This reading was especially interesting to me as it saw a strong overlap with the ideas and theories I am currently dealing with in my economics class. Is it enough to just adjust the concepts we already have available to us, or do we need to come up with completely new ways of thinking?
As Johns-Putra suggests, critical climate change brings about two questions. Does the Hyperobject of Climate Change ‘herald a new critical climate’ in which previous ‘critical faculties’ are judged as ‘fit for purpose’, or is it Climate Change itself that ‘evokes familiar lines of inquiry’?(Johns-Putra, 2013, pp.8). Should the readjustment of these lines of inquiry be sweeping and thorough, or Is it simply a matter of realigning human tendencies?
In his own research, French philosopher Bruno Latour, who is mentioned by Johns-Putra has concluded that it is time humans, as a dependent species come back ‘down to earth’. Our vast economic growth in the past century has blinded us from the fact that we rely on a vast number of ‘other beings in order to subsist’ (Latour, 2018, pp.87). This sentiment echoes that of Timothy Morton, and his concept of Hyperobjects, those things that we cannot touch or see, but exist nonetheless, and therefore demand our attention.
As Johns-Putra explains, Morton believes that we already possess the ‘philosophical tools’ (Johns-Putra, 2013, pp.9) that we require to respond to the reaction we are being given from Earth. We simply need to redirect them to for use on our ‘global environment’(Johns-Putra, 2013, pp.9). In a similar manner, Latour suggests that it is time we ‘change all the scripts’ and come to the realisation that humans are ‘no longer the only actors’(Latour, 2018, pp.44) even though humanity may see itself at the centre of the stage, we no longer are (and never really where). We must coinhabit this stage with ‘everything that makes subsistence possible’ (Latour, 2018, pp.96), these are Mortons ‘strange-strangers’(Morton, 2013), which we as a species must allow ourselves to be intimate with.
This piece relates directly to the task at hand in which we are to communicate Mortons Hyperobjects. From it arises many questions surrounding how, we as media practitioners can communicate these objects that are not fully comprehendible, and in what ways this can occur so that audiences can understand the unconceivable. I think a key concept to explore is the repurposing of existing analytical aptitudes as Morton, Latour and Putra-Johns express. If we can create media that takes known topics and concepts, and uses them to explain or exemplify these objects that transcend space and time, perhaps we can help audiences understand them – or at least some aspects of these vast objects.
As Johns-Putra asserts, Climate Change is simultaneously ‘something we know and don’t know about’(Johns-Putra, 2013, pp.7). This is an extreme challenge for media makers, as it asks us to illustrate something we never fully can. From this reading, I take the idea that we don’t have to wholly communicate these entities but should undeniably show the parts we can. To do this, we can make use of the familiar to communicate the strange.
References:
Johns-Putra, A., 2013. A New Critical Climate. Symploke.
Latour, B., 2018. Down To Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Polity Press.
Morton, T., 2013. Poisoned Ground: Art and Philosophy in the Time of Hyperobjects, in: Symploke. pp. 37–50.
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