Human understanding of the rapidly changing environments of the North and South Poles—and the realities of climate change—has been radically transformed by a host of innovations afforded by the digital technologies. Far Field presents essays from artists and scholars who address the shift in our collective cultural understanding through a selection of the most significant artistic, scientific, technological, and philosophical interpretations of the poles over the past decade. Amply illustrated and including fascinating first person accounts of projects at the poles, this cutting-edge volume will have important implications for contemporary cultural studies and the critical study of climate change.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Jane D. Marsching and Andrea Polli
Chapter 2: Every New Thing: The Evolution of Artistic Technologies in the Arctic—or How Land Arts Came to the Ice
William L. Fox
Chapter 3: Magnets of the Fantastic: The North Pole Observed
Jane D. Marsching
Chapter 4: Pages from the Book of the Unknown Explorer
Judit Hersko
Chapter 5: “Antarctic Diaries” (Excerpts)
Simon Faithfull
Chapter 6: Ground Truth [Focus: The Antarctic Dry Valleys]
Andrea Polli
Chapter 7: London Fieldworks: Polaria Fieldwork and Installation
Joe Joelson and Bruce Gilchrist
Chapter 8: Disappearing Ice and Missing Data: Climate Change in the Visual Culture of the Polar Regions
Lisa E. Bloom and Elena Glasberg
Chapter 9: Between Ecotopia and Ecotage: Polar Media
Peter Krapp
Chapter 10: Nonorganic Life: Frequency, Virtuality and the Sublime in Antarctica
Susan Ballard
Chapter 11: Inhabiting the Extreme or Making Antarctica Familiar
Annick Bureaud
Chapter 12: Voices, Lines, Cracks and Data-Sets: Formations of a New “Idea of the Canadian North”
Leslie Sharp
Chapter 13: Airspace [Focus: McMurdo Station, Antarctica]
Andrea Polli
Chapter 14: Systemness: Towards a Data Aesthetics of Climate Change
Tom Corby
Notes on Contributors