Inspired by the ecosophical writings of Felix Guattari, this book explores the many ways that aesthetics – in the forms of visual art, film, sculpture, painting, literature, and the screenplay – can act as catalysts, allowing us to see the world differently, beyond traditional modes of representation. This is in direct parallel to Guattari's own attempt to break down the 19th century Kantian dialectic between man, art, and world, in favour of a non-hierarchical, transversal approach, to produce a more ethical and ecologically sensitive world view. Each chapter author analyses artworks which critique capitalism's industrial devastation of the environment, while at the same time offering affirmative, imaginative futures suggested by art. Including contributions from philosophers, film theorists and artists, this book asks: How can we interact with the world in a non-dominant and non-destructive way? How can art catalyze new ethical relations with non-human entities and the environment? And, crucially, what part can philosophy play in rethinking these structures of interaction?

Inspired by the ecosophical writings of Felix Guattari, this book explores the many ways that aesthetics – in the forms of visual art, film, sculpture, painting, literature, and the screenplay – can act as catalysts, allowing us to see the world differently, beyond traditional modes of representation. This is in direct parallel to Guattari's own attempt to break down the 19th century Kantian dialectic between man, art, and world, in favour of a non-hierarchical, transversal approach, to produce a more ethical and ecologically sensitive world view. Each chapter author analyses artworks which critique capitalism's industrial devastation of the environment, while at the same time offering affirmative, imaginative futures suggested by art. Including contributions from philosophers, film theorists and artists, this book asks: How can we interact with the world in a non-dominant and non-destructive way? How can art catalyze new ethical relations with non-human entities and the environment? And, crucially, what part can philosophy play in rethinking these structures of interaction?

By moving beyond traditional aesthetic categories (beauty, the sublime, the religious), Eco-Aesthetics takes an inter-disciplinary approach bridging the arts, humanities and social sciences and explores what aesthetics might mean in the 21st century. It is one in a series of new, radical aesthetics promoting debate, confronting convention and formulating alternative ways of thinking about art practice. There is no doubt that the social and environmental spheres are interconnected but can art and artists really make a difference to the global environmental crisis? Can art practice meaningfully contribute to the development of sustainable lifestyles? Malcolm Miles explores the strands of eco-art, eco-aesthetics and contemporary aesthetic theories, offering timely critiques of consumerism and globalisation and, ultimately, offers a possible formulation of an engaged eco-aesthetic for the early 21st century.

Global Perspectives on Eco-Aesthetics and Eco-Ethics: A Green Critique focuses on the interface of the Anthropocene, sustainability, ecological aesthetics, multispecies relationality, and the environment as reflected in literature and culture. This book examines how writers have addressed ecological crises and environmental challenges that transcend national, cultural, political, social, and linguistic borders. It demonstrates how, as the environmental humanities developed and emerged as a critical discipline, it generated a diverse range of interdisciplinary fields of study such as ecographics, ecodesign, ecocinema, ecotheology, ecofeminism, ethnobotany, ecolinguistics, and bioregionalism, and formed valuable, interdisciplinary networks of critique and advocacy—and its contemporary expansion is exceptionally salient to social, political, and public issues today.

This title documents the burgeoning eco art movement from A to Z, presenting a panorama of artistic responses to environmental concerns, from Ant Farms anti-consumer antics in the 1970s to Marina Zurkows 2007 animation that anticipates the havoc wreaked upon the planet by global warming.

Dedicated to an articulation of the earth from broadly ecological perspectives, eco art is a vibrant subset of contemporary art that addresses the widespread public concern with rapid climate change and related environmental issues. In Landscape into Eco Art, Mark Cheetham systematically examines connections and divergences between contemporary eco art, land art of the 1960s and 1970s, and the historical genre of landscape painting. Through eight thematic case studies that illuminate what eco art means in practice, reception, and history, Cheetham places the form in a longer and broader art-historical context. He considers a wide range of media—from painting, sculpture, and photography to artists’ films, video, sound work, animation, and installation—and analyzes the work of internationally prominent artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Nancy Holt, Mark Dion, and Robert Smithson. In doing so, Cheetham reveals eco art to be a dynamic extension of a long tradition of landscape depiction in the West that boldly enters into today’s debates on climate science, government policy, and our collective and individual responsibility to the planet. An ambitious intervention into eco-criticism and the environmental humanities, this volume provides original ways to understand the issues and practices of eco art in the Anthropocene. Art historians, humanities scholars, and lay readers interested in contemporary art and the environment will find Cheetham’s work valuable and invigorating.