record

Thesis Info

LABS ID
00778
Thesis Title
Enviro-Envision Visualizing Climate Change through Art
Author
Kathleen Deck
2nd Author
3rd Author
Degree
Master of Fine Arts
Year
2019
Number of Pages
40
University
The University of California Santa Cruz
Thesis Supervisor
Sharon Daniel
Supervisor e-mail
sdaniel AT ucsc.edu
Other Supervisor(s)
Warren Sack, Edward Shanken
Language(s) of Thesis
English
Department / Discipline
Digital Art and New Media
Copyright Ownership
Kathleen Deck
Languages Familiar to Author
Swedish
URL where full thesis can be found
Will be available after institution approval
Keywords
eco-art, environmental art, coastal redwood, climate change, visualization, immersion, affect, figurative data visualization, interactive, digital art, technology, new media
Abstract: 200-500 words
From the beginning of the environmental movements of the 1960s, humans have sought to convey messages of the tragedy of human destruction of the earth. Since then, the world has shifted greatly, and the extent and effects of climate change have become more apparent, yet most humans still cannot fully comprehend the “hyperobject” of climate change. Art with its emotional qualities has been seen to illicit change and comprehension of complicated issues like climate change. In this thesis it is argued that eco-art and new media art practices, together, can effectively communicate the effects of climate change. The ecologically themed new media art project Enviro-Envision, which is an interactive installation showing the effects of human impact and climate change on the past, present, and future of a Santa Cruz coastal redwood ecosystem, illustrates how innovative and vital such interdisciplinary projects can be in communicating climate change. The digital, interactive, and figurative data visualization approaches are compared in context with other contemporary projects and their strategies for the creation of a work with a climate change theme.