Nottingham Contemporary

Theo Reeves-Evison, Great Expectation Machines in Art, Ecology and Green Capitalism

In the face of looming environmental catastrophe, practices of nature conservation, preservation and ecological restoration are increasingly using new systems of measurement and prediction. Each session will consider how such instruments - through competing logics of preservation, conservation, value, and profit - actively shape the environments they seek to protect, with required reading being given out in advance. By reading and discussing the subtleties of how these systems and technologies work, we will work through a range of problems in how everyday distinctions are drawn between nature and culture, human and animal, living and inert. Join discussions and read about issues of biodiversity, extinction, computation, and ecological finance.

In this session we consider the forecasting techniques and planning tools that have been used by organizations to prepare for anthropogenic climate change. It will chart a shift from the futurological methods of the 1960s to the prevalence of scenario planning today, along the way discussing art projects that broaden the way in which our environmental futures are imagined, conceptualized and produced.

Free.

Due to the limited capacity for this session booking is essential. To book please email Mercè at merce@nottinghamcontemporary.org