 So good afternoon everyone to what is the panel five called the agency of art of our European planetary well-being winter school It's a pleasure having you here My name is De La Melon, and I'm the executive director of the planetary well-being institutional framework at the Pompeo Fabra University It's a pleasure welcoming you here And today we're gonna take a bit of a different look to the what is the emergency or better said climate emergency in the Framework of planetary well-being and what we were trying to achieve So there is something that we already did during this week With our students of the winter school that is discussed how we have underlying morals and values That we actually need to change in order to climb to combat basically what is the climate emergency and what are the great challenges of our day? Art is definitely part of those morals and values and of communication that goes beyond academic articles and Scientific findings is something that touches us as human beings and finds this way Where the science sometimes doesn't and the numbers so I'm very happy to be with you here today I want to thank the magma museum for making this possible, but specifically Professor Valverde who put all of this together and is so kindly hosting us today So welcome with us, and I hope you're gonna enjoy the session. Thank you Thank you Thank you Lela I think the whole school would not be possible without you It's not for me or with me, but without you it wouldn't have been possible at all So thanks for your fabulous work in the last months in difficult conditions as you all know Thank you you all for being here those attending in person here at the auditorium mire In the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona and those attending online at your Wherever you are at home in your universities, etc. It is it's a pleasure to have the opportunity of Collaborating with the museum. It is part of the idea of our university to collaborate with public institutions beyond academia and this is the first one That will take place in the in this winter school and I hope in the winter schools to come So don't be afraid for much work that that can be ahead of you Lela First of all as a In fact as a representative of the executive committee of the European and also as a Professor of Art History at the School of Humanities at the University of Pumpeo-Fabra. I want to thank the director of the magba Elvira Diangani-Oce for her immediate willingness to come to collaborate with us for the generosity of the institution and and really in the hope that this this is one first step in a broader Collaboration in the months and years ahead I Also want to thank Claudia Segura also for enthusiasm and Yolanda Nicolas and all of those who make possible also the technicians who make possible this connection and also this session here as Lela told you this the the title we gave to these These session is the agency of art What art has to say in the challenges facing we are facing today On the issues of Climate change, but not only climate change, but also climate justice I think that artists art historians curators museum people Theoreticians philosophers have a lot to say have a lot to help To all of us as society and societies in finding new new Roads or new orientations in our practices and in our ethics and in our politics obviously as well So this afternoon Will be or will go as following I will end very soon this small talk literal and figure it and I will give the floor to Claudia Segura who will be presenting besides a bit Where we are what is this museum? But she will be presenting a Film that will be That will be projected a film by artist Max the Stevan, which is called a forest I think you might have looked in the in the Internet in the web and you might have had a You might have read a bit about The artist and the film, but in any case Claudia will be presenting that the film is 24 minutes 23 24 minutes long, but it's Absolutely fascinating and captivating so I'm sure that you want to be at all looking at the clock and and will be really impressed by this work, then we will have Lecture by Santiago Zavala Professor also at the Universitat Pumpeu Favre a nuclear research professor of philosophy and Then we will be having TJ professor TJ demos that will be connecting from California online Later on, you know that the the time difference makes for us a bit difficult And this is why we had to begin later to have Professor demos at eight in the morning in Santa Cruz Talking for for us Then we will have a Some half an hour or so or as much as you like for questions and and answers so Now I leave the floor to Claudia Segura, which I am I cannot resist but saying that it is a pleasure to have an alumni of UPF Collaborating with me. She was not only one of my best students ever clever and sensitive and intelligent and She's here as curator of collections and exhibitions of The Museum for Contemporary Art in Barcelona after a very successful career in other countries, but back to Barcelona back home thanks God and for the luck of all of us who can Share with her as many initiatives as possible in the future. Thank you, Claudia You the floor is yours Well, thank you so much Isabel for this amazing and kind words that they are Reciproquy, I mean feel exactly the same and I'm very really very happy to To be able to host the magba be able to host this fantastic Symposium and these fantastic lectures that we're gonna have an intervention So please and the museum is open for all of you Whenever you come to Barcelona and the students that you're here, you know that this is your place as well Well magba is a contemporary our museum That is committed to present practices and projects that deal with our Contemporarity and serves as a platform and space of exchange to offer Tools to rethink our present fabulate about our past and mainly Reimagining possible futures. That's why the magbas collection, which is an important collection acquires works and projects that serve specifically specifically to this mission a forest a 23-minute film created by the artist Max Esteban and acquired actually recently last year is a clear example for this The work reflects upon the implications of artificial intelligence technology and the ideological frameworks under which it operates Its focus is not the technology itself nor its aesthetics imaginary Instead, it is the exploration of the social values at stake due to the potential dominance of this digital Infrastructure and the ideology behind its leading investors The dystopian imaginary portrait that you will see in a few minutes Which looks like a forest and it's actually produced by the same artificial intelligence when asked to create an image of itself Announces a future in which it won't only be impossible to attribute a monopoly on Individuality to humans, but that implies the abolition of the idea of democracy Through the predictive powers of algorithm If we think about planetary well-being notions such as democracy and freedom need to be added into the puzzle Eduardo Kong Anthropologist asks the question can forest think this is a question that I invite you to resolve After the screening and that we can talk about in the Q&A W J T Mitchell writes a beautiful text about this piece that we're gonna screen right now He says I'm gonna quote the following passage Approximately 300 species vanish every day one every five minute Given its notorious adaptability the human species can probably survive the rising seas expanding deserts and poison air and water inside arc like pots for the very rich Max de stevan Contemplates this future without flinching challenging us to think of something better maybe we can do the screening now and After that we'll have the talk of Santiago. Thank you very much a lot of questions a bit I mean if uncanniness has a Representation that would be it This is scary, I'm sure I don't know for you who are much younger than I but it is scary for me I Wouldn't like someone knowing my desires before I do it myself That's a bit embarrassing that would be a bit embarrassing But I'm sure that there are a lot of questions that this work of art Brings to All of us and that you will be able to think about it and and and ask questions in the one the common the moment comes of Q&A by now I want to we will be Hearing listening to Santiago Zabala My colleague and my friend Who's a colleague at the Department of Humanities at the Universitat umpeufara. He's a as I said before a research professor Ikea research professor of philosophy. He's the author of many books Successful and Very much reviewed and talked about I will Mention a few of them why only art can save us aesthetics and the absence of emergency and the most more recent one being at large freedom in the age of alternative facts and Santiago is at this moment ending The writing of a of his latest book will be appearing next year With Santiago we have been working on these initiative of planetary well-being in the last this last year we organized together a we organized a Symposium Late November or late October. I don't remember anymore. I think it was late October under the title of climate emergency through art and aesthetics where we shared a discussion and debates with two artists and Two philosophers one of them being Santiago himself. So we have been trying to make this bridge With these initiative of planetary well-being itself, which is With the Social scientists and life scientists that are in this moment working in the other sessions of you as you have been seeing you students of The winter school and now with the Department of Humanities. So we Santiago and I you're very keen on Wanted wanting to make the arts Literature films Poetry etc etc Find a place and an important and fundamental place in in this initiative of the Planetary well-being and we are working with our colleagues Leila and others In this in this direction. So now We will Santiago will be talking about trying to either Answer or Making us think even a bit more on the question. Why and how can art rescue us into the greatest Emergences so thank you Santiago and the floor is all yours Thank you very much, Isabelle. Thank you very much for everyone who came here today and all everyone online as well Yeah, as Isabelle mentioned we already will organize a conference in in October Which a title was understanding climate change through art and aesthetics and the main goal of that conference Which you can actually see online on YouTube was to point out that Well, we do not understand climate change at all We live today and what I will now explain is an age where the greatest emergencies the absence of emergency and And basically what we just saw now. It's a very good example of that. I think but basically the idea of the conference was to point out that Facts are not a lot and not and not enough. In other words scientists might tell us all the facts we want And we actually have all the facts we we really need to to know to change to make any change But facts alone are not enough This is a very important point of departure if anyone I'm sure there are a lot of scientists listening to us now and They would probably agree with me because most scientists are very tired of giving us all the facts because there's no change Nothing nothing really happens afterwards So the idea that science is not enough or or even better as Martin Heidegger the most important philosophers in Hegel explain science does not think it calculates, right like intelligent intelligent Artificial intelligence well in this condition that means that we find ourselves in a situation where we have to ask Different questions different question not necessarily new questions, but different questions so the title of my presentation today which Why and how art can rescue us into the greatest emergency has to do with this distinction I think we have to do between an emergency and an absence of emergency or an emergency and the greatest emergency we have I Believe that we now find ourselves in an age where a Gambon's theory of state of exception is not enough to understand anymore our spiritual predicament In other words now we don't live anymore in a in an age where we need the state of exception Perhaps to change the laws or even to to make the laws the way we want them We don't necessarily even need emergencies anymore. Now. We actually managed to construct a condition of political Social political I would say in general condition where the greatest emergency are the emergencies that do not emerge Okay, so for example now we have besides the war that is starting right now in in north of Europe besides that For example, if we look at the pandemic The pandemic is an emergency now, okay, but for the past 15 years or let's say 13 years it has been an absence of emergency Because we were constantly warned that we were going to have a pandemic like the one we had So it's there's some there's a problem though that we have with how to understand Whether we are not even capable of interpreting Something that another way another way of explaining a greatest emergency is simply by meant referring to them as warnings How come we do not listen anymore to warnings? Okay? So the problem I think that in order to understand today the greatest problems We have is the idea of making this distinction and to recognize that the greatest emergencies we have today are the ones We do not confront so Even right now if we read carefully what's going on in in in the Ukraine that probably also is a very good example of Situation that was not taken into there was not enough policy there was not enough diplomacy there for the past years Something that was left in some way an absence of emergency that was left on its own now the question I I'm sure some of you are thinking now it's well. Why am I? Why don't we listen to warning? because When I say we don't listen to warnings, I'm referring to philosophers. I'm referring to scientists I'm referring to basically to everyone. It's not a question of animals of all. I'm referring to society at large Right, so how come we do not listen to warning? But it is a very big difference between between understanding between listening between interpreting There are two very different things. So I my philosophical Upbringing has to do with hermeneutics with it to philosophy of interpretation So for us hermeneutic philosophers, it is very important to try to interpret everything We really cannot see in other words Freud of course is one of the great hermeneutic philosophers He has a small book called interpretation of dreams or we have Thomas Kuhn who explained how science is not a Linear a linear engagement towards truth So we have a huge amount of examples of hermeneutic philosophers that tried to point out that Well, we have to also learn to interpret what we cannot see what we Even worse what we don't think that it's valuable. Okay, something that of course in Intelligent artificial intelligence is not able to do so the point here is to to say well How come we're not listening to warnings and and a lot of people have been talking now that we now live in an age Of so-called alternative facts, right or even worse that we now have to deal with past truths Like if 50 years ago the warrant any alternative facts and there weren't any Past truth so those are not new notions at all. There's nothing new happening there But what did happen there that now we feel we feel strong we feel we can feel this problem of alternative facts In a more clear way than we used to most of all because we find ourselves in this condition that I referred to as The absence of emergency What did this mean this means that if we look at this century this brand-new center we have now we have three big events So we have 9 11 we have the 2008 2009 financial crisis and now we have this pandemic I think and the number of other philosophers who who more or less who agree with me why agree with them goes both ways That nothing really change absolutely nothing change on the contrary Nothing change after September 11. What change an intensification of the measures of military control that was already in in action before That's what change what change after 2008 2009 financial crisis banks were dissolved. No, they were saved So neoliberal capitalism was intensified even more. Okay, and now what has was happening after this and pandemic Are we really preparing for the next pandemic? I? Don't think we are right and and the measures of control and an intensification of measures of control and of and not only of control but also of Many other things has intensified has intensified to the situation where we find ourselves now And this is the my best example So listen carefully that even when they tell us the truth for example WikiLeaks or Edward Snowden on all this every even when we actually have the clear documents Even there nothing changes because if you really think carefully if we look at I don't know Snowden's document Well, Obama should have resigned in 24 hours. Basically Very clear he should have resigned and he did not resign He didn't have to resign and even worse now. We actually have politicians Okay, I'm just thinking now of Donald Trump But there are so many others in in office right now that do not need even to declare Emergencies because now if in 2003 George Bush could use a state of exception to declare an emergency in Iraq today Trump and we see not only Trump but also Bolsonaro They don't need to even to declare an emergency and emergencies have not been declared Okay, in the other state during the pandemic. They have they have not been declared a state of exception like in Europe For example, okay, I'm a worse climate change has not even been taken as an emergency Or the refugee crisis for example Okay, so we are in a condition now. I think that where it's a very good I think it's it's appropriate to talk about an emerging a condition where There aren't any emergencies or at least the emergency the emerge the really important emergencies We have they're not confronted as they should be Owen Jones a very interesting and very smart journalist Right after as soon as the pandemic began he wrote an article pointing out how well It is important that we face the pandemic that we confront the problem We have and at the same time that we remember that about seven or eight million people die every year of lung cancer in Europe because of Our pollution their pollution So one wonders, I guess air pollution is an absence of murder emergency now because we're not tackling it at all Okay now Let's say that we are now that we agree or that let's imagine that a few of you more or less agree with me That there is a problem of Emergencies emerging. Okay emerging out finally. Okay, let's agree that some of you agree with some of these ideas Which of course you can find much better complain. I think in some of my books, but So why why should we Why should we come here to the museum of modern contemporary art Where should we talk from art about these issues? Why should we talk from philosophy about these issues? Well, we're certainly not going to continue asking science for help because if we're in this condition It's certainly not because of art and philosophy that for sure. I I think we all agree in that so it is it has to be they have they have done their work It's work like a charm But you know having the vaccine does not mean that everybody is going to use it, right? There are a lot of people who still have a lot of Skepticals and towards it. So the idea here is to try to understand that what has caused the situation here of the sort of Why don't we listen to warnings anymore and one of the reasons we don't listen to warnings is because we have in some way left Aside or become convinced that we don't need any more filters In other words that we don't need any more the New York Times. We don't need any more Even scientists. We don't need any more philosophers. We don't need anyone to interpret some Findings that we have so that we can directly the knowledge in some way is transparent You can find knowledge right away, right? I can find out whether the vaccine works or not on my own even if I studied Heidegger for 20 years No, I probably shouldn't even start doing that, right? And I assure you Heidegger wouldn't either the problem is that a lot of people who didn't even study Heidegger are sure that They think they can find this information online, right? So there's a transparency there. Okay that now there's a basically a lack of authority Okay, which in some way has given rise to the situation here that some philosophers called Transparency like Johnny Vattimo or even Or there are many other ways to describe this. So why Why do we have to start from art? Why do we have to respond through art? Why do we have to respond? Why do we have to look at artists to see what artists are doing today? Well, first of all, I agree that we have the solutions in other words There are many solutions we already have scientists are already explaining to us a number of facts that we can That we can you know, they're very good starting point, but that's not enough. We're not moved by them Okay, and in order to to be properly moved. Well, it's not a question of message But it's a most of all a question of Intensity in other words, there's an intensity which is always missing Okay in science or in the way science is it's given to us or in the way or whether we are capable of Understanding science. I mean this should not be a question of that. We all become scientists in order to Understand science. That's not the only issue because science has a lot of a lot of problems, too Right, it's a bigger. I mean you should we should wonder why the vaccines are not the patents. It's not for you Quite an important question here. It's not only a technical question most follow political question. So the idea here is that Art unlike science and maybe perhaps even unlike philosophy, okay Always involves a critical element which is meant to steer. Okay to disturb to shake Our existence. Okay, our everyday existence. There is an element there that it's meant to to bother us Right to to make sure that we do not feel always comfortable always at home Okay, that we do not need an artificial intelligence to tell us what we what we want. So Now all this does not mean that scientists and philosophers are not free to do what they want Of course, they are there. They are free as anyone else But rather that their work are more frame. Okay, much more frame by economic and political systems Than the one of the artist. Okay, so the artist tend to have and I have a lot of friends artists They're not very happy when I say this because they have to They don't have a salary. So it's it's not such a good deal But still they do have a freedom that most of us most of those working in the sciences or maybe even in philosophy Don't have so they are in some way. They are allowed to get in much more trouble Or they're allowed to there's a freedom there that we don't have in some other in some other in some other of this other in philosophy or science or anything so The reason we should look into art also is because of not only because of the freedom I think they have but because that they are they manage to their work Include or implies an intensity that scientists do not have. Okay. Now, this is This is important to point out because I think that now for the past years There's the number of artists that I've complained I showed them in my in some of my books I'm going to just show two examples today that I think that they are good examples of Of works of art, but I I do not interpret them as work of art I interpret them as as Events as as ways of as ways of emergencies to emerge in some way I think there are a lot of artists who managed in some way to disclose this absence Emergencies in other words is great emergencies. We're not taking seriously. We're not confronting as we showed. Okay, so So The idea here is to point out that this artist in some way they are not they're not pushing us into this greatest emergencies But rather they are rescuing us from emergency because normally we we use the idea of rescuing You know, you are you have to be rescued from an emergency, right? You have a problem You have to be rescued from an emergency No, no, no the idea is to be rescued into an emergency and most of all into one of those greatest emergencies We have because for example today the greatest emergencies we have it's probably a very big blackout from in The internet that might probably be we have a serious block blackout for let's say a week We'll have much worse consequences than the one that the pandemic had much worse Okay, so maybe there are a number of emergencies that we should take into consideration and we don't and I think that There are a lot of artists today that managed to disclose this this emergency So in order to explain how we can rescue us into Three emergencies that I pointed out that I will point out now I've chosen three works of art that rescue us into a technological a pharmaceutical and environmental great emergencies What often emerged in in great art as well as in other realms of human practices It's not the representation of beauty in other words are today doesn't have anything to do with with that Yes, it is it's much more than that. Okay, it's not not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's much more than that But it has much more to do with the disclosure of an event Okay, there is invisible in other words what I mentioned at the beginning the fact that we are incapable of Weeding what is not there when we're supposed to okay? There is invisible to a aesthetic senses interactive skills and most of our cultural interests Okay, and all this has to do with I think also something else I I will add before showing the images is that another way of explaining the absence of emergency is this idea of explaining that now also in philosophy unfortunately, there are a lot of thinkers who are Returning to what after the First World War used to be called letter to a lord in other words are returned to order which Basically something this idea that we have to in some way overcome post-modernity overcome the end of meta narratives overcome all this all these people that criticizes Colonies and colonialism and rather we have to return to some sort of form of Universality and to fight the fake news and all this in philosophy would they call this new realist philosophy or Oh speculative ontology or whatever they call it now and this is one of the most degrading things you can happen in contemporary philosophy now because it is First of all the problem every time someone calls a new philosophy they align nothing new ever happened in philosophy I don't know. How can someone can imagine that something new happens? But anyway, apparently the problem of realism were discovered this century it goes back quite quite far and and the idea of Requesting as many philosophers quanta Mila Sue Graham Harman and some others some of them even are my friends still still my friends The problem with this is that this is this is a way of returning to other. It's a way of enacting this absence of emergency in other words Those who in some way pretend that we have to return to facts Okay, in a in a situation where facts are not even enough. It's a way also of requesting that we remain Happy we remain content. We remain satisfied with the world the way it is In other words, this is a updated translation of Margaret Thatcher famous two is no alternative of course, there's always an alternative and If there isn't any other alternative then this theory of the absence of emergency is particularly correct So I guess I am a friend of that sure in some way Well, at least I try to understand what she said so let's now the idea I want to show you this tree work so far that that rescue us I think into absence of emergencies So if you can show the first slide Here we go, which works very nicely with the video. We just saw this is a work by Filippo Minnelli who is an Italian artist who Who basically he rescues us according to me, but he seems to agree Into the technological paradox of our age the apparent neutrality claimed by social media and Microblogging services just as Facebook Twitter, etc. Etc. Minnelli places the word Twitter on the wall of a factory farm full of Identical turkeys these turkeys are identical not simply because they are forced to reproduce and grow in identical Patterns, but also because they are framed by an environment that pretend to be neutral a simple growth medium Which actually relies upon the elimination of individual freedom differences in services of To industrial process Minnelli installation is meant to relate this turkeys to social media users in other words us Who are automatically framed within a global infrastructure? Okay, where? Alterations are almost impossible. Okay, this work is called is a series of works This one is called contradiction. It reveals social media apparent transparency and neutrality in other words absence of emergency So this is Filippo Minnelli's work, which I think it's a very good example about also relate to in relation to the video. We saw from Artificial intelligence Then we have here a work by Beverly Fishman Which basically she tries to I guess to rescue us into our addiction to drugs Which is also another absence emergency. I am very important one I wonder which one of us because I did take something this morning did not take a pill this morning, so Fishman sculptures of pills and tablet work as a warning because it is closest to hiding hidden pharmaceutical aggressive branding on and marketing tactics Okay, they're graduating supersizing of pills based on the signs of actual drugs Point to the excesses she sees in pharmaceutical business The problem at the title of her words indicates Which the title by the way is in sickness and health It's how this design promote medication to the sick and to the healthy alike in other words Fishman uses this scholars to liberate the patterns that warn us of the complicated relationship of a 500 billion year industry in other words, I think for every dollar they use I think it's 17 that for every dollar they used to produce the actual Drug, it's like about 17 dollars are used just for the branding This is another very serious problem, of course that we do not confront at all Okay, and that probably should be confronted in some very important way, and I guess Fishman's works sculptures are very At least I think they are they what it's nice to see them If you you ever get a chance to see one of her shows is that when you look at these sculptures You actually see yourself on them, you know They reflect yourself and you can see a distortion there a distortion Which is actually what the drug is probably giving you at that time, okay? The third The third slide I'm going to show you here. It's called lines, and it's a work by Pika Nin Ti Virta and Timo Ajo which are two artists from Northern Europe I think from Finland if I remember correctly and they I think this is a very good example of Of our inability to listen to warning because as you can imagine This These beams of light they represent, okay, they represent the Scientific estimate of the level that the sea will rise if the if the if the climate continues to warn Okay, I think it's 2050 I think that's the estimate and they have a number of works like this and where they show through this beams of light precisely where where Where we will be at basically if we continue to ignore, right to to ignore the The the warnings of science in general, okay, so we have the facts. We have truth We have everything we need, right, but we do not do anything And it's not necessarily because we are incapable of doing anything But it's more has more to do because we're not touch enough by it We're not necessarily Conditioned by it enough. So my idea or my thesis at least my In my work is that aft art often works better than scientific announcement. Okay, even better than philosophical treaties As a way to reveal emergencies Okay, this is not because the artist have a great ability to create beauty But rather for the intensity and depth of their work. Okay intensity and depth of the work So the commentary photograph of the rising sea levels, for example, can be truthful But are really as powerful as the works of art to address These emergencies. Okay, so if you actually go now, I think you can read this in Normie Klein's one of Normie Klein's most recent books She explains how a big geological Conferences scientists didn't have stop almost stop pointing out Pointing out the discoveries and they just talk about how politics should work and how they can move the Public because at this point we have the fact that the problem is not anymore of Finding but rather of of interpreting basically of accepting the fact that we can interpret. Okay, so In order to Sort of sum up here because my time is it's about to finish. I'm going to quote Hans-Ger Gadamer, who's a very important German philosopher who died in 2002, but was born in 1900 so he was he born 102 he died at 102 and he has a number of Books very important books in particular truth and methods where she explains How it is how important it is to stop Imagining that truth has something to do or that in order to achieve truth. We need specific methods His idea is that we do not need and actually we shouldn't even be be limiting truth to methods on the contrary Method is something that takes place perhaps within certain truth and not necessarily true method. So For Gadamer what is important in a work of art and the only reason we should really be looking into into works of art or try to understand Our reality through works of art is because when a work of art true and I quote him when a work of art truly Takes hold of us It is not an object that stands opposite to us, which we look in the hope of of seeing through it and Intending something a meaning or Understanding something of it. It is actually quite the reverse The art of the artwork is an arregnis. It's an event an event that appropriates us into itself It shocks us it overturns us and set up a world of its own in which we are Drown in other words a work of art is one that in some way will make sure that we Become involved in the event that is trying to disclose That is what a true work of art should be now Scientists and philosophers can also overturn our world I assure you I tried but The work preserve a distance that is constitutive Okay of their findings and renders the effects less immediate a Work of art seeks to reduce this distance Okay, not only to draw our attention, but also to involve us In an experience the artist considers significance So the issue here is not anymore. Of course of contemplation obviously, but it's a question of intervention If we now look throughout at least in Europe, but not only actually throughout serious Contemporary art museum and like like this one we will see that there are a number of works of art like the one we saw Today the video that we quest an involvement And there is an involvement request here because if we look at the past 50 years there has been a change a change of part in that is it's not anymore It is not anymore that we request artists something, but it's artists that request us something Okay, the demands from art to us. Okay, so if we haven't been able to listen to Okay, when when I titled the type when I when I added the title of one of my books is why only I can save us And everybody think that I literally meant that no if you read the book Coffrey the idea is that well if we want to talk about salvation or a complete change of the horizon in which We live well we need to change We need to change from where we from where we start in other words We are not we're still thinking too methodically Okay, we're thinking too much still from science as the science will be the only result the only way we have to change the world the problem is that Philosophers until now contrary to what mark said have been changing the world too much What is important now is to start to think To interpret it again if we want to have some possibility of emancipation Thank you very much Thank you Thank you Santiago for your wonderful talk which will add on some other questions to the already present questions in the previous while in the film we saw and I don't know if not now we are yes Hi, can you hear me? All right? Hi Hi, sir professor demos. We have corresponded a lot in the last days, but we have never met now We meet even if on a screen So good afternoon from Barcelona. Good morning in California. I guess Um, we are really honored and happy to have you here. You hear me. Well, I guess Good So we have had now Part of our session which was as you know the screening of the film by Max Esteban a forest Professor Santiago Tavala just ended his talk on the emergency emergencies and and art etc and You will be giving the third and last Talk of the sessions before we go on To the Q&A of the public that are here Physically in in in the auditorium of the Museum of Modern of contemporary art and those who are at home or online Or at the universities online So just Let me briefly present you introduce you professor T. J demos Needs hardly a introduction for art historians Art theorists, but let me tell you in any case that his professor at the department of the history of art and Visual culture at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He's also found Founding director of its member for creative ecologies. His publications are specifically fitting for the Theme of the central theme of these winter school, which is these planetary well-being initiative produced and and conceived by the University of Pumpeo Favre and Most of his books, I don't know if most but some of his books have been translated into Spanish For example the colonizing nature Contemporary art and political ecology. It's this colonizano naturalism at a call Translated into Spanish his last book is His last published book is the Beyond the Worlds and arts of living at the crossing of 2020 and he has also he has all of course an enormous Production, but let me simply also add that he has edited co-edited The routed companion to go on contemporary art visual culture and climate change That appeared last year 2021 it is I could go on and on and on but it's not me whom you want to hear but professor demos so thanks so much for being with us and The floor is yours. Thank you Thank you so much Isabel and Everyone involved in putting this together. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's great to be here wish it was in person I'm gonna just Go ahead and share my screen. I'm hoping you can see that. I think it's coming through now So It's it's quite early in California in Santa Cruz where I'm speaking from I was able to hear Santiago's Presentation which which I very much enjoyed I'm gonna take a complimentary approach in what I have to say about climate emergency But it will have some differences. I I agree that we're in a kind of global condition where Perhaps you know part of the political situation is that the emergency is not recognized as such So we're dealing with the emergency conditions of an absence of emergency. I think that's very very generative and productive way of understanding it I might put the emphasis differently on why that is though in terms of it's not I see this not so much in that Power political discourse or media lacks depth and intensity Whereas art is capable of moving us in ways that we Need to in order to recognize and feel the emergency I think rather politically at least from my perspective in the States It's largely because we're in the situation of the absence of emergency because because of capital and class conflict because Political economic and corporate elites have done so much damage to the political process that many of us see a situation of hopelessness in terms of Doing anything about the emergency that many of us actually do recognize And I think that that's a big Problem that's international even global these days It has to do with a kind of post democratic or emerging Um authoritarian political condition where we we have to confront the effects of impedance basically That where where we are aware of mounting emergencies But we can't do anything about them where we feel like there's very little We can actually do about them at least that that rings true in the state's situation So I'll go ahead with my presentation. I look forward to being able to talk about this more with my other panelists afterwards So we're told actually repeatedly that we're in a climate emergency in recent years But what and more importantly, who's is it? If you google the term climate emergency, you'll come up with nearly six million hits Uh including one by the united nations environmental program, which defines climate emergency Um By referencing the work of the intergovernmental panel on climate change the ipcc Which says climate change is real and human activities are the main cause They go on to state that owing to greenhouse gas emissions global temperatures have been rising since the industrial revolution um Causing heat waves droughts flooding winter storms hurricanes and wildfires Requiring urgent action to curb emissions in order to limit warm it warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and certainly some of those Those those climate events are deeply felt in incredibly intensified ways when your house burns down owing to an uncontrollable wildfire This is a major problem In the part of california where i'm based where we're dealing with a yearly Season of wildfires owing to Drying climates and global warming So not if you not far below on the google search, you'll find the climate mobilization Which is an environmentalist social movement? That's that's very large in the states whose activist work focuses on Precisely getting climate emergencies declared by communities cities and governments around the world They state Quote we are in a climate emergency We need a whole mobile a whole society mobilization to prevent climate catastrophe Let's build the movement that can get us there And as their map shows More than two thousand city and state governments Have declared climate emergencies Since 2018 of course when cities and And municipalities and governments declare climate emergencies It doesn't necessarily amount to anything rather. It's another scene Of of political rhetoric without any consequent action That's part of the I think political impotence. I was signaling before But in addition to this it's worth pausing to consider who is the we In fact climate emergency is a discourse of conflict And there are major differences in how it's perceived Whom it's understood to affect and implicate and when it's said to occur the ipcc The scientific body convened by the un Says climate change has been occurring since the industrial revolution Giving global society the next decade to act In order to avoid catastrophic impacts But others Um, and it's crucial who we listen to these days Such as melanie yazi of the red nation The activist organization based in albuquerque new mexico in states Fighting for global decolonization argues that quote indigenous people Had been on the front lines of the struggle for climate justice since 1492 referring to the climate change Of land grabs deforestation extraction militarism force displacement that's been occurring for centuries So in other words for indigenous people We could say that Climate emergency has been in existence since 1492 Really there are multiple environmentalisms Today in the plural Uh and equally multiple Emergencies The british and now global environmentalist organization extinction rebellion Explains about uh the current climate crisis. They say this is an emergency Uh life on earth is in crisis. We're running out of time and our governments have failed to act Extinction rebellion was formed to fix this um, so that's one Approach to the definition of climate emergency another is is in Encapsulated in the response of the the group wretched of the earth The grassroots collective representing indigenous black brown and diaspora groups demanding climate justice and acting in solidarity with communities in the u k And in the global south They respond to extinction rebellion by explaining That our communities have been on fire For a long time and these flames are banned by our exclusion and silencing without incorporating our experiences Any response to this disaster will fail to change the complex ways in which Social economic and political systems shape Our lives Offering some an easy pass in life and making others pay the cost in order to envision the future Uh in which we will all be liberated from the root causes of the climate crisis capitalism Extractivism racism sexism Classism ableism and other systems of oppression The climate movement must reflect the complex realities of everyone's lives in their narrative So with statements like this wretched of the earth Named after the revolutionary book of 1961 by the martinik and marxist humanist france fenon, of course Challenges climate emergency claims that narrow global risk to a near future threat of atmospheric carbon pollution and in the process erasing centuries of Racial and colonial violence Instead they argue that for climate emergency to be meaningful um To the lives of the many it must name the complex and diverse causes Including the historical systems of oppression that can only be understood as as intersecting Where climate emergency is not a single issue politics But a comprehensive inextricable entanglement of environmental breakdown and social injustice As such climate emergency Is a matter of fighting colonialism capitalist inequality extractive violence racism and sexism and so on So that climate justice must be similarly encompassing an intersectionalist So climate justice is economic justice is social justice is racial justice is migrant justice and so on This formulation is not only conceptually necessary But strategically imperative if the we of climate emergency Is to reflect the complex realities of everyone's lives According to wretched of the earth that it must address the full extent of climate emergency Including past present and future forms Doing so means overcoming the politics of climate denialism Which is one way that emergency gets denied That is the denial of human cause climate change and the climate science that supports that conclusion A denial aided by the manufacture of disinformation by the fossil fuel industry and their political Economic and media enablers But it also means as kai haran and jody dean argue in their essay revolution or ruin Overcoming liberal denialism meaning both the denial of the capitalist causality Behind climate breakdown and its class struggle basis Including capitalism's historical roots in the formation of conquest and colonialism slavery and racism That means overcoming the denialism that the politics of emergency can and does enforce In limiting our discussions to the emergency of atmospheric carbonization So in other words in distinction from From the earlier presentation i'm i'm suggesting that emergency Is not simply denied but also can be operationalized Within the interests of the political and economic ruling class That's another way to consider the politics of emergency Yeah, in other words emergency climate emergency can't be can't be a fight about carbon in the atmosphere It also has to be one about powers on the ground What we're dealing with is an emergency of emergencies And we can only think and act through and across all of them so as to avoid In our emergency politics leaving systems of interlinking oppression intact This battle over definitions and the political stakes of climate emergencies is growing concern within global contemporary art and Epo critical visual cultural studies Especially as writers and activists and artists have taken up the challenge of representing climate emergency from a range of perspectives Indeed as my co-editors and I argue in this book the Rutledge companion to contemporary art visual culture and climate change The arts can define a place of experimental interdisciplinary research speculative imagination boundary transgressing creativity And eco aesthetic politics all of which helps conceptually address challenging issues of climate emergency including its conflicts And insists on the emergency of emergencies framework I'll quickly mention a few models of contemporary art that lay That lay claim to this more expansive and comprehensive understanding of emergency As these examples show critical And creative aesthetic engagements straddle diverse fields of practice including intervening In representational systems to help reconceptualize climate justice and climate emergency They provide juridical political activism To challenge climate crimes and they perform radical historical research to reframe the present Uh and practical decolonial filmmaking and speculative futurism all to invent worlds to come Very different from the extractive present of racial colonial capitalism, and it's broadly conceived climate emergency These practices also increasingly converge with social movements set up with electoral inertia Owing to the compromised status of our governmental politics corrupted By corporate interests leading our elected elected officials to pledge fidelity To the donor class of wealthy corporate elites Instead of to our constituencies So to enact a climate justice transition Those who support it must build solidarity in working for an alternative world and in the arts the arts Particularly where creative imagination joins with radical politics can provide images of what that world looks like The imperative then is to break through superficial understandings of emergency That that limit our purview to near future impacts and instead comprehend present conflicts In light of long histories of the intertwinement of social and ecological formations Um, so for instance, uh, consider the work of adrian lahood And his ongoing investigation of climate crimes as in his 2018 video Installation that maps the global circulation of aerosol emissions drawing on data compiled by nasa The piece implicates the un climate summits and their abstract negotiation of future warming limits to a matter of 1.5 Or 2 degrees celsius above pre industrial levels, which something we hear So much about in climate science, which in reality though, according to lahood Means that certain areas of uh of the world including sub-saharan africa will be heated to a much greater extent the recognition of such Uneven warming led the sudmias diplomat limumba de api To accuse industrial regions of the global north and by extension un climate negotiators of participating in climate genocide In africa a position that informs lahood's project. So lahood is bringing critical exposure To the falsity of climate science and the ipcc's statistical idealism By pointing out the uneven distribution of carbon or take arthur jeffa's 2016 video love is the message the message is death A searing and powerful compilation of dash cam and cell phone recordings of police brutalizing african americans um where climate becomes an expansive socio ecological category of racial oppression as much as a catastrophic environmental condition Indeed one of the video's short passages. You see a clip of this on the bottom right Shows a couple of figures struggling through the floodwaters In the wake of hurricane katrina that struck luisiana in 2005 an unnatural disaster Precipitated by the convergence of extreme weather racial inequality infrastructure breakdown According to which It's impossible to separate out climate from social emergency So again, we're dealing here with an emergency of emergencies A related approach is forensic architecture which investigates cases of state and corporate violence Visited upon colonized disenfranchised and militarily oppressed communities worldwide Recent cases have been have included herbicidal warfare in daza in palestine 2019 which documents israel's use of glyphosate a toxic chemical herbicide in order to in the border zones of this colonized area Where chemical weapons basically are consistently deployed Against vegetation in acts of settler Atmospheric in order to secure israeli lands Or take triple chaser 2019 also by forensic architecture presenting a video that exposes the activities of tear gas Manufacturer in safari land ceo warren b candor's Who sits on the board of the trustees? Of the whitney museum of american art in new york city You see him in the in the picture on the on on the far right As part of a collective action of institutional liberation That is to remove corporate complicity in war crimes from the funding and administration of cultural institutions Triple chaser helped oust candor successfully from the whitney as the result of concerted social movement Oppositioned the cultural institutions art washing of military profiteering In this case the the spread of tear gas used to quell social uprising all over the world As shown in the triple chaser video defines the weaponization of the atmosphere Via state and military securitization another situation of an emergency of emergencies And finally considered the otolith groups film infinity minus infinity an experimental film from 2019 That addresses geology From a distinctly political ecological perspective Wherein the crimes of racial capitalism Including indigenous genocide transatlantic slavery and colonialism Are intimately and materially linked to the violence of climate catastrophe The film features a range of allegorical figures Appearing as if a chorus of future truth tellers commemorating I'm sorry Commentating on the horror of our climate deranged present appearing as if a chorus Sorry who linked colonization of the americas and the death of some 50 million indigenous people by 1610 To the initiation of the Anthropocene's environmental disaster Drawing on the black feminist poetics of the brazilian philosopher denise ferreira da silva As much as kathrin youssef's political geology The film offers an audio visual construction that situates anti black and anti indigenous extraction at the origins of the modern environmental Formation and its long-standing climate emergency again a climate emergency that dates back to 1492 So what i'm interested in these projects is how their diverse approaches to aesthetic practice All disarticulate and reconfigure terms like atmosphere climate And environment as more than abstract categories of non-human natures or the subjects of natural and climate sciences Instead they become insistently socio ecological dense entanglements of politics economics and technology as much as biology chemistry and geology This is not simple a simple matter of a political perspective Or of an art history of association and metaphor that draws distinct fields of meaning together Rather these practices offer various approaches to what my colleague donna harrow a call sensible materialism Where past colonial and extractive violence provide ongoing and determining forces within social life today Forces that play a palpable role in defining the present and in ways that cannot be forgotten repressed or excluded without enacting epistemic violence As a site where aesthetics and environment cross In the same way that the Anthropocene identifies the irrevocable collision of human and natural histories Sensible materialism opens the analysis of what I term intersectionalist ecology or ecology as a science of social As much as natural relations or of trans environmentalist concern For instance in her book In the wake on the on blackness and being Christina sharp considers the racialization of weather As a kind of psycho effective structure of being or what she calls anti blackness as total climate Suggesting a like-minded phase shift in the conceptualization of climate emergency She points to the infamous history of the 1781 zong atrocity When that british ships captain Opted to throw 130 slaves overboard and subsequently cash in on insurance claims for lost property After running low on drinking water on the open seas owing to the navigational errors in her discussion of that case Sharp references the science of what which what is called residence time That is the period it takes a substance to enter and leave the ocean which for the human body Its blood and sodium is some 260 million years So the zong's past in other words is still present For black people everything is now it is all now she explains quoting tony morrison Sharp's discussion provides a methodological lesson for environmental justice based analysis And a sensible materialist framing for an emergency of emergencies It constitutes a materialist forensic approach to environment and atmosphere that helps avoid The specialist and narrow Technocratic thinking or client science climate science thinking that would abandon history in the production of a future oriented politics of carbon emergency So the value of these practices in conclusion That i've briefly discussed is that they demand a shift in the discourse showing how analysis activism and artistic practices that focus their energies on Generically conceived atmospheric carbon are inadequately narrow at best repressive of histories of violence at worst And this is a case where one emergency can override politically In all sorts of violent ways the emergency of others Right, this is the battle of emergencies for instance between extinction rebellion and wretched of the earth So critical storytelling As much as forensic analysis and a new geological poetics Offers the opportunity for us as scholars teachers writers students activists organizers to collectively transform by sensing and comprehending otherwise becoming other than docile carbon subjects colonial settlers predatory perpetrators of discriminatory violence and competitive individuals of material wealth The typical range of positions reinforced and dominant cultures Of petro capitalism in this regard intersectionless ecology Demands a corresponding activism of alliance building across identities of difference starting from a disidentification from oppressive dominant hierarchical formations of white supremacy liberalism and anthropocentrism This argument is not simply based on an ethics of subjective perspective A leftism of privilege choice it rather stems from acknowledging the practical necessity Indeed the emergency or rather the emergency of emergencies of building inclusive and diverse Movements capable of challenging the divide and conquer tactics of the elite political class And to take back that political process in the name of democratic inclusivity And challenge dominant conditions of elite Again economic and political convergence and their endless wars and fossil fuel economies, which are otherwise laying waste to the world I'll stop there. Thank you very much Thank you so much for your for your talk I'm sure that It will have uh inspired a lot of Thoughts and questions from the from the audience we have Quite a few students here at the winter school and other members of the public And we have also A chat from those attending online that will be and and My colleague, uh, Leila Melon will be organizing a bit the questions that come online, isn't it? so You have here where is uh, where is Santiago? I think we have okay. He just is fetching a chair a chair So There has been talk People The film Santiago professor demos have been Introducing topics that you students of the winter school have been Approaching these days but from very different perspectives such as justice Democracy freedom Etc. Etc. I guess and that most probably will come from Very from a very different perspective So which I wonder how Different the How different you find the talks of this Afternoon morning in california have been How they Have reached you and and if you have any Commends to do on the talks of these Afternoon, so who would like to to Begin if you have any comments or Whatever reflections criticisms, of course Maybe we can take a first a question or two that were during the talks online so that we can address them Yep, and then we're gonna charge for ours here Okay, um, just let's start. So um our student Zoltan Um, I was discussing about the danger of artists. Um, not being educated in facts, right? Um, and then I asked him to kind of rephrase a question and he said that his question would be How is the communication between art projects and scientific discourse or popular scientific literature? How are those coordinated? Um, as soon as on one side art is hired arts finance through targeted grants How do they remain separate and on the other hand? How do scientific facts get translated into art correctly so that there is understanding behind them? And I think that might be an open question for all the panelists So whoever feels like answering first being my guest Professor demos Sure. I'll take a stab at it. Um, I think I think there there is no Generally shared methodology for how artistic practice integrate scientific research really this is a field of interdisciplinarity that is gradually emerging and So there there really aren't as far as I'm aware of any ways or methods or strategies for ensuring somehow that art Artists or artistic researchers are taking up science In ways that are are valid. Um, but I would question I would I would just add a little questioning to the question in terms of the the point about The anxiety that artists may not be taking up science correctly as if there is Um, some kind of objective correct standard That that science can be understood through. Um, I think we have to if anything What I one of the things that I think is most interesting about artists engagement with science is When it is critical when it's challenging science itself as a field of political investments Where there's no simple easy objective Um, criteria set of criteria to understand science as as a Simply factual. Um, so I think, you know, there's been lots of research about this like some of the tours were Approaching a science of facts versus a science of concerns. I think that this is very helpful But I it's it's worth remembering that science too is driven by debate by conflicting positions by argumentation and um political and subjective investment and that's important and something that art and artists critical artists, especially can bring out and more of um, not not so much a one-way street from scientific facts fact to artistic mobilization, but rather, um A dialogic interaction that is creative and critical at the same time that that I think proposes um, a number of methodologies that can be very productive and generative especially when artists bring some challenge to To science to science that's increasingly as we know dominated by corporate pharmaceutical military Interests and funding streams just as in some ways Artistic practice also has been to some degree captured by market interests Which has had a kind of all sorts of impacts on what Art can be these days Can I just challenge for one second then continue and then I go to the next question because here The beautiful next part of the question comes in challenging basically your response if there are mandatory initiatives that Ate the flow of information however interpreted of course between academic discourse and then cultural endeavors or projects This is basically just a continuation of your talk if there are some Tries already some kind of institutional way or some kind of initiatives That are playing with this how to transform or translate from one field to another For both fields to add to one another right that was another question Yeah, it's it's a good question. I'm I'm not so familiar with The way these channels are institutionalized in my part of the world Really, there's a lack of institutionalization and a generalized Kind of separation between disciplines Very rarely do the arts and sciences come together in any institutionalized way So I can't really speak to that, but I would be interested in hearing more and of course You know, there's there's all always forms of Like institutionalization and conventionalization that happen when stuff gets to Determined by these kinds of streams of funding or the protocol that are that's associated with them. So I understand the The anxiety about this it does make sense Just to yeah, just to thank you so much demos amazing the talk to all of you And just to add maybe from the museum perspective We've encountered nowadays many artists that actually work with scientists on specific research And they work for a long time and there's one element which It's similar in both disciplines and the beauty of it or the the idea of critical art is actually to merge them Which is the notion of speculation Science is also driven by a speculation by needing to arguing facts That they prove or needing to argue an hypothesis that has to be proven by facts But starts with an speculation. So in that sense there um These elements that are similar and they're interesting to try to challenge somehow and the artistic discourse can add to to To this idea of of trying to pushing the border somehow So I I really think that there are a lot of practices nowadays that work together that work artists with scientists And projects that merge from a research based on specific themes related to science Maybe uh Santiago would like to add something Okay, I'm going to try Well, I um As a philosopher, I try to see things. Well, I have to we don't have much of a choice. But philosophers do not have We're not technicians, right? Slavo Dzizek in one recent article he pointed out how the problem today that we have In other words the crisis we have the emergencies we have today Because we have too many Specialists too many technicians. We don't have enough people who see the problem from a global point of view. In other words, philosophically So the fact that we still request for example Here in in europe, we we have so many technocrats with so many even governments Which are literally tech Technocratic governments, but and we still have this idea this idea that comes from modernity And even before that from what we call metaphysics in philosophy that we have to use in some way we have to Let science take do all the work like technicians do all the work and by doing this we created a serious problem because For example economic problems even marx pointed this out Are not objective problems. They are not problems that you can solve through methods They imply a number of factors that uh that it's impossible to reduce it to that Now having said this as a philosopher or I think in general philosophy has to I think one big problem we have today is this problem. I think we are talking about this in part is the idea of specifically what is the issue Because we talked about a number of issues a number of different emergencies a number of different courses of emergencies But what is the the main issue the main problem? Okay, the one and only problem that we should and I think that's From a philosophical point of view, we should be talking about In other words, I think we should be talking about about In part I already mentioned the idea of absence of emergency, but absence of emergency also means absence of difference right absence of alterations Uh, the the point is that we have to try to overcome the scientific The idea that comes from modernity that we can in some way Create a revolution or a total new total different new and total different framework That's impossible that that's like believing in god what we do what we can do. Okay, it's create alterations Okay, alteration is something very different from an An alternative alternative unfortunately and not completely and not as as possible But alterations are and so when I think that the main issue we should be looking at are specifically those emergencies We do not we do not confront and by the way I I talk we talk we're talking today about art, but I think there are many other Realms of interact or we aren't where that also discuss particular emergencies There are a lot of scientists also that can try to work in some in some emergency that we do not confront So the issue for me is well, what is specifically are we supposed to be Dealing with and I think that we were supposed to be dealing with is specifically Those absence of emergency those those realms of thought in some way that we ignore So I think demos has already pointed out through those works apart many of those many of those Basically we could even call them remnants or even Discharge of society right that we ignore to a certain extent The problem is that art can at least help us. Okay, allow them to emerge in some way Okay, the word emergency come from emerge to come out right the fact that and this is just to point out one one something about politics because We we should remember that This absence of emergency occurs also in for example in politics. I mean how many parties in europe and in united states as well There is actually an opposition party The opposition is almost has almost dissolved. There is no more an opposition party the left and the right almost Are identical in the united states even more than here, but here too So they said they said sort of an absence of conflicts there. Okay, that in some way does not disclose the emergencies We have having said this I think that it's great that if artists work together with scientists And I think I'm not so sure that that that should be our concern Our concern should be to find those realms where the difference or the absence of emergency can can emerge Now the floor is yours dear students and fellows Who wants to um ask a question? Yep, thank you Good, we still have david spending online, but first in person Would you introduce yourself, please? Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, of course Hello, everybody. My name is rice and gupta and I'm here visiting barcelona from oxford Um, I'm actually originally from india. Uh, thank you for the lovely presentations And it was a pleasure hearing all of you speak My question is that You know, we talk about climate emergencies. We talk about Planetary welfare and these are complex concepts and we're talking about the ability of art to convey these concepts However, the issue that many people face is that people feel that these things will not happen in their lifetime Or the fact that there is very little probability of these things actually happening Even with the pandemic we thought that we can put it off for the future So how can art help to communicate urgency of something that is very global of something that is very broad based And very distant for most of us here. Thank you Well Great question. This is the question. I'm afraid You are one Demo, um, uh, should I call you demos tj professor demos? What do you prefer? tj is great tj great. This is isabel so, uh, would you, uh Would you go and Try to answer this very difficult and very interesting question Sure, um, for me My my recent thinking about this and it is indeed an urgent question to be asking um, and it's a question that reflects upon the increasing um Seclusion of art within rather You know rarefied and privatized places of display And exhibition. So we're seeing in some ways the you know, while art In some cases can make major ambitious Claims and conceptual analyses of present emergencies at the same time They're you know, they're operating in in these these small islands of Discourse of exhibition of engagement. I think that's one reason why we're seeing the kind of popular social movement outbreaks of declarations of climate emergency and protest movements on the streets by people like extinction rebellion and many others These days is because there's there's a sense of a lack of a forum of a people's forum Where these issues of urgency can be actually discussed So artists can do many things and I don't want to I don't want to limit it to a reductive simple Understanding of what needs to be what needs to happen. I think we need lots of stuff but one thing that i'm Really interested in and focused on is Where art the arts Increasingly is coming together and working in solidarity with social movements Or NGOs or political organizations and some of the examples that I showed for instance forensic architecture Or the work of the red nation involved these these these very far-reaching multi Aspect the these these these practices that have lots of different aspects to them including a growing engagement with the fact that there's a profound diss dissatisfaction with simply presenting in The rarefied spaces of art galleries. And so we're seeing not only the use of social media and new forms of technology but also the the growing recognition of the necessity of building solidarities with social movements and with Some kind of social process dedicated to to organizations that is really Arguably the only way that we have a chance of taking back the political process So that we can enact the kinds of like structural alterations or adjustments or however you want to put it to you know mitigate the ongoingness of climate disaster. I think that's really crucial and i'm trying to to study and research that more as well as Try to integrate that into my own practice because this is also happening in academia Within academia at least within some spheres. There's a lot of radical discourse, but it's happening in some of our rooms with just a few people How you know how have we gotten into this situation of institutionalized specialization and enclosure? This is something I think we desperately and urgently need to break out of Where academics too I think are experiencing at least some of us are a growing imperative to not just exist within these islands of academia, but But join in social movements and try to do everything possible whether it's using agit prop or propaganda or Mobilizations or radical education forms of grassroots community collectivization including international solidaries from the local to the global in trying to mobilize for for ultimately for a transformation that's desperately needed to Save us from ongoing disaster That you brought in academia. I was thinking really of that and the responsibility of what goes on in the Intramuros of universities, which are really at the end like cut from in fact a nile of of An unreal islands, right? And and in a way, this is why I was so adamant to make this session not in the university I mean that I think it was important Unfortunately, this is we are in this moment where we couldn't meet here But the idea was to go through the galleries of the museum As you know very well the museum is in a very specific part of the city in barthelona where we have skaters You know just in front and in a very Specific part of the city very colorful very conflictual as well And I want it really to to go out of these um Sedative almost ambience atmosphere of our university, which is so quiet and normally normally quiet Not yesterday, but normally yes and and and so so It is it's very very I really thank you very much to to bring in these this topic of the academia But I'm sure that as a representative of another of these those modern institutions such as the museum um, claudia may have a say and then Santiago as well and of course any of you who shouldn't be so shy and respectful, but just Contribute to the to the debate so Claudia yes, of course the museum as well Are our institutions that have to rethink themselves. They have to open up to the neighborhood where they are They have to open up to the work with activists. They have to open up Somehow they have to make that people Appropriate the museum as if it how if it was at them So in that sense the museum should be like an open house to to everybody not in a simple way, but in uh in in in the real way where uh exchange of critical Information exchange of critical knowledge exchange of critical effect can be happening in in in the museum space and um I really really enjoyed what uh digi was saying this idea of um How activism and art are are emerging nowadays and the museum obviously has the public programs, but also the exhibition themselves are spaces to open up and in the museum we have Many activities with the neighborhood and with other communities that we Approach and that we work with and that we collaborate for long periods of time and not in an extravistic way, but in the way of Building something together and this is uh very important in in the new idea of the museum that in magba We we embrace so Yes, I will add that probably a museum like this and some others are actually even more open than universities. In other words um To a certain extent many of us academic. We have to be very careful even with our syllabus. There are certain I for example have I have to fight in order to make sure that everybody gets to read one or two books complete books in my courses Because now we are all becoming specialists. So we all have to read just the introduction just All this idea of departmentalization of knowledge is very clear also for example with big grants The european ERC the european research grants. They basically only fund Project they have that are basically very Basically submitted to science. Uh, you would not find in the past 20 years of the ERC a project that has the That dealt with data for example even john pulsart. Okay, so this is a problem a serious problem Okay, a cultural problem in some way that can be overcome only by Understanding that well economics is not enough science is not enough Uh, the question you asked before which I think it was a very good question It's how can the artist? Well, I'm not so sure whether we should I think it's a very good question But the issue is not whether the art, you know, what is the artist? How is he going to well the question is more us Are we going to be able to interpret this? The problem is the artist would do his own work whatever or she would do her own work Whatever it is and if it works if it had effects as a as a work hat then wonderful But it's more important to think are we going to be able to understand that are we going to be able even to listen If it's a warning like I think so many works of art are warnings at the end Are we going to be able to understand that to listen to that? So what can help us? This is my my concern is what can help us Get closer to understanding and to listening what a work of art has to say us Well among the many many answers That we can give is one of them is for example Well more museums probably or more events like this in other words more events that are more fluid and that have That really takes place only because there is an intervention here both from us and from the public In other words just like the museum is supposed to be open. We're also universities supposed to be much more open So here there is in some way I would even go as far as to say well The problem is we're not having enough conversation. We're not having enough dialogue actually and this is quite It's quite strange to say this now that we have so much communication, right? We only have communication We have so much communication that we're not communicating at all in some way We have questions online, right? Exactly That I would like to address to basically all of our panelists So david had a really nice question Introduction like his question is funded on the idea that there are Barriers to break into the art world and those more affected by those barriers are the voices that we need to hear the most So he goes Saying when the most common mediums for artwork to be shared are To the masses are controlled by capitalists. How might most marginalized artists whose voices we need to hear? Disseminate their work so that the discourse can actually be changed He's thinking particularly of the algorithmic control of the ai underpinning social media, but also the hollywood board Etc So how do we make the ones who are the most marginalized and the less supported by the capital Be heard actually in the art world. So that's something i'm throwing to the three panelists DJ uh, you want to go first Uh, sure. Thank you, uh, david for that question um, and I I think I'll pick up on what santiago is just saying in terms of It's it's important what artists do, but it's also important how we all understand what artists are doing um, and there's a role in other words for um critical discourse for interpretation for um for bringing For amplifying the work of artists through interpretive texts through discussions through Collective education through teaching through research and publications through conferences like this I think this is all really crucial and it's incumbent on us for those of us who agree with the assumptions of that question that The systems as they exist which have increasingly become Technologized in terms of a kind of algorithmic governance um tends to perpetuate the biases Of the of social exclusion that are dominant within the conditions of racial capitalism So I think you know one we have to understand those dynamics and Take a position of opposition in relation to them and to do what we can to Not simply accept the the the presentations of mainstream Not non critical types of institutions, but I'll actually go out and and try to to to locate these These artists not in a way that's extractive And an attempt to appropriate Importantly right to do the work of the market by introducing historically disenfranchised Practitioners so that they can be then joined, you know joined by economic investment and And representation that are added to develop Again ties of solidarity and political struggle in common So that we can change the system as it exists because it's just intolerable as it is these exclusions these these forms of discriminations that are embedded within the kind of coded biases of algorithms and recommendation engines are indeed deeply concerning, but we can't just I think call for Removing biases because we have to look at the entire system That has shaped those biases in the first place and this is you know, this might this might be this might be This might sound simple, but really ultimately this means engaging with and challenging the very conditions Of a centuries-long project of racial and colonial capitalism That needs to be overturned. Um, so, you know, that is that's crucial We can't I so I'm a little I agree with I think the motivations of the question But I just want to highlight that danger that we're living at a time of neoliberal diversity and Inclusivity that is increasingly trying to reach out to these precisely these these kind of marginalized artists in order to Market them and publicize them and bring them into a kind of inevitably Hierarchical and elite system of artistic representation. We want to avoid. I think we want to avoid that. We don't want the conditions of Neoliberal artistic institutions to simply be more diversified. We want to challenge the entirety Of the structural conditions of that system to begin with Thank you. Thank you totally agree as far as I'm concerned, especially with these last sentences DJ, uh, Claudia, would you like to add something on that? Yes, I I totally agree and I think there's a danger as you were saying tj and The idea would be to engage I think with long-durational relationships Not only to picking these marginal artists and only working with them, but really Set up a structure that is solid solidarity structure where these artists that don't have the means can be actually Engaged with the whole structure Not only for a neoliberal attitude to use them and then just throw them as Sometimes some institutions do So in that sense, I think this is very important and I believe that in creators, theorists, artists, people that were in the Production of content production of Critical knowledge or intending it's important to provide this platform for these Exchanges it changes to be happening not so much To take these people and show them but to provide a solidarity and effective Also and healthy Environment for everybody to be able to gather in their own way with their own identities with their own Needs challenges and preoccupations Yeah, yes, I think if we if we look at The works of art that I that I choose or that I that I like the ones I showed today and the ones that I that I suppose in my book A lot of people have criticized me or at least pointed out or kindly pointed out that well some of these artists are unknown They nobody actually knows them And it's actually true I mean in the case today, I showed three quite important artists But most of the artists that I that I analyze in my book are not that important actually at least not yet in and definitely not after my book, but They're not that important in other words. They're not in the biggest museum and biggest galleries And actually I do not care about that because I think that what is important for us as an audience Like I was saying before that we should be looking for those works of art that involve us You know that's what most interest me in other words the the artist in some way. He's almost I would even say this It's almost irrelevant I mean, it's what's important is the work of art It's the work of art that has to involve us into A discourse that it's probably missing right now In other words in other words into a communication that is missing right now I think the work of the creators it's vital now. Okay, so it's vital, but it's also vital. I think the the Also from a from from government. It's also very important that they Understand the space that has to be given to the humanities in general not only art because I think that the end we are He also talking about the humanities in general because the humanities in general Wing about can wing about a much more profound change than the one with where we're accustomed to believe Having said this I think it's also important to To recognize the value of of the space in other words the space the museum Gives in other words, it's just a question is there enough space for artists and for art in general to To to show its work. Well, we probably need more space more public space for that's also a place where one can encounter I mean that's I have a A slight preference for works of art that involve interventions with the public There's in a lay at the bed or the Brazilian artists that create small sculptures of men in ice And she you know, everybody has to help her put all the small sculptures in In several squares in Europe And so there's an intervention there that you bring along all the people to work there together with you So this is what we're supposed to be I think as an audience today We're supposed to be looking for those those works of art that involve us But involve us at what level? Well, not at a political level not even as a aesthetical level, but much more at an existential level Why because the issues that touch us now are Matt regard our existence have to do with our existence whether we will exist So if there would be future it also depends on how much all this opening that art allows us to see Okay, so it's a question of lack of imagination So we need more imagination now Than what we used to probably why well because of how claim we are through artificial intelligence and so forth I think there was a question there in the public. Thank you I'm out of merge gentlemen art historian from New York University. Um, I just wanted to get back to something that uh, that claudia was saying about sustainability and I think what you mean by sustainability here is in a in Essentially in terms of system and circulation of works rather than actual materials, right? and you know, this opens in some ways on to something that tj was saying before about The the unfortunate kind of provinciality or or closed nature of our discourses I mean something something like you know six major galleries in new york now essentially dominate The art world whether we sort of choose to recognize it or not And uh, you know, it made me think in terms of what you were saying about kind of sustainability The sustainability of aesthetic practice, you know, what about thinking of it in terms of something like a global WPA a global works progress administration that you know that the United States under roosevelt launched in the wake of the depression which was itself of course its own kind of emergency I mean, that's a very sort of quixotic thought But it's it perhaps an interesting one to consider and that opens on to I guess my second point or question which is a hegemony of a different sort and a more philosophical and kind of ontological question about aesthetics, which was raised. I think in the steban film which is indeed extraordinary and chilling and one of the most uncomfortable things I've seen in a very long time And it made me think too about imminence imminence to The discourse of of technology and surveillance and artificial intelligence. I mean the very fact that a steban has made this film with technology um, you know made me think too about Someone earlier in the 20th century who whose works we can think of in in to some extent in comparison Pierre paulo pazolini who launched in in some ways a kind of poetics of Of ecology and the environment before it had been, you know identified as such himself, you know Determinately decidedly Anti technological such as it was in the 60s and 70s But someone of who of course used technology to give voice to that poetics of opposition And some of the things that that tj showed from forensic architecture to you know I thought also we didn't his name wasn't raised but someone like Trevor paglin you know Can we is it is it possible to get outside of the language of technology and AI and surveillance? It's probably not right and that's why the the the language of appropriation Is the only way that we can use to create to to to critique these Discourses right from within them from within technology, which you know The neo avant-garde in the in in the 1960s also, you know, whether it was pop or whether it was You know early examples of postmodern kind of appropriation this notion that we could use these tools of technocratic Oppression in order to critique them from within that is obviously, you know capitalism never It recognized that game and of course assimilated it to its very fabric, but I guess my sort of larger question, and it's obviously one that can't be answered here, but Perhaps we could think about is Um, does it matter the medium through which these discourses are made? Does it matter how they are? Um encountered by a general public Um, I mean, I I love sort of the my favorite things about this discussion have been the very the most in some ways In some ways basic and practical ones like Santiago's and Isabella and TJ's about sort of where do people see these things? How do they enter the museum? What are the forums with which they're encountering them? How can people be, you know reminded of these things in ways that are not necessarily dogmatic but um, you know Anti-positivist in a way that I think Santiago's talk kind of raised. So those are just some of my general Questions Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is the movie don't look up on net flick It's a very good example because although it's part of net flick. It's probably probably the movie has Probably done in part with an algorithm. I don't know but at least it didn't it didn't get it right because the movie clearly points out everything I was trying to say You know, it's clearly that something is coming down and we don't believe in it and we just don't listen to the warning So that's an example of now Uh, the idea that emancipation can take place within our what we call metaphysics or within our global fame technological world is something that before Pasolini, uh Heiriger saw Heiriger himself. He pointed out that in the complete world of total Technologization in which we will live and we are living in that Not only of course, I will find ourselves not thinking anymore, which we almost today. We are thinking but normally we don't think But most of all Heiriger points out that it is precisely there That something can go wrong. In other words, it's precisely in the total organization when something can go wrong Which is not necessarily bad, but it can go wrong. Okay, for example, I think that this movie don't look up Something weren't wrong in net flick. They shouldn't have done that because It this is why so one of my answers to you to impart to you to your question would be Well, yes, maybe in the medium. It's not that important, but perhaps irony can be important here Okay, so and this is something that Pasolini of course work with a lot and and many others So I think it the possibility that within the total The total frame the total situation of the absence of emergency something will emerge. Well This is why again what it's important is whether we are prepared to listen Whether we are prepared to respond in some way Thank you so much for your comments. Very interesting. Um Really we could we could be talking about them for for for days He opened up so many questions And I think for example related with the with the film a forest Um, I'm not sure about the medium. I think it it it doesn't matter actually the medium It depends the the aim of the project Maybe one medium is is that a credit for one because it means there's a political intention to use that or the other So I think we should go case by case But in the in the in the example of a forest the film It's true that I think the art is by using A dominant language and showing it to us. He's actually these articulating and somehow Reconfiguring a category that wants to be dominant by showing Exactly You know everything about it is irony I guess my point is is that The ironic teeth of of a kind of appropriationist tendencies since the 60s have been Revealed to be unfortunately largely toothless by capitalism, right that irony In fact, Pasolini was He was so earnest as to never really even believe that irony could Make a difference in in discourse, right? The neo avant garde Absolutely believe that I guess I I feel like we're at such a a pessimistic point now such that Irony becomes a consolation of sorts, but does it change anything, right? I mean, that's not to say that that film Doesn't I don't want to quantify changes in consciousness or anything. I mean it was very powerful and and incredibly generative of But I I agree with you completely that it it is obviously using The the language of I mean even the self-satisfied kind of chuckles, right? Which he gives lets us know that it's made from within the discourse of Of big tech and venture capital and such like that and you know, but anyway, I interrupted you No, no, no, but I agree what you're saying. It's true that this irony has to be active it can't be passive irony Cancel the the activation it should have an effect actually in that sense the Did you would you like to add something to these comments by our friend here? Yeah, thank you for that question and the responses by my co-panelists I'm thinking I I'm also interested and don't look up. I think that that was a really interesting film But I don't think it was about showing how Like we with with, you know, like a generalized undifferentiated we are ignoring Climate disaster. I think it showed clearly what I what I was interested in how it showed that media political and economic elites are either invested in denying the disaster Or instrumentalizing it and turning it into an economic opportunity Whereas Engaged scientists and people on the street were aware They are aware of what's going on and they're trying to resist But they run up against problems. This is it was a movie about ultimately all sorts of conflicts including class conflicts So I think that's that's crucial. We have we I think we should avoid the perpetuation of an undifferentiated generalized We And then in terms of the question I didn't mean to suggest that we should avoid technology or algorithms or AI. I think, you know, the point is As people like Dan McQuillan and lots of other people say we have to figure out ways to create a non-fascist AI We have to figure out ways to put technology for the, you know, to the use of Progressive emancipatory Radical struggle and there are people who are doing this. Jonas Stahl who's a dutch artist I think is really interesting with his project dedicated to collectivizing facebook Let's collectivize facebook and take it away from ownership by billionaires Or what joy bulimini is doing at mit in terms of the algorithmic justice league the the ajl the Algorithmic justice league, which I think is really a fascinating project. There's others as well And similarly with museums, we have to be really careful I I think it's an it's an important point to To point out this consolidation of galleries And markets within new york and lots of other places. I think this is really crucial Museums too are thoroughly imminent to the conditions of capital And I like if people know about a project that's going on in new york called strike MoMA I think it's really interesting how artists and activists are challenging the museum of modern art in new york For the board of trustees ties to the weapons industry to private Prisons to the carceral state to pharmaceutical industries to communications Conglomerate conglomerates. This is a really interesting challenge to the again the neo liberalization of the museum as a site of capitalist ruling class interests and you know, these these Politics are becoming more and more crucial. I think it's not, you know, the we of the generalized people First of all, I don't think it exists and if anything, it's a site of tremendous political economic racial gender based and technological conflict these days I think that's really the kind of contradiction and tension that we need to focus on Thank you. I think we will take one more question from the from the web, right from the chat And we will close the session. Is that okay? So we have mario commenting that science and arts tend to be of doom and gloom, right? So that urgency can be suppressive create anxiety rather than empower at the end of the day So how can we empower more? Like that use that state of panic for something positive, right? How can we listen to the needs of those who need to act and trying to incentivize while while showing The urgency so not getting a negative response and the frozen one There's nothing we can do but rather an empowering one where you say, okay There is an issue, but there's also a solution, right? So I guess that's the question For all the panelists nobody in specific Would you begin? I will try I will try Or if there's a problem Then the answer is already there also. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to even ask find the problem It's impossible. We have we all have what we call prejudice, right? We all have certain ideas There's some reason why we we can actually imagine a certain mathematical problem because we already find have the result in some way In other words, we already know we have some familiarity with problems when they emerge, right? Otherwise, we wouldn't recognize them at all So how do we how do we move beyond this? How do we how do we understand which problems we're supposed to Tackle first for example, I think the question perhaps is going in that direction if I interpret it properly I think it has a lot to do with the issue of Which are the questions that concern us the most? Right by and by concerning. I think that now we have we face a number of global emergencies Okay, which literally affects everybody, right? Not simply the pandemic but also the more even even more so The rise in sea levels that literally affect everyone in the planet. So Those are the problems that we're supposed to be confronting us In whatever way it is because also another problem I think we have today is this This idea that we can confront certain problems only through science or only through certain methods There are a number of different ways we can activism does not only mean one thing One can be an activist even as a philosopher. I write in newspapers and often of course getting to trouble But it's that's part of the deal right there isn't only one answer on how one can tackle the problems we have And this is something that I think the art world in general and in particular this art world here Now we are part of today. It's one that Take those these issues into into consideration. Okay Uh, I think here the the whole issue of education is very important Education here is the key I think to whether we are going to be able to listen in the future to Emergencies and to in general to those problems. We cannot we do not we're not allowed or we're not we're not invited to take into consideration Education here is key and by education. I mean in particularly the humanities, of course Good As far as we both are concerned Uh, DJ one final, uh remark, uh on these uh final question to our session. Yeah, thanks. Sure. Thank you and and just to say, uh, it's a real pleasure to Engage in this really. Um, I think fascinating and engaging discussion. I really enjoyed it so thank you all to the panelists and also the The audience posing these really interesting questions just just quickly to say You know technology is a function of material social conditions And that includes the economy and it's not surprising that within the art world, for instance, we're seeing symptomatically the emergence of things like nfts and digital immersive environments dedicated to Uh, like van Gogh exhibitions on a popular level This is where technology is simply and directly Functioning in the way that it is designed to and shaped within the conditions of the dominant economy So the the challenge is to Change The materials social and economic conditions that allow technology to emerge in this way Can we can also? Possibly use technology itself as a critical tool a critical instrument And I've mentioned some examples of how that might be done Whether it's I think forensic architecture is an amazing example of attempting to develop The conditions of non-fascist AI a critical anti-colonial Use of algorithms. Um, for instance one that also challenges the The dominant Uh, location of art institutions within The capitalist economy There are ways of doing this, but we can't simply invent an emancipatory technology within a larger oppressive social and economic Framework, so You know, this is immensely immensely challenging complicated and ambitious But I think that this is the the goal of any kind of emancipatory horizon not just to invent a liberatory technology But to change real social material economic conditions That play a role in shaping technologies Within the realm of client climate science. We're seeing the technocratic solution is geoengineering again a kind of techno determinist approach to Saving ourselves from climate emergency that's narrowly defined as an emergency of carbon in the atmosphere I think this is again a form of uh neoliberal is Neoliberal economic opportunism That is deeply socially and politically unjust and that has to also be a has to have a place in our climate politics so, um, yeah That this is I acknowledge that this is incredibly broad and ambitious and difficult and challenging, but I think that's the struggle before us so, uh This is the end my friends Thank you so much so much, um to all of you, uh, tj It was a real pleasure to have you here and to meet you. I guess I hope the next time We will meet in person. I'm sure that there will be more opportunities To go on talking and discussing and debating about these issues Claudia thank you so much And thank you so much To the museum and all those working at the museum who have who have made This session possible yolanda the technicians everyone lela. Thank you so much for your job During all those days you still have one more session tomorrow and that will be the end And uh and santiago you and I go on right? And uh preparing the next event on uh, the next and yes the next and Thank you to you all for being here to attend for attending and um In a better world, we will be having a drink right now But this is not a better world. So we just Imagine wait for the next time wait for the next time. That's it Thank you so much