TY - BOOK AU - Houser,Heather TI - Infowhelm: environmental art and literature in an age of data T2 - Literature now SN - 9780231547208 AV - NX650 .I546 2020 PY - 2020/// CY - New York PB - Columbia University Press KW - Environmentalism in art KW - Environmentalism in literature KW - Arts, Modern KW - Themes, motives KW - Global environmental change KW - Information behavior KW - Science and the arts KW - Electronic Books N1 - 2; Intro --; Table of Contents --; Introduction: Environmental Art in the Infowhelm --; Part I. Cultural Climate Knowledge --; Preface --; 1. Making Data Experiential --; 2. Coming-of- Mind in Climate Narratives --; Part II. The New Natural History --; Preface --; 3. Classifictions --; 4. Visualizing Loss for a "Fragmented Survival" --; Part III. Aerial Environmentalisms --; Preface --; 5. Environmental Aftermaths from the Sky --; Epilogue: Can Thinking Make It So? --; Acknowledgments --; Notes --; Works Cited --; Index; 2; b N2 - "How do artists and writers engage with environmental knowledge in the face of overwhelming information about catastrophe? What kinds of knowledge do the arts produce when addressing climate change, extinction, and other environmental emergencies? What happens to scientific data when it becomes art? In Infowhelm, Heather Houser explores the ways contemporary art manages environmental knowledge in the age of climate crisis and informational overload. Houser argues that the infowhelm-a state of abundant yet contested scientific information-is an unexpectedly resonant resource for environmental artists seeking to go beyond communicating stories about crises. Infowhelm analyzes how artists transform the techniques of the sciences into aesthetic material, repurposing data on everything from butterfly migration to oil spills and experimenting with data collection, classification, and remote sensing. Houser traces how artists ranging from novelist Barbara Kingsolver to digital memorialist Maya Lin rework knowledge traditions native to the sciences, entangling data with embodiment, quantification with speculation, precision with ambiguity, and observation with feeling. Their works provide new ways of understanding environmental change while also questioning traditional distinctions between types of knowledge. Bridging the environmental humanities, digital media studies, and science and technology studies, this timely book reveals the importance of artistic medium and form to understanding environmental issues and challenges our assumptions about how people arrive at and respond to environmental knowledge"-- UR - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2296524&site=eds-live&custid=s3260518 ER -