Earth systems, landscapes, assemblages, and social contracts are becoming relentlessly indeterminate, breaking down long-standing relations between humans, non-humans and machines. Increasingly, our relationships with “natural” phenomena are being mediated by computational algorithms, ubiquitous screens, and machines (consider for example, remote sensing of geological activity or modelling of atmospheric climate change). More than ever, our relations are profoundly shaped by ongoing and unpredictable shifts in more-than-human agency and all-too-human systems of knowledge and power. In some instances, we appear completely subject to environmental forces; in others, we claim to be fully in control of (re)engineering the planet. The need for expanded forms of ecological thinking, interdisciplinary practice, and multimodal pedagogy is urgent. We need to be radical!
This exhibition blends critical theory, science, design, art and speculative architecture and presents a collective contribution to the task of rethinking what it means to be amongst Earth as participants, stewards, and creators guided by ideas of interdependence, adaptability, interdisciplinarity, and mutualism.
This showcase is a result of a semester-long exploration by undergraduate students in the context of the Radical Ecologies class taught at New York University by an interdisciplinary team of professors: Karen Holmberg (Gallatin School of Individualized Study), Tega Brain (Tandon School of Engineering) and Elizabeth Henaff (Tandon School of Engineering) in Fall 2020. A graduate session of the course will be taught in Spring 2021 by Elaine Gan (Experimental Humanities). The research and development of this course formed through a Bennett-Polonsky Humanities-Lab grant awarded to the four faculty. Two teaching assistants, Sounak Ghosh and Andrew Lau, were key contributors to the course and this final showcase website and were supported by the Humanities Lab grant and the Integrated Design and Media program, respectively.