Critical and Aesthetic Research in Environmental Art PDF Download

Author: Elizabeth Stephens
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ISBN: 9781339543598
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Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Environmental Aesthetics critically explores the environmental art and performances of three artists, Joseph Beuys, The Harrison Studio, and my own [Elizabeth Stephens] collaborative work with Annie Sprinkle (as the Love Art Lab) to raise critical questions regarding how artistic practices might shift the ways people imagine and are in relationship with the Earth. This work asks, "can art change the way human beings understand and interact with their environment enough to help mitigate the growing possibility of extreme social and ecological catastrophe that will likely result from a failure to modify human activities that cause damage to the earth's environments?" To answer this question, three aesthetic methodologies, relational, dialogical and disunified, are explored in juxtaposition with the work of Beuys, the Harrisons and the Love Art Lab. Feminist and queer studies, science & technology studies, ecological thinking, situated knowledges and to a less developed degree (because I still have much to learn about these areas) critical race studies and indigenous standpoints are employed throughout. Together these aesthetics, artists and theoretical fields serve to help critically examine Western culture's hegemonic ideologies that support the belief in human exceptionalism, which has led to many adverse effects on the earth's ecologies. While disparate in form and execution, the shared use of performativity and its ability to captivate and inspire audiences toward affective action is found in the art of all-2-three artist-collaborators. Beuys, whose work embodied the notion of the "artist as catalyst," correlates to Bourriaud's notion of relational aesthetics. The Harrisons' call and-response practices and their extended dialogues employ Kester's dialogical aesthetic with the human and nonhuman communities where their works are situated. The actual inclusion of the viewer that occurred during the Love Art Lab weddings exemplified disunified aesthetics through open-format performances that functioned as a form of unexpected gifting instead of as a series of predetermined acts. By making the deliberate choice not to put constraints on fellow performers, and even inviting oppositional views to share the same space, these performances brought heightened attention to things that could not speak and sometimes could not be spoken about. Adopting an "alongside" position under the aegis of disunified aesthetics created space that nurtured new ideas which had hitherto been unknown and unrecognizable to hegemonic ideology. This intentional engagement with the unknown allowed new ideas to emerge and exist alongside others instead of perpetuating attempts to unify cultural practices, which would have caused difference to become absorbed, homogenized and made the same. Employing sexecology (a field that Sprinkle and I founded) and its accompanying practice of ecosexuality, we explored different approaches to the larger field of environmental art. This has been met with both acceptance and rejection in the GLBTQI community, the art world, environmental activist communities, as well as in academic settings. By beginning with the acceptance of an open-ended "conclusion," this dissertation argues for continued opportunities to develop sexecology, a field that, while-3-somewhat in its youth, is attempting to address issues that are of unquestionable significance and concern. Drawing from these artists as well as critical theory and philosophy (Haraway, Hunter, TallBear, Kester, Lakoff, Scott, Bogad, etc.) this dissertation seeks to continue expanding notions of environmental art, collaboration, community and other ways of knowing that do not fit existing ideological systems. Environmental Aesthetics provides space to nurture and envision different kinds of complex ecological futures that the artists discussed throughout have helped make possible through their creative energy and efforts.