Hunting the Key to the World's Climate. Melting Ice and the New/Old “Spirit of Discovery

Text

Vortrag im Rahmen der Reihe SEAconversations, SEA School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai, Indien (#81) The career of "Master of Disaster" Irwin Allen, inventor of numerous fantastic and science-fiction film and television formats, took off after he won the Academy Award for documentary film for his adaptation of marine biologist Rachel Carson's legendary debut book The Sea Around Us (1953). The film ends with a dramatic speculation on melting polar caps and rising sea levels. While it actually has nothing to do with Carson’s book (she refused to sell film rights again afterwards), she did write about rising temperatures in it, stating, "we live in an age of rising seas". Neither Carson nor Allen, however, were aware of climate change. For them, these were natural phenomena, independent of human influence. For Carson, the melting ice was a source for her scientific and poetic curiosity, for Allen the stuff onto which he could project future expeditions on screen. Today, melting ice is at the centre of attention again. Glaciers have become key icons for the climate catastrophe, figuring as endangered species, while ice cores have taught us about the deep time of climate, as they are a direct archive of past atmospheric gasses. At the same time, ice is, again, the setting for numerous expeditions, for research, tourism, and the hunt for resources alike, giving rise once again to the unhindered spirit of scientific discovery, colonial imaginaries, expansionist dreams, technical possibility, and ‘travel’. This becomes especially palpable in the return of the Northwest Passage as a key site and narrative in this. In this talk I want to look at the current fascination for everything oceanic and aquatic – including the ice – in sciences, economics, geopolitics, and in the arts alike, and to grapple with this new/old “spirit of discovery”, where poetics, engineering, and public relations meet, cultivating a sense of futurity – while also destroying it.

Titel der Veranstaltung

SEA Conversations

Veranstalter*in