014: 7. 38 Bolton 2014: 53. 39 Ratelle 2011: 149. 40 Seidl 2004: 7-9. 41 Chiew 2014: 5.
19 system theory has ‘given us a language where we can now describe much more intricately and robustly how human beings – not just their minds but their bodies, their micro biomes, their modes of communication and so on – are enmeshed in and interact with the nonhuman world.’42
With his reliance on Luhmann, Wolfe hence aims to demonstrate how both human and animal rely on each other in daily life and therefore define each other. With his second use of the theory derived by Derrida, Wolfe fortifies the relationship between the human and animal and argues that there is a second resemblance between humans and animals that are normally disavowed by humanist philosophers. According to Derrida, as described in his famous essay The Animal That Therefore I
am, the philosophical distinction of the human and the animal is founded upon the concept of the
animal as the Other.43 However, this Other does not contain a face, but is merely that, that we – humans – are not. Within humanism, the Animal solely plays the role of defining the human but has never been defined in its own rights, an action that led to the prioritization of the human.44 Only when we know ‘I’, our human subjectivity, are we able to master over the ‘Other’, the animal.45 This ‘Other’ simultaneously leaves the animal undefined and suggests the vision that the Animal is like a Unified Other, as if all animal species are the same, even though most people would agree that a bacteria differs ontologically from a giraffe.
A second point Derrida argues is that the separation of the animal from the human denied the notion that both the human and animal share an embodied finitude. This firstly means that human and animal are capable of experiencing and learning both with their rational minds as through their bodies. This presumption is strongly denied by humanist philosophy, since it solely takes rationality as the ontological foundation of the human. Embodied finitude secondly means that both human and animal are mortal and therefore physically (and mentally) vulnerable, a statement that amplifies the resemblance between the human and animal body.46
By using both Luhmann and Derrida, Wolfe shows that ‘the identity of the human species is not unified or self-present, but thoroughly implicated in the phenomenology and ontology of other nonhuman entities.47 Although humanism does not recognize the destruction of the animal as an attack on the ontology of the human, Wolfe shows that it indeed does. This implies, however, not that the human and the animal are the same and therefore deserve an equal treatment. Rather, Wolfe aims to illustrate that the humanist philosophy is a ‘woefully inadequate philosophical tool to make sense of the amazing diversity of different forms of life on the planet, how they experience the world, and how they should be treated.’48 The rights and ethical discourse should move beyond the human/animal
42 Cary Wolfe in Lennard, Wolfe 2017: online access.
43 Derrida, Jacques [trans. David Wills], ‘The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow), Critical Inquiry Vol.28, No.2 (2002): 369-418.
44 Fudge in The Eighteenth Century 2011: 95. 45 Bolton 2014: 54.
46 Wolfe 2010: 80, Wolfe 2009: 570. 47 Chiew 2014: 2.
20 distinction and describe the human as a human animal, and the animal, as nonhuman animal. These concepts acknowledge the embodiment of both the human and the nonhuman and demonstrate the similarly and possible communication with the animal, resulting in the changing ethical relationship.49 With the focus on the embodied finitude, Wolfe destructs the definition of the human as the knowing subject and the foundation of its definition by human qualities, such as self-definition and language. Wolfe’s posthuman ethics aims to create a framework that validates the animal in its own rights and not because it is a lesser version of the human. The line of thought in posthuman ethics therefore becomes trans-species and throws out the humanist ontological distinction between the human and the nonhuman. It attributes the differences between all species and acknowledges every single one in its own rights, while leaving from the conception that the animal-human relation is founded upon a shared vulnerability.50
1.3 Erica Fudge – On Animal Studies
The third and last author I wish to discuss in this chapter is Erica Fudge, whereby I focus upon her publication Animal (2002) and her role in the emerging field of Animal Studies. Fudge’s theory stands in contradiction to the theories of Latour and Wolfe since it is not primarily philosophical or theoretical. She practices a more pragmatic field of research into the human-animal relation in western art history, whereby she focuses mainly on Early Modern Literature. Her field Animal Studies departs from the notion that understanding the role of the animal within cultural products from the past can help us to create a better understanding of our current concept of the human-animal relationship. Whereas Fudge’s theory does not specifically discuss the concept of posthuman philosophy, her work does show strong links to this strain of thought. Besides this, Animal is not to be seen as a reflection of the entire field of animal studies, but rather reflects a small part, also defined as ‘critical animal studies’.51
Animal studies and critical animal studies share a cross-disciplinary approach to the (historical) study of human-animal relationships. Both acknowledge the shared human/animal embodied finitude, criticize speciesism and attack the subject/object boundaries.52 Some scholars within the field of animal studies move within the realm of humanism, while Fudge clearly moves within posthumanism. For example, a scholar in the field of animal studies who focuses on the animal in Medieval literature, will approach the animal from an anthropocentric view. He or she considers the animal a blank field onto which the life of the human is projected; the animal is a mere representation of the human self and is regarded as an object.53 A disjunctive approach is achieved by critical animal studies, which acknowledges that the animal is not solely an object but that it is a subject containing agency. Thus,
49 Pedersen 2011: 69.
50 Bolton 2014: 55, Chiew 2014: 4, Lennard, Wolfe 2017: online access. 51 Pederson 2011: 66.
52 Pedersen 2011: 67. 53 Fudge 2014: 2.
21 the animal is an actor that can act, and is therefore able to change things.54 Critical animal studies and posthumanism both challenge the anthropocentrism of humanism and align the ‘critique of the idea of human supremacy and its disastrous implications for nonhuman animals’.55
Before returning to Fudge’s notion of agency, it is important to clarify the cause for her ‘critical’ approach. According to Fudge, the relationship between the human and the animal in our society is illogic. ‘We live with animals, we recognize them, we even name some of them, but at the same time we use them as if they were inanimate, as if they were objects. The illogic of this relationship is one that, on a day-to-day basis, we choose to evade, even refuse to acknowledge as present.’ 56 Animals are both tied-to and separated from the human. However, this dualism is not acknowledged in the humanist philosophy and simultaneously not in our western society. Whilst animals are present all our lives, they are frequently treated as if they are not animals but merely objects.
Fudge explains in Animal that the reason for the objectification of the animal is to be found in fear: the fear that there might be a kinship between us – the human – and them – the animal. The ontological separation of the animal from the human created the idea that the animal is nonhuman and therefore a threat to the identity of the human.57 Following, the human acted superior towards the nonhuman in order to annihilate this fear. ‘Master – control, domination – is the means by which we annihilate fear’, states Fudge.58 The human-animal relationship is thus defined by a power structure that simultaneously ignores certain aspects of the relationship. Again, this can be exemplified when focusing on language. According to Fudge, language has been regarded as the domain of the human and therefore defines the difference between the human and the animal based upon the ability to communicate. This logic however disregards the fact that animals do communicate with each other, only not with human language, but with sounds, actions and their bodies. Besides this, the idea that human language is equal to communication, neglects the fact that maybe animals do not understand us, but that humans also do not understand their language, like the barking of a dog. The humanist logic regarding language, founding the separation of the animal from the human, therefore seems illogic.
Fudge argues that the humanist strain of thought always dictates the animal as the other, an object, a representation of the human, but never lets an animal be experienced as an animal. This intellectual legacy is visible in human language itself, which only delivers handles to speak about the animal as a mini version of the human and hence makes it impossible to describe the animal as an animal.59 By examining historical sources, Fudge aims to show this contradiction and ‘present[s] the
54 Fudge 2014: 2. 55 Pedersen 2011: 69. 56 Fudge 2002: 8. 57 Fudge 2002: 8. 58 Fudge 2002: 8. 59 Fudge 2002: 12.
22 need to rethink our relationship with animals.’60 She consciously focuses upon Early Modern Literature because the Early Modern Period is a time when ‘many key aspects of the modern world begin to emerge – in terms of our conceptions of science, selfhood, global politics.’61 In the end, Fudge’s main goal is to contribute to the creation of a new language to talk about the animal as animal, and not merely as ‘nearly-humans.’62
With a critical position in the field of animal studies, Fudge deliberately occupies a new position within the field of historical studies. In general, historians trace moments of change in order to create a linear perspective of the development within history. The actors that create these changes are always considered humans. Fudge however contradicts this assumption by implying that not only the human but also the animal should be considered an actor. If we pursue this thinking, we can indeed conclude that animals affect society. They ‘impact the way in which humans live, think, and represent the world. […] They created significant shifts in human thinking and thus human history.’63 This does however not imply that the animal has to be self-aware to create this change but rather shows that agency can exist separated from thought. 64 It is thus unfaithful when history is solely anthropocentric.65
With Animal, Fudge shows that the field of critical animal studies is crucial if we want to gain more understanding on the human-animal relationship. She explains:
‘[Animal studies] asks our students and our readers to think about things that might otherwise go unthought […], to think about what it means to be a human being; about how that human being has been constructed in history; about how that construction of the human that we live with now might impact upon the world we live in, the people we live alongside, and so on.’ 66 It becomes clear that by studying the animal, the human is simultaneously a subject of research. With her publication, Fudge intends to show that both concepts are not natural but rather a social and cultural construct. ‘The Animal’ is therefore a concept that not only denies the multiplicity of animal species, as Wolfe argued, it also denies the multiplicity of relations that exist between the human and the animal. While the new language on the human-animal relationship still has to be created, Fudge’s theory ‘challenge[s] the meaning of such extinctions as we continue to encounter them in the future.’67 Not only does Fudge aim to change the field of animal studies from an anthropocentric worldview to a posthuman view, she also pleads for the introduction of the animal as a subject within the humanities to challenge the notion of the human and its activities. ‘I wonder if the Humanities is still the Humanities after the entry of animals.’68
60 Fudge 2002: 9. 61 Fudge 2002: 95. 62 Fudge 2002: 158. 63 Ibid. 64 Fudge 2014: 2. 65 Fudge 2014: 3.
66 Fudge in The Eighteenth Century 2011: 95. 67 Fudge 2014: 3.
23
1.4 Conclusion
In this chapter I examined three theories that all strongly relate to the posthuman philosophy and its approach to the human-animal relationship. While each author focuses on different aspects and uses different terminology, the core of their arguments consists out of an attack on the humanist dichotomized thinking in subject-object boundaries. Not only has this strain of thought led to (environmental) destruction, it is also based upon a false foundation. By challenging the borders of both the concepts of the human and the animal, posthumanism argues that the identity of the human is not unified but thoroughly inherent to the phenomenology and ontology of the nonhuman animal.69 It poses an alternative to the concept of the human as a fixed, autonomous and unique subject, in the form of a postmodern human concept that is understood as ‘local, fluid, contingent; contesting familiar hierarchies.’70 Yet, what does this fluid approach means for the current artistic practice? To understand the way artists deal with the posthuman notion on the animal, I will examine in the next chapter how posthumanism and the entering into the Anthropocene is becoming visible within the artistic practice and its theory.
69 Pedersen 2011: 72. 70 Pedersen 2011: 72
24
2. The role of art in the Anthropocene: non-fixed boundaries
25 In the first part of this theoretical framework I created handles to examine the human-animal relationship and their changing concepts in the Anthropocene Era. To create a theoretical framework that can help me find an answer to my main question, which relates this specific changing field to the contemporary art practice, it is necessary to specifically focus upon the artistic practice in the Anthropocene Era. If the traditional base for art-making – defined by modernist thinking in binary oppositions – is no longer tenable, what does this mean for the contemporary art practice? What effect, for example, does the disappearing of the subject-object dichotomy has on the modern concepts of the artist, the beholder and the artistic process? If the borders that dictate the division into different mediums and disciplines are under attack, what then does this mean for the identity of each of these classifications? Can we still speak about divisionary mediums as ‘art’, ‘science’ and ‘design’? And, most important, if the culture-nature classification is no longer dichotomized, what then exactly is the role of art in the Anthropocene Era?
In this chapter I will extend the theoretical framework formed in chapter 1 by exploring these questions. I will make use of a variety of scholars and art critics, whereby I focus upon discerning the leading arguments and topics in the cultural debate regarding the role and meaning of art in the Anthropocene. I will look for tendencies, concepts and examples that can help me analyze my case studies.
2.1 The Nature Tendency: Jeffrey Kastner
In 2012, Jeffrey Kastner published a book under his editorial leadership called Nature. This book is part of the Documents of Contemporary Art series71 that examines how scholars, critics, curators and artists deal with, and define certain topics or themes. In the introduction of the book, ‘Art in the Age of the Anthropocene’, Kastner explains the following:
Just as forward-looking scientists increasingly acknowledge the wide and complex range of interdependencies between the world that made us and the world that we have made […], so too will the artistic avant-garde continue to develop new tools and strategies that unsettle conventional wisdom about our relationships with and within nature.72
Kastner hence relates the development in scientific research – leading to the concept of the Anthropocene Era – to the development in the art world regarding new perspectives on conventional concepts as nature and culture. While artists in the modern Western society used to consider themselves separate from the realm of the natural, they now create artworks that rethink and redefine their relation to nature.73 Artists in the Anthropocene thus break – or at least the avant-garde – with conventional ideas on the nature-culture relationship by challenging the existing concepts with their artworks. The produced artworks in this case serve as tools in order to do so. Whilst artists do not –
71 All published by the Whitechapel Gallery in London. 72 Kastner 2012: 17.
26 like scientists – focus upon creating truthful facts and data, they act, like scientists, as researchers and experimenters. According to Kastner, this new mode of working by artists does not understand the relationship between nature and culture as separated, but rather as dialectical, as two concepts actively engaged with one and other.74 He thus considers artists as potential mediators between the two worlds of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, whereby they use the medium of art to represent and rethink ‘nature’.75
While the defining of the described tendency in contemporary art practices becomes clear throughout the book of Nature, the direction of content however seems not to correspond with the posthuman discourse. Kastner appears to hold on onto conservative notions of ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. He reasons that artists mediate between these two concepts in order to redefine nature, a point of view that strengthens the division between the two concepts and merely amplifies the modern idea that art solely belongs to the realm of culture, separated from the realm of nature. Besides this, Kastner’s approach also ignores the fact that when nature is no longer experienced as subservient to culture, it becomes illogic to assume that artists only redefine nature, without being redefined themselves by thinking and exploring nature. The concept of mediation then might be insufficient to capture this relationship since artists in this case rather work together with nature then mediate between the two realms. If we now leave from this thought but do hold on to Kastner’s idea of the role of art to rethink nature – and now also the other way around – what then does this rethink exactly means?
Posthumanism, as became clear in chapter 1, is characterized by the deconstruction of traditional concepts. Yet, their philosophy is still searching for new, tenable concepts and theories to use in the Anthropocene Era. It therefore seems applicable that the role of the artist is to contribute to this search, not by thinking on, but with nature. Art, in this case, becomes a tool to research, experiment and exchange strains of thoughts, creating a space where not only the artist, but also the beholder can examine and experience what the Anthropocene Era means for humanity and the arts. The ascribing of this mediating role by Kastner to only the avant-garde seems therefore illogic, since this statement implies that there are existing boundaries that can be broken, ignoring the idea that within the Anthropocene, all boundaries are already blurred.
2.2 The Animal Tendency: Filipa Ramos
While Kastner might fail in breaking open the traditional construction on art and nature, his introduction does visualize the interdisciplinary tendency in the cultural debate regarding the (re)new(ed) focus upon nature. In the following edition by the Documents of Contemporary Art,
Animals (2016), moving the focus from ‘nature’ to the ‘animal’, Filipa Ramos likewise shows the
interdisciplinary tendency in contemporary art. In the introduction ‘Art across Species and Beings’, Ramos locates the subject of the animal at the core of an intersection of different disciplinary terrains, whereby the humanities, sciences, technology and ethics cross each other in the vector of
74 Kastner 2012: 17. 75 Kastner 2012: 17.
27 contemporary art. This contemporary and interdisciplinary approach leads, according to Ramos, to a new art practice that strongly differs from the traditional and modern one. With this new approach, artists contribute to the expansion of the significance of the ‘animal’, leading to ‘the possibility for humans to engage with non-human species on another level’, while ‘contributing to a renewed empathy, attention and awareness towards other species.’76
Art, thus, following Ramos notions, has the possibility to transform our thinking.77 She states: ‘Art thinks, and invites us to think, the other, and does this in ways that are other. Artistic formulations establish peculiar ways of communicating that rely on spontaneous generation, improvisation, and appearances that manifest themselves in events that often have the capacity to provide new meanings and forms of relating to those – humans and animals – around us.’78
Ramos points out that the role of art lies partly in communication, a statement that aligns with Kastner’s idea of art as a tool for mediation. The artistic practice is described as a spontaneous practice, indicating that artists do not create by given rules, but are rather free to experiment. Art, therefore, creates a platform to experiment, test and invent new methodologies that can contribute to finding tenable concepts and theories in the Anthropocene Era. The position of an artist is not strictly bounded, but rather based upon moveable, questionable and vague borders. This is contradictory to other disciplines, such as science, politics and philosophy, in which participants are seemingly dictated by disciplinary frames and instructions. Because of their position, artists can invite us to change our constructed thinking and motivate to create new systems that go beyond our own thinking. However, Ramos does not pursue the question of how this new artistic process must look like, but does succeed in setting out what the role of art is in the Anthropocene, poignantly placing art as the vanguard in transforming our contemporary thinking.
2.3 Art in the Anthropocene: Davis and Turpin
Both Kastner and Ramos focus upon the nature-culture and human-animal relationship, without however framing their thoughts directly to the idea of the Anthropocene. A publication that does specifically examine art in the Anthropocene Era is Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among
Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin (2015).
Similar to the publication of Kastner and Ramos, this book is an aggregation of multiple texts that are arranged and introduced by the editing authors. In their introduction, ‘Art & Death: Lives Between the Fifth Assessment & the Sixth Extinction’, Davis and Turpin expound on the definition of the Anthropocene and how they experience the role of art in this new era. The focus point of the book is the following question: ‘[Since] art is now a practice condemned to a hololithic earth – that is, to a
76 Ramos 2016: 13/14. 77 Ramos 2016: 20. 78 Ramos 2016: 14.
