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# Anthropocene Age: What can art do?

What impact will the Anthropocene have in our future, and what meaning does it hold for us? In this crisis of global scale, can we imagine and reflect upon the future with art?

These questions guided the hosting of the ACC international forum “Imagining Beyond the Anthropocene with Art,” which was held in conjunction with the “Bandi Walk” opening on August 31, 2022. It was an occasion where experts in art and science from Korea, Japan, and China came together in the ACC Library Park’s Book Lounge to share their thoughts about the Anthropocene and the art of the future. International speakers took part via video chat.

Director Buhm Soon Park of KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies led the keynote presentation, while the topical presentations featured Vice President Zhao Li of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Chair Haitao Zhang of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, curator Minoru Hatanaka of NTT InterCommunication Center, and POSTECH professor Jin-Taek Kim.

This write-up focuses on KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies director Buhm Soon Park’s presentation “Three Images of the Anthropocene,” NTT InterCommunication Center curator Minoru Hatanaka’s presentation “Media Art for the New Ecosystem of the Anthropocene Age: Centering on the Non-human,” and POSTECH professor Jin-Taek Kim’s “Sustainable Future Design: Network Shift.”

# Three Images of the Anthropocene

Keynote Presentation: Buhm Soon Park (Director, Center for Anthropocene Studies, KAIST)

Director Buhm Soon Park of KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies asked the question on what the Anthropocene is, what the evidence of system change is, the three artistic images of the Anthropocene, and what art and artistic perspectives can do.

What is the Anthropocene? The Anthropocene is a concept that refers to how humans and their acts as major agents of change on Earth require a new geological distinction in time. The concept was proposed for the first time in scientific communities but was quickly adopted by the fields of humanities, social sciences, and art. Director Park’s conception of the Anthropocene focuses on the term’s dual character, namely, its scientific conceptualization of the new geological age humans have created and its practical challenge to human-centric thought.

In that sense, what can artists do in this age of Anthropocene, and what roles should art museums play? To answer these questions, Park introduces three images of the Anthropocene.

Poster, 2018 documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

The first image is the Anthropocene landscape, developed by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and other artists. It was also the poster for the documentary “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.” Burtynsky’s work focuses on the changes in nature caused by human activity and challenges us to restore our sense of awe toward nature.

Cover, Nature March 2015 issue

The second image was the cover of the scientific journal Nature in its special issue on the Anthropocene (March 2015), an artistic depiction of the Anthropocene core concepts, namely “changes to Earth by human activity” or “confluence between human history and the history of Earth” by Italian illustrator Alberto Seveso. The image is set against that of a human body, overlaid with the Pacific Ocean, continents, airplanes, ships, nuclear war, buildings, factories, and vegetation. This human body, however, is that of a white man, inviting the questions “who do we mean by humanity?” and “who are the agents who created this crisis?”

Another image of the Anthropocene can be found in a work that is not specifically covering the Anthropocene, in El Museo del Barrio’s temporary exhibition “‘Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective.” This work is a parody of the altarpiece used in a medieval church, depicting the massacres and exploitation that followed the “Conquistadores” following the “discovery” of the “New World” by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The centerpiece of this work is not the figure of Jesus nailed to a cross, but a blood-soaked altar of skulls, cut hands, and swords, upon which a jaguar gazes forward. The wings of this altarpiece depict the historical records of the “Conquistadores” in the 17th Century literature. This piece symbolizes how imperialism has constructed colonies, enslaved people, destroyed nature and humans, and exploited them far before the Industrial Revolution.

Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s work, as shown in New York’s El Museo del Barrio om 2022 (Source: El Museo del Barrio webpage, http://www.elmuseo.org/RMO)

For the third image, Director Park says, “art has the power to simultaneously reveal violence and present the age, history, and the future. Because of that, art records the history of humanity and Earth together, interprets them together, and allows us to reach alternative imaginations. For us to weather the crisis of the Anthropocene, the art museum must undertake a task of greater creativity.“

# Media Art for the New Ecosystem of the Anthropocene Age: Centering on the Nonhuman

Minoru Hatanaka (Curator, NTT InterCommunication Center)

Curator Minoru Hatanaka’s presentation, titled “Media Art for the New Ecosystem of the Anthropocene Age: Centering on the Nonhuman,” began with an introduction of the 2007 NTT ICC exhibition “Silent Dialogue” as a leading example of a nonhuman-centric perspective.

One characteristic of nonhuman-centric thought is to express the world from a different subject’s perspective rather than from the perspective of an artist or a human. The idea is to move away from a perspective that places a special premium on humanity, but rather, to see humans as nothing but parts of a world that has existed far before humans began to think.

Curator Hatanaka introduces a number of examples to this perspective. The work that I found to be most interesting was “Paphio in My Life,” a joint work between botanist Yuji Dogane and composer Mamoru Fujieda that was featured in the “Silent Dialogue” exhibition. This work uses Plantron, a system developed by Dogane that transforms biological signals from plants into digital music data (MIDI) to transform plants’ biological activities into their voices. By doing so, the work shows what effect humans have on nature.

Hatanaka says that this work demonstrates that rather than humans being distinct or contrasting with nature, plants and human audience members exist together in the exhibition space and interact in it. Furthermore, this work is significant because it seeks to present a perspective of plants rather than humans.

# Sustainable Future Design: Network Shift

Jin-Taek Kim (Professor, POSTECH)

Professor Kim examines the idea of a future from the perspective of ESG (Environmental Social Governance) and draws our attention to the idea of “value design.” That is, concrete practices we undertake to create value in our lives.

Professor Kim presents a fundamental and philosophical reflection on the capitalist society and presents the ESG as an option for serious practice for a sustainable future for humanity. ESG, again, refers to the tripartite environmental, social, and governance factors. It is a concept that has gained much traction from the public in recent years.

Forum event

Since the 1970s, civic society around the world has seriously reflected on the capitalist system and industrial development’s effect on the destruction of nature. This was followed by contestations on the capitalist economic system, which has resulted in great damage to the environment and the worry about Earth’s community life community under threat. The Bhopal disaster of 1984 and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill resulted in the formation of international conventions and treaties. The launch of CERES in the United Nations in 1997 brought the lack of responsibility in human economic activity into visibility. The creation of the Global Reporting Initiative, which forms the basis of the ESG today, put that attention toward sustainability into concrete terms.

In 2000, a proposal was made that mandated the disclosure of ESG information to the public, which further propagated the idea that enterprise evaluation and investments will now be made by intangible assets, as shaped under the ESG standards, rather than traditional indicators of sales and profit. This proposal was significant because it emphasized the importance of the enterprises reflecting on the environment and sustainable future during their economic activities to guarantee the fulfillment of ESG values.

The term ESG truly entered public consciousness with the 2020 letter by Larry Fink, the president of the world’s largest asset manager and investor BlackRock, sent to all branch offices and enterprises in the company’s portfolio detailing the following principles based on ESG.

The irony, of course, is that the efforts by the civic society and the UN to overcome the capitalist system for a sustainable future did not see much result, but this one letter accelerated the transition toward the ESG and resulted in many companies declaring their ESG dedications. Despite this, if this method will allow us to design a sustainable future, we have no choice but to accept this, for the situation is dire. We have very few opportunities to win back a sustainable life for the human community, after all.

Professor Kim adds, “Transition to ESG is not only about a myopic focus on environmental sustainability. What is important is to orient ourselves toward a design of meaningful and valuable quality of life across all facets of our life in the community.” He furthermore says that what we need to make this transition toward the ESG is the “network shift.”

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Director Buhm Soon Park of KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies discussed the Anthropocene in the scientific community and the artistic images that depict the Anthropocene, emphasizing the power of art.

Vice President Zhao Li of the Central Academy of Fine Arts discussed the changes in art brought by digitalization, while curator Minoru Hatanaka of NTT ICC introduced works that express our concerns regarding the Anthropocene. Chair Haitao Zhang of the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts focused on studying the future and future art.

Finally, Professor Jin-Taek Kim of POSTECH defined the ESG, a part of our efforts to create a sustainable future, as an example of value design, and called for concrete actions to be taken in our lives.

Forum event

This was an occasion where we could seriously reflect upon our future from our situation today through the discussion of experts in the field of science and art.

What can artists do in this global crisis of the Anthropocene? Through their sharp sensitivity and insight into the world, artists have the power to bring to the surface the problems we have in our age or express them in their own ways. They present new perspectives or relay messages through more meaningful ways with unique methods of expression that words and writings alone cannot reach.

Just as the title of the forum, “Imagining Beyond the Anthropocene with Art,” suggests, I hope to see the artistic imagination as an alternative that can overcome the challenges we face right now.