Towards an Understanding of Anthropocene Landscapes

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Speaker: 
Axel Braun
Building: 
Nador u. 9, Monument Building
Room: 
201
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - 5:30pm
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Date: 
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm

The Visual Studies Platform and the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University cordially invite you to a public talk by

Axel Braun, IAS fellow, artist and photographer

It’s been 15 years since Paul J. Crutzen coined the term “Anthropocene”. He proposed a new geological epoch that is defined by the impact of human action on our planet. The last 200 years of industrialization and about 12000 years of agriculture have undoubtedly left their marks on land, oceans and atmosphere. Axel Braun has developed an artistic research practice that deals with human-altered landscapes as indicators for changing ideals, structures and processes in society. As an artist Axel understands controversies about large technologies and infrastructure projects as complex discursive fields that need to be mapped – and whose aesthetical qualities merit visualization. His installations aim to provide multi-sensual access to his topics in order to facilitate in-depth experience of rhetoric strategies and visual narratives. In a time that is characterized by the close relation of the paradigm of sustainability and the threat of climate change, he approaches contemporary landscapes as indicators for processes that can be encountered both locally and globally. Apart from reflections on changing ideas of nature, progress or growth, his work provokes questions on power and responsibility. 

Axel Braun is currently an IAS fellow, and an artist and photographer based in Essen and Budapest. He graduated from Folkwang University of the Arts in 2009 and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2010. His research-based projects have been presented internationally, at Hartware MedienKunstVerein (Dortmund), Palais des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Gyeonggi Creation Center (South Korea) and tranzit.sk (Bratislava) among others.

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Visual Studies Platform (VSP) is a cross-disciplinary initiative designed to explore and propose innovative approaches to research and teaching visual imagery in the digital century.

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