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economists, moralists and diplomats (Latour, 2004). However, ‘pursu[ing such]
collective experiments in the confusing atmosphere of a whole culture’ without
the arts is a little like baking bread without warmth. Artistic engagement not only
brings experience in engaging ‘the confusing atmosphere of a whole culture’ to
bear but also an inherent capacity for embracing entanglement and
connection as well as the innovative imagination that is the mark of fine art.
This all begs the question as to how such ‘experiments’ are to be configured and
performed? How will their efficacy and ethicality be conceived and collectively
authenticated? This paper contends that resolving these challenges requires that
the collective performing these experiments be extended to embrace broader
civic society. This enables ‘partial perspectives’ to be brought to bear that are
empowered by a specificity granted by location and embodiment and have
the potential to provide ‘more adequate, sustained [and] objective transforming
accounts of the world’ (Haraway, 1995: 182). These arguments are explored
using the example of a number of collective experimental art initiatives focused
upon the achievement of environmental sustainability.
Haraway, Donna (1995) ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege
of Partial Perspective’, in A. Feenberg & A. Hannay (eds), Technology and the Politics of
Knowledge (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press): 175-194.
Latour, Bruno (2003) ‘Atmosphere, Atmosphere’, an entry for the catalog of Olaf
Eliasson, New Tate Gallery, 2003.
Latour, Bruno (2004) Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
(Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press).
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