Focus Article

Artful climate change

communication: overcoming
abstractions, insensibilities,
and distances
Harriet Hawkins1* and Anja Kanngieser2*
Edited by Mike Hulme, Domain Editor and Editor-in-Chief

This article considers how visual and sonic art creates encounters through which
audiences can experience climate change. Building on reviews published in WIREs
Climate Change on images, films, drama, climate science fiction, and other literary
forms, we examine how audio and visual art addresses the enduring problems of
climate change communication. We begin with three of these problems: climate
change’s often abstract nature, the distances in time and space between those who
cause climate change and the places its effects are felt, and forms of human–
environmental relations that shape how climate is understood. We reflect on how,
through a combination of vision and sound, art creates sensory experiences that
tackle these challenges. In querying how our artistic examples bring about environ-
mental engagements, we combine an analysis of the representations and narratives
of these works with an appreciation of their aesthetic form—in short, how these art
pieces activate emotional and experiential responses. While we recognize the limits
of what art can do, especially the gallery-based forms of work we study here, we
argue that spending time exploring the encounters that art creates helps us to
understand what it brings to the communication of climate change. It also demon-
strates how lessons learnt about sensory experience, affect, and emotions might be
more widely applied to the analysis of cultural forms—from literature to films—
and their role in climate change communication. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
How to cite this article:
WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e472. doi: 10.1002/wcc.472

INTRODUCTION In her review of the current landscape of climate

change communication and its future demands (in this
F ar beyond the descriptive, prospective, retrospec-
tive/reflective and prescriptive, climate communi-
cation is increasingly asked to be narrative,
journal), Susanne Moser presents a series of possible
avenues for thought and action.1 She calls for an inten-
interpretative and even contemplative. (Ref 1, p. 15) sification of inter- and transdisciplinarity, extending
existing calls by asking for further insights from the
arts and humanities (see also Ref 2). She issues chal-
*Correspondence to: [email protected];
[email protected]
lenges for the production of novel and even experi-
1 mental situations in which scientists, communication
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of
London, Egham, UK practitioners, and audiences might come together in
2
School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of ways that enhance cross-group learning. Throughout
Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia her article, she cements the foundations of the ‘cultural
Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of inter- turn’ in climate change communication, which not
est for this article. only encompasses the value and study of ‘cultural’

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 Focus Article wires.wiley.com/climatechange

forms, such as art, literature, and films, but also attention to the sensory dimensions of audio-visual
which, in doing so, acknowledges the important role work to explore how environmental encounters
of emotions and affect in understanding and practicing engage their audiences on emotional and experiential
climate change communication.3,a For Moser, the registers.13
embrace of culture as both an important sphere of We query the environmental encounters art cre-
action and knowledge as well as a specialist form of ates through the lens of three well-recognized issues,
production (literature, art, film etc.) holds a crucial which are generated though both the constitution of
place in the practices of science communication. climate change as a phenomenon and the tendencies
Indeed, in her conclusion, she notes that what should toward separation that contemporary western envi-
be queried are the ‘roles varied cultural expressions ronmental relations exemplify.14 By the latter, we
such as music, poetry, and theatre play in communica- mean particularly those relations that are based in a
tion and engagement around climate change’ (Ref 1, dichotomy between humans and nature, a dichotomy
p. 13). Other scholars, including within this journal, that ensures that a distance always remains between
demonstrate the value of such a cultural turn, making humans (especially those living in cities in the global
a case for further attention to visual art (and indeed its north) and the environment within which they live
more-than-visual elements) as part of a wider attention and depend upon.15,16 First, we explore how art can
to climate visualization and imagery.4,5 address the insensible nature of climate change.
In this paper we take this querying of cultural Insensible here means, quite literally, that which can-
value forward. We review the possibilities audio- not be sensed, whether because it is beyond human
visual art offers to some of the key challenges faced sensory capacities, because the phenomenon itself
by climate communicators. Setting aside, until the does not take a sensory form, or because the space
conclusion at least, concerns with audiences and the and time between humans and the phenomenon is so
connection of scientists and communicators, we want great that otherwise sensible traits are rendered
to focus on the sonic and visual elements of art insensible (indeed, with reference to particular issues
works and what they can ‘do.’ We are concerned of space and time, it has been suggested that talking
with how the sensory and affective dimensions, about climate change can feel like defending the
together with the works’ narrative and representa- insensible [Refs 3,17,18]). Second, we examine the
tional content, might enable responses to the key cli- need to explore and overcome the abstractions and
mate communication challenges. We shape our ‘distances’ in time and space that pose significant
arguments by addressing three of the central barriers issues for climate change action and behavior change.
that have been identified to climate change communi- We refer principally to the distance between the loca-
cation. We are specifically interested in how the natu- tions of climate change cause and effect. This is a
ral, social, and political characteristics of climate global climate cartography (and temporality) based
pose challenges associated with climate change’s on huge distances between those who live, daily, with
often abstract nature, the distances in time and space the effects of climate change and those to whom the
between those who cause climate change and those causes of climate change can be attributed and whose
places and peoples effected most intensively by it, responsibility mitigation measures are. Third, we
and forms of human–environmental relations that reflect on the need to develop environmental relations
shape how climate is understood3 It is well recog- other than those based on the separation (and domi-
nized in this journal and elsewhere that creative nance of ) humans and the environment seek to
practices—from literature and film to performance develop in their place relations between humans and
and, recently, contemporary art—can extend and other forms of life based on entanglement. While, as
enhance practices of climate change engagement.6–12 Moser and others reflect, engaging people with cli-
Building on the groundwork laid by this recent work, mate change might be about of specific issues such as
we wish to delve more deeply into the forms and melting glaciers, it might also be about building con-
methods of encounters with climate change that nections between humans and nonhumans.19–22
audio-visual art practices offer. Our principal line of We review these arguments through three case
questioning concerns how art’s sonic and visual ele- studies of audio-visual art works. Without claiming
ments develop environmental encounters that, we any kind of exceptionalism for these particular
argue, offer responses to some of the challenges cli- works, we propose the value of attentiveness to the
mate change poses for communicators. While there modes of sound and vision that these works develop.
are many forms of art, including participatory and These range from sonification practices to hybrid
dialogic art, that might more directly address con- forms of scientific and artistic visualization. As such,
cerns with climate ‘action,’ here, we turn our we attend to the different forms of sensory

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 WIREs Climate Change Artful climate change communication

experience art practices offer, which work beyond

narrative crosses and the symbolic and iconographic
codes of the representation. Importantly then, the
paper explores how visualization and sonification
might develop other kinds of environmental encoun-
ters that work on bodies as well as minds in ways
that can help in understanding, imagining, and even
bringing about alternative climate relations and
futures.
Aware of Moser’s calls for further arts and
humanities approaches to questions of climate com-
munication, we mobilize here what might be thought
of as an art historical mode of inquiry. As such, we FI GU RE 1 | Heat and Heartbeat of the City (2004) Andrea Polli,
orientate ourselves to the conditions of the produc- ‘A kind of narrative, emphasizing a climate phenomenon that affects
tion of these works and an analysis of their forms. human life negatively and compressing a 90-year time scale involving
The contemporary works we study are relatively cut- millions of people into an individual experience of minutes’ (Ref 33,
ting edge and include installation, art–science prac- p. 45). Source: http://www.andreapolli.com/centralpark/main.html.
tices, and digital media works. While all the studies
have participatory elements and are generally accessi-
ble to the public, they will not reach the broad audi- acknowledged.3,17,18 This is why we focus less on the
ences that newspaper imagery and feature films representational or even narrative elements of art
might. Our concern is neither to suggest that these works and more on their modes of sensing, particu-
art works will have mass effects nor to explore how larly seeing and hearing. If visual arts practices are
they could but rather to focus on the possible effects only now beginning to be studied in climate change
they have in terms of their sensory and experiential communication discussions, then the sonic dimen-
qualities. We do this so that we might inform wider sions of art works, including the crucial intersection of
discussions on climate change and art that move sonic and visual elements, have received even less
beyond the visual and that appreciate other ways of attention.23–26 We approach this particular form of
engaging people with climate change communication. ‘climate silence’ by drawing on the emerging body of
Furthermore, we fully acknowledge that unlike other work that identifies how practices of sounding and
studies that are more social science-oriented, our sonification might engage that which is insensible to
interest here has not been on audience reception.4,5 humans and can help to cultivate environmental dis-
We have not conducted the kind of audience research positions and build relations between humans and
that investigates how experiences of these art works nonhumans.16,17,27 The paper proceeds to address
might interact with audiences’ existing knowledge each of the three climate change challenges identified
and pre-existing biases. This is not because we do above through artistic case studies before concluding
not believe in the importance of these perspectives. by reflecting on some of the limitations of our propo-
Indeed, we take on board those critiques that chal- sals and indicating key directions for future research
lenge the figure of an embodied audience that senses on artistic climate change communication (Figure 1).
with more individuated appreciations of audiences as
socially and culturally located individuals with RENDERING SENSIBLE—HEARING
habits, biases, and so on. While we agree with such
AND SEEING HEAT
critiques, we nonetheless maintain that there is a
place for foregrounding the experiential dimensions Entering the online visual–sonic interface, the audi-
of audio-visual art works and their environmental ence is presented with an aerial mapping of Central
encounters, not least because this is an area of analy- Park, New York. It is with a deliberate sensory
sis that has, to date, been relatively underexamined unease that the audience is invited to explore the
in the research on climate change communication. interface based in the ‘heart’ of New York City and
From warming curves and diagrams to emotive one of its the first sites for climate monitoring.b In
pictures of the lost species and spaces of climate selecting one of the four dates on the screen—1990s,
change (stranded polar bears, melting glaciers, and 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s—a sound composition is
inundated tropical islands), the manifold possibilities activated. The tones played rise and fall, rising more
and limitations of climate change visualizations in often than falling. Modulating like ghostly, half-
promoting understanding and action are well tuned radio transmissions, interspersed with sharp

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 Focus Article wires.wiley.com/climatechange

blown out buzzes and underlain with occasional does not have direct and immediate implications’
muted rhythmic hums, they build an atmosphere of (Ref 19, p. 33, Ref 20). There is an issue with the
discomfort, and their density and volumes accumu- sensible nature of climate change representations and
late to deeply unsettling registers. Accompanying the how they are understood. Long-term trends in cli-
sounds is a graph that appears over the park along mate change have taken a while to emerge from the
which a marker moves left to right, tracing a series of ‘noise’ of daily, seasonal, and interannual variability
peaks and troughs. As the marker progresses, the and are the result of systematic monitoring over dec-
parts of the park over which it has passed are stained ades rather than from bodily observable characteris-
a rusty brown, then gradually a deep red, before tics. It is not so much that the effects of climate
finally a vibrant, shocking pink. Chromatic unease is change are invisible; rather that, relative to human
intensified and translated into pitches and frequen- perceptive capacities, factors accumulate too slowly
cies, simultaneously agitating the ears and challeng- for the scales and capacities of a human-sensing body
ing the eyes, unsettling the imagination, invoking in the context of the human life span to fully compre-
anxiety and trepidation. hend.19,20 What we find compelling about audio-
As strings of facts and numbers, the abstrac- visual works is how they use sound and vision to
tions of climatic predictions, tipping points, and enable our apprehension of environmental changes
thresholds can often feel distanced from the lived rea- through an intersection of complex-sensing apparatus
lities of those inhabiting economically developed, in ways that disrupt the characteristic ordering and
socially and racially elite demographics. If one sorting of the Aristotelian five senses (hearing, vision,
response has been to generate a host of visualiza- touch, taste, and smell).
tions, from maps, graphs, and memes to photogra- The possibilities arts practices offer for telling
phy and pictorial art, another response has been to sensory stories of the world, which move beyond the
turn to embodied experiences of climate change, to deployment of vision alone to attune us to earthly
offer singular and collective accounts of the effects of processes and forms of life other than the human,
climate change on the lives of humans and nonhu- have been documented.30–32 In HHC, it is a hybrid
mans2,28,29 Heat and the Heartbeat of the City mode of art–science visualization and sonification
(2004, hereafter HHC) is a collaborative art–science that is key to the environmental encounters it creates.
project led by new media artist Andrea Polli,c which Both sonification and visualization are based on tem-
exemplifies how audio-visual encounters with climate perature data gathered for over 90 days across the
change can challenge the latter’s insensible nature in summer months throughout the 1990s as well as a
the global north. In this work, Polli tracks the corre- series of projected data for the summers of the
lation of climate trends and weather fluctuations with 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s (with each decade holding
increases in hospital emergency room visits in around 900 data values). As Polli explains, ‘the soni-
New York. As such, she starkly highlights the very fications focused on expressing the effects of days
personal, and collective, long-term implications of over 90 Fahrenheit, an uncomfortable temperature.
environmental change on the bodies and health of If the number of consecutive days over 90 increased,
populations. What HHC illustrates is how actual and I would attempt to create an “uncomfortable”
predicated data on climate change can combine with change in the sound’ (Ref 33, p. 44). In addition to
the particulars of sonification (sonic compositions ‘translating’ the sonic data ‘into pitch, loudness and
of data translated into sound) and visualization the speed of sounds’ to form the sonic compositions,
(in this case, a composite aesthetic involving basic the team also visually transposed the data to combine
scientific diagramming as well as photography) to scientific diagramming with symbolic coloration
mobilize the senses in the shaping of environmental (blues and greens transform into pinks and reds) as
understandings. temperatures intensify (Ref 33, p. 44). Days at which
The insensibility of climate change and climate temperatures remained below 32 and which did not
future cause a range of different dimensions. Princi- form in clusters were filtered into softer, clearer
pal are those invisible characteristics of climate sounds. As more clusters of hot days emerged, the
change—the rise in carbon emissions and other heat- sounds grow loud and discordant. Velocity was
trapping gases (often colorless and odorless) or the added to the parameters to condense the 3600 data
geotectonic effects of fracking or nuclear power— values into four interconnected 7-min-long composi-
which make it difficult to communicate this as an tions. To deepen the compositional timbre, precipita-
urgent issue. As Moser notes, ‘the primary cause— tion data were also added into the score.
the greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuel use or As a hybrid object, the art–science piece com-
during land-use conversion—is literally invisible and bines visualization and sonification in ways that

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 WIREs Climate Change Artful climate change communication

are technical and emotive, sensory, factual, and

predictive. Its very hybridity registers the complex-
ity and uncertainty of our climate futures, as well
as collaging space and time, bringing distant events
into the proximate spaces of the here and now.
Decades of time are compressed into an x-axis ren-
dered as wide as a computer screen, and space
becomes narrowed to that of temperature, regis-
tered in the amplitude and magnitude of the lines
on the graph; the numerical value is given as the
bar that marks the advancing front of the compo-
sition and in the shifting of colors of the park
landscape. The result is an environmental encoun-
ter, the forms of which render climate change and F I G U R E 2 | Archive of Vatnajökull (the sound of ), 2007–8, Katie
its effects sensible and embodied in disconcertingly Paterson. Installation view PKM Gallery, Seoul, 2011. Photograph:
multisensuous and multiscalar ways. Visualization Hong Cheolki. Call this number between June 6th and 13th, 2007 and
and sonification do not function in isolation; you would have heard an abstract series of cracks, pops, and creaks.
rather, together, they confront sound and sight to The book, mounted in a case on the plinth, contains the numbers of
chart the rise in temperature correlative to hospital the 10,000 callers who did ring in and were connected to one of
admissions and in doing so enable a registering of Europe’s largest ice extents and one of the key sites in the monitoring
the uncertainty of coming futures. Rendering the of global warming and its effects.
uncertain sensible in auditory and visual ways is
unsettling, bringing to audiences a future of yet atmosphere.’29 This is exacerbated by the geographic
unfelt, unrealized climactic threat. and social separation between those who are at the
frontlines of climate change and those at a ‘privi-
leged’ a discordance between global conflicts and
RENDERING PROXIMATE— crises versus local immediacies, needs, and precari-
ties19,20,37 As psychologists have repeatedly argued,
REMAPPING DISTANCES ‘direct experience and immediate demands trump vicari-
While the popular visual logics of climate change are ous experiences or abstract data almost every time’ (Ref
dominated by representations of emaciated polar 19, p. 34, Refs 20 and 38). Furthermore, when action is
bears, melting ice caps, and retreating glaciers, some pursued, the lag between mitigative acts and beneficial
artists are seeking to challenge these with alternative changes can be significant (seen in the incongruous tem-
audio-visual geographies.34,35 For audiences removed poralities of environmental crisis and policy intervention
from environmental frontlines, the effect of such for instance). Against these lags, the sensory regimes of
visualities is to situate climate change (and its effects) art works can enable a remapping of the complex spati-
in space and time other than those of the everyday alities and temporalities of climate change, rescaling
somewhere ‘out there.’ Given the concerns environ- those distances that are seen as barriers to understand-
mental scientists and activists alike share over dan- ing and, potentially, to action.
gerous gaps between environmental knowledge and If at its most basic, vision was once understood
action caused in part (many posit) by such distan- as the ‘sense of separation’, offering a distanced view
cing, we look to art for alternative environmental over the world, touch and hearing have been under-
logics.1,19,20,36 Using artist Katie Paterson’s piece stood as configuring sensory proximities through
Archive of Vatnajökull (the sound of ), we reflect on their promotion of different kinds of phenomenologi-
how the experiences of visual and audio art might cal intimacy between audiences and the sounded
remap complex environmental spacings (Figure 2). world.24,39,40 Katie Paterson’s soundings and visuali-
Distance—meaning here both spatial and tem- zations create both junctures and disjunctures with
poral separation—is a compounding problem in those more standard imaginaries of ice melt and gla-
tackling climate change. The litany of challenges cial ruination and in doing so challenge some of the
(cognitive, political, and psychological) that separa- traditional distancings of climate change. In 2007,
tion poses is extensive. It might be considered to Paterson installed an underwater microphone (hydro-
obfuscate ‘the cumulative and collective nature of phone) in Jökulsárlón, an outlet glacial lagoon of
both causes and actions that would lead to any Vatnajökull—the largest and most voluminous gla-
(detectable and attributable) changes in the cier in the south of Iceland. The microphone was

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 Focus Article wires.wiley.com/climatechange

connected to an amplifier, which was in turn con- of climate change, evoking global warming and gla-
nected to a mobile phone, reachable from any loca- cier melt to reproduce narratives of ‘glacier ruina-
tion in the world. The piece Archive of Vatnajökull tion.’43 This was more acute in the gallery where the
(the sound of ) was designed by Paterson to forge a recordings were framed by three ‘classic’ arctic land-
link between the caller-listener and the real-time scapes, with striking, empty, white expanses.43 With-
movements of the glacial environment over the out a doubt, there is much to be discussed about
course of a week in the Icelandic summer (June what is lost and gained in the gap between the ‘live’
6–13). Audible through the speaker were the cracks, listening event and the encounter with the archive,
groans, and drips of ice shifting and thawing. The whether in a gallery, online, or through secondary
choice of Vatnajökull, an area colloquially referred texts such as this one (see Refs 44 and 45) as
to as ground zero for the effects of global warming, Cameron and Neilson’s work on the spatial and tem-
as a site for exploration was significant. From the poral challenges of the display of climate change
early 1900s, the glacier’s positive mass balance went point out.44 Although it is too simplistic to suggest
into a steady decline.41 In modeling simulations that the original experience was somehow more ‘real’
based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate and the later recordings less ‘authentic,’ it is impor-
Change scenarios, it had been predicted that Vatna- tant to acknowledge the differences between the
jökull would reduce by 50% by the next century and experience of directly listening to the glacier from a
completely disappear by 2200.42 mobile phone from anywhere in the world and listen-
After the phone line to the glacier was discon- ing on a set of headphones in a gallery, standing next
nected, further gallery installations of the work were to a case with a set of images in it underneath a neon
curated, which included sound recordings of the site, tube sign of the phone number. This, however, does
a neon sculpture of the glacier’s phone number, a not do the nuances of the work justice.
book of 10,000 telephone numbers from listeners While it is not difficult to conceive of how the
who called in during the week-long connection, and phone connection collapsed distance, the proximity
three photographs of the glacier in a traditional land- developed through the work’s sonic dimensions is
scape style (Figure 3). The different forms of the more multifaceted than first presumed. First, if to
work (the live listening event of the melting glacier, look is to be presented with images of white, static
the artifacts of the ‘live’ performance, the photo- expanses of ice, then to listen, especially ‘live,’ is to
graphs, and the sound recordings in the gallery be confronted by the glacier as a constantly mobile
space) came together to prompt the question: what and dynamic entity. To listen on the phone is to be
happens when an audience can listen to as well as invited into proximity: for a week, 10,000 people
look at a landscape? heard in real time the glacier melt and in that listen-
It is fair to say that, on the surface, Paterson’s ing were afforded an intimacy with the minute
work undertook a conventional aesthetic rendering expansions and contractions of its kinetic form. To
listen thus offers a tuning into the ongoing, and very
shifting, nature of earthly processes.46 That is to say,
while the intensified fact of ice melt was a frame of
reference brought to the work by the audience, the
act of listening rendered proximate earth surface pro-
cesses and their ongoing nature. Second, the acous-
matic (sound that is heard where the source is
unseen) element not only developed these dynamic
intimacies but additionally required the audience to
create an imaginative connection between what was
being heard and the environments in which the
sound was created—environments that became all
the more lively and heterogeneous for being
imagined.24
F I G U R E 3 | Archive of Vatnajökull (the sound of ), 2007–8, Katie The sonic and visual elements of the Archive of
Paterson. Installation view Ingleby, Edinburgh, 2014. Photograph: Vatnajökull (the sound of ) thus engenders for its
John McKenzie. The three images that accompany the installation and audiences a proximate encounter with an ice sheet
that also surround the sound files online offer a very particular visual and a set of processes that are distant in space and
framing of the recordings. The pops, creaks, and muted ice slides time but which are also ongoing and incremental
become set against the visualization of a white icy environment. rather than singular and spectacular. In its modes of

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 WIREs Climate Change Artful climate change communication

audibility, the work demands that the audience lis- forms of environmental connection. Such connections
tens differently and becomes aware of that which is are as much about shifting the knowledge forms of sci-
not human and not animal but other again. What entific experts as they are about the population of the
emerges is an environmental encounter that demon- global north, who are often understood to live in some
strates how sound can be employed to sense more- form of insulation not only from climate frontlines
than-human environmental change, bringing human but also from the physical wilderness more generally,
and nonhuman bodies into proximity with events thus ensuring that environmental changes remain
over vast geographical registers. unnoticed or are dismissed as unimportant.19–21
In what follows, we explore how art practices might
enable us to appreciate different ways of knowing
RENDERING ENTANGLEMENTS the environment and how doing so might forge
When reading across the climate change literature, it environmental relations based on connections of
can seem like climate change knowledge, if not in cri- entanglement rather than those of separation, domina-
sis, is certainly undergoing significant critiques not tion, and distance (Figure 4).
only of what is known about the environment but In 2010–2011, artist Christina Della Giustina
also how it is known and who can participate in the spent a year in residence at the Swiss Federal institute
making of that knowledge.1,2,45,47,48 Two key ima- for forest, landscape, and snow research outside Zur-
ginaries of the emerging ‘new’ climate knowledge are ich.d Starting from the question ‘how do changes in
interdisciplinarity and critiques of expertise.2,49 In climatic conditions modify water cycle and water
practice, both these imaginaries usher in a broaden- variability in trees,?’ she sought to sonify and visual-
ing of the knowledge about climate change, making ize data from the lab’s world-renowned permanent
space for other ways of knowing and other knowl- plot sites, which has long been a key source of data
edge makers. In both cases, one of the challenges that for EU climate change predictions. Combining centu-
remain, however, is that knowing about and under- ries of pre-existing data with contemporary live data
standing climate change does not inevitably lead to streams, Della Giustina created an iteration of her
activity on climate change.1,50–52 An emerging set of ongoing audio-visual installation You are Variations.
responses from across science, social science, and the In the myriad visualizations and sonificiations that
arts and humanities has focused on how opening out constitute the work, we find an exemplification of
different forms of knowledge might develop new how art can be understood to cultivate attentiveness

tree 8-2018, 2011, Buch [Holz, Papier, Folie, Faden], 36 × 36 × 8,8 cm

you are variations

tree 9-2071, 2011, Buch [Holz, Papier, Folie, Faden], 40 × 40 × 8,85 cm

Pinus sylvestris, 1919 - 2008, Pfynwald, Valais, CH

tree 2-135, 2011, Buch [Holz, Papier, Folie, Faden], 31 × 31 × 4 cm

Pinus sylvestris, 1915 - 2009, Pfynwald, Valais, CH

FI G URE 4 | You are variations (detail from artists’ books), 2011–ongoing, Christina della Giustina.

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 Focus Article wires.wiley.com/climatechange

in artists, scientists, and audiences alike to becoming structures of the tree at a particular point (e.g., soil–
affected by nonhuman others. root interface) became operations of rhythm, pulse,
In December 2011, Della Giustina invited and pitch, while temperature readings gave the time
assembled scientists and visitors to meet Anlus gluti- signature of the piece, and the rate of evaporation–
nosa, Carpinus betulus, Acer pseudoplatanus, and transpiration marked changes in the volume. Refin-
Pinus sylvestris, four common tree species that popu- ing the parameters with Della Giustina, the collabor-
late European landscapes, through three artists’ ating scientists raised questions around ‘fidelity to the
books and three sound installations. Within covers data’ and challenged some of the sonic renderings as
made from discarded specimens, each book collaged being overly monotonous or as not ‘sounding’ like
together three layers of heterogeneous visual material water or trees. These concerns revealed a compelling
from a range of sources. This included high- instigation of a sensory expansion, a valuation of
resolution microscopic images, intricate pencil becoming attentive to the trees studied in different
sketches, and a series of line graphs depicting a year- interdisciplinary ways.
long story of tree health. The resultant combination Like Polli and Paterson, the sonic and visual
united mathematical rigor with the spare forms of tactility of Della Giustina’s work led her audiences
scientific diagramming and the intimacies of hours on a spatial–temporal journey. The overlappings and
spent drawing pine cones, needles, and leaves from intersections of the collection of soundings and
life. The images worked to bring awareness to how visionings created a constellation of relations destabi-
different modes of rendering sit next to and inter- lizes registers of environmental understanding—the
leave with each other. This included the precisely scientific and the artistic—to create novel environ-
computer-rendered graphical forms of line diagrams mental encounters. What evolve are multispecies
composed from millions of data points and the tech- explorations that decenter and deprivilege both the
nicolor microscopic images of false color-stained human subject and scientific forms of ‘data,’ situating
plant cells that they bisect. These were overlaid by them alongside and within rich assemblages of mate-
the sketched forms of delicate tendrils the artist had rial from multiple sources. Visualizations and sonifi-
created from living specimens. The precision of the cations attune artists, scientists, and other audiences
computer-generated line made stark the more hesi- to different ways of engaging with the trees that are
tant touch of pencil on paper, the textures and ges- usually positioned as scientific specimens. Like the
tures of the liveness of the artist’s hand recorded in works discussed in the previous sections, this is not
the slight miss marks, the varying weight of lines, or to privilege one way of knowing or to try to replace
the fine feathering of overlapping pencil elements (see scientific understandings with other ones but to
Ref 53 for a discussion of drawing as a process of expand concerns with how the environment is
cultivating intimacy). known connected with. The result is a mode of
Of the three sound pieces, two 12-min-long encounter that opens out the spaces and practices of
compositions were electronically composed and ‘knowing’ climate change to sensory engagements
installed in vertical staircases that ascended the exter- that, while clearly not necessarily excluded from
nal walls of the lab, climbing through the thickets of more scientifically constituted methods, are certainly
pine around the site. Ascending the stairs, the audi- less privileged within them.
ence began with soundings from the root/soil inter-
face, moving up into the molecular exchanges in the
stem before hearing the leaf–atmosphere interactions CONCLUSION: AND SO TO ACTION?
taking place at sunset at the top of the staircase. TOWARDS THE ARTFUL
Despite their organic nature, the sounds heard were COMMUNICATION OF
not, like Paterson’s, field recordings created in situ,
CLIMATE CHANGE
amplifications of actual environmental soundings
made audible to the human ear; rather, they were, This paper has presented three artistic case studies
like Polli’s compositions, a sounding of science, an that enable a review of some of the specific ways that
aesthetic processing of data. Each piece was the result arts practices can engage the key challenges facing
of a sonification of data being streamed from the per- climate change communicators. It has reflected on
manent plot sites. the possibilities art practices offer to address issues
Della Giustina worked alongside scientists to faced by those concerned with climate change com-
develop a series of parameters that mapped biologi- munication, namely, issues of insensibility, abstrac-
cal and atmospheric characteristics onto functions of tions, and distancings. By drawing out transferable
sound. For example, the atomic and molecular lessons from three artistic case studies, we hope to

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 WIREs Climate Change Artful climate change communication

have opened up space for further inquiry into what and yet might well become one of the biggest missed
art can contribute, and how, to understandings of cli- opportunities for climate communication. In this
mate change. We explored how aesthetic experiences paper, we have not set out to assess the broader
(e.g., of discomfort, of difference), developed here impact of the works we studied nor would we argue
through visual and sonic methods, can cultivate par- that such works will ever likely have ‘mass’ appeal or
ticular ways of knowing and attentiveness toward reach a global audience. Rather, we have explored
things that are distant in space and time or simply how these forms of work might affect those who
not human. We reflected on how the modes of encounter them and the artists and scientists who
sensing—seeing, hearing, etc.—are associated with produced them. There is much work to be done in
different kinds of spatial relation that may configure developing methods for arts evaluation more broadly
our relations to climate differently. We have also and for the evaluation of climate change arts in par-
investigated how in the making, as well as in the con- ticular.30,54,55 Such methods would need to take
sumption, of art different kinds of orientation toward account not only these kind of experiential dimen-
the environment might be cultivated through a range sions but would combine these with research into the
of visualization and sonification practices, whether social–cultural location of individual audience mem-
through graphs, microscopic images or drawings, bers, including their pre-existing knowledge and
environmental sounding, or sonification. Through biases. These are clearly large questions that need to
these accounts, we have demonstrated how concerns be attended to as has been noted across the arts and
with aesthetics, and hence with sensory experience, science communication. It may be that fruitful combi-
in the production and consumption of art works can nations of methods and approaches can be generated
offer valuable perspectives for those interested in cli- by combining arts and humanities approaches to
mate change communication. We do not suggest that understanding the ‘work’ art can do alongside social
such accounts replace those which focus more specifi- science-based approaches that have, to date, been
cally on representations, iconography, or narrative applied within science communication.
content; rather, we think that richer accounts and A second concern, and again, this is one shared
effects can be generated by thinking these things with the wider field of climate communication, is
together. This is a movement beyond conceiving of around the need not just for explaining and educat-
art as ‘picturing’ the possibilities multiple forms of ing but also for action to, as Moser states, ‘move
artistic practice offer in understanding, imagining, publics from mere awareness, concern and under-
and even bringing about alterative environmental standing, to an active engagement’ (Ref 1, p. 10).
futures. Indeed, it is our contention that more com- With the awareness that ‘knowledge itself is insuffi-
plex accounts of cultural practices, which layer cient motivation to take action’, a shift toward
together representation, narrative, and symbolism enabling and empowering’ action has followed, but
with sensory, emotional, and affective dimensions, as Moser argues, it is ‘far from clear even to the most
can offer much to climate change communications motivated people what actions to take’(Ref 1, p. 7).
more generally. Action is a tricky concept to untangle, especially
Despite the values we find in these art practices, within the constraints of academic publication. We
we want to briefly address some of the limitations are not claiming that the art works discussed here
with what we have presented here. This is not to say will move people toward action—either of direct
that the art works themselves are limited or have action protest or of long-term behavior change—but
failed; indeed, as we have demonstrated, we think we do think there are forms of creative practice that
these are pieces that offer much with respect to key might. Other forms of encounter, which we have
concerns with climate communication. Rather, we detailed elsewhere, are enabling action and are pro-
want to echo some of what Moser observed in her viding the space for organizing and collectivizing
recent review concerning the limitations of climate people into discussions about what action can consist
change communication as it currently stands.1 From of. We refer here to the evolving field of participatory
within these, we find a series of stepping stones for and dialogic art that speaks to climate change (see
further research and engagement on art and climate Refs 56–58 for a series of examples) and which often
change. feature community and site-specific practices taking
Our key concern here is with regard to the ‘oft- up localized environmental issues—whether through
demanded, and rarely fulfilled request to evaluate story telling and gathering or the creation of living
communication’s impact’ (Ref 1, p. 4). As Moser archives and artifacts of change.59–62 We can also
notes, this constitutes ‘one of the most important think of citizen science projects that engage with
prospects for growth and advancement’ (Ref 1, p. 4) local communities as climate ‘experts’ and in so

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 Focus Article wires.wiley.com/climatechange

doing disrupt more traditional senses of who makes address ‘climate silence[s]’ to build alternative under-
climate knowledge and sanctifies climate futures.63,64 standings and imaginings of, and in the best cases
These are forms of creative practice that have been action on, global environmental change.
proven, with respect to other issues (e.g., urban ine-
quality, migration, education), to demonstrate prac-
tices and effects similar to the kinds of dialogic
practices identified as key to furthering climate NOTES
change communication.1,47,48,64–66 Our investigation a
The literature on climate change, emotions, and affect
here sits alongside such practices, navigating ‘action’ has blossomed in recent years, key amongst which includes
through sensory, relational, and more intimate Ref 3.
dimensions. We particularly reflect on the value of b
http://archive.turbulence.org/Works/heat/ last accessed
audio-visual art in the evolution of new relationships November 24, 2016.
between humans and their environments, relations c
New Media Art refers to those practices that encompass
that, we suggest, hold within them much potential to a range of work produced through the means of ‘new
respond to Moser’s call for climate communication media’, so, for example, work produced for production
practices to ‘open minds, deepen understanding, fos- and/or consumption through the internet, on computers,
ter empathy and change attitudes’ (Ref 1, p. 8). via social media as well as video games and robotic arts
It is this opening of minds, deepening of under- practices. The piece under discussion here was made
through a collaboration between Polli, Cynthia Rosenz-
standing, and fostering of empathy that this paper
weig, David Rind, and Richard Goldberg from the Climate
has sought to demonstrate art’s capacity to do. In a
Impacts Group at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
communication landscape concerned with the possi- Studies and Columbia University and documentary film-
bilities of interdisciplinarity, with the need for inter- maker Morgan Barnard and was enabled by sonification
pretative, dialogic, and contemplative approaches to technologies Polli had designed with video artist and pro-
climate change, audio-visual arts offer one trajectory grammer Kurt Ralske.
for investigation and instigation. It is our belief that d
Author one carried out an ethnography of this year of
arts practices such as these, and the ways in which residency and has continued to conduct ethnographic work
they go to work on bodies and on the senses, can with this artist.

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