Johns-Putra’s text acts as an introduction to a series of essays in an academic journal, providing a taste for its following texts – on ecocriticism and critical theory’s place in a climate changing world. The text begins with a brief outline on climate change discourse. It’s a concept we know about, with general scientific and public consensus, but something we cannot directly experience, “we encounter climate change as a discursive phenomenon and never a purely material one” (2013, p. 7). This reflects the way we’ve been studying climate change throughout the studio – as a hyperobject, and one that poses challenges to academia, as explicitly outlined in the text, as well as our media-making processes as media practitioners.

The challenges this hyperobject poses in the world of the Anthropocene calls for a reworking of the ecocritical field. Johns-Putra focuses on the need for the “recalibration of theoretical knowledge” (p. 9). She argues that there needs to be a reworking of this existing knowledge in order to apply it to a subject not yet attempted. It is essentially new ground to tread on – “an age of human and non-human catastrophe” (p. 8), where transformation of a field is not only necessary, but inevitable. Ecocriticism needs to become a field with material practice and consequence, having real-life effects on the material world (p. 9).

These same ideas can be applied to our media-making practice. It is clear that climate change communications have some way to go in creating content that is accessible, engaging, effective, and affective. Within an over-saturated environment, it is difficult not to alienate or disengage audiences. Even as audiences, it is increasingly difficult to wade through so much conflicting and confusing information on climate change. Therefore, similar to ecocriticism, it’s a field that needs to be recalibrated. We can take already existing knowledge and techniques from media-making (editing, writing, cinematography, music, sound, lighting etc.) and transform the way we create climate changing content.

A huge area of transformation is to be able to affectively convey climate change as a hyperobject – that is, to somehow show the scalar nature of climate change. How it exceeds our comprehension of space and time and how we can only experience local manifestations of it (p. 7). Creative media on climate change does not necessarily have to stick to presenting factual information, but can act as an artistic complement to the science as well as academic ecocriticism. Climate change media production needs to experience a transformation – from something we merely watch, to a material practice that has material consequences. This is the most challenging aspect of making media in a climate changing world. But as the text suggests, understanding this connection between the ecology of our world and our media practice is just part of this transformation process.

Words: 462

Reference:

Johns-Putra, A 2013, ‘A New Critical Climate’, Symploke, vol. 21, no.1-2, p. 7-10.