Joseph Masco - “The Six Extinctions: Visualizing Planetary Ecological Crisis Today”
Channel: Center for 21st Century Studies
Date: 2015-05-07

Dr. Joseph Masco (University of Chicago) at the Center for 21st Century Studies "After Extinction" Conference, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. May 2, 2015.

“The Six Extinctions: Visualizing Planetary Ecological Crisis Today”
This paper considers the contemporary visual logics of planetary scale environmental crisis. Engaging an art exhibit curated by Hamza Walker entitled “Suicide Narcissis,” the talk considers artistic and earth science visualizations of extinction, and interrogates the geological science proposal to name industrial age human impacts on planet earth the “anthropocene”. Ultimately, the essay considers the psycho-social problematics of considering mass death and theorizes the contemporary logics of visualizing a radically changing environment.