Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity

515 Pages·2011·2.66 MB·English

by  Sacha Kagan

Sacha Kagan
Art and Sustainability

Image | Volume 25
SachaKaganisresearchassociateatLeuphanaUniversityLueneburg
andfoundingcoordinatoroftheinternationalnetworkCultura21.He
works in the trans-disciplinary field of arts and (un-)sustainability.
Sacha Kagan
Art and Sustainability
Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity
Printed with the support of Leuphana University Lüneburg.
At the same time dissertation for Leuphana University Lüneburg,
2011.

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The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the
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©© 22001111 ttrraannssccrriipptt VVeerrllaagg,, BBiieelleeffeelldd
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Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreprodu-
cedorutilizedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orother
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
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without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover Design: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld
Cover illustration: Jean-Claude Kagan, Eirtemys, 2010
Typeset & Proofread by Sacha Kagan
Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar
ISBN 978-3-8376-1803-7
Contents
Acknowledgements | 7

Introduction | 9
Sustainable Development and Sustainability | 9
The ‘cultural dimension’ of sustainability | 13
Overview of the following chapters | 16
Methodological considerations | 19

1. The Culture and Art of Unsustainability | 23
Introduction | 23
Section 1: The culture of unsustainability | 24
Section 2: The art of unsustainability | 66
Conclusion | 91

2. Toward Culture(s) of Sustainability, Step One:
Systems Thinking and the Limits of Holism | 93
Introduction | 93
Section 1: Some basics of Systems Thinking | 96
Section 2: The Systems View of Life | 101
Section 3: The Systems View of Society | 115
Section 4: Ervin Laszlo’s “Systems View of the World”
and the limits of Holism | 136
Section 5: Cybernetic apparatuses
and the risk of a technological drift | 147

3. Toward Culture(s) of Sustainability, Step Two:
From the ‘Big Picture’ to the Culture
of Complexity | 153
Introduction | 153
Section 1: Complexity: Edgar Morin’s ‘method’ | 154
Section 2: Transdisciplinarity | 200
Conclusion to chapters 2 and 3 | 212

4. Aesthetics of Sustainability | 217
Introduction | 217
Section 1: From Aesthetics, environmental aesthetics
and ecological aesthetics to aesthetics of sustainability | 219
Section 2: From Bateson’s sensibility to the pattern which connects,
to a sensibility to patterns that connect | 225
Section 3: The sensibility to complexity | 235
Section 4: The transdisciplinary sensibility | 240
Section 5: The phenomenological and animistic sensibility
to a more-than-human world | 246
Conclusion | 267

5. Ecological Art | 269
Introduction | 269
Section 1: Land art, environmental art, ecological art | 271
Section 2: Precursors and pioneers | 277
Section 3: Exemplary directions in environmental/ecological art | 290
Section 4: The “Reenchantment of Art” according to Suzi Gablik | 310
Section 5: The Monongahela Conference
on Post-Industrial Community Development | 323
Section 6: The exhibition Ecovention | 333
Conclusion | 343

6. Sustainability and Ecology as keywords:
a decade of contemporary art | 345
Introduction | 345
Section 1: “Eco-centric topics” in contemporary art | 350
Section 2: Exhibitions on art and sustainability | 364
Section 3: Post-environmental art: The exhibition Greenwashing | 379
Conclusion | 396

7. Fostering Change: Art and Social Conventions | 399
Introduction | 399
Section 1: Double entrepreneurship in conventions | 400
Section 2: Polity Conventions: The political setting
for double entrepreneurship in conventions | 429
Conclusion | 460

Conclusion | 461

Appendices | 475
Appendix 1: The subconscious and the ‘eco-’ in autoecopoïesis:
a speculative excursus | 475
Appendix 2: Deutsche Zusammenfassung:
Kunst und (Nicht-)Nachhaltigkeit | 481

Bibliography | 491
Acknowledgements

The following pages are the result of a research process marked by many
exchanges, learnings and bifurcations thanks to encounters with inspiring
and generously supportive people.
First of all, my overall research was possible thanks to the active support
of my PhD supervisor, and director of our research institute (the Institute of
Cultural Theory, Research, and the Arts, at Leuphana University Lüneburg):
Volker Kirchberg, who since hiring me in mid-2005, allowed me to spend
much of my working time focusing on the research theme of arts, culture
and sustainability. Not only did Volker provide this research space-time, but
he also actively fostered the vitality of my research theme, not only as doc-
toral supervisor but also for example as organizer of the 2007 conference of
the arts research network of the European Sociological Association (which
included sustainability as one of its three key foci).
Equally fundamental was the inspiration and critical support of my sec-
ond PhD supervisor Hans Dieleman, whose exploration of the roles of artists
for sustainability were the yeast that allowed my own interest in this theme
to grow, ever since I attended his seminars as an exchange student at the
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, back in 2001. As PhD supervisor, Hans
brought me much appreciated critical feedback which allowed me to im-
prove and clarify my analysis and my formulations.
Of utmost importance were the insightful exchanges with fellow organ-
izers and members of the international network Cultura21, and of the Ger-
man organization Cultura21, including: Davide Brocchi, Oleg Koefoed, and
Francesca Cozzolino.
Further exchanges with colleagues at the Leuphana University (includ-
ing Ullrich Günther, Christoph Behnke, Ulf Wuggenig, Anke Haarmann,
Nicolas Dierks, Katina Kuhn and the colleagues at the INFU) and at other
organizations (including Katelijn Verstraete and her co-workers at ASEF,
Guy Gypens at the Kaai Theater, David Knaute, Hatto Fischer, Jennifer
Gidley) are also to be thanked, as well as the discussions with social scien-
tists (including Tasos Zembylas, Hans Abbing, Rudi Laermans, Federica
Vigano, Arild Bergh, Julien Knebusch, Nelly van der Geest, Jan van Boe-
ckel) artists (including Aviva Rahmani, David Haley, the collective
8 | ART AND SUSTAINABILITY
Wochenklausur, Insa Winkler, HMJokinen, Shelley Sacks, Rosemarie Horn)
and curators/writers (including Bettina Steinbrügge, Caffyn Kelley, Hilde-
gard Kurt, Georg Engeli). I also thank Jacques Leenhardt and Werner Faul-
stich for their stimulating questions and comments as members of the jury at
my PhD defense.
By this very process of naming a few persons, I am doing injustice to the
many other individuals and groups not mentioned, whose paths I crossed
and learned from. As the usual expression goes in ‘acknowledgements’,
“you know who you are” / “you will recognize yourself.” I also want to
thank the many authors with whom I did not directly interact but whose
writings inspired me or stimulated my critical reactions.
I thank the students at the seminars I taught at the Leuphana University
Lüneburg and elsewhere (e.g. at the CCC postgraduate program), and my
friends, as well as my family and my partner Nino Ruschmeyer, for count-
less stimulating conversations.

The original version of the manuscript of this book was entirely written with
Open Office, under Ubuntu Linux. I thank the FLOSS (Free Libre Open
Source Software) community for their great efforts and dedication in provid-
ing end-users like me, with alternatives to monopolistic proprietary soft-
ware. Unfortunately, because an Open Office compatible layout template
was not available yet at the publishing house, I had to resort to proprietary
software in the final preparation of the current format of the book.
Finally, I thank the team at the publishing house transcript Verlag, who
were kindly supportive and responsive, and especially Stefanie Hanneken
for her corrections and advices during my copy-editing/proofreading.
Introduction

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

The expressions “sustainable development” and “sustainability”, which con-
stitute the moving horizon of my research perspective, acquired a wide-
spread popularity across the world within the past two decades, as a re-
sponse to perceived threats to humanity’s continued existence.
The general understanding of “sustainable development” is most often
described as a triptych of social justice, ecological integrity and economic
well-being, and was popularized by the Brundtland report (1987). It aims at
a development of human societies that would achieve “the reconciliation of
social justice, ecological integrity and the well being of all living systems on
the planet. The goal is to create an ecologically and socially just world
within the means of nature without compromising future generations”
(Moore 2005, p. 78).
The term ‘sustainability’ (used in 198 1 by Lester Brown), has an older
genealogy in the German-speaking world, as the term ‘Nachhaltigkeit’ was
coined (first in 1713 by Hans Carl von Carlowitz) to characterize a man-
agement of forests that would not deplete resources on the long term, but al-
low the renewable natural resources to regenerate and thus ensure its exploi-
tation over the long-term.1 I will however not delve further into the specifi-
cally German discourses and debates around the term of ‘Nachhaltigkeit’,
for two reasons: On the one hand, my research is focusing primarily on Eng-
lish-speaking literature, and thus on English-language discourses (with a
number of insights from French-speaking literature). On the other hand, I
consider the contemporary usages of the term ‘sustainability’ to be rooted
mostly in its relatively recent history in English language, i.e. from the
1980’s onwards, as a heritage from the notions of “eco-development” as

1 However, this genealogy of the term in German forestry has been reconstructed a
posteriori by German researchers, when the English term “sustainability” im-
posed itself in recent years. There is no obvious direct link between the German
old expression from forestry, and the contemporary usage of the English term as
it emerged in the 1970’s.