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Entering the Symbiocene: A Transversal Ecosophy-Action Research Framework to Reverse Silent Spring
Cathy Fitzgerald | Ireland
Being in Place: The Highs and Lows of Sited Practice 5 t h A n n u a l P o s t g r a d u a t e Conference in Art & Humanities, Dundee, Scotland 25-6 November 2016
Outline: articulating long-term ecological art practices • discuss my practice as an example to argue why long-
term ecological art practices are important: ‘memes for the Symbiocene’ not the Anthropocene
• ‘the low’ of such sited practices is they remain marginalised in art education, art publications and little understood by audiences
• Articulation matters! Why developing a theory-method framework is empowering and urgent
• Why a Guattarian ecosophy – action research framework is a valuable guide for practitioners and educators, and for non-artists collaborating on long-term eco-social art projects to ‘reverse Silent Spring’ (video at end).
“…we live in the most destructive moment in 65 million years!” Brian Swimme, Professor of Integral Studies and evolutionary philosopher, The New Story, 2006 (film)
Yet “there are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.”
Dr. Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner, first woman in Africa to get a Ph.D and Kenyan ,Green Belt, forest planter founder
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living in the Anthropocene
" Harraway (2015) renames the Anthropocene as the
Capitalocene, as it rests on the unsustainable advance of a globalised, extract-at-all costs capitalism
the Plantationocene
Image courtesy of Irish singer-songwriter Cathy Davy’s New Forest Album 2016 video
" And Harroway further defines industrial culture has simplified much of the planet’s living diversity into ‘slave’ monoculture plantations – the Plantationocene
Others confirm… we are living in a sociopathic society Charles Derber, 2014
" Albrecht (2016) writes how instead we must urgently value the mutual flourishing of all life
" He urges we must quickly adopt new thinking, life-enriching practices, and thus develop policies and a politics of mutualism
entering the Symbiocene
Slovenian non-clearfell, mixed species permanent forestry is an e.g of mutualism - It is illegal to clearfell forests there!!
Cultural responses are crucial
facts + culture = is what changes societal behaviour (Lakoff, 2010)
Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg, 2008
I’m particularly interested in creative practices
that build bridges between art, science and other ways of knowing; that recognise the value of lived experience, local knowledges and the intrinsic rights of nonhuman communities to thrive
photo: emily coghlan
long-term ecological art (eco-art) practices are valuable
my eco-social art practice is a gathering of skills, lifeworld experiences and actions.
developed comprehensive online community-building skills since 2007
amateur filmmaker since 2002
involved in Green Party since 2004
amateur forester these past 8-years
worked in research biology for 10-years
Hollywood forest (2010)
I blend these various skills and lifeworld knowledges to explore how we can move from the life-limiting, unsustainability of monoculture forestry
….to instead, investigate new-to-Ireland Close-to-Nature continuous cover forestry approaches.
2008 interested neighbours and local Green Party �Cllr. Malcolm Noonan, learn about about close to nature, non clearfell forestry from Jan Alexander
ecological forestry: for the Symbiocene
Hollywood forest, Blackstairs Mountains, South Carlow, Ireland (2015)
‘the little wood that could...’
Hollywood forest, Blackstairs Mountains, South Carlow, Ireland (2015)
• … has advanced new experimental videos that reflect my and others new sustainable forestry experiences and learning
• contributed to Irish Forestry Journal of new-to-Ireland continuous cover forestry (CCF) approaches
• I advocated this forestry management approach as the key point of Irish Green Party forest policy (2012)
• developed a political voice to champion developing international laws against the crime of ecocide (2013)
However, similar valuable and inspiring long term eco-art practices remain marginal in the art world
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why are eco-art practices not more common? Ecology challenges the Western worldview. Joseph Beuys (1980s) declared everyone should be taught ecoliteracy, he understood ecology fundamentally
" decenters the primacy of humankind and human concerns, of which much art is currently focused
" challenges the idea of the solitary individual, the artistic genius working alone
" that new art (and political) practices, that emphasise the social and environmental were needed
Unfortunately, incomprehension of valuable long-term, multi-constituent eco-art practices continues (Goto and Collins, 2016) This hinders recognition and limits understanding of such practices in contemporary art education and for non-artists working on such projects
1994
2016
Articulacy is important! A clear guiding theory-method framework may help the marginalised art and ecology field, which has struggled to convey such practices’ complexity and value
‘Articulacy has a moral point, not just in correcting what may be wrong views but also in making the force of an ideal that people are already living by more palpable, more vivid for them; And by making it more vivid, empowering them to live up to it in a fuller and more integral fashion.’
Charles Taylor, cited in Dean Moore, 2016
I began to see patterns in the
aims of such multi-constituent practices and that these practices’ routinely
involve similar key method stages (and I’m indebted to Chris Seeley’s art & action research here).
Case Studies: Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison (US, watersheds, forests, rivers, lagoons, meadows, ecosystem policy) Insa Winkler (Germany, pigs, Oak forests) Simon Read (UK, rivers, estuaries) Deirdre O’Mahony (Ireland, peat-lands) Ursula Biemann (global migration, resources, forests, rights of nature) My practice (forests, ecocide law advocacy)
Paul Elliott (2012) briefly applied Felix Guattari’s lifetimes’ work on the theory and applications of
transversality and his last writings of ecosophy and chaosophy to ecological art practices (to the Harrisons, Mel Chin’s work) While not examining eco-art practices specifically, Iain Biggs (2014a,b,c) analyses in applying transversality to deepen understanding of multi-constituent art-led practices are also important
Explored Guattari’s applied theory
of transversality, which is much extended for an ecological context in his last book Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (1992) and his last ‘Re-Making Social Practices’ (1992) article.
The late ecosocial activist-
therapist-theorist and new
media enthusiast, Félix
Guattari (1930-1992)
Guattari understood that
" the environmental crisis was rooted in calcified mental and unquestioned social practices
" that capitalism seizes people’s minds as an ‘overcode’:
" that the politics of the left or right cannot defeat it
" and that a scientific - technological paradigm was gravely insufficient to counter its pervasiveness (this does not treat the root of the planetary crises)
" the utmost necessity to ‘re-make social practices’ and re-think politics, that we must move from a scientific to an ethico-aesthetic paradigm
Guattari’s ecosophy " we need to advance “the three
ecologies”, the mental, social and environmental spheres together, speaks to the aim and potential of long term eco-social art practices priorities
" I call ecological art practices “eco-social art practices”, to underline that these practices are not only about environmental restoration or resilience, but act politically as a form
of creative resistance
Guattari understood through applied therapeutic practice and his lifelong political activism, why and how capitalism, particularly
globalised capitalism, and the western worldview is sociopathic and why we need to advance the “three ecologies”, the mental, social and environmental spheres together to advance effective societal change
Guattari argues
" the means to advance resistance to capitalism lies in micropolitical assemblages that operated transversally, that ‘softly subvert’ the status quo
So my transversal practice aims to softly subvert the stranglehold of unsustainable, industrial monoculture forestry
Through Guattari we can learn that sustainability is contingent, emergent Rather than trying to enforce one-size fits-all sustainability directives, we learn that enacting life-sustaining thinking & practices is an ever-evolving process, that is enriched by democratic participation and different ways of knowing the world.
So, Guattari’s ecosophy identifies the target, main components and potential of transversal practices
The five dimensions of action research (Reason et al., 2009)
(Reason et al., 2009) A means to articulate the main method stages of eco-social art practices
2) Action research – a methodology approach for eco-social complexity action research is not a prescriptive model but a reactive pathway, each step allows plenty of opportunity for creativity and serendipity, action and reflection.
This is what you might have encountered If you had asked what my practice was at the start of my Hollywood forest project …
action research… identifies and characterises my activities in a recognised cycle of stages
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practical challenges
In articulating my practice, action research identifies and orders a repeating cycle of method stages, from worthwhile purposes to….
Employing the practical skills and learning of continuous cover forestry from forestry contractor, Sean Hoskins
to valuing many ways of knowing (experiential, lived, traditional, Indigenous knowledge)
Being-in-the-forest reminds us of the complex interconnections that foster a thriving forest
Action research also embraces propositional, theoretical and scientific knowing
Artistic knowing is essential in action research for sustainability, to
translate
experiential knowing and overall,
to weave other ways of knowing into cohesive and engaging projects (Chris Seeley, 2011, 2014)
" Hollywood forest is a home to others
participation and democracy stage: developing ideas for
practices that extend a duty of care to others, including the non-human
participation and democracy stage: leads to new knowings and relevant life-sustaining policies
New sustainable forest policy
action research prioritises an emergent communicative space for exchanges and learning
Sharing views, inviting comments with foresters, landowners, carpenters, art officers, artists, curators, tree lovers: Hollywood, 2014
Action research therefore confirms what pioneers of long term ecological art practice, the Harrisons, have argued:
that the most valuable outcome of their multi-constituent practice is ‘conversational drift’ : how the questions, the new images, texts, diverse perspectives, develop a communicative means for envisioning new values, possibilities, practices and policies for a specific context and environment
And action research orders the complex iterations of a transversal practice as a recognisable cycle of activities
Action research’s recognised terms, overcome the confusion such exploratory practices create and encourages easier peer-to-peer learning
In these urgent times, we need a recognised means to compare effective practices and to encourage more people to creatively engage with eco-social concerns.
SUMMARY: thus, through my research I argue that a: Guattari ecosophy - action research framework significantly improves the articulation of long-term eco-social art practices
best means to develop and maintain transversal practices advances understanding of transversal practices for the emergent art & ecology field and for non-artists, particularly those collaborating on such projects.
audio-visual ebook and print-on-demand version, coming soon!
Sharing the guiding theory-method ecosophy - action research framework as applied to my practice:
Watch Reversing Silent Spring (2016): summary looped video of the 8-year ongoing Hollywood forest project [next slide]
