The imaginary worlds of sustainability: observations from an interactive art installation

• Main Authors: Roy Bendor, David Maggs, Rachel Peake, John Robinson, Steve Williams
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Resilience Alliance 2017-06-01
• Series: Ecology and Society
• Subjects: art; cultural dimensions of sustainability; imagination; ontological agency; social constructivism
• Online Access: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss2/art17/

We report on preliminary results from a public engagement project based on a procedural approach to sustainability. The project centered on an interactive art installation that comprised a live actor, an immersive soundscape featuring a handful of different characters, an interactive touch-table, and four interactive rooms within which participants wandered, partially guided by a narrative through-line, yet at the same time left to make sense of any larger meanings on their own. The installation was designed to experiment with two propositions: (1) that there is value in public engagement with sustainability based on the exploration and articulation of deeply held beliefs about the world - the worldviews, values, and presuppositions that mediate perception and action; (2) that there is value in replacing the infocentric tendency of most public engagement on sustainability with an approach premised in aesthetics and experiential resonance. Following the installation's two-week pilot run, our preliminary results indicated that the majority of participants found the experience both resonant and thought provoking, and were mostly willing to critically engage with their pre-existing notions of sustainability.