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There is no denying that human beings are emotional creatures. Whether it be nervousness for an important upcoming interview, heartbreak over the ending of a relationship, or virtually anything else, what occupies our mental space are the things with emotional significance to us. It is much easier to call an emotional-based argument to memory than … Continue reading The Effectiveness of Climate Art: How Emotions Find Their Way Into the Universe

Climate change affects everyone, but people contribute to greenhouse gas emissions in very different ways. This affects how people interpret climate change art especially if the piece is supposed to change the way people act. The galleries that house Mya Lin’s Pin River restrict the audience to demographics that favor those of higher financial status. … Continue reading Audience and Affect

            Thinking back on the experience of participating in the all the other groups final performances, one of the things that strikes me is how immersive and otherworldly all of them were, even those that didn’t strictly contain any explicit alternate reality elements, such as the digital projection room and the qr code rooms—each still … Continue reading Final Project Experiences and Immersive Spaces

This might be a slightly off the wall one, but I've been thinking about how to consider something that is fully neither art nor design with a mind towards translating the analytical art-reading strategies we've developed thus quarter. Specifically I want to try and think through Hobbesian themes and how to adapt them to questions … Continue reading Going Old Media: Hobbes, Politics, and Climate Change

In the video of Maya Lin talking about Pin River, she mentions hoping that people will be affected by her artwork. She doesn’t specify exactly what she hopes that action will look like, but she seems to be referring to some sort of call to action. However, she also emphasizes that she doesn’t want the … Continue reading Art and distance

I would love to reflect a bit on the class’s final projects. All were so impressive! Here I will focus on the two projects that struck me as other-world-building -- Monday’s installation with the fish tank and the museum curation today.  Both built their worlds over the duration of the 20 minutes, creating an experiential … Continue reading Reflecting on two final projects…and then, separately, covid/climate change

This post will perhaps take more of the shape of a personal reflection than one entirely about the week’s readings, but I wanted to focus my discussion on “effective” modes of making art about climate change. Specifically, I’ll ground this in Eve Mosher’s HighWaterLine and Maya Lin’s Pin River. I will note, however, that all … Continue reading A Search for Progress

The playbill for “Cry You One” emphasizes the emotional aspects of the performance—but are those aspects really effective to make change? With our conversations about audience, the way the performance is tied to location, and audience dedication to commitment, this performance generated indecisive conversation about the effectiveness of art for societal change. Although some art … Continue reading Is Art Effective for Change? Reflections on “Cry You One”

As the class nears its end, I am still thinking about the question of how to cope with the present, every day, “slow violence” nature of climate change in ways that go beyond action items or small scale mitigation efforts. While I listened to Jetnil Kijiner’s spoken word piece, it also occurred to me that … Continue reading closing reflections

Watching Beasts of the Southern Wild, and hearing the conflicting perspectives in our class discussion, I had a hard time deciding where to stand with the film. Technically, I appreciated the almost documentarian techniques. The shakiness of the camera and its constant dollying to mimic Hushpuppy's movement physically immersed me and made me feel as … Continue reading Beasts of the Southern Wild & First Reformed