The Anthropocene is the proposed name for the geological epoch where humanity is dramatically affecting geological processes. The name draws attention to severe environmental problems – but it also does other things. Jason Moore asks: “Does the Anthropocene argument obscure more than it illuminates?” (2014, 4). Donna Haraway argues that the Anthropocene must be “as short/thin as possible” (2015, 160). Moore, Haraway, S0lon and Latour claim the concept uncritically imports Western rationality, imperialism and anthropocentrism – and thereby narrows options for the development of sustainable alternatives.

It is important to be specific about exactly what ‘anthropos’ are doing to destabilise climate systems and other planetary boundaries. There is a particular model of development driving dramatic Earth System change. There are other options. In response to this problem, the Capitalocene is a concept that asserts: “the logic of capital drives disruption of Earth System. Not humans in general” (Salon, 2014).

Bruno Latour says the Capitalocene is “a swift way to ascribe this responsibility to whom and to where it belongs” (2014, 139). It is more specific. Consequently it opens space for other opinions. Yet while the Capitalocene is critical, is not creative. Beyond the assumptions of Anthropocene and the critical perspective of the Capitalocene, new ways of understanding social and ecological relations are emergent.

Design theorist Rachel Armstrong states “there is no advantage to us to bring the Anthropocene into the future… The mythos of the Anthropocene does not help us… we must re-imagine our world and enable the Ecocene” (2015). New ecologically informed ways of thinking and living must be generated. The Ecocene has yet to be designed. Its emergence depends on a new understanding of ecological-human relations and new types of development that emerge from this perspective. The transformative Ecocene describes a curative catalyst for cultural change necessary to survive the Anthropocene.

A presentation at Climate Change: Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics University of Brighton, Thursday 28-Friday 29 April 2016.

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The MIT Media Lab launched the Journal of Design and Science (JoDS) in early 2016 with four essays that aims open “new connections between science and design”. The central themes are the emergence of ‘participant designers’ within ‘an age of entanglement’ and the shifts inherent in this approach to design. The JoDS essays theorise an engaged design practice but the political economy of design is under-theorised and a particular problem with the representation of the ecological is evident.

The ways in which nature is understood enable or disable the design of sustainable ways of living. The dismissal of the ecological in the ways we think, in design theory and in design practice is the legacy of a culture that has ignored the interests of natural world. One way to examine the dismissal of the ecological in theory is to refer to Gregory Bateson’s theory of ‘epistemological error’. The western premise of radical independence is wrong. Humankind has conceived of itself as the sole proprietors of sentience and the rest of the world “as mindless and therefore as not entitled to moral or ethical consideration” (1972, 62). The narrowing down of our epistemology to reflect only our own interests (or even the interests of our own species) and the instrumental processes we use to do this are at the root of the most severe environmental problems.

In the section titled ‘The End of the Artificial’ Joichi Ito claims that “it appears that nature and the artificial are merging”. In ‘The Enlightenment is Dead, Long Live the Entanglement’ Danny Hillis claims:

“We humans are changing. We have become so intertwined with what we have created that we are no longer separate from it. We have outgrown the distinction between the natural and the artificial…We are at the dawn of the Age of Entanglement”.

It is true that plastic debris is clogging up the guts of marine animals and there are endless examples of similar entanglements. The artificial and the organic are definitely interacting in countless ways on all scales across the global ecosystem. But the ‘end of the artificial’ concept has more to do the legacy of epistemological error and the particular type of political economy that emerged from this error than the so-called merging of the ecological and the artificial.

This coalescing of the natural and the artificial has far reaching consequences. If the artificial things that humans have designed and constructed are of the same order as natural processes that have made it possible for humans to flourish over 40,000 years – this influences the ways we understand and value natural processes. The ecological sphere has evolved over millions of years to enable life-sustaining conditions on this planet. In stark contrast to the ecological, the artificial has not endured the test of time. It has not evolved to work in tandem with the ecological. In many places it disrupts the dynamic balance ecosystems need to sustain and regenerate themselves. The climate system is the most dramatic example.

Just because it is possible to ‘edit’ nature (genetic engineering, synthetic biology, geo-engineering) does not mean the organic and the artificial are the same, or that they have equivalent value. We might redesign nature into what appears to the most cavalier amongst us as a ‘better’ place, to suit human needs and desires – but we cannot predict with certainty the consequences of the most dramatic interventions. On the other hand, nature has experimented for millions of years to refine the evolutionary moment that we find ourselves in now, one that we are quickly degrading. Since humans have already caused irreparable damage to the climate system, to biodiversity and to a vast array of ecosystems and species, now is not the time to build new theory that will further dismiss ecological concerns.

I will publish a longer version of this review in the near future.

References

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ito, J., Hillis, D., Oxman, N. and Slavin, K.  (2016). Journal of Design and Science, PubPub, [http://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/designandscience]

There is an impressive history in England of people standing up to fascists. The tradition of ¡No pasarán! meaning ”They shall not pass” was used by anti-fascists in the famous 1936 Battle of Cable Street. The concept is used today by people determined not to let fascists spread hate on the streets. Fascists must not be allowed to gather. It’s a simple rule and a good one.

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This article was published last month in the online journal Discover Society.

On the Internet ‘big data’ is popularised by data visualisation (datavis) that makes raw data accessible and meaningful to wider audiences. Here big data is harnessed to address society’s problems by illustrating trends and debunking assumptions that contradict the data. Despite the value of this work, the process of collecting and visualising data is never entirely neutral and never complete and so data visualization cannot capture every relevant fact. Something will always be missing. Data visualizations conceal more complicated realities. The decision to collect data and how this data is represented all reflect ideological assumptions and often unstated political agendas. Data displays embody values. These are reflected in which data is selected, as well as the methods, media and styles used to communicate information. Big data driven data visualisation on highly complex and political issues all too often result in a reduction of the complexity and a flattening out of phenomenon to what can be captured with numbers. Purely quantitative approaches to data visualization driven by big data are inadequate on politicised issues as they typically fail to capture power relations, ideology, attitudes and behaviors that cannot be reduced to a number.

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Image-makers have the unique ability to make currently invisible ecological processes and relationships visible. Within the context of an increasingly visual culture, images have potential to nurture the development of new perceptual capabilities and encourage relational perception. Graphic design is well suited to facilitate ecological learning since it can draw on a wide variety of visual strategies to display specific geographic spaces, ecological patterns and processes, abstract concepts and future scenarios. Julie Doyle argues that photography records circumstances of the past, so its usefulness in communicating ecological messages is limited to displaying damages already done (2009). My own work proposes that graphic design has greater potential to respond to environmental communication challenges due to its ability harness the communicative potential of maps, charts, diagrams, graphs, timelines, illustrations, network visualizations, data visualization, information graphics, controversy maps, giga-maps and systems oriented design to make complex information accessible, comprehensible and alluring. With design strategies, image-makers can reveal relationships, patterns and dynamics in complex systems. For these reasons, graphic design has exceptional potential to support relational perceptual practices and the ability to ‘see systems’ – nurturing both relational perception and ecological literacy.

For more information please see my Design Research Society 2014 conference paper. Download the paper here.

This article argues that designers are currently not able to effectively address contemporary environmental and social problems due to the systemic priorities of the design industry. Despite the fact that emergent cognitive and perceptual capacities enable a greater understanding of complexity and design practice evolves creating potential for social and technological innovation, the structural dynamics of the design industry reproduce conditions of deep unsustainability. In this article,“design” is theorized as the professional practice of creating new products, buildings, services, and communication. This is a broader practice than the work that is produced within the “design industry.” The design industry operates according to highly reductive feedback generated by capitalism that systemically ignores signals from the ecological and social systems. The exclusive focus on profit and quantitative economic growth results in distortions of knowledge and reason thereby undermining prospects for the design of long-term prosperity. Redirected design practice could be an antidote to this dilemma by transforming the system that determines what is designed. This article provides an overview of the political and economic dynamics that are relevant to designers concerned with sustainability.

Published in Design Philosophy Papers, Volume 12, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 119-136(18)

But I would have then to conclude that today we live in the pre-anthropocene. We could of course move into the anthropocene, but this would be a necessarily revolutionary act.  via Some notes on the anthropocene (or, welcome to the pre-anthropocene!).