Abstract
Keywords:
Climate aesthetics, immersive visualization, virtual environments, turbulence, augmented reality, embodied sense-making, human and nonhuman agents, artificial intelligence, oceanography, wildfires
This paper explores how humans may grapple with the shifting interrelationships within climate-fuelled extreme wildfire behaviour and ocean dynamics, and our own role both feeding and being impacted by these permutations. I briefly investigate existing approaches to climate aesthetics and representations of turbulence, anchoring these to my practice across two immersive visualisation projects, Ocean Explorer and iFire. I argue that traditionally static renderings miss crucial opportunities to support more embodied understandings which leverage more visceral ways of knowing. I reflect on the nature of the ecosystems under examination as complex networks of interrelationships. In doing so, I challenge traditional distinctions between human and nonhuman, machinist and “natural” elements. Ultimately, I prioritise a relational ontology which acknowledges the vitality of these disparate agencies, while recognising asymmetry in power dynamics and the potential for emergent social and terrestrial structures. By displacing the human’s role as subject atop a hierarchy of relations, I underscore the need for a more than human, immersive approach to the aesthetics of turbulent climate extremes.
- Nagida Helsby-Clark is a design researcher and PhD Candidate at UNSW’s School of Art & Design (AU), supported by a scholarship from CSIRO’s Data61 – the data and digital specialist arm of Australia’s national science agency. Her research focuses on im-mersive aesthetics and embodied sense-making for climate ex-tremes. She conducts experimental research across Data61 and UNSW’s iCinema Research Centre, in particular on the ARC- funded iFire Laureate project. Nagida holds a Master in Visuali-sation, Simulation and Immersive Design from UNSW (2021), and has a background as a community organiser and climate-jus-tice advocate.