Abstract:

In contemporary society saturated with digital images and memories, environmental yearning transcends human embodiment. If one once had to rise at dawn or climb a mountain to access a 'good view,' such seeking is now augmented through a proliferation of images, descriptions and simulations. Who shall access these images and sort through their promises? How is subjectivity constituted in relation to ideas of nature and environs? Have the landscapes of fantasy ever felt so close, or so far away? This talk approaches fundamental questions of environmental aesthetics through a pair of current exhibitions by the Franco-German collective Troika. Exploring curatorial imperatives and philosophical implications, the talk anticipates the opening of Buenavista, curated by Dehlia Hannah, at the Schirn Kunsthalle on March 6 and the closing and publication of the exhibition catalogue of Pink Noise, co-curated with Nadim Samman, at the Langen Foundation on March 15, 2025. With a focus on the newly commissioned video Buenavista, the presentation examines the co-evolution of a possible artificial intelligence in dialogue with its—our own—environmental imaginaries. 

Bio:

Dehlia Hannah is a curator and Associate Professor of Environmental Aesthetics in Art History at the University of Copenhagen. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University, with specialisations in aesthetics and the philosophy of science. Her research and curatorial practice focus on contemporary artistic engagements with emerging science and technology, as well as cultural responses to environmental crisis. She is editor of the Routledge Handbook of Art and Science and Technology Studies (Routledge, 2021) with Rogers et al., Julian Charrière—Toward No Earthly Pole (Mousse, 2020), A Year Without a Winter (Columbia University Press, 2019), Placing the Golden Spike: Landscapes of the Anthropocene (Milwaukee, 2015) with Sarah Krajewski, and the author of numerous essays including ‘Blackout: A Manifesto’ (e-flux Architecture, 2024). Recent exhibitions include Julian Charrière—Controlled Burn (2022-23) and Troika—Pink Noise (2024-5), co-curated with Nadim Samman at the Langen Foundation, Germany.  Her forthcoming monograph Rewilding the Museum (Hatje Cantz, 2026) considers the museum as a site of restoration ecology and cultural transformation of ideas of nature.

The Research Program Environmental Media and Aesthetics is co-organizer.

Æstetisk Seminar F2025 er tilrettelagt af Mads Krogh og Lynge Stegger Gemzøe, Institut for Kommunikation og Kultur, Aarhus Universitet.