Experimental Methods for Exploring Environmental Encounters

众所周知，许多美学战略--从艺术实践到更广泛的视觉文化--在面对当前的环境变化和生态危机时做出反应，甚至采取行动。然而，一个关键的问题仍然存在：“由批判性艺术构成的环境接触如何有助于另类生态想象和未来，并促进环境公民的实践？”这个问题在很大程度上仍然没有得到回答，这是因为：一是缺乏探索艺术所构成的环境体验的研究方法，二是需要对这些文化体验的组成部分进行更复杂的质疑，简而言之，艺术是如何在世界上发挥作用的？质疑艺术试听的性质以及它可以催化的环境体验--简单地说是环境艺术的体验--的需要已经成为关注这些艺术实践的变革可能性的社区的常见论调。这包括不同群体的艺术家、艺术理论家、地理学家、环境科学家、博物馆专业人士以及艺术和科学机构。RDA与2个开展艺术-科学合作的伙伴组织(伦敦的Art Catalyst和苏黎世的瑞士艺术家实验室)合作，通过一个分3个阶段的项目回应这些问题，并以2个主要目标为指导：1)试验探索由艺术作品及其伴随项目催化的环境接触的方法2)概念化这些接触和构成它们的文化体验的“组成部分”在解决这些目标方面，拟议的RDA扩展了PI先前关于艺术的变革效果的工作，并回答了她之前工作过的2个研究拨款提出的具体问题，分别是探索，《景观艺术的文化地理》和《艺术与科学合作：身体与环境》。后者是AHRC-NSF资助的一个项目，是一个由6个艺术科学项目组成的国际多地点人种学项目，其中包括两个伙伴组织。它探讨了这些项目如何改变参与其中的艺术家和科学家的主观性、知识和实践。在这项研究中，出现了一系列关于艺术与科学的合作如何影响他们的受众的进一步问题，但超出了它的范围。在艺术和科学领域的多个利益相关者都在寻求证明资金的合理性，并提高他们的项目的好处，特别是在科学交流和参与的问题上，这些问题不仅具有概念化的艺术体验和“作品”的智力力量，而且具有高度的相关性。此外，与更广泛的艺术部门一样，有必要证实环境艺术影响的说法所依据的往往是轶事的证据，以及有趣的是，需要批判性地反思在当前资金和政策背景下流传的“证据”和“评估”的想法。整个部门的希望是发展出更符合这些项目的特定审美、社会、体制和政治条件以及组织工作方式的想法。作为对这些问题的回应，RDA分三个阶段展开：第一阶段组织咨询与伙伴组织的民族志工作，探索评估、证据、环境相遇的想法，以及用于检查受众参与度的现有方法。第二阶段方法论实验开发和测试一系列方法，以探索由艺术构成的环境接触，包括人种志、视觉和参与性技术，以及社交媒体的使用。第三阶段概念反思：将结果与艺术和转型的理论思想结合起来，并将研究结果传播给学术和非学术受众。

It is well recognized that a host of aesthetic strategies - from artistic practice to visual culture more broadly - respond to and even move for action in the face of current environmental change and ecological crises. A key question remains however; "how do the environmental encounters configured by critical art contribute to alternative ecological imaginaries and futures, and foster practices of environmental citizenship?" That this question remains largely unanswered is the result of i) the lack of research methods for exploring the environmental encounters configured by art, and ii) the need for a more sophisticated querying of the components of these cultural experiences, to ask, in short, how does art go to work in the world?The need to query the nature of art's audiencing and the environmental encounters it can catalyse -simply put the experiences of environmental art- has become a common refrain across communities concerned with the transformative possibilities of these arts practices. This includes diverse groups of artists, art theorists, geographers, environmental scientists, and museum professionals and arts and sciences institutions. Working alongside 2 partner organizations who develop art-science collaborations (Arts Catalyst, London, and Swiss artists-in-labs, Zurich) this RDA responds to these issues by way of a 3-phase project, guided by 2 key aims:1) To experiment with methods through which to explore the environmental encounters catalysed by art works and their accompanying programming2) To conceptualize these encounters and the 'components' of cultural experience that constitute themIn addressing these aims the proposed RDA extends the PI's previous work on the transformative effects of art, and responds to specific questions raised by 2 previous research grants on which she worked, exploring respectively, the 'Cultural Geographies of Landscape Art' and 'Art-Science Collaborations: Bodies and Environments.' The latter, an AHRC-NSF funded project, was an international multi-sited ethnography of 6 art-science projects, including the 2 partner organizations. It explored how these projects transformed the subjectivities, knowledge and practices of artists and scientists involved. Emerging during this study, but beyond its scope, was a set of further questions concerning how art-science collaborations go to work on their audiences. As well as having an intellectual force regarding conceptualizing the experiencing and 'work' of art, such questions are highly relevant at a time when multiple stake-holders across the arts and sciences are looking to justify funding, and enhance the benefits of their projects, especially with respect to questions of science communication and engagement. Further, and as with the arts sector more broadly, there is a need to substantiate the often anecdotal evidence upon which claims of environmental arts' impacts rest, as well as, interestingly, a desire to critically reflect on the very ideas of 'evidence' and 'evaluation' that circulate in current funding and policy contexts. The hope across the sector is for the evolution of ideas that are more responsive to the particular aesthetic, social, institutional and political conditions of these projects and organizational ways of working. In response to these issues the RDA unfolds in 3 phases:Phase 1 Organisational ConsultationEthnographic work with partner organisations exploring ideas of evaluation, evidence, environmental encounter, and the existing methods used to examine audience engagement. Phase 2 Methodological ExperimentationDeveloping and testing an assemblage of methods to explore the environmental encounters constituted by art, including ethnographic, visual and participatory techniques, and the use of social media. Phase 3 Conceptual Reflections: Drawing together results with theoretical ideas of art and transformation, and disseminating findings to academic and non-academic audiences.