A creation myth for many futures: indeterminacy and the art of becoming.

As the themes of Global Warming, Climate Change move to ‘centre stage’, what is the role for culture and the arts?  How may arts practice contribute to the discourse and how is arts practice being changed by this discourse?
James Lovelock leads the scientific community in his assertion that we have less than 10 years to respond before Global Warming passes the ‘tipping point’. However, acknowledging potential collapse, or ecological perturbation may be factors for liberation and action, rather than inertia.

As Ilya Prigogine wrote:
‘The inclusion of irreversibility changes our view of nature.  The future is no longer given.  Our world is a world of continuous “construction” ruled by probabilistic laws and no longer a kind of automaton.’

He continues:
‘We are led from a world of “being” to a world of “becoming.”

So, taking responsibility and ‘making time a matter of urgency’, are of the utmost relevance to our society. While reflection promotes the ‘precautionary rule’, we must ask as Christopher Alexander suggests:

‘What is the most important thing that I can do now, at this moment, to bring the whole to life.’
But as governments and corporations appropriate ‘Global Warming’ and  ‘Climate Change’ as a catch-all phrases concerned with economics, security and energy, it is ever more necessary for the arts to ‘keep the discourse plastic’.

Perhaps, one of the defining and most enduring characteristics of being human is our ability to tell stories.  Storytelling may be considered a primary function of all art and a means of maintaining culture.  Enhanced by the technology of a digital data projector, this presentation will evoke one of the most ancient forms of art – a story told in words and pictures.

A reoccurring plea is that environmental and social crises are too complicated for the general public to comprehend, so the arts must be employed to ‘tell the good story’ of what science understands.  As my practice drives my research to engage with issues of complexity, whole systems ecology, integral critical futures studies, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and indeterminacy, I find myself resorting to less sophisticated means of expression.  This presentation will consider how the rising tide of arts practices are wishing, needing and being co-opted to address the most important issues humans have ever faced.

David Haley, Senior Research Fellow
MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University

NOTES:
PRIGOGINE, I (2003) Is Future Given? World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd.London. Pp 39
ALEXANDER, C., et al (1987) A New Theory of Urban Design. Oxford University Press, New York. Pp 62
SLAUGHTER, R. 2004. Futures Beyond Dystopia: Creating Social Foresight. RoutledgeFalmer, London pp166
SCHNEIDER, E., & SAGAN, D. (2005) Into The Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life.  The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pp xii