Arctic energy image: hydrocarbon aesthetics of progress and form

ABSTRACT

In this article, I consider how modernization discourse on Arctic energy development is now taking shape through a visual aesthetic system. I focus on one advertising campaign promoted by the Norwegian consulting firm Reinertsen, whose visuals aim to transform technical knowledge of energy development into an experience of artistic appreciation. I apply academic perspectives on aesthetic experience to my analysis and contribute with statements I gathered during a two-hour conversation with Geir Suul, Managing Director of Reinertsen, which took place at the Reinertsen headquarters in Trondheim, Norway, January 2016. I frame this discussion within a broader argument of the conditions that give rise to an energy aesthetics regime wherein environmental risk is increasingly disguised through enrollment processes in place for engaging consumers emotionally through marketing techniques aimed at constructing capitalist desire.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy development
• aesthetic practice
• visualizing risk

Acknowledgements

I would also like to thank Traci Speed, Anna Katenbacher, Becca Pincus and Jessica Graybill, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was funded by the National Science Foundation.