Reimagining futures

Abstract

As the climate crisis intensifies amid some persistent public denial of the science, there exists a necessary opportunity for scientists to engage in transdisciplinary collaborations, such as those with artists and designers, in an effort to both improve the communication of climate science, but also to bolster the production of scientific knowledge. We demonstrate how art and design can activate the human imagination and promote collaboration across disciplines in a way that the post-Enlightenment scientific endeavor has historically been unable to do and can provide a framework for developing sustainable solutions to the climate crisis. Here, we describe 2 studies that involved collaboration between artists and designers and climate scientists. The first study paired a team of designers and computer scientists with climate and atmospheric scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in an effort to (re)build an exploratory research interface for the Multi-Angle Spectroradiometer Plume Height Project dataset. This project not only produced an aesthetic visualization interface with highly improved functionality, but it also demonstrated how an improved interface can enable scientists to pursue more and “better” research hypotheses. For the second study, we worked with artists at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to create three sonic-based art pieces that effectively communicated the science of climate change, appealed to human aesthetic judgment, and expanded the scope of our “ecological awareness.” We show that, while collaborations between artists and scientists are not necessarily novel, the integration of art, design, and science from a project’s inception can improve both the production of knowledge and constitute an entry point for regular people to understand and engage with their rapidly changing planet.