[spectre] EE Journal #2, 2017: BEYOND NATURE

[Zane Cerpina]

EE Journal #2, 2017: BEYOND NATURE
www.eejournal.no

We are happy to announce the new EE Journal issue #2, 2017: BEYOND NATURE

Nature is no thing natural. Our definitions of nature borrow too much from
theology (Bruno Latour). Nature is no thing new, yet always novel as we
create and re-create it through and for our concepts of it. Nature is dark,
infected by our even darker desires and hyperbole fantasies of a
hypothetically ‘natural condition’ (Timothy Morton). What is the role of
the artist in the Anthropocene? If not to destabilize nature as some thing
natural? If nature does not exist, the arts is a playground to experiment
with it. Dissect and recreate it. In twisted, dangerous and dark ways that
challenge society’s need for a superficial consensus of conform
group-think. Undoing ‘nature’ might make art bad and artists be bad guys.
That is good. As otherwise someone else will be the genuinely bad guys.
(Oron Catts) Given that role, how much are artists willing to sacrifice?
(Kirsty Kross, p. 80) Or will they sell their souls? (Catts, p. 6) Most
artists would like to change the world into a better place. But most of all
they want to change it. (Richard DeDomenici, p. 40) Thus putting ethics
into the forefield of art.

With this as its backdrop, EE #2 moves Beyond Nature, investigating
experimental and emerging ways of understanding as well as making
art/nature. This issue visits not just hybrid, but also parasitical ways of
doing art in times of danger and apocalyptic visions. In the current
ecological and socio-political crisis, the function of the artist emerges
as more critical than ever. The artists represented in issue #2 respond to
the crisis through different forms and expressions. Some, like Kenneth K.
Langås (p. 56), through extremely physical music, others physically
exhaustive like Kirsty Kross in her cross-species performance (p. 80), or
going naked as in Max Dovey’s striptease algorithm (p. 36), and
collectively artists organize themselves in world class symposia and
international forums such as Transmediale (p. 18) and HYBRID MATTERs (p.10).

Like art, it is not about what the world is, but all it can be. EE
consequently goes Beyond Nature to further explore that experimental
attitude so urgently needed.

WELCOME TO THE BIGGER PICTURE
OF WHAT ART CAN BE.
ONE MAGAZINE AT A TIME.

www.eejournal.no
www.facebook.com/eejournal.no/
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