Aesthetics of Sustainability: A Transdisciplinary

Sacha KaganAesthetics of Sustainability: A Transdisciplinary Sensibility for Transformative Practices 65

Aesthetics of Sustainability: ATransdisciplinary Sensibility forTransformative PracticesSacha Kagan, Institute of Cultural Theory, Research, and the Arts (IKKK/ICRA) Leuphana University Lueneburg,Germany, Email: [email protected]

Contemporary western societies are marked bysymptoms of a culture of unsustainability,rooted in problematic modes of knowing re-

ality, across social systems, whether in the sciences,arts or other fields. Transdisciplinary researchersacross the world are already aware of these issuesand working on resolving them. To contribute tothese efforts and focus on a perspective which poten-tial may have been receiving too little attention sofar, this article is introducing how a sensibility totransdisciplinarity and complexity can inform aes-thetics of sustainability, and why this matters for aglobal (environ)mental transformation process. Therelevance of this approach is discussed with the fieldof ecological art and the practice of walking.Keywords: sustainability, transdisciplinary sensi-bility, culture of unsustainability.

1 Introduction

How can a sensibility to transdisciplinarity and com-plexity, inform aesthetics of sustainability? Whydoes this matter, for a global (environ)mental trans-formation process towards more sustainable soci-eties? Systems thinking and a transdisciplinary un-derstanding of complexity may contribute to healthe fragmentation of our modern modus cognoscendi,and engage us into cultures of sustainability. But

this also requires specific aesthetic experiences. Thesought-after experiencing of reality implies a more-than-conscious mode of knowing. Knowing shouldbecome a way of connecting ourselves with the com-plex world around us. This connecting asks for theinvolvement of body and soul, and of all the hu-man senses in an integrated way. Specific artisticpractices, such as ecological art, and everyday-basedpractices,such as walking, illustrate the relevance ofaesthetics of sustainability.

2 PART 1: From a Culture ofUnsustainability to Culture(s) ofSustainability

The notion of “unsustainability” characterizes themulti-dimensional dimensions of the contemporaryglobal crisis of civilization. Most authors writing onthis crisis are highlighting its environmental, socialand economic dimensions. Fewer authors discuss itscultural dimensions. Among the latter, one majordimension of the contemporary culture(s) of unsus-tainability which is being discussed, is the problem-atic character of modernity’s dominant modes ofknowing reality (besides other, related dimensionssuch as consumer culture).

Problematic aspects of modernity’s modi

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & ScienceISSN: 1949-0569 online, c©2010 TheATLAS

Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011

doi: 10.22545/2011/00014


cognoscendi include:

• traditional, non-contradictory logic operatingat single levels of reality (as opposed to a dia-logic informed by several levels of perceptionsaddressing several levels of reality as well asmultiple jumps in logical types within singlelevels of reality) [1];

• the fragmentation of human understandingacross disciplines, and across social sec-tors/systems, with strongly autopoıetic (i.e. self-referential and self-(re)producing) tendencies ofmodern social systems [2-4];

• excesses of disembodied, abstracted knowledge,short-circuited knowledge reduced to what isdeemed instrumentally efficient by purposiveconsciousness [5, 6];

• and an overall simplification of knowing,whether in the form of “disjunctive thought”(i.e. knowing through the parts) or whether inthe form of a holistic simplification (i.e. know-ing through the whole)1.

Edgar Morin denounced three basic modes of sim-plifying thought:“to idealize (to believe that realitycan be reabsorbed in the idea, that the intelligiblealone is real); to rationalize (to want to enclose re-ality in the order and the coherence of a system, toforbid it all overflow outside the system [...]); to nor-malize (that is to say to eliminate the strange, theirreducible, the mysterious)” [7]. Gregory Batesonwarned us of the limited and harmful rationality ofpurposive consciousness, which installs shortcuts inthought and offers an appealing “bag of tricks” fortechno-scientific developments, but leads us to forgetthat ecosystems are also part of our mental systems[5, 8].

Sustainability, understood as a search process,should address all dimensions of unsustainability,including its cultural dimension. Sustainability hasbecome a widely used keyword, since the BrundtandCommission introduced “sustainable development”in policy discourse (i.e. development that “meets the

1I am here only very superficially touching at these issuesand notions, assuming them to have become commonknowledge for transdisciplinary researchers reading thisjournal. For a more detailed discussion, following insightsfrom Gregory Bateson [5, 7], Jacques Ellul, Edgar Morin[8, 16], Niklas Luhmann [19], Basarab Nicolescu [1], andDavid Abram [14], among others, see Kagan [10].

needs of the present without compromising the abil-ity of future generations to meet their own needs”).The word has several contradicting definitions, de-pending especially on whether one wants to stress“limits to [economic and industrial] growth” or one be-lieves in technology’s miraculous power to infinitely“substitute” non-renewable natural resources. Froma cultural perspective, sustainability can be under-stood as the search for alternative sets of valuesand knowledge of the world, reforming the modicognoscendi and founding an understanding of pat-terns that connect the economic, social, political,cultural & ecological dimensions of reality. The cul-tural dimension has thus a foundational value forthe whole search process of sustainability.

Sustainability, which is not a fixed ‘utopia’ butas a search process for dynamic balance, unfoldsitself differently according to the specific contexts,allowing the emergence of resilient cultural-naturalhypercomplex systems.

These two key notions, resilience and emergence,require some explanation:

Resilience refers to a system’s capacity to endure,withstand, overcome, or adapt to changes from the“outside” or from the “inside” environments. In otherwords, resilience points at the ability to survive onthe long term by transforming oneself in relationshipwith one’s environments (dynamically overcoming,rather than statically resisting change). Resiliencenecessitates the preservation of diversity (i.e. bothbiodiversity and cultural diversity) and is relatedto learning from the unexpected. Such learningrequires what I called an ”autoecopoıetic” opennessand flexibility [9, 10], implying a great degree of thatform of sagacity that the English language namedserendipity.

An autoecopoıetic system is creatively open, andsensible, to environmental disturbances, whereas amerely autopoıetic system (a-la Luhmann) can onlybe disturbed by already recognized environmentalirritations. Autoecopoıesis allows ‘emergence’, orin other words, the unexpected. When a systemis autoecopoıetic instead of just autopoıetic, it isco-constructed by itself and by its environment, i.e.by other systems, thanks to its evolutionary plastic-ity (instead of setting and designing autistically itsdevelopment paths).

The concept of emergence points at the creationof a new logic at the level of a system, wherebyno analysis of the interactions between the different


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


constituents of the system, can suffice to accountfor the arising of coherent and novel structures atthe level of the whole system. Emergence is theengine of complex, unpredictable evolutions in na-ture and in societies. The logic of emergence ischaotic, bottom-up and rhizomatic (a rhizome isa polycentric/acentric network: e.g. roots of bam-boo), as opposed to the constrained, top-down andhierarchic logic of human design and of modernisticdevelopment.

However, emergence does not only bring new qual-ities to the whole system and to its parts. Sayingonly that “the whole is more than the sum of itsparts”, would be holistic simplification. Emergencealso suppresses certain qualities of the parts, o ‘vir-tualizes’ them, under the new constraints imposedby the emerging structures; and emergence does notpreclude the existence of rich and complex tensionsbetween different parts, and between the parts andthe whole system [7, 11].

This is leading us to the importance of genuinelyunderstanding and dealing with complexity, in orderto address the problematic aspects in our modes ofknowing reality. Required is an ecological literacyof nature’s dynamic webs of life [12, 13], which isrooted in a literacy of complexity. Edgar Morin’sapproach to complexity, away from both the sim-plification of reductionism and the simplification ofsystemic holism, introduces the possibility to thinkunity and diversity alongside each other, and to thinkabout any pair of terms, with a combination of unity,complementarity, competition and antagonism, al-together forming a complex relationship and callingforward a dia-logical thinking process.

As introduced after Nicolescu, dia-logics is whatallows genuine transdisciplinarity: complementingand overtaking the limits of disciplinary thinking(based on linear logic and the “principle of the ex-cluded third”), with the bridging of different “lev-els of reality” whereby a “principle of the includedthird” is operating. Only then can the paradigmof simplicity be overcome, and macro-concepts beconstructed, such as Morin’s eco-auto-organization(which explores the complex organizational relation-ships between individual life forms and the ecosys-tems in which they co-evolve and eco-evolve), andautoecopoıesis (which points at systems operatingin ways creatively sensible to chaos - i.e. having acertain productive openness to disturbances). Suchcomplexity is embedded in everyday life. It is much

more present in life forms than in the most elaboratecybernetic system, in daily language than in formallanguage, in informal social networks than in formal,top-down organizations.

But what does this all have to do with art andwith aesthetics?

3 PART 2: Aesthetics ofSustainability

Since the summer 2010, the ecological artist DavidHaley keeps repeating to his audiences this one sen-tence: “We must learn, not to be afraid of com-plexity!” This has become one of his, and also ofmy favorite sentences. To achieve this, we need aes-thetics of sustainability, which have to be based onan autoecopoıetic sensibility to the environmentscomplex and dynamic webs of life and to the social,political and economic complexities of contemporarysocieties. My argument has several roots, which Iam summarizing below, but are described at morelength elsewhere [10]:

According to David Abram [14] historical societiesbased on phonetic alphabets, and especially mod-ern (industrial and post-industrial) societies, havenumbed and suffocated a whole dimension of thehuman sensibility, which was and is still vibrantamong some indigenous peoples: the sensibility tothe intelligence of the non-human–and the capacityto bridge perceptions with the non-human–the en-vironment’s complex and dynamic webs of life. Weneed to re-discover this numbed reflexive sensibility,which the arts and culture may play a fundamentalrole in re-awakening.

When using the term ‘aesthetics’, I am takingas a basis, John Dewey’s understanding of aesthet-ics as experience, pointing at personal affectivity ineveryday life and at a human being’s overall interre-lationship with his/her environment. “Experience isthe result, the sign and the reward of that interac-tion of organism and environment which, when it iscarried to the full, is a transformation of interactioninto participation and communication” [15].

Another root of my approach is the movement ofecological art, which developed the notion of “eco-logical aesthetics” as aesthetics that pays attentionand respect to the own complex dynamics of naturalphenomena in their relationships to human interven-tions, and that wants to highlight these aspects inthe artistic working process. In other words, the


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


“ecological aesthetics” aims to highlight the form andmeaningfulness of natural processes (i.e. complexprocesses of eco-auto-organization, as theorized inMorin [2, 16]). Ecological aesthetics is “insepara-bly linked with the idea that ultimately everything,nature and culture as well, and thus man and hishabitat, are connected in an infinite, diverse systemsof relationships” [17]. This idea emerged togetherwith the ecological movement of the late 20th century,and allowed to move beyond a Romantic dichotomybetween a pristine nature and an extra-natural hu-man culture, and the Modern opposition betweenprimitive nature and civilized culture. “In the courseof the growing ecological understanding that did notstart until the late sixties, man came to perceivehimself as an integral part of a set of connected,natural and cultural eco-systems, and thus also partof the nature surrounding him” [17]. Strelow locatesthe emergence of this idea in art in the movementfrom “Land Art” to “Art in Nature”: indeed thelatter, unlike the former, “do not just seek stimulusfrom nature, but build her as a partner, as theirfellow creator”. Ecological aesthetics points at “thetraces of this interpenetration of nature and culture”[17]. Because culture is part of nature, “within art,an ‘ecological aesthetic’ would be a reflexive, so-cially and environmentally shaping activity”, arguedHerman Prigann [17].

These authors further discuss the notions of diver-sity, inter- & transdisciplinarity, and social transfor-mation (as developed in Joseph Beuys’ concept of“social sculpture”), as dimensions of ecological aes-thetics. They also point at openness to uncertaintiesoutside the art world. This is a very important ele-ment: The understanding of complexity, in natureand in human society, requires such an opennessto uncertainties and to the agitations of disordersoutside the organized fields of art worlds.

The sociologist and philosopher Jacques Leenhardtis explicitly pointing at the “ecological idea” forits introduction of “complexity and the interactionof causalities [into] the circle of artistic disciplines,whose unduly confined framework it opens up”. Inother words, he argues that the ecological idea, asin “ecological aesthetics”, offers to the art worldsthe opportunity to leave the orbit of a culture of un-sustainability. But this opportunity does not comewithout challenges: Leenhardt, in his discussion ofthe insights of the “ecological idea” to art, warnsabout the consequences of such insights for artistic

practices and the kind of aesthetic experiences thatare to be expected: These can no longer be limitedto merely local objects and relations, but must re-late them to wider contexts: “the new interest incomplex causalities leads to increased attention toglobal connections rather than spatially limited sit-uations that cannot carry the real driving forces ofthe phenomena within them. [...] Objects of eco-logical aesthetics are not permitted small frames ofreference” [17].

Aesthetics of sustainability should not merelybased on a holistic sensibility, over-emphasizing theunity and integration of the biosphere or universe[18], replacing the disjunctive paradigm of modernitywith a simplistic ‘New Age’ paradigm, but rathershould be attentive to complexity, i.e. combiningand contrasting unity, complementarity, competition,and antagonism. Or in Edgar Morin’s words: “Thesystems sensibility will be like that of the musical earwhich perceives the competitions, symbioses, inter-ferences, overlaps of themes in one same symphonicstream, where the brutal mind will only recognizeone single theme surrounded by noise” [2]. Such asensibility to complexity, and experience of complex-ity, is what I’m exploring as constituting the verycore of aesthetics of sustainability, together withGregory Bateson’s understanding of aesthetics:

For Bateson, the aesthetic is that which is “respon-sive to the pattern which connects” [8]. He definedthe “aesthetic preference” of a mind, as being “ableto recognize characteristics similar to their own inother systems they might encounter” [8]. A typicallyaesthetic question, would be “How are you relatedto this creature? What pattern connects you to it?”Bateson gave the illustration of a group of art stu-dents to whom he once asked to explain why a deadcrab being displayed, used to be a living thing, (thestudents were asked to find answers by just lookingat the dead crab, and to do as if they had neverseen a crab before). The students moved from theobservation that the crab showed some symmetrybetween its parts (left/right), to the observation thatthe symmetry was not absolute (e.g. one claw biggerthan the other), to the conclusion that there existeda similar relation between parts, in the case of onecrab (“both claws are made of the same parts”) aswell as in the crab/lobster comparison and (crab-lobster)/human comparison. They “discarded anasymmetry in size in favor of a deeper symmetry informal relations” [8].


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


Bateson called these patterns within the crab, firstorder connections. The pattern connections betweencrab and lobster, he called second-order connections,or what biologists call “phylogenetic homology”. Fi-nally, he pointed at the pattern which connects thepatterns connecting, on the one hand, the crab andlobster, and on the other hand, the human being andhorse. This comparison of comparisons is labeled asthird order connections. These three levels of connec-tions, and of perception-conceptualization of connec-tions, are pointing at three different “logical types”(to use Bateson’s terminology, after Bertrand Russell;or different “levels of organization” to rephrase intoNicolescu’s terms), i.e. different levels of functioningof systems within systems.

This movement illustrated by the arts students’progression in the example, of pattern recognitionsacross different levels, is what Bateson proposed asthe way to think about “the pattern which connects”:“The pattern which connects is a metapattern. It isa pattern of pattern” [8].

For Bateson, a strong aesthetic sense is a height-ened responsiveness to this meta-pattern unitingthe living world, rather than an arrested perception,stumbling upon the first-order or second-order dif-ferences between elements of the living world. Toprevent a misreading of Bateson here: The differ-ences are indeed what allows the mind to emerge, sothat it can perceive the differences, so of course Bate-son’s argument here is not against the perception ofdifference, but against a perception that satisfies it-self with the fact of superficial difference and hindersthe pursuit of the mind’s aesthetic probing of theworld around itself, i.e. a probing for connectionsacross differences.

For Bateson, the aesthetics of the pattern whichconnects is that which can provide a sense of aes-thetic unity (and, I would add, an ecological ethics inthe same process) that modern societies are criticallylacking. This aesthetic lack is an epistemologicallack: “our loss of the sense of aesthetic unity was,quite simply, an epistemological mistake” [8].

I am however departing from Bateson insofar as hedefines aesthetics, in general terms, as that which is“responsive to the pattern which connects”. But aes-thetics may not always be “connective” to the fullestextent described by Bateson. Indeed, an aestheticexperience can exist, which does not reach the levelof “third-order connections” and the generality ofthe unity of all life forms described by Bateson, and

which satisfies itself with a unity of meanings and val-ues (in Dewey’s sense) with a narrower scope / at amore limited range. In a Luhmannian sense [19], theexistence of more exclusively autopoıetic aestheticexperiences should be acknowledged, as a challenge.The aesthetics described by Bateson should then bequalified as characteristic of aesthetics of sustainabil-ity, rather than of aesthetics in general. Aestheticsof sustainability is to be understood as a subset ofaesthetics as understood by Dewey, i.e. a form ofrelation and process-centered aesthetics, which basesitself on a sensibility to patterns that connect atmultiple levels.

Coming back to Morin: The insights from com-plexity theories point not at a holistic sensitivitywhich would only perceive complementarities andsymbiosis, but:

• a complex sensitivity that perceives as muchantagonisms and competitions as complemen-tarities and symbiosis, and that transcends thecontradictions so as to reveal the complementarytension of antagonism and complementarity;

• a sensitivity to wholeness and order that alsoperceives and values disorder, disharmony, aswell as uncertainty, and that respects genesicchaos.

Such a sensibility to complexity is more rele-vant to Dewey’s understanding of aesthetics thana solely holistic sensibility fixed on harmony. In-deed, Dewey’s characterization of the aesthetic ex-perience as an experience of unity should not bemisunderstood as a search for permanent contempla-tion. Rather, as Richard Shusterman explains, “forDewey, the permanence of experienced unity is notonly impossible, it is aesthetically undesirable; forart requires the challenge of tension and disruptivenovelty and the rhythmic struggle of achievementand breakdown of order” [20]. Tensions and con-flicts are recognized as harboring potentialities fornew levels of unity. Dewey’s position echoes, at anaesthetic level, with Stephane Lupasco’s logic of con-tradiction as applied by Nicolescu across levels ofperception and levels of reality.

Understood in this way, aesthetics of sustainabil-ity highlight the beauty of the complementarity ofantagonisms (which is also crucial to democracies[10]). This sensibility was already present in severalfragments of Heraclitus on aesthetics, such as thefollowing:


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


“That which is in opposition is in concert,and from things that differ comes the mostbeautiful harmony.” Heraclitus (Aristotle,Eth. Nic. 1155b 4 ; frg. B 8 Diels)2

“[People] do not understand how thatwhich differs with itself is in agreement:harmony consists of opposing tension, likethat of the bow and the lyre.” Heraclitus(Hippolytus, Refut. IX g; B 51 Diels)

One shall also be open to chaos (i.e. the chaos ofchaos theories, not the chaos of Lyotard’s postmod-ernism) as a genesic source for generativity. Life’s“creative evolution” emerges not from computationalcapacities alone, but from the ability to deal withdisorder and ambiguity as genesic forces [16]. Also,an aesthetics of sustainability, which is open to thegenerativity of chaos, implies a sensibility to emer-gence (as showed e.g. by the practices of ecologicalartists who do not try to control fully the naturaland social processes with which they work).

4 PART 3: Transformative PracticesInformed by Aesthetics ofSustainability

I will now come back to a focus on ecological art,which is one of the most interesting art movementsfrom the perspective of aesthetics of sustainability.Ecological art emerged from the late 60’s in North-America and West Europe. It gradually constituteditself into a movement, and developed the notionof “ecological aesthetics” which I already mentionedabove. Ecological art finds its roots and inspirationsin the works of pioneers and precursors such as HelenMayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, Hans Haacke,Joseph Beuys, and Mierle Ladermann Ukeles. Its cur-rent practitioners include Patricia Johanson, ShelleySacks, David Haley, Aviva Rahmani, Insa Winkler,Lynne Hull and Betsy Damon, among others [10].According to a common statement written by the‘ecoartnetwork’ (an international network of eco-artpractitioners), ecological art “embraces an ecologicalethic in both its content and form/materials. Artistsconsidered to be working within the genre” subscribegenerally to one or more of the following principles:

2Quotes from Heraclitus taken from Tatarkiewicz et al.(2006), pp. 88-89.

• Attention on the web of interrelationships inour environment–to the physical, biological, cul-tural, political, and historical aspects of ecolog-ical systems.

• Create works that employ natural materials, orengage with environmental forces such as wind,water, or sunlight.

• Reclaim, restore, and remediate damaged envi-ronments.

• Inform the public about ecological dynamicsand the environmental problems we face.

• Re-envision ecological relationships, creativelyproposing new possibilities for co-existence, sus-tainability, and healing.3

For example, Helen and Newton Harrisons’ LagoonCycle (1972-1984), which was one of the foundingworks for ecological art, brought together an artis-tic inquiry and a thorough scientific work on thecomplexity of ecosystemic conditions necessary forsustaining the breeding cycle of a specific species ofcrab (a work for which they also received a sciencegrant). The LC (Lagoon Cycle) is an exemplarywork of ecological art because it weaves togetherpatterns of ecosystemic, socio-economic and techno-logical complexity, and of inter-personal learning, ina strikingly insightful way.

The LC unfolds a contradictory narrative, withan exchange between a “Lagoon-Maker” proposingtechnological solutions for ecosystemic restoration,and a “Witness” critically assessing and question-ing these proposals. These two main charactersare looking into the conditions necessary for sus-taining the breeding cycle of a specific species ofcrab from Sri Lanka, under technologically modified,human-controlled conditions in California. Alongtheir quest for understanding and control, they en-counter several difficulties, as well as very peculiarthird characters, who constitute ideal-types charac-terizing the Sri Lankan society and culture, as wellas US American / ‘Western’ society and the workingof our market economy.

The Lagoon-Maker and the Witness’ learning pro-cess is experienced in a dialogue that spans over7 parts (7 ‘lagoons’), unfolding reflexively as well

3Source: internal communication on the ‘ecoart’ networkmailing-list, in preparation for eventual wikipedia entries(accessed: November, 2011). See www.ecoartnetwork.orgfor more information about this network.


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


as epically with a number of realized and imaginedexperiments with the crabs. Starting with a visitto Sri Lanka (in the first part), and ending witha poetic vision of the “graceful withdrawal” of hu-manity faced with global climate change, the workachieves a transversality that connects the local withthe global, the short-term with the long-term, theculture-in-nature of Sri Lanka and culture-partly-apart-from-nature of the contemporary US.

As remarked by Marga Bijvoet [21], the LC “cre-ate[s] a ‘world’ that reaches out into many differentregions’ (territories, disciplines, space and time, etc.)both real and imaginative [... which] can be per-ceived in relationship to one another, including theartists themselves. These relationships, however, aresubject to processes, and to change [... and] relativepositions come forth in the dialogues/discourses be-tween the two protagonists in their views of structureand content vs. process and context”.

Furthermore, the LC works towards a way of think-ing that is less atomistic, and more relational, andthe attention to these relations is what characterizesthe art of the Harrisons, as Michel de Certeau arguedin the catalog of the 1985 exhibition of the LC [22].

Beyond the single example of the LC, about theevolution of the work of the Harrisons over the past4 decades, Marga Bijvoet observed: “The small-scale portable farming pieces extended into planningwhole ecosystems. What were at first personal ex-plorations in search of a new art form, developedinto large-scale research projects into global survivalplans, with proposals and plans, collaborative ac-tions and political and social discourse” [21]. In2004, the Harrisons themselves characterized theirwork as “address[ing] the co-evolution of biodiver-sity and cultural diversity most often, though notalways, at watershed scale. [...] We believe that in awell-functioning system, cultural diversity and bio-diversity exist in a state of mutual interaction–theformer self-conscious and able to intend and trans-form, and the latter the pattern of self-organizationfrom which we all spring and to which we all return,and which ultimately determines the possible” [23].

The ecological artist and researcher Tim Collinsfurther described the methods of eco-artists as:4

• “framed in terms of critical thinking ; asinvestigate-ers” and story-tellers of “alter-tales”,

4In total, Collins listed 53 methods items, categorized inthree ensembles: primary, critical and applied [24].

“seek[ing] to identify conflicting and conflictedbelief systems”;

• based on “systems knowledge”: “we ask naturefirst, we seek networks, we try to understand thequestions of scale, and the relationships betweenpattern and connection”;

• introducing into projects an “unorthodox ap-proach” which, while it can be an “instrumentalmethod”, also allows “to open doors and minds”[24].

Aesthetics of sustainability are, however, not onlyrelevant to the practice of ecological art. They alsorelate to very basic and transversal practices of ev-eryday life,such as walking.

Why is the practice of walking especially inter-esting, from the perspectives of a transdisciplinarysensibility, founding aesthetics of sustainability? Inshort, because walking [25-29]:

• stimulates embodied experiencing & learning,embodied action;

• allows contextual perceptions, locally(ecologically–embedded in a real geography &not conveniently virtual), and transversally(moving, exchanging, comparing), at a slowpace, enhancing attention and fosteringserendipity (because walking can be potentiallyiterative, i.e. open to unexpected disturbances);

• bears potentially social and political value, deal-ing with shared spaces and public space;

• may combine exchange & introspection (becauseof encounters with others, and of time given forinner change especially when practicing long-distance walking);

• offers an ordinary experience, accessible to allwho take the time for walking: walking is low-tech rather than high-tech, and it is open tonon elite-wisdoms from all human groups.

In consumer culture, walking is limited to shop-ping spaces, amusement parks and dedicated half-a-day footpaths for the holidays. However, if onetakes the time and effort that some more walking re-quires, and does it with care and attention (and withthe help of walking-based methodologies), one willbe learning, while walking (and observing, smelling,touching, attentively, one’s surroundings), eventually


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


managing to interpret the most subtle and nearly un-noticeable signs on the road sides, readily discoveringwhat one was not looking for.

Walking can become a genuinely transversalmethod for knowing, sensing and changing the re-alities of local communities (and combining artisticand scientific approaches).

Transformation may then also occur, as the re-shaping of the form of reality.

References

[1] Nicolescu, B., 2002. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity.Albany : State University of New York Press.

[2] Morin, E., 1977. La Methode, La Nature de la Na-ture. Paris: Seuil, 1.

[3] Luhmann, N., 1984. Soziale Systeme: Grundrieiner allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main:Suhrkamp.

[4] Luhmann, N., 1986. Okologische Kommunika-tion:Kann die moderne Gesellschaft sich auf okol-ogische Gefahrdungen einstellen? Opladen: West-deutscher Verlag.

[5] Bateson, G., 1973. Steps to an Ecology of Mind,Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evo-lution, and Epistemology. New York: Paladin.

[6] Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M., 1999. Philosophy in theflesh. New York: Basic Books.

[7] Morin, E., 1992. Method Towards a Study of Hu-mankind: The Nature of Nature. New York: PeterLang, 1.

[8] Bateson, G., 1979. Mind and Nature: A NecessaryUnity. New York: Dutton.

[9] Kagan, S., 2010. Cultures of Sustainability and theAesthetics of the Pattern that Connects. Futures:The Journal of Policy, Planning and Futures Studies,42 (10).

[10] Kagan, S., 2011. Art and Sustainability: Connect-ing Patterns for a Culture of Complexity. Bielefeld:transcript Verlag.

[11] Koefoed, O., 2008. Zones of Sustension: an Ex-ploration of Eventality, Culturality, and CollectiveIntuition in Life and Work. In Sacha Kagan andVolker Kirchberg, Eds., Sustainability: a new fron-tier for the arts and cultures, Waldkirchen: VASVerlag fur akademische Schriften, , pp. 59-92.

[12] Capra, F., 1996. The Web of Life: A New Synthesisof Mind and Matter. London: HarperCollins.

[13] Capra, F., 2002. The Hidden Connections: A Sciencefor Sustainable Living. New York: Random House.

[14] Abram, D., 1996. The Spell of the Sensuous. NewYork: Random House.

[15] Dewey, J., 2005. Art as Experience. New York:Perigee, 1934.

[16] Morin, E., 1980. La Methode, La Vie de la Vie. Paris:Seuil, 2.

[17] Strelow, H., Prigann, H., and David, V., 2004. Eds.Ecological Aesthetics: Art in Environmental Design:Theory and Practice. Basel: Birkhauser Verlag furArchitektur.

[18] Laszlo, E., 1996. The Systems View of the World:A Holistic Vision for our Time. Cresskill: HamptonPress.

[19] Luhmann, N., 2000. Art as a Social System. PaloAlto: Stanford University Press.

[20] Shusterman, R., 1992. Pragmatist Aesthetics: Liv-ing Beauty, Rethinking Art, Cambridge: BlackwellPublishers.

[21] Bijvoet, M., 1994. Art as Inquiry: Toward NewCollaborations between Art, Science and Technology.Rotterdam: University of Rotterdam.

[22] De Certeau, M., 1985. Pay Attention: To MakeArt. In Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison,Ithaca, New York: Herbert F. Johnson Museum ofArt, pp. 17-23.

[23] Harrison, H. M. and Harrison, N., 2004.Position Paper. The Monongahela Confer-ence on Post-Industrial Community Develop-ment, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.http://moncon.greenmuseum.org/papers/harrison1.html, accessed: October, 7, 2010.

[24] Collins, T., 2004. Reconsidering the MonongahelaConference. The Monongahela Conference on Post-Industrial Community Development, Carnegie Mel-lon University, Pittsburgh.

[25] Solnit, R., 2001. Wanderlust: A History of Walking.Penguin.

[26] Kagan, S., Ed., 2010. Walking in Life, Art andScience: A few Examples. Lneburg: Leuphana Uni-versity Lueneburg.

[27] Kagan, S., 2010. Walking for Social and Ecologi-cal Transformation. http://www.Culture360.org, ac-cessed: Dec. 14, 2010.


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011


[28] Haley, D., 2010. Steps to an Ecology of Art, or AShort Walk to Complexity. Cultura21 Webmagazine,July 2010.

[29] Ridsdale, L., 2010. Dancing, Debating, Diversity

Drive: On the Way to a Literacy of Complexity.

Cultura21 Webmagazine, October.

About the Author

Dr. Sacha Kagan is Research Associate at the Institute

of Sociology and Cultural Organization (ISKO) and at

the “Global Classroom” project, Leuphana University

Lueneburg (Germany). He founded the International

level of Cultura21, Network for Cultures of Sustainability.

The focus of his research and cultural work lies in the

transdisciplinary field of arts and (un-)sustainability.


Vol. 2, pp. 65-73, 2011

Documents

Aesthetics of Sustainability: A Transdisciplinary