Abstract
Fossil fueled energy production and consumption are the basis of global industrialised societies, with the deleterious biophysical effects of such production and consumption also forming the basis of the advent of Anthropocene. In the context of science and environmental policy, hope denotes rapid decarbonisation across the globe. Meanwhile, in art and the humanities, the study of such energy and decarbonisation remains nascent and nebulous. To account for these discrepancies, this article outlines the scale of the biophysical challenges by first establishing the relationship between outspoken climate scientists and international organisations determining climate and energy policy. This relationship—between marginalised and mainstream—is used to frame the analogous challenges for two cultural fields that have recently emerged in direct response: energy humanities and the arts of energy. The discussion centers on the challenge common to all fields—between the outspoken marginal and the orthodox mainstream—to speculate on how the arts of energy may recalibrate a context-contingent hope for energy futures, drawing on case studies of ISEA Bright Future and Facing Futures Free From Fear, two installations simultaneously staged by the author in 2013 about the relationship between energy and climate change.
Highlights
Fossil fueled energy production and consumption are the basis of global industrialised societies, with the deleterious biophysical effects of such production and consumption forming the basis of the advent of Anthropocene
There is precious little in the known universe that is not touched by stellar energy, disparaging the prospect of liquid water flowing along a gutter may seem
As the emerging energy humanities discourse is already attempting to precipitate this realisation throughout the humanities, the focus of this article is on addressing the gap in the literature on the arts of the energy, as informed by a critical reflection on the author’s practice in this area
Summary
The transformative urgency advocated by Anderson and Hansen are not reverberating through graphics, statistics and data that activate the imagination or clarify the complex. There is precious little in the known universe that is not touched by stellar energy, disparaging the prospect of liquid water flowing along a gutter may seem This ability to broker the relationship between outspoken-orthodox and marginal-mainstream is evident in both Hans Christian and Wilde’s work. The question becomes how marginalised energy-fields within science, humanities and art may lay bare their respective mainstreams, to precipitate community “ah-ha” realisation in their respective fields The thread connecting these diverse disciplines and fields is how this act of generating insight from sight—of the emperor as naked, the elephant in the room or the stars from the gutter—may diminish despair by allowing those to see our gutter with clarity and imagination anew. As the emerging energy humanities discourse is already attempting to precipitate this realisation throughout the humanities, the focus of this article is on addressing the gap in the literature on the arts of the energy, as informed by a critical reflection on the author’s practice in this area
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