Our oceans are in an ecological crisis due to their contamination with millions of tons of toxic microplastic particles. In just a few years, the volume of microplastic particles will exceed that of plankton in our oceans and turn them into a huge sea of plastic. This publication brings together numerous international art projects related to environmental activities, DIY biotechnology, and science, and draws attention to the irreversible destruction of our marine ecosystems – the current threat posed by the loss of marine animal biodiversity, for example, or the decline in oxygen production due to massive plankton loss. It also presents current scientific findings on sustainable alternatives to plastic.

Concerned with the effects of marine plastic debris, Barker?s photographic work has reached worldwide audiences through international exhibitions, educational outreach, media reports and other means. Her aim is to expand public awareness of the environmental crisis by using aesthetically attractive visuals to communicate evolving scientific research.00This publication is introduced by Professor Richard Thompson OBE, a renowned marine scientist and Director of the University of Plymouth?s Marine Institute. His work has contributed to legislation on microbeads in cosmetics and other forms of plastic pollution.00Other texts include a foreword by Mandy Barker and an essay, Picturing Plastic Oceans, by Liz Wells, Professor in Photographic Culture at University of Plymouth. Barker also provides insight into the making of her images through an extensive survey of her personal process sketchbooks.

OCEANS attends to the inextricable human and nonhuman agencies that affect and are affected by the sea and its running currents within contemporary art and visual culture. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, dividing and connecting humans, who carry saltwater in their blood, sweat and tears. They also represent a powerful nonhuman force, rising, flooding, heating and raging in unprecedented ways as the climate crisis unfolds. Artists have envisioned the sea as a sublime wilderness, home to mythical creatures and bizarre species, a source of life and death, a site of new beginnings and tragic endings, both wondrous and disastrous. From migration to melting ice caps, the sea is omnipresent in international news and politics, leaking into popular culture and proliferating in recent art and exhibitions. This anthology gathers artists and writers to address the ocean not only as a theme but as a major agent of artistic and curatorial methods. Artists surveyed include Bas Jan Ader, Eileen Agar, John Akomfrah, Heba Y. Amin, Shuvinai Ashoona, Betty Beaumont, Leopold & Rudolf Blaschka, Heidi Bucher, Marcus Coates, Tacita Dean, Chris Dobrowolski, Léuli Eshrāghi, Ellen Gallagher, Ayesha Hameed, Barbara Hepworth, Klara Hobza, Isuma, Brian Jungen, Tania Kovats, Sonia Levy, Armin Linke, Lani Maestro, Ana Mendieta, Kasia Molga, Eleanor Morgan, Wangechi Mutu, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Jean Painlevé and Geneviève Hamon, Allan Sekula, Shimabuku, Ahren Warner, Christine & Margaret Wertheim, Alberta Whittle Writers include Stacy Alaimo, Bergit Arends, Erika Balsom, Karen Barad, Rachel Carson, Mel Y. Chen, T.J. Demos, Marion Endt-Jones, Kodwo Eshun, Paul Gilroy, Stefano Harney, Epeli Hau’ofa, Donna Haraway, Eva Hayward, Stefanie Hessler, Luce Irigaray, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Celina Jeffery, Melody Jue, Max Liboiron, Lana Lopesi, Chus Martínez, Jules Michelet, Fred Moten, Astrida Neimanis, Celeste Olalquiaga, Ralph Rugoff, John Ruskin, Marina Warner, Jan Verwoert

40 years of science visualization The visualization of often-encrypted data reveals new, previously hidden, but quite real worlds to humankind. Art adopts these insights and uses them to create new dimensions. This book brings together a wide range of contributions on visualization in science, media, and art. Renowned experts and associates of the Science Visualization Lab at the University of Applied Arts Vienna present examples of outstanding and innovative visualization projects and provide insight into their working methods. The book follows a variety of approaches to expanding perception and rendering the invisible visible. “If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.” – William Blake Insight into the thinking and working methods of renowned scientists, media experts, and artists Lavish publication with numerous illustrations and AR features With contributions by Ina Conradi / Mark Chavez, Christian Köberl, Walter Köhler, Thomas Matzek, Markus Müller, Ruth Schnell, Victoria Vesna / James K. Gimzewski, Manfred Wakolbinger, and others

We are no strangers today to visual representations of human suffering at sea: the refugee crisis that continues to play out in the seascape between Europe and Africa (and not only there) yields an ever-growing archive of humanitarian tragedy. As both a visual backdrop and a lethal medium of unequal mobility, maritime space and landscape play a significant role in mediating the ethical demands of this crisis. Yet, there has been little exploration of the longer history of morality’s role in our understanding of aesthetic representations of the sea. The diverse contributions in Moral Seascapes explore the various symbolic forms through which these shifting moral norms and values have been manifested, contributing to debates concerning the place of the sea in visual and literary cultures and the history of morality and emotion, as well as the emergence of modern subjectivity. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary perspectives such as visual culture, experimental art history, literary studies, history and philosophy, Moral Seascapes develops distinctive new insights into the relationship between the moral cultures of modernity and the image of the sea.

In the face of climate change, the destruction of biodiversity or genetic experimentation, Bio Art appears as a form that is most directly grappling with the problems of the »Anthropocene«. It develops many different approaches and explores a variety of mediums, often related to scientific research, creating art that uses plants, insects, mammals, bacteria, bird songs, forest sounds, or genetic modification. Bio Art's uniqueness comes from incorporating, rather than just representing the living in a diverse range of artworks. In discussing such works from various world regions and time periods, the contributors address the divide between human and non-human animals, between »culture« and »nature«.

This book by artist, diver, and editor-in-chief of an underwater magazine Jürgen Claus is a milestone among the books dedicated to the planet sea. It is a knowledge-rich overview, created from facts and experiences, of three main themes that have never been described in context. Marine architectures from both the Pacific and Atlantic regions have now moved from vision to reality. Whether it is a sail-shaped architecture in Nouméa or a whale-shaped one in the Arctic region. Special attention is paid by Prof. Claus to post-disaster architecture. The book will encourage young readers to design metabolic buildings themselves. That the seascape has also become a fluid studio for visual artists may come as a surprise. The works of art, some of which the author has experienced first-hand, have intertwined with an ecological, sustainable way of working. And this is also true to a special degree for the sound artists. They realize their sonic worlds with recordings from the sounding world underwater, a concert hall of hitherto unknown dimensions. The author’s experience as a professor of media art with students flows into the description of multimedia or media-related ocean installations. Here the book becomes a stimulus for realizing one’s own experiences.

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Plastics investigates the archaeology of the contemporary world through the lens of its most distinguishing and problematic material. Plastics are ubiquitous and have been so for nearly three generations since they became widely used in the early 1950s. Plastics will persist for millennia, their legacies as toxic heritage being felt deep into the future. In this book – comprising 32 original, at times disturbing, and critically engaged contributions – scholars from archaeology and other cognate disciplines explore plastics from a number of different angles and perspectives. Together these contributions highlight the dilemma that plastics present: their usefulness on the one hand, and the threats they present to environmental health on the other. The volume also explores the lessons that archaeologists can learn from plastics, about episodes of mass production, consumption and toxicity in the past, and also – importantly – about the future. This important and timely collection will therefore be of interest to all archaeologists irrespective of their period of study, or their geographical focus, and to students of archaeology and cultural heritage. It will also be relevant for researchers and students in other fields of study that focus on plastics and their environmental and social impacts. Ultimately, this book concerns the contemporary world and the impact of people upon it, through the archaeological lens.

This book describes how man-made litter, primarily plastic, has spread into the remotest parts of the oceans and covers all aspects of this pollution problem from the impacts on wildlife and human health to socio-economic and political issues. Marine litter is a prime threat to marine wildlife, habitats and food webs worldwide. The book illustrates how advanced technologies from deep-sea research, microbiology and mathematic modelling as well as classic beach litter counts by volunteers contributed to the broad awareness of marine litter as a problem of global significance. The authors summarise more than five decades of marine litter research, which receives growing attention after the recent discovery of great oceanic garbage patches and the ubiquity of microscopic plastic particles in marine organisms and habitats. In 16 chapters, authors from all over the world have created a universal view on the diverse field of marine litter pollution, the biological impacts, dedicated research activities, and the various national and international legislative efforts to combat this environmental problem. They recommend future research directions necessary for a comprehensive understanding of this environmental issue and the development of efficient management strategies. This book addresses scientists, and it provides a solid knowledge base for policy makers, NGOs, and the broader public.

This book challenges conventional notions of the Anthropocene and champions the Hydrocene: the Age of Water. It presents the Hydrocene as a disruptive, conceptual epoch and curatorial theory, emphasising water's pivotal role in the climate crisis and contemporary art. The Hydrocene is a wet ontological shift in eco-aesthetics which redefines our approach to water, transcending anthropocentric, neo-colonial and environmentally destructive ways of relating to water. As the most fundamental of elements, water has become increasingly politicised, threatened and challenged by the climate crisis. In response, The Hydrocene articulates and embodies the distinctive ways contemporary artists relate and engage with water, offering valuable lessons towards climate action. Through five compelling case studies across swamp, river, ocean, fog and ice, this book binds feminist environmental humanities theories with the practices of eco-visionary artists. Focusing on Nordic and Oceanic water-based artworks, it demonstrates how art can disrupt established human–water dynamics. By engaging hydrofeminist, care-based and planetary thinking, The Hydrocene learns from the knowledge and agency of water itself within the tide of art going into the blue. The Hydrocene urgently highlights the transformative power of eco-visionary artists in reshaping human–water relations. At the confluence of contemporary art, curatorial theory, climate concerns and environmental humanities, this book is essential reading for researchers, curators, artists, students and those seeking to reconsider their connection with water and advocate for climate justice amid the ongoing natural-cultural water crisis.