Sustainability, art and reflexivity: Why artists and designers may become key change agents in sustainability Looking at society in a systems view it is assumed society constantly changes as a result of the actions, effects of the actions, feedback loops and reflection on the effects and the feedback loops. (Page 108)
Reflexivity is one of the important mechanisms that create change in this systems view on society. (Page 108)
The key concern in my work and in this article is how to stimulate, guide or facilitate the change process towards sustainability. (Page 109)
Sciences are important in analyzing problems but have less capacity to contribute to sustainability that is basically a process of the creation of a new world with new institutions, products, processes and relationships. (Page 109)
They fall short due to the analytical rationality they apply in understanding reality. Science cuts reality in parts and this is not an appropriate approached to deal with a complex issue such as sustainability. (Page 109)
Reasons for change do come from argumentation but are as much embedded in emotions, convictions or rules of thumb. (Page 109)
The change process to sustainability is “more than rational”. It is about emotions, desires and fears, life styles, identities and intuitive notions. It is equally about visions and expectations of the future or of multiple futures. In essence changing towards sustainability is the “art of being different”, of using different products, designing different lifestyles and engaging in different practices, doing things n different ways and seeing reality in different ways. (Page 109)
Design has everything to do with “creation”, and art for me is “a process of inquiry”. Since sustainability is a process of exploring new ways of living, new ways of being, doing and experiencing the world, art and design are obviously closely related, (page 110)
Too often we look at art only in terms of the results of the explorations, the objects such as visual images (paintings, photos, sculptures), linguistic images (metaphors, literature, pottery) or music and performances (theatre, dance). But behind that is what interests me more: the process of search and inquiry. Art is in essence exploring, shaping, testing and challenging reality and images, thoughts and definitions of reality. Artists engage in these activities in their specific ways, using creativity, lateral thinking and intuition. (Page 110)
The traditional role of the nuclear family changed dramatically since the ninety sixties and so did gender roles. While many saw those changes taking place in their own society, they received at the same time more and more information on alternative cultures and societies, and different ways of living there. (Page 115)
As a result contemporary life is much less embedded in those traditional institutions; people are freer and have more possibilities to make choices how to live their own life. And in this process, Adkins (2003) is pointing out; the authority of the individual is taking over external forms of authority. The result as Ulrick Beck writes, that when societies get more modernized people get more possibilities to reflect on their social conditions and change them. Following this line of interpretation, Lash concludes that reflexive modernization is a theory “of the ever increasing powers of social actors, or ´agency’ in regard to structure”. (Page 115)
However at the same time he observes that these individuals hardly have time to ´reflect’ on their choices and that they decide very often in a ´reflex´. Reflexes are immediate Reponses characterized by a lack of reflection and this in fact characterizes the contemporary individual. (Page 115)
Reflexive signifies not an ´increase of mastery and consciousness but a heightened awareness that mastery is impossible´. (Page 116)(Aka that we will always live in change and uncertainty)
Ontological reflexivity deals with and understanding of ´what is´ using lateral thinking and intuitive methods of exploration. Ontological reflexivity explores the reality around us but is not limited in a specific systematic methodology like the sciences, and has more space for associations and imagination. (Page 119)
One key question is what kind of knowledge technical rationality and cognitive reflexivity is giving us, and what kind of knowledge we really need in order to realize the sturcturation process of sustainability. (Page 131)
For Enrique Leff (2005) advocates to link intellectual knowledge with experimental knowledge, and to engage in forms of holistic knowledge that go beyond analysis. He proposes to abandon the scientific claim of universality and global application to invest more contextual and culturally specific concept of ´knowing/being´. (Page 132)
The challenge is to interconnect the ways of thinking, knowing and being or to connect: knowing, knowing how to know, knowing how to be and knowing how to act. (Page 132)
The ultimate question that I will not really answer in this article is if, aesthetic, hermeneutic, and ontological reflexivity should be looked at as the domain of artists and designers. The short answer is: no. for sure they have good qualities to serve as change agents, but we should not reserve the ´more-than-rational’ to only art and design. I prefer to paraphrase Joseph Beuys and take the position that we all should become more like artists. (Page 136)
Personal question… do I really want to focus on one type of reflexivity? Or just reflexivity in general??? I believe they are all the same in core
In direct reply to the last question, I would suggest: you might not want to centre on one type of reflexivity which you choose in advance because, as you rightly say, they are all colour graduations of the same pallete. Perhaps it is more interesting for you to identify how reflexivity comes up in your field work (a more inductive observation, more loose, more goethian…;-). If you need some help in classifying what you find, I think that learning theory is useful here. For example, Mezirow wrote in a clear fashion about reflexivity in relation to transformative learning.
ResponderEliminarMany other very interesting topics come about in your reflection. You say you are mainly interest in looking at “Art as the process of search and inquiry”. I align to that, which in my terms is - Art as a transformative process (that encompasses search and inquiry). I hope we can talk more on that!
Last, and briefly, you mention the core relationship of agency and structure on which so much ink and more recently 0/1/1 stuff has been put into. Increasing individuation is certainly a clear evolutionary trend in humans. This, however, must not elude of the ways, the modern ways, structure confine us. And with the help of philosophers, social scientists and sages (not to mention artist!), we now understand how much “the world is too much with us”. This is not a denial that oppressors are not out there (they certainly are!). What it means is that the time is ripe to understand that outside and inside is part of one and the same manifestation. It is time to look inside-outside and find the root of the oppression and the heart of real freedom.
Thank you for this space!