Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
Based on the piece Guadiana in Four Movements (2022, 12’) —which combines experimental cinematic language, with impressionist ethnography and data sonification—, this paper will discuss co-creative approaches in interrogating and rendering intelligible the present and future of the Guadiana estuary.
Paper long abstract:
How do people perceive the rapid onset of climate change? How to render environmental transformations tangible and intelligible? How to move beyond catastrophic mainstream representations and patronising narratives while still contemplating the challenges ahead?
In an attempt to address these and other sets of questions, this paper builds on Guadiana in Four Movements, an audio-visual piece that stems from a co-creative endeavour between a multimodal anthropologist and an information designer (authors of the paper), which interrogates the present and future of the transboundary Guadiana estuary. The Guadiana estuary is a fragile and unique ecosystem that divides Portugal and Spain, growingly affected by hyper-intensive agriculture, cattle-grazing, hydro-power and tourism, facing recurrent droughts, salinisation, coastal erosion, biodiversity loss and invasive species.
In its making, authors explored a sensory “impressionist" ethnography (Stoller 1989:154, following van Mannen) that sought to audio-visually capture fleeting manifestations of how climate change is experienced along the estuary. This glimpse was coupled with data sonification based on the IPCC’s climate models for the region, turning the overwhelming data-driven scenarios into a more intelligible experience. Can data sonification offer a “panoptic view from above, or from the future” (Helmreich 2016) as it questions representations of climate change scenarios beyond visualised projection? All these materials were eventually complemented with further archival footage and audio clips.
Trailer of Guadiana in Four Movements: https://vimeo.com/741066105
___
COMPLETE FILM FOR CONVENORS ONLY, PLEASE DO NOT SHARE: https://vimeo.com/740012997 p:Limits2022
(Un)imaginable Futures: addressing environmental injustice through co-creative ethnographic methods.
Session 1 Friday 10 March, 2023, -