How does contemporary music cultivate ecological thinking and climate-change awareness in our era of global warming? This essay investigates how the music of Pulitzer Prize–winning Alaskan composer John Luther Adams incites ecological... more
How does contemporary music cultivate ecological thinking and climate-change awareness in our era of global warming? This essay investigates how the music of Pulitzer Prize–winning Alaskan composer John Luther Adams incites ecological listening and shapes an ear for climate change. It examines Adams's evolving signature style of composing and/or performing with climatic elements and natural forces, and it further examines how this style effectively attunes audiences to ongoing environmental events that weather the world outside the concert hall. In other words, it investigates the idea and play of " Sila " in Adams's work, Sila being a concept that Adams derives from the Inuit to signify in the largest possible sense the weather, its cosmic and chaotic modalities, and the wisdom that attends to them.
The essay deals with the theme of the relationship between contemporary art and archaeo-astronomy. In particular, they're analyzed the works of John Luther Adams and Hannsjörg Voth in relation to the environment that hosts them.
This article examines the hermeneutic and poetic operations by which we as human beings turn our very planet into a signifier for our collective existence as a species, a process which I refer to as “planetary mediation.” I identify the... more
This article examines the hermeneutic and poetic operations by which we as human beings turn our very planet into a signifier for our collective existence as a species, a process which I refer to as “planetary mediation.” I identify the so-called Whole Earth images first generated by the Apollo Space missions as the characteristic form of planetary mediation during the late twentieth century, and argue that our current emergence into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, calls for radically different representational strategies. Whole Earth images draw their strength from their iconographic and indexical qualities—in other words, their seeming ability to ground symbolic discourse in something that is undeniably and materially real. In the Anthropocene, however, physical nature itself has become a medium for the inscription of human messages, and effective planetary mediation can now take place only in virtual environments such as those of Google Earth and advanced climate modeling systems. I analyze the work of Soviet biologist Evgeni Shepelev as a starting point for this form of planetary mediation and discuss the multimedia installation The Place Where You Go to Listen by American composer John Luther Adams in order to show the challenges that contemporary environmental art will still have to overcome if it wants to illuminate our current planetary condition.
The works of some contemporary artists are notable for the extraordinary interest they show in landscape considered as a strong and powerful tool between chthonic forces and perceptual implications. Their works form an identifiable or... more
The works of some contemporary artists are notable for the extraordinary interest they show in landscape considered as a strong and powerful tool between chthonic forces and perceptual implications. Their works form an identifiable or hidden alliance with the environment, setting free the power of the genius loci, and transforming the enjoyment of the work-of-art into a spiritual and physical experience. Some of these artists – i.e. J. Turrell, H. Voth, C. Ross, J.L. Adams – however have paid a special attention not only to the geographical horizon that marks their works, but also to the celestial landscape that becomes such a powerful resonance chamber between micro- and macro-cosmos. These land-formed works have their roots in ancient wisdom traditions, but they can also teach us a new way to design and protect the landscape, the culture that embraces all cultures.
