Chats in the Stacks: Carolyn Fornoff - Subjunctive Aesthetics

Summary

Dr. Carolyn Fornoff's talk introduces her book, 'Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Cultural Production in the Era of Climate Change,' exploring how art navigates environmental crises, particularly in Mexico and Central America. She discusses the shift from art's evidentiary function to embracing uncertainty and hypothesis, using the subjunctive mood as a metaphor. Fornoff highlights the role of cultural production in challenging extractivist policies and envisioning alternative territorial relations, emphasizing the power of art to generate narratives and values that contest the status quo.

Takeaways

• 🌎 Dr. Carolyn Fornoff's research focuses on cultural responses to environmental crises in Latin America, particularly Mexico and Central America, and how art navigates complex issues like climate change.
• 🎨 Her book, 'Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Cultural Production in the Era of Climate Change', explores how contemporary Mexican filmmakers and writers have shifted from art's evidentiary function to embracing subjunctive registers of hypothesis and uncertainty.
• 🌲 During the 21st century, Mexico has increased extractive concessions while positioning itself as an international leader in combating climate change, leading to a crisis of imagination framed by cultural production.
• 🖌️ Artists grapple with the threat of climate change and extractivist policies to Mexico's present and future, envisioning alternative forms of territoriality and ways of being in relation to the environment through strategies like rewriting and counterfactual speculation.
• 📚 Fornoff's work questions the traditional role of art as a didactic or forensic vehicle for proving environmental damage, instead highlighting the value of doubt, contingency, and imagination in knowledge-making practices.
• 💭 Subjunctive aesthetics, as an aesthetic modality, helps understand how cultural responses to environmental crises mobilize doubt, contingency, and desire to challenge extractive paradigms and imagine alternative ways of living.
• 🌐 The concept of subjunctive aesthetics extends beyond grammatical mood to include the potential and uncertain, inviting listeners or readers to think beyond what is said or written.
• 🌳 The subjunctive mood in art makes the invisible visible, challenging the status quo, and suggesting that the future can be changed through the exploration of 'as if' scenarios.
• 🎭 Performance art, such as Naomi Rincon Gallardo's 'Una Trilogia de Cuevas' (A Cave Trilogy), uses queer aesthetics and counterfactual mourning to highlight Indigenous women's leadership in land defense and imagine new desires and alliances.
• 🌞 The Cave Trilogy by Rincon Gallardo reimagines land defense as outrageous fun and a party, using excess and狂欢 to lift the audience into the imaginative space of potential, reorienting viewers back to the vital life-building work of land defenders.
• 📈 The reception and impact of these artistic expressions vary, with some reaching broader publics and others targeting specific audiences, reflecting the different publics and the varied work these art pieces perform.

Q & A

What is the primary focus of Dr. Carolyn Fornoff's research?

Dr. Carolyn Fornoff's research primarily focuses on exploring cultural responses to environmental crisis in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on Mexico and Central America. She investigates how art can be utilized to navigate or address complex issues such as climate change.

What is the main argument presented in Dr. Fornoff's book, 'Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Cultural Production in the Era of Climate Change'?

In 'Subjunctive Aesthetics', Dr. Fornoff argues that contemporary filmmakers and writers in Mexico have shifted their focus from the evidentiary function of art, which is to prove environmental crisis, towards using subjunctive registers of hypothesis and uncertainty. This shift grapples with imagining the world differently and explores alternative forms of territoriality or ways of being in relation to the environment.

How does Dr. Fornoff define 'subjunctive aesthetics'?

Dr. Fornoff defines 'subjunctive aesthetics' as an aesthetic modality that embraces aesthetic and narrative forms marked by doubt, hypothesis, and speculation. It is an umbrella term for responses that engage with the potential and the uncertain, similar to the grammatical mood of the subjunctive, which does not commit to a singular or fixed truth but encodes the speaker's uncertainty or opinions about the state of things.

What is the contradiction that frames the cultural production in Mexico as a crisis of imagination?

The contradiction that frames the cultural production in Mexico as a crisis of imagination is that while Mexico has escalated extractive concessions, it has also positioned itself as an international leader in the fight against climate change. This contradiction leads to a struggle for alternative imaginations of the world and ways of being in relation to the environment.

How does Dr. Fornoff's book contribute to the understanding of the role of art in environmental crisis?

Dr. Fornoff's book contributes to the understanding of the role of art in environmental crisis by challenging the traditional evidentiary role of art and highlighting the potential of subjunctive aesthetics. It suggests that art can go beyond merely making the environmental crisis visible and can instead engage with doubt, contingency, and desire to imagine and propose alternative ways of living and relating to the environment.

What is the significance of the shift from evidentiary aesthetics to subjunctive aesthetics in cultural responses to environmental crisis?

The shift from evidentiary aesthetics to subjunctive aesthetics signifies a move away from didactic representation aimed at proving the urgency of environmental damage, towards an approach that embraces uncertainty and speculation. This shift allows for a more nuanced and imaginative engagement with environmental crisis, enabling the exploration of alternative narratives, values, and ways of being in relation to the environment.

How does Dr. Fornoff's concept of subjunctive aesthetics relate to the grammatical mood of the subjunctive?

Dr. Fornoff's concept of subjunctive aesthetics is directly inspired by the grammatical mood of the subjunctive, which is used to express uncertainty, potential, and desire for change. Just as the subjunctive mood in language allows for exploration of hypothetical scenarios and alternative possibilities, subjunctive aesthetics in art encourages a similar engagement with doubt, contingency, and the imagination in response to environmental crisis.

What is the role of the subjunctive mood in the context of the environmental crisis as discussed by Dr. Fornoff?

In the context of the environmental crisis, the subjunctive mood, as discussed by Dr. Fornoff, serves as a tool for envisioning alternative realities and possibilities. It allows for the expression of uncertainty and the potential for change, which is crucial in challenging the status quo and imagining different ways of relating to the environment that could lead to more sustainable futures.

How does Dr. Fornoff's work contribute to the broader discourse on climate change and cultural production?

Dr. Fornoff's work contributes to the broader discourse on climate change and cultural production by offering a new lens through which to understand and evaluate cultural responses to environmental crisis. By introducing the concept of 'subjunctive aesthetics,' she expands the conversation to include the emotional, imaginative, and speculative aspects of art and its potential to inspire and enact change in the face of climate change.

What are some of the strategies that artists use, according to Dr. Fornoff, to envision alternative forms of territoriality or ways of being in relation to the environment?

According to Dr. Fornoff, artists use strategies such as rewriting, counterfactual speculation, and embracing doubt, hypothesis, and uncertainty to envision alternative forms of territoriality or ways of being in relation to the environment. These strategies allow them to grapple with the threat posed by climate change and extractivist policies, and to challenge the dominant narratives and imagine different possibilities for the future.

How does the concept of 'un mundo donde quepan muchos, mundos' (a world where many worlds might fit) relate to the idea of subjunctive aesthetics?

The concept of 'un mundo donde quepan muchos, mundos' relates to the idea of subjunctive aesthetics by embodying the principle of multiplicity and the potential for diverse, coexisting realities. This idea aligns with the subjunctive aesthetics' focus on the possible, the uncertain, and the hypothetical, as it suggests that there can be many different ways of understanding and interacting with the world, especially in response to environmental challenges.

What is the significance of the counterfactual mourning practices discussed by Dr. Fornoff in the context of land defense?

The significance of the counterfactual mourning practices, such as the slogan 'Samir Vive' (Samir lives), is that they deny the finality of death and assert the continued existence of other possible worlds. This form of mourning contests the foreclosure of political dissent by extractivism and affirms the vitality and futurity of land defense. It also acknowledges the public's responsibility to the political projects that the deceased land defenders died defending.