Communicating Tipping Points
Thoughts on Art/Science collaboration
Ice sheets, permafrost, glaciers, forests, coral reefs, vegetation, critical ocean currents and monsoon systems are weakening; today, from the Arctic to the Amazon, the majority of these systems are showing signs of destabilisation. Harmful tipping points in the natural world pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity and their triggering will severely damage our planet’s life-support systems and threaten the stability of our societies.
You’ll often hear – from climate scientists, policy makers and the academic community – that when it comes to the climate crisis we have the facts we just need to communicate them better, break out of the bubble, and into the world. When we communicate better then action, surely, will follow. Our work at Superflux often intersects with science, industry and policy, but it’s also often something that comes after, when quote-unquote ‘science’ passes the baton onto quote-unquote ‘art’. We query this separation, this hierarchy.
Last month we were invited by AIMES, Future Earth, the Earth Commission, and the WCRP Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity to be part of a roundtable discussion on the complexities and opportunities for Communicating Tipping Points. In a short presentation [available to view online] Anab shared how Superflux’s practice of non-verbal communication and immersive experience can help us literally touch and feel potential futures: when you’ve felt what might be possible, enacting it is only natural, it’s in your muscle memory. Guided by moderator Maya Rebermark, Anab and the panel – Colin Butfield (Studio Silverback), Tim Kelly (EarthHQ), Johanna Hoffman (Harvard), David Mckay and Félix Pharand-Deschênes (Globaia) – discussed the importance of creatives working alongside scientists, the challenges of communicating technical and abstract data, and what can be done to help us think long-term.
It was an incredibly stimulating and rich conversation. We’ve since been reflecting on the questions and propositions that emerged, and we thought we’d share some further thoughts – as and how they relate to the work we are doing at Superflux – below.
It is our hope that these thoughts will be helpful to both creative practioners and scientists and all those who are grappling with how to communicate cutting-edge climate research so as to inspire collective action.
How do we balance trade offs when communicating science, and particularly in relationship to tipping points?
(Thoughts on accessibility and feeling)
First, what is a tipping point, what is a tipping element, how many are there 8, 12, 28? Are the same ones being counted? How do we share the depth of detail for impactful storytelling?
Often the intention of our work is to get as far out into the world and speak to wider audiences with different ways of seeing and thinking about their environment. Because of that we might not ever again mention ‘tipping points’ and ‘earth systems’, instead working with the science we explore spaces where imaginative leaps might help different communities access and experience future possibilities. Dense scientific thinking would instead be communicated through the lens of lived experience, perhaps it's viewed through the lens of food insecurity or increased migration – experiences that touch people directly, that affect them. Some could say that our work is making subjective the objective, drawing feeling (both physical and emotional) from the abstract and analytic.
How can scientists and creatives effectively inform audiences about the existential threat of climate crisis?
(Thoughts on action and agency)
If you draw a line in the sand at 1.5C or 2C, some people will see it as a line of existential threat and if we go over that, we are in the land of the dragons. In others, it creates a sense that, the closer we get to the boundary, it’s too late and we are doomed. Existential threat is steeped in fear, people hear it and then immediately think we might as well give up. In conversation with Neuroscientist Kris De Meyer, he explained of this situation:
“if you instil an emotion you have no way of controlling the action. Fear might paralyse action or spur extremist action, often has a counter-effect to what you want to achieve”
Kris then followed with an example:
“If I want to help you to cook a nice meal. I'm not going to show you a dish and say ‘doesn't this dish look wonderful’ now go and make it, I’m going to give you a recipe that allows you to make that dish as well as show you the beautiful dish. And so it's these things together; the recipe for how you get somewhere and the positive outcome that you can get to…”
That conversation with Kris really helped cement that the way we go about communicating existential threat must focus on building agency, recognising how the environment elicits certain behaviours, and tap into the psychology of values that motivate us.
What makes for meaningful art-science collaboration when it comes to communicating something as vast, abstract and multiple as our climate-altered futures?
(Thoughts on future memories and art/science collaboration)
A poll in nature a couple of years ago found scientists and artists are working together as never before however hierarchies remained, with artistic work deemed merely illustrative, or as an object of study. Art/Science alliances are most valuable when there is a shared stake in a project, where we are able to jointly design it and can critique each other’s work. Such an approach can both prompt new scientific research as well as result in affecting art.
When people literally touch and feel a possible future we stir emotions and prompt memories that can reduce temporal discounting, enabling us to prime and rehearse future action. These futures are by no means didactic or as absolute – for how can we instil the agency for change from a position of fixity? Rather, the work we do, and strive to do, at Superflux is to help people feel that another future is possible, and give them the tools to enact it.
And so here lies a crucial question: can science incorporate these elements? Should we not view science and culture as interdependent, rather than separate domains? Rather than science passing the baton to art, art passing the baton to daily life, is there the capacity for these domains to coalesce seamlessly?
How we live together, how we farm, how we design our cities and harness energy, all this is art and it is science too. This is not a radical thought, it’s how indigenous cultures continue to engage with the world. Ultimately, it is by embedding this philosophy into tangible, lived realities that we will inspire action. It is in this symbiosis of science, art, and culture that we will find the power to transformatively adapt with the climate crisis and forge a sustainable future for generations to come.
Studio Updates
Head over to our website to read a full deep-dive into Action Speaks Summit presented at New York Climate Week 2023: an immersive installation and exhibition conceived, research designed and produced by Superflux in collaboration with INGKA Group (IKEA) and partners.
Our speculative video work ‘The Seas are No Longer Dying’ is on view at Water Pressure: Designing for the Future at MKG Hamburg. The show runs from 15.3.24 – 13.10.24.
A paper on The CreaTures project ‘9 Dimensions’ – a tool for evaluating creative practices, and how they connect to transformative change – has been published in Ecology and Society journal as part of a special feature on Meaningful Transdisciplinary Collaborations for Sustainability: Local, Artistic, and Scientific Knowledge. We are proud to have been involved in the project and in co-authoring the paper.
Studio Experiments
And of course we are never not experimenting. We end this newsletter with a behind-the-scenes shot of Jon and Ed who have been prototyping handcrafted helical antennas, fiddling with ghost satellite chasing, environmental sensors, meshtastics and whatnot (we’ll explain more later)!
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Excited to see you guys sharing your research / thinking like this! 👏