Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism – Performing Ecology

By Aviva Rahmani

Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism is a systematic way to initiate “environmental triage.” The theory includes strategies to restore degraded environments characterized by 8 premises and 12 procedural actions that draw equally from science and art. In workshop form, it is a methodology that integrates charettes, metaphorical allusions, role-playing embodiment techniques, meditation and discourse to identify small catalytic points to “trigger” ecosystem sustainability. These techniques are presented as experiments contextualized by scientific knowledge, including Geographic Information Systems science (GISc). The goal of these workshops is to create analogs to agent based models used in landscape ecology. The analogs function as “expert systems,” to contribute new knowledge to ecological conservation and restoration work. The workshops for and research into this methodology is a means to rethink how to stabilize transitions in large landscapes at the point of threshold collapse. One of those premises is that it is possible to distinguish and prioritize one “patch” in a landscape system whose restoration might have greater significance to food webs than others. The supposition that a systematically identified ecological patch might leverage significant change to a damaged ecosystem, is analogous to Donella Meadows hypothetical work which helped develop systems theory.

The next Trigger Point Workshop is scheduled:  March 10th 12:00-1:00pm for The Culture of Climate Change, The 10th Annual Nature Ecology Society Colloquium, CUNY Graduate Center, CUNY New York, NY  (USA) – Contact Person: Shawndel Fraser, SFraser@gc.cuny.edu

By Sacha Kagan

Research Associate at the ISCO - Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization (ISKO - Institut für Soziologie und Kulturorganisation), Leuphana University Lueneburg, Sacha Kagan founded the International level of Cultura21, Network for Cultures of Sustainability, as well as the International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation (ASSiST). The focus of his research and cultural work lies in the trans-disciplinary field of arts and (un-)sustainability. Doctor in Philosophy (Leuphana University Lueneburg) with a thesis on the subject of culture, the arts and sustainability under the perspective of complexity ; M.A. in Cultural Economics (Erasmus University Rotterdam) ; and Graduate of Sciences Po Bordeaux (political sciences). For Cultura21, Sacha is also coordinating the eBooks series, the regular updates on our multi-lingual website, the English section of our webmagazine and the work of our Lueneburg-based interns.