Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently visual art can bridge the communication gap between our distant UN overlords and the proletariat.
Published: 06 April 2024
Integrating science and the arts to deglobalise climate change adaptation
Marta Olazabal, Maria Loroño-Leturiondo, Ana Terra Amorim-Maia, William Lewis & Josune Urrutia
Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 2971 (2024) Cite this article
Setting goals that are context-specific, relevant, and collectively shared is critical in adaptation. As necessary elements in target setting, imaginaries for adaptation and the language connected to them remain vague. Visuals produced through art-science collaborations can be great allies to (de)construct imaginaries and deglobalise discourses of adaptation.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47400-7
The art will apparently be used to stimulate local conversations, and give local people a voice;
…
In this sense, art–science and art–policy collaborations are proliferating. However, in most cases, scientists, policymakers or adaptation practitioners seek out visual support only to help them engage the public with their work as an end-of-pipe approach17. The art-based approach that we suggest here, and that we feel necessary to deglobalise adaptation, emerges from a transdisciplinary approach and starts much earlier on in the adaptation management cycle, making the arts central to planning, decision-making, and communication.
…
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47400-7
From a masters thesis into Soviet art;
… That there was an active experimental movement in art prior to the Soviet regime is of particular interest. Russian artists were searching for new art forms to give expression of revolutionary activity.
The experimental artists were searching, for a new art form which would be the embodiment of the revolution; the expression of the new ape, the new man — the ape of the machine and of the proletariat. Utility was the measure of value for everything in the revolution and art had to conform, which accounts for art becoming a pronaganda tool to keep the goals of the revolution before the people.
The numerous art groups competed avidly for top position as the means to express the true spirit of the revolution, the measure for success being acceptance by the masses.
Among the schools there was a group called the Association of Artists of the Revolution which painted in a realistic style, in themes of the everyday life of the people and of the revolution. Naturally such depiction would be grasped easily by the average man, who was, at that time, uneducated. It was only natural for the government to support this realism since it embodied those qualities felt by the government to be essential to art — an expression of socialism understood by the people. The new art came to be called socialist realism. …
Read more: https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5500&context=theses
Perhaps we should call this climate propaganda art “Climate Realism”, in honor of the Soviet “Socialist Realism”? On the other hand, maybe putting the word “real” anywhere near climate fantasy propaganda is a step too far.
I was going to say how similar the climate action goals and art samples provided by the study authors are to soviet propaganda art, but there is a chilling difference.
Most Soviet art I have seen, including when I visited museums, the Soviets put care into drawing people’s faces. The Soviet art expresses love and family and togetherness.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no apologist for the soviet system, which was vile, brutal and repressive. But the Soviets very much wanted to convince each other and the world that Soviet Communism was an expression of love.
OK some Soviet art is jingoistic and violent rather than loving – but even the jingoistic art attempts to portray people following the leader, expressing their love for the motherland, sacrificing everything for the greater glory of the Soviet State.
The climate art presented in the study is different, it makes no attempt to mingle with and share the values of the proletariat, the climate art is detached and distant. The art provides a distant birds eye diagrammatic view of people doing the jobs they have been assigned, units in a machine, but makes no effort to explore how they feel about their chores. Climate worker ants serving the colony, each climate worker unit is expendable and interchangeable. The UN Gods of Olympus decreeing what each person’s tasks will be, and paying no attention to their feelings or individual needs.
None of the samples of climate art provided in the study above showed detailed views of people’s faces. The climate artists drew detailed diagrams of what people are supposed to be doing – but put no effort into showing how people feel about what they are doing.
Of course the Soviets are not the only Communist dictators who left us samples of their art. The Chinese communists also produce a lot of art during the Mao era, though like the Soviets they also tended to draw detailed faces.
There is an interesting historical example of faceless Communist art. The few samples of Khmer Rouge propaganda art I’ve seen often shows faceless masses serving their genocidal leader Pol Pot. Pol Pot’s face is drawn in detail, other people not so much.
Pol Pot also deviated from other communists of his age, instead of an implementing a “great leap forward” style industrialisation programme, Pol Pot attempted to turn back the clock to Year Zero. Pol Pot rejected technology and emptied the cities, forcing ordinary people to live primitive agrarian lives, tilling the land with hand tools. A lot of Pol Pot’s victims starved to death.
There are examples of Pol Pot art which show peoples faces, but most of the examples I found while searching the internet of Pol Pot art which depicts the faces of ordinary people were created by Pol Pot’s opponents. Their art mostly depicts barbaric acts of cruelty and suffering under Pol Pot’s reign.
There are also examples of climate art with detailed faces – mostly the leaders of the movement.
Am I reading too much into this artistic anomaly? I’m not exactly dealing with a large sample. The brief was to illustrate climate adaptation. But the art was also meant to engage, and engaging people usually implies an emotional connection between the viewer and the art.
Perhaps the climate artists enlisted by the study above didn’t draw detailed faces, because they just aren’t that practiced at including images of people in their pictures.
Art for art’s sake
Money for God’s sake
https://youtu.be/hTdikCon128?si=GRuMhKUdLYa00MgU
This is kind of a scary report. I think I will stop drinking white wine and cancel my ballet lessons, just to be safe.
space To be safe you need a safe
The idea about art and climate is correct:
Frost fairs on Thames 😀
But none of those artist were pushing an agenda so what they saw and painted should be dismissed. (No agenda.)
Sad but funny thing, I looked for the picture of the cover of that Time Magazine that says the Ice Age Cometh that David Middleton often shows, but I can’t find it! All the “hits” say it’s a hoax or faked!!!
(Reminds me of, several year ago, did a search for wattsupwiththat on google and the first page or more of “hits” were stuff like “Hotwoper”!!!)
PS When I was younger, I don’t remember ever seeing that cover.
Both sides can play, and WUWT is already doing some of this in the lead images. Visualize burning and broken wind turbines, hail-smashed solar farms, old folks huddling in the cold, dead EV’s stranded in a blizzard. You get the picture.
And on the positive side, we have the beautifully visualized IR images of Earth showing how the emitter actually works.
This second image is the “brightness temperature” used for the visualization.
“Integrating science and the arts to deglobalise climate change adaptation”
WTF?
Why pick that phrase out? The whole thing is word salad.
true!
here in Wokeachusetts I’ve had to read tons of *shit like this from the state’s enviro agencies- as a field forester for 50 years- and I’ve always severely criticized and satirized their *hit- which of course they hate me because of it- twice trying to take away my forester’s license and twice failing— 🙂
“Integrating science and the arts to deglobalise climate change adaptation”
I think this means: You can lead a horse to water, but it takes graphite for every pencil.
As with most of these neologisms, it likely boils down to some sort of neo-Marxist gobbledygook. Here, to “deglobalise” would seem to mean to handle things at a local level. But the devil (quite literally) is in the detail. The way things are to be handled, at the local level, is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Which, if you are familiar with them, are basically communism (reallocating resources from those who have to those who do not). This time, they are trying (initially) to do this reallocation by deception rather than outright force. If the deception fails, force will follow.
“Integrating science and the arts to deglobalise climate change adaptation”
WTF?
What does that mean?
“FaR OUt, mAn! HaY! DoN’t boGgart THe jOinT, Mann!”?
PS Been there, done that, and stopped doing that about 5 decades ago.
Lots of things make sense when your perception of reality has been altered.
“Russian artists were searching for new art forms to give expression of revolutionary activity.”
For some reason, they didn’t bother to artfully show the Gulag. Or, the show trials of the ’30s. Or the Holodomor. Or the huge spy network all over eastern Europe. They preferred portraying Soviet Worker Heroes- the guys who worked much harder than anyone else but who didn’t mind getting the same pay.
Their theory is that art can help communicate climate adaptation.
So their theory is equivalently the scene from Cool Hand Luke: “What we got here is failure to communicate.” And it will end for them just like the final scene from the movie, revealing Luke died in prison. Here, that their art hopes eventually metaphorically died in the inescapable ‘prison’ of reality.
Their actual problem is that their adaptation stuff doesn’t work. Renewables are ruinables. Residential heat pumps are no solution in cold climates. Art pretending otherwise is a failure to communicate reality. Just pretty propaganda, like Soviet art was.
Makes me want to throw a can of soup.
Ruinables. Says it correctly.
By Any Means Necessary. The movement will Progress towards the ultimate, scientific utopia.
Or else….
“We practice selective annihilation of mayors and government officials, for example, to create a vacuum. Then we fill that vacuum. As popular war advances, peace is closer.”
Maybe some crafty art is required to countermand the facts about islands disappearing –
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/06/islands-that-climate-alarmists-said-would-soon-disappear-due-to-rising-sea-found-to-have-grown-in-size/
Climate Change can be introduced into anything and everything…I recently saw a book on Climate Change Gardening…..I plan a book on Climate Change Diet….the possibilities are infinite……Climate Change for your pets.
Okay. Here’s some graphic truth:
CO2 IS PLANT FOOD.
Heh.
This one.
Josh (of Cartoons by Josh) has created a treasure trove of excellent graphic art promoting data-driven CO2 science:
He has a book out, now, too (here: https://cartoonsbyjosh.co.uk/books):
All You Need to Know About Climate Change — in Cartoons
The CAGW crowd have no proper science to justify their views. They feel they are far superior to the rest of us. They feel that because we haven’t accepted their lies and half truths that they need to communicate at a lower level so we underlings might understand. It’s the same reasoning as the social scientists trying to persuade us.
Surprisingly I agree with them, if I were to create a painting of how I viewed the CAGW crowd it would be a nasty cesspool. That seems appropriate.
sorry to be off topic but i did not see the open thread.
This made my day.
though o/t it does have some artistic value no?
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/04/06/greta-thunberg-arrested-at-the-hague-during-extinction-rebellion-protest/
It looks like these cops told Greta to “take off the hat”, as happened to Ron White.
And did Greta then say “They threw me in to public” as Ron did?
In my(very) limited interaction with artists I found that the majority had an over inflated opinion of the effect their art had on peoples perception. I only knew one artist that did art for arts sake and he was a hard core drug addict. Their grasp of reality, it appeared to me, was limited.
Oh dear.. another bunch of desperates, seeking some sort of relevance as they try to climb into the climate fund trough.
.
I see a lot of parallels with Pol Pot’s ‘Year Zero’ & the Greens ‘Net Zero’;
& we know the more rabid green zealots want all opponents imprisoned.
Imprisoned? Dead more likely.
“That there was an active experimental movement in art prior to the Soviet regime is of particular interest. Russian artists were searching for new art forms to give expression of revolutionary activity.”
EW: You lack a nuanced appreciation of Russian art history. The movements he was referencing like Constructivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(art) were pre Bolshevik revolutionary movements. They flourished for a while after the Bolshevik take over. But once the Bolsheviks were in charge they were shut down and many of their exponents left Russia.
Soviet Realism was purely Stalinist. It was launched in the 1930s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism
The lesson here is that pro-revolutionary art movements will be shut down once the Party is in charge and all the revolutionary artists will be sent to the gulag. Artists should refuse to be involved in politics.
I’m particularly attracted to the climate art of Josh. He definitely is a realest communicator of the broad subject, and at the same time he nails the details of what motivates the cause. Unlike official Pol Pot art, he captures the venal faces of the leading lights. His connection? Laugh your A55es off at these ridiculous idiots.
Eric,
I have to agree with you that art involves soul, not just drafting skill.
The same with music. To convey emotion, the composer has to know the mechanics of how the band or orchestra work. I suggest that few composers today have the learning or the skill to compose a symphony for choir and orchestra like Beethoven did when he was deaf. Today we get the simple, monotonous, repetitive drum beat, the guttural ignorance of rap, the kindergarten level words of the songs by Beatles.
Emotive art can be glorious, but it is rare and it is hard. The AI assisted images that Charles the Mod are doing to illustrate here o WUWT are interesting, some starting to convey emotion. Manipulation is hard. I have been at it since about 1990. My lack of success is shown by 2 images following.
Geoff S
So … would this be called “white-washing” or “painting a rosy picture”?
UN Overlords…
Yes, Biden should be impeached for treason for surrendering US sovereignty to a foreign entity.
Picasso is acclaimed as one of the great artist.
He communicated emotion well.
But I’ve never met anyone that had both eyes on the left side of their nose.
That’s not reality.
Seriously, if someone gave me one, I wouldn’t hang it on my wall. I’d sell it and buy something I liked. (Maybe a bunch of “somethings” I liked!)
The (unadjusted) data and observations do NOT support the mantra of Man needs to be controlled in the of fighting “The Existential Threat”.
So they appeal to emotions based on abstract constructs with no basis on reality beyond the circuit boards the computer models are run on.
At least propaganda isn’t F-ART–frivolous art. LOL