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BestsellerE-book
Author Houser, Heather, author.

Title Infowhelm : environmental art and literature in an age of data / Heather Houser.

Publication Info. New York : Columbia University Press, [2020]
©2020

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (viii, 324 pages).
nat Americans
gdr Women
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Series Literature now
Literature now.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Introduction : Environmental art in the infowhelm -- 1. Making data experiential -- 2. Coming-of-mind in climate narratives -- 3. Classifictions -- 4. Visualizing loss for a "fragmented survival" -- 5. Environmental aftermaths from the sky -- Epilogue : Can thinking make it so?
Summary "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"-- Provided by publisher
Biography Heather Houser is associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also codirects the Planet Texas 2050 project focused on climate resilience. She is the author of Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect (Columbia, 2014) and an associate editor at Contemporary Literature.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Environmentalism in art.
Environmentalism in art.
Environmentalism in literature.
Environmentalism in literature.
Arts, Modern -- Themes, motives.
Arts, Modern -- Themes, motives.
Arts, Modern.
Global environmental change.
Global environmental change.
Information behavior.
Information behavior.
Science and the arts.
Science and the arts.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Literary criticism.
Literary criticism.
Added Title Environmental art and literature in an age of data
Other Form: Print version: Houser, Heather. Infowhelm. New York : Columbia University Press, 2020 9780231187329 (DLC) 2019052362 (OCoLC)1128196065
ISBN 9780231547208 (electronic book)
023154720X (electronic book)
9780231187329 (hardcover)
9780231187336 (paperback)
Music No. EB00794412 Recorded Books