Blue Grindrod contributes to the:
The View from the Anthropocene
A bilingual, interdisciplinary conference.
The View from the Anthropocene is a transdisciplinary conference to be held in English and Hungarian on 15th-16th October 2022, organised by postgraduate researchers at the University of Debrecen.
The conference is a 2-day on-site event, with options for online participation.
THE VIEW FROM THE ANTHROPOCENE:
EXPLORING THE HUMAN EPOCH FROM POST-ANTHROPOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVES
In this age of ecological, economic and social crises, the notion of the Anthropocene is becoming ever more significant. Proposed by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer in 2000, the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch highlights detrimental human impact on the planet, while as a critical notion it synthetises anti-, non- or post-anthropocentric views challenging the dominant discourses and practices that place humans at the centre of the world. However, with its scope incessantly expanding and its meanings ever in flux, the Anthropocene requires constant redefinition and reassessment.
Blue Grindrod:
The Call of the Chthulucene: Speculative Fiction, Art and Design as Methodology in the Formation of New Posthuman Models of Life – The View From The Anthropocene: Exploring The Human Epoch From Post-Anthropocentric Perspectives
Abstract:
Adaptation or Extinction? These are the choices left to the human as a species as the Anthropocene takes its toll on our fragile ecologies. Utilising examples from speculative fiction, biological art and critical design, this research paper proposes a radical shift towards new and imagined posthuman models of being that seek to alleviate, overcome or otherwise adapt to the hostile ecologies that the anthropocene imparts upon us. Drawing from Haraway’s conception of the Chthulucene, this paper identifies the possibility of the creation of an “elsewhere and elsewhen that was, still is,and might yet be” and extends this to the realm of the body: through offering a position of the posthuman that is speculative, nebulous and abstract it is hoped that new models of potential life might be envisioned that are multiplicitous, multi-species and multidisciplinary. Working primarily with the realm of the physical body, this paper explores new, alternative and abstract renditions of bodily structures through the existing works of Agi Haines, Matthew Barney, Revital Cohen, Natsai Audrey Chieza, Patricia Piccinini, Ai Hasegawa, Kira O’Reilly and Art Orienté Objet for the purpose of moving beyond an anthropocentric model of the body and its relation to external ecologies. By rendering these ecologies tactile, haptic and embodied through these examples, this research paper ultimately seeks a suppression of the human tendency towards exceptionalism in the pursuit of a posthuman that actively operates and evolves in symbiosis with everchanging ecologies, embodying a transitory model of being for the age of Anthropocene.
The View from the Anthropocene Conference is co-organised and kindly supported by the Hungarian Society for the Study of English (HUSSE) and the Institute of English and American Studies (IEAS) at the University of Debrecen (UD).
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