“Timescales ecologies. Balance-Unbalance and how to help change the cultural behaviour facing the environmental crisis through art-science” presented by Unknown presenters
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Art Science (institutional presentations)
Presentation Title:
- Timescales ecologies. Balance-Unbalance and how to help change the cultural behaviour facing the environmental crisis through art-science
Presentation Subtheme:
- Ecologies of place
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
It can be difficult to acknowledge our own fragility. The equilibrium between a healthy environment, the energy our society needs to maintain or improve its usual lifestyle, and the world’s interconnected economies can pass more quickly than expected from a delicate balance to an entirely new reality where human beings would need to be more creative than ever before to survive. The frequency and severity of certain weather and climate-related events around us are increasing, and the ability of human beings to modify our adjacent surroundings has turned into a power capable of altering the planet. Do the electronic arts have a role in all this?
Traditional disaster management approaches are not enough to deal with the current problems and rising risks. New forms of collaboration are needed to inspire people and organizations to link knowledge with action.
Artists could inspire new explorations and contribute with innovative perspectives and critical thinking to actively participate in solving some of our major challenges, such as the spiraling environmental crisis. We need to develop creative ways to facilitate a paradigm shift toward a sustainable tomorrow. Creative thinking, innovative tools, and transdisciplinary actions could produce perceptual, intellectual, and pragmatic changes.
One of the initiatives that aim to use the media arts as a catalyst to generate a deeper awareness and create lasting intellectual working partnerships to face the many facets of the environmental crisis is: The Balance-Unbalance international project.
The international conference series Balance-Unbalance explores the intersections between nature and society, and the symbiosis needed to research, understand, and act in the light of ecological threats.
In this context of global menaces, the [media] arts and artists can help. Everyone has a role in the construction of the future, and artists, too. We must search, investigate, reflect, and act. We can create and invite others to analyze, engage, envision, and produce changes. It is not possible to wait longer or to delegate personal responsibilities.
By bringing people from very different sectors of our society to think together and facilitate multi, inter, and transdisciplinary collaborative project developments, Balance-Unbalance and its associated initiatives (‘art ⋈ climate’ and EChO) are turning feasible to connect artistic creation and tangible tools for change. Balance-Unbalance has been contributing to making social transformation happen.
