Intro (begin van het artikel)
The book Ecomedia: ecological strategies in today’s art was published by the Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst in 2007. Editors: Redacteurs Sabine Himmelsbach, Yvonne Volkart.
In recent years the idea of ecology as a communications system in which humans, animals and organic materials occupy equivalent status has gained in authority. To whose advantage and disadvantage are ecosystems destroyed? What consequences do these hold for those involved? How can the needs and interests of dispossessed parties be given voice? What are the viable alternatives to ecological decimation? These are among the questions that art can now usefully propose. Featuring essays by Sabine Himmelsbach, Karin Ohlenschläger and Yvonne Volkart, Ecomedia; Ecological Strategies in Art Today surveys recent discussions on ecosystems, sustainability, renewable energy, envisionings of the future and the complex question of the roles that art and new media might play in this context–discussions which science, technology and ecological activism have so far neglected to initiate.
“Producer, working conditions, production chains, and transport routes often remain as obscure as the economic and political interests that exert an influence on the products. Breaking down this condition of defamiliarisation and ‘creating a new intimacy with the objects’ is the focus of interest in the multimedia installation MILKproject by Esther Polak and leva Auzina.”
