Intro

[WL Altman]

HI,

Great to see this. I am an interdisciplinary artist with an emphasis on performance art. In fact I refer to myself as an "interdisciplinary performance artist" when I can get away with it.

My work is drawn to the subject of Climate Change, Global Warming, Consumerism and Climate justice in the face of Corporate and Industrial greed and power. I will be pleased to join the discussions of this group and exchange ideas on the subjects of performance, ecological ontology (just to throw out a term that may or may not exist but represents my outlook at the moment. I should confess right off the recent influence of Timothy Morton and his book "The Ecological Thought." My most recent work - performance-installation - addresses many of Morton's concepts in the context of the history of Landscape Art as a representation of the white, Western-European, imperialist, colonial view of "Nature", "Progress", "National Identity", etc, etc.

Looking forward to constructive exchanges!

WL

[Ashton Kohl Arnoldy]

Hi WL,

Thank you for initiating introductions! I too consider myself an interdisciplinary artist with an emphasis on performance. Yet, because ecology is such a reigning concept for me, I like to imagine that my aspirations  push toward a transdisciplinary form of art, work that unites the ontological, epistemic, and aesthetic at once—performing ecology!

I appreciate you throwing out the term "ecological ontology," it gives us an opportunity to consider what might characterize such an ontology. How does looking through the lens of ecology transform our notion of Being? I tend to align myself with thinkers like Alfred North Whitehead who consider process and relationship as the defining characteristics of ontology, a view that is particularly amenable to ecological thinking. Morton is one of my favorite interlocutors. I've engaged with his though in essay a few times, one of which I have posted here.

Looking forward to ongoing dialogue and the introductions of others!

Warmly,

Ashton