About this Event
This discussion will explore attitudes and approaches to the natural world under socialism, focusing on the divergent histories of Soviet science, the corrosive legacies of nuclear culture and planetary impacts of militarism. It will address the distinctive forms of knowledge production under socialism as manifest in the development of Soviet scientific thought. What was specific about the version of technological progress and development modelled by scientists and planners in socialist states and what were its environmental implications? What was the contribution of Soviet science to the emergent understanding of the Earth as an interconnected ecological system? The panel will also consider the extent to which scientific inquiry in socialist states was shaped by the demands of Cold War competition, the influence of the military-industrial complex and the prospect of nuclear catastrophe.
In his presentation of Jonathan Oldfield (University of Birmingham) will discuss Soviet scientist Vladimir Vernadsky’s understanding of the biosphere and related concept of the noösphere as the sphere of human thought. Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (Kingston University) will consider the ways in which the Soviet nuclear military-industrial complex is materially preserved, critically reassessed and mythologised as cultural heritage. Artists Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan (SAVA Creative Fellows) will present their project on the Debrisphere, a term they coined to denote the layer of the planet that is transformed by military intervention into aquatic and terrestrial landscapes.
Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA) sets out to radically transform current critical debates around the Anthropocene, addressing the major lacuna in existing accounts by establishing the Socialist Anthropocene as a conceptual framework that asserts the constitutive role of the environmental histories and potentialities of Socialism in the formation of the new geological age. The project is led by Dr. Maja Fowkes (UCL Institute of Advanced Studies) and funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee.
Image: Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, Debrisphere, Landscape as an extension of the military imagination, 2017 - ongoing, mixed-media installation (works on paper, scale models), variable dimensions, © photo David Biro.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
IAS Forum (G17 South Wing), Ground Floor, UCL Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00