This was a gap that the Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst in the north German town of Oldenburg resolved to close. In their exhibition Ecomedia, the curators brought 20 artists together, for whom the current changes to the ecosystem are a matter of concern. The topics they cover range from the globalised production of foodstuffs and the melting polar ice cap at the north pole to tree planting events like that of Joseph Beuys’ 7,000 Oaks created for documenta 1982 in Kassel, which is now taking place for a second time on the internet in Second Life.
The choice of projects spans a wide range across all genres, from architectural visions to video installations to classic ‘happenings’. Two main strategies emerge. One of them deals with the artistic interpretation of scientific findings – for example data from seismographs or CO2 sensors – while the other uses a more practical participative approach and focuses on the question: “What can we do specifically?” Thus, speaking for many others, the American conceptual artist Natalie Jeremijenko deplores: “Have you ever noticed the flatness of the ‘what you can do’ screen at the end of rousing documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth?”
Like Jeremijenko, most of the artists introduced in the exhibition are trying to bridge the chasm between science, art and everyday life. As the American astrophysicist Roger F. Malina notes in his essay Lovely Weather: Asking What the Arts Can Do for the Sciences, much still remains to be done in this area. Using Leonardo, the society he initiated, Malina has been working for 25 years to achieve a closer interaction and better communication between art, science and society – albeit with only limited success as he himself admits: “To date there have been perhaps no more than 1,000 art-science projects that have not only led to artistic creation but also resulted in a substantial contribution to a scientific research outcome.”
Of course, the question remains as to what extent art should serve science or whether it should be the other way round. But in an age in which the art scene has become almost intolerably commercial and banal, the exhibition and accompanying book Ökomedien/Ecomedia offer a message that is long overdue: there are still goals worth committing oneself to, also – and particularly – in art.