Translating Slow Violence: The Use of Environmental Data in Art as Un-Forecasting

Atsuhide  Ito

doi:10.25038/am.v0i25.459

Authors

Atsuhide Ito

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i25.459

Keywords:

environmental data, slow violence, citizen science, contemporary art

Abstract

This paper explores the potentiality of environmental data translation into affective artistic experiences. Slow violence in the environment is imperceptible and requires techniques of translating it into visual and sonic experiences. In the process, environmental data is used as a currency for translation. Shoshana Zuboff in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism discusses data collection is integral to a surveillance society, yet, data, when given back to citizens, can empower them, and in such a scenario, artists can play a crucial role. By discussing examples of contemporary artworks, the paper observes how ecological situations are captured as data and translated into affective experiences. Environmental data, however, is used also to speculate, predict, and even determine potential scenarios to happen in the future, as in the case of the weather forecast, and used to eliminate uncertainties. This paper argues that art helps make environmental data widely accessible, and suggests an alternative passage from predetermined scenarios speculated from data collection.

Article received: April 25, 2021; Article accepted: June 21, 2021; Published online: September 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper

Author Biography

Atsuhide Ito

Solent University, Southampton, England, and London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, England
United Kingdom

Atsuhide Ito (b.1965) is an artist and writer. Dr. Ito is Senior Research Fellow at Solent University in England and teaches theory and practice of art. He is also an Associate Lecturer at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. His research concerns the relationship between environmental data and art. Recent publications include “Hauntology of the Machinic” in Steven Jon Thompson (ed.) Machine Law, Ethics, and Morality in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, IGI Global (2021), “Assemblage Drawing” in Paul-Francois Tremlett’s Towards a New Theory of Religion and Social Change, Bloomsbury (2020), “A Haunted Abbey and A Concrete Palace” in The Inclusive Museum, Common Ground Publisher (2019), “The Spectral Image: The History of Visualising Radiation”, in International Journal of the Image, Common Ground Publisher (2018), and “Towards a Theory of Cavernous Porosity” in Architecture and Culture, Routledge, and Taylor & Francis (2016).

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i25.459 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i25.459