Signposting the Anthropocene

Abstract

‘Signposting the Anthropocene: Air care, poleotolerance and the queering of ecosystem services’ by Alexandra R. Toland, Harriet Rabe von Froreich, and Beate Körner aims at (1) ⁣⁣problematizing the exploitative and anthropocentric framing of Ecosystem Services (ESS) associated with the atmosphere, and (2) exploring the communicative potential of signposting atmospheric change through developing artistic practices that ask what it means to care for air.

From a human perspective, it may be difficult to perceive air as the complex body it is, composed of different gasses and aerosols, pressures and particles, movements and atmospheres. It roams freely and interacts with other bodies such as soil, water, humans and other life forms. Some of these interactions fall under what is considered to be pollution. Air quality equals the possibility for life – and it takes work. There is multispecies labour involved in the manifold interactions with air, such as filtering and cooling, which then make up for livable habitats. The term Ecosystem Services (ESS) is one possible framing to imagine and describe the non-human labor in keeping air ‘beneficial’. However, as we argue, it is a problematic framing, for instance, because of the patriarchal and colonial roots of ‘service’ as a word and concept, which potentially hinder alternative modes of relating to and valuing nature.

This article uses a multispecies approach to explore the agencies of those soliciting and providing ‘air-care services’. To challenge the anthropocentric perspective, we propose to turn to non-human narrators, so-called bioindicators, and pick one specialized in the communicative services of signposting and storytelling: lichen.

What can we learn from these humble, omnipresent and symbiotic organisms which can literally live on air? What practices can we as artist-researchers and ecosystem inhabitants develop, to shift our perspective on what it means to clear the air?

Notes

1 To reflect the composite, symbiotic and multiple nature of lichen, we do not differentiate between plural and singular and use ‘lichen’ as the only grammatical form throughout the text.

2 Beate Körner

3 In the literature, bioindication is considered a cultural ES, providing data on air quality and thus having relevance for science, which is a cultural pursuit of knowledge.

4 Harriet von Froreich

5 See, for example, descriptions of works about air pollution by Amy Balkin, Hanna Husberg and Lingling Zhang in Landau and Toland 2021.

6 Alexandra Toland