Ecosophical alternative realities

Abstract

Since Western postmodernism sparked awareness and shaped our governance and lifestyle at the turn of the millennium, Global North ecosophies have attempted to grasp the ecological and ontological crises, creating their own performative narratives in the process. Pervasive throughout all modes of thought about our relationship to the world, environmental consciousness is part of political ecologies and contemporary hermeneutics. From design philosophies to laws and representations, everyone has an opinion on how we should manage our biospheres. This has led to the Global South being flooded with Western ethics, which are often hostile to them in the manner of imperialist modes of operation. Even more astonishing is the versatile plasticity of these conceptual changes, which are less disruptive than radical and pursue the same resilient environmental ethics that gave rise to them. Thus, the world of contemporary art is flooded with thinkers of a new ecological esthetic modeled on the genesis of the Anthropocene. The era of neoliberal ecological esthetics in communication design has thus become a soft power advocacy for Western imperialism, much like built environment experts who damage the world they claim to protect. It glorifies a myriad of empowering narratives of the corporate, privileged, wealthy, and educated elite, reminiscent of the aristocrats of past Western imperial empires. In an era of mutating environmental esthetics, we will explore the foundations and issues of these ecosophical alternative realities that perpetuate indifference toward both humans and non-humans. We will also examine how contemporary ecological relativism is leading new generations to disengage from generic communication design and embrace other existence praxis.

Keywords

Environmental narrative / Ecosophical esthetics / Communication design / Alternative reality / Global North and Global South

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