Sommer, L. K., and C. A. Klöckner. “Does Activist Art Have the Capacity to Raise Awareness in Audiences?—A Study on Climate Change Art at the ArtCOP21 Event in Paris.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication, July 1 2019, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000247. Accessed 25 September 2020.

In this post, I will contemplate this study’s findings and then post (for my own reference) citations from the article that I may wish to use in the future.

My thoughts on this study

How a piece of artwork dealing with climate change is likely to cause viewers is an essential consideration for me to take when I’m deciding what to create. I don’t want my work to make most people say “we’re fucked” and walk away. I want my work to raise people’s awareness of the seriousness of the climate crisis we’re facing, yes, but I also want them to take action to do something about the situation.

Therefore, when I came across this article, I was excited to find some concrete data on how climate change-related artwork affects viewers. However, before drawing too heavily form this study’s findings in any work or writing I’ll be doing this semester, it is important that I know a bit about the works that were the basis of the study (thanks, Risa, for making this point) and determine how relevant its findings really are to my own practice.

The following is a chart I’ve put together (via lots of copying and pasting from tables 1 and 5) of the 36 art pieces and their creators with hyperlinks to the artworks or the artists body of work added wherever I able to find them:

Cluster 1 (N=8) The Comforting Utopia	Cluster 2 (N=12) The Challenging Dystopia	Cluster 3 (N=13) The Mediocre Mythology	Cluster 4 (N=3) The Awesome Solution
Description: Participatory Playful Topic: Dreams/visions/utopia Colourful Nonart locations	Description: Illustrating technical or artificial objects Dystopian Topic: Destruction and/or death or social oppression Dark colors and use of metal Mostly exhibited in art museum/gallery settings	Description: Illustrating interconnectedness Depicting the world as a whole Themes drawing on methodology Colorful, mixed materials Mostly exhibited in museum/gallery settings	Description: Showing solutions Making cause and effect of human behavior visible Depicting “sublime” nature Colorful Mostly exhibited outside
“Our Vision of the Future” Participatory work, painted by spectators	“Bees of bees” Matthew Brandt	“Climat l’etat d’urgence” (not in table 1)	“Mur Vegetal” Cicia Hartmann
“Oeuvre Ensemble” Véronique Le Mouël	“From the New World” Yang Yongliang	“Drowning World” Gideon Mendel	“Honey Roads” Eric Tourneret
“Ribbon Tree” Participatory work, contributed by spectators	“Still Life” Valerie Belin	“Crystal Ball” Les Radiolaires	“Blue Whale” Un Cadeau pour la Terre, Biome
“Act Responsible” WWF	“Fridge Cube” Les Radiolaires	“Nouveau Monde” Alexis Tricoire
“Kiss Kiss Game” Pixel Carre	“Cloudscapes” Tetsuo Kondo	“Veolia” Veolia, business
“Antarctica Passport Delivery Bureau” Lucy and Jorge Orta	“Pacha Mama” Mamoune The Artist	“Sky over Coney Island” Spencer Finch
“Gaia” Participatory artwork, created by spectators	“Manthan” Manjiri Kanvinde	“Il etait une fois” Chris Morin-Eitner
“Birdman/Dreams/Redemption” Yelena Lezhen	“Ice Watch” Olafur Eliasson	“Venus of the trash Isle” Jave Yoshimoto
	“Breaking the Surface” Michael Pinsky	“Arctic Ice” Lisa Goren
	“Le Film Noir de Lampedusa” Clay Apenouvon	“La Terre” Jisook Min
	“Exit” Paul Virilio (climate change)	“Stoves” Sterling Ruby
	“Unbearable” Jens Galschiot (climate change)	“Climate is on the Wall” Care France Organisation
		“Nervous Trees” Arcangelo Sassolino

(Note: The 37th artwork, “Sertella Septentrionalis,” by Laura Sanchez Filomeno, is not included in table 5 because it “was always the last artwork added to a cluster, hence treated as an outlier and excluded from analysis” (6))

Looking at the sample artists, taking into consideration the limitations noted in the paper (below), I feel as though the “clusters” chosen for this study are sometimes ambiguous, or in other words, that the relation of the works to the these “clusters” is sometimes vague.

For instance, the works in “Cluster 3” are supposed to show/be: “Illustrating interconnectedness; Depicting the world as a whole; Themes drawing on methodology; Colorful, mixed materials.” However, when I look at a sample from this cluster, Gideon Mendel’s series of photographs titled “Drowning World,” I see work that seems to belong more to “Cluster 2: The Challenging Dystopia.”

Similarly, I don’t see how Cicia Hartmann’s “Mur Vegetal” clearly depicts a “solution” (this work is in the “Awesome Solution” cluster). She’s taken what she claims to be found objects she is “upcycling” (I’m suspicious due to their uniformity and how many of the pieces are identical) and presented them as a relief mural of “flowers.”

The authors of the study say that the works in this cluster were not “just depicting the problem, but by offering solutions to the participants as part of the artwork.” I wasn’t at this show in Paris, so I can’t know for certain if Hartmann had some sort of solution to the issue of climate change along with this work. I also can’t see how it depicted “the sublime beauty of certain animals, making cause and effect of human behavior visible” (12). Perhaps the actual work she showed was different from what I’ve been able to find.

Another issue that this article raises is the definition of “climate change art.” Many of these pieces used for this study do not directly connect to the issue of climate change per se, but simply “environmental issues.” For example, I don’t see how “Manthan” by Manjiri Kanvinde addresses climate change:

This raises the point of what exactly is or is not climate change related art. As another example of this issue, the “Blue Whale” piece that is listed as part of “Cluster 4: Awesome Solutions” is a life-size whale that, according to artcop21.com, represents biodiversity:

The blue whale, flagship of biodiversity

“The objective of the Blue Whale Project is to provide the keys to understanding the challenges facing the planet and act for the environment. The public can enter the bowels of the Blue Whale to discover a sensory multimedia exhibition. The voice of the Blue Whale, speaking on behalf of all living beings, alerts visitors to the deterioration of the oceans and more broadly our biodiversity. It will focus on the positive contributions and tracks used to save it. The focus will be on positive and concrete messages to everyone, recalling that it is primarily the addition of good behavior and eco-citizen gestures, multiplied by thousands, millions will be a blessing… for our planet. This project is the culmination of four years of work by many stakeholders involved in the preservation of biodiversity; it has the COP21 official label and part of the operation COP21 Solutions at the Grand Palais.” (source)

Yes, climate change is absolutely having an impact on ocean biodiversity, but so does over-fishing, pollution, and plastic. It seems like some of the works shown at the Cop21 event did not immediately concern climate change but rather a broader set of “environmental issues.”

As for the three works in the “Awesome Solution” cluster overall, I don’t really see how they live up to the author of this study’s description of works that are of “sublime nature,” are “hopeful,” “give viewers a sense of awe,” or would leave viewers “significantly more ‘inspired or hopeful'” (12). I just don’t get it. Maybe I had to be there?

So, these are a couple of the issues I’ve found with this study, and so I’m going to take its conclusions with a grain of salt.

This article aside, I’m looking forward to reading a few of the texts that Katherine Arbuthnott uses in her courses on the psychology of climate change. I know that this is an area of study that will be very relevant to how I proceed with art-making for this MFA. I’m grateful that Katherine shared her syllabi with me, and I’m looking forward to chatting with her about this topic in the near future.

Quotations —

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate whether activist art can have a stimulating psychological effect on its spectators. This question is examined in art specifically related to climate change. With the aim of inspiring public engagement and communicating environmental issues to spark a climate change movement, ArtCOP21 is a global festival that took place simultaneously to the United Nations climate change negotiations (Conference of the Parties [COP21]) 2015 in Paris. Eight hundred seventy-four spectators responded to a questionnaire on their perception of 37 selected artworks. In an explorative study using cluster analysis, characteristics of the artworks were connected with emotional and cognitive audience responses. The analysis of the artworks assigned them to four clusters: “the comforting utopia,” “the challenging dystopia,” “the mediocre mythology,” and “the awesome solution.” As suggested by the name, the “awesome solution” was the cluster of artworks that caused the highest emotional and cognitive activation. Artists and environmental campaigners can use the commonalities of the artworks in this cluster in their own creative work and contribute to our understanding of the impact of activist art. (1)

Environmental activism through art serves thus as a case of “activism through art” in this study, with which we aim to examine the effect activist art has on its audience. Environmental artists have risen to the challenge to address climate change. Nurmis (2016) outlines how climate change art has established itself as a genre that has developed alongside, but separate to, environmental activism. She makes the claim that such art can convey cultural meaning to global warming beyond the current reach of scientific discussions and political discourse. In the present paper, we propose that environmental psychological theory can assist in determining through which psychological mechanisms climate change art affects audiences, and guide artists who care about the impact of their work. (2)

[W]e aim to find commonalities in environmental artworks and relate them to emotional and cognitive variables that have been shown in environmental psychological research to be relevant as predictors of environmentally friendly behavior. (2)

There is much to be gained from such research, especially for campaigners against climate change, creative practitioners, and politicians interested in bringing change to their community. (2)

[W]e assume that emotional reactions can be key in making climate change personally relevant to people and may be an important driver of change. Emotions, such as happiness, have also shown to promote intrinsic motivation and interest, and thereby contribute to create engagement. (2)

Apart from emotions, cognitive responses can be triggered by art experiences (Silvia, 2005) and can become relevant as determinants for environmental behavior. Cognitions and emotions do not exist separate from each other and the order in which they are triggered is often hard to define.  (2)

In the case of art, a shocking piece of visual art can, for example, cause people to react with anxiety, anger, or guilt, dependent on their personal background and state. Thereby, emotions can be conceived as episodes, which change cognitive processing (“What does this artwork mean/tell me?”), motivational aspects (“Does the artwork motivate me to a certain action?”), physiological reactions (sweat, chest tightness, etc.), and maybe even actual behavior (“I will cycle to work tomorrow”). To conclude, we expect that emotions have a key role in the activating process. (3)

Climate change-related cognitions can be of many different kinds. Hulme (2009) argues that climate change is not just a physical entity that shapes our present and future weather conditions, but also holds meaning for culture. Making culture and climate interact “and mutually shape each other” thereby triggers contemplation and reflection in people. Art can, for example, make people aware of the impact of their own behavior (Marks et al., 2017) and reflect on their role within climate change (Curtis et al., 2014). (3)

Moreover, art can illustrate to people why environmental topics are relevant for them in their daily lives, without sounding “preachy” (Neal, 2015, p. 18). (3)

Moreover, art can illustrate to people why environmental topics are relevant for them in their daily lives, without sounding “preachy” (Neal, 2015, p. 18). (3)

His results were that art experiences help to:

(a) improve proenvironmental beliefs, values, and attitudes;

(b) raise awareness of the consequences of certain actions;

(c) form a proenvironmental self-concept;

(d) unfreeze ingrained habits;

(e) form proenvironmental social norms;

(f) build community involvement in proenvironmental activities;

(g) reduce some situational constraints and physical barriers to adopting pro- environmental behavior.

(3)

Research questions (3):

1. Do environmental artworks (as a case of activist art) trigger different profiles in emotional reactions by the audience, which can be grouped in homogeneous clusters?

2. Do these clusters also correspond to differences in climate change-related cognitions and artist perception?

3. To which emotional and cognitive patterns do different characteristics of activist artworks relate? (3)

Artworks in Cluster 1—“The Comforting Utopia” (7)

In order to name the clusters, we combined the emotional and cognitive reactions the participants showed, together with the common characteristics we could identify in the clusters.

Regarding the emotional variables, the “comforting utopia” shows, in comparison to the other clusters, positive emotions values ranging between the highest and lowest cluster, which means the artworks make people relatively “happy,” “hopeful,” and “inspired.” For the negative emotions, the comforting utopia displays the lowest scores, which means the artworks make people feel only a little “guilty,” “sad” and even less “angry” and “anxious.”

For the cognitive variables, the comforting utopia was rated lowest on the perceived quality of the artwork. Participants reported a low level of activation in nearly all cognitive variables, with lowest mean scores for the variables “confrontational,” “reflect,” and “awareness of impacts.” Furthermore, they think of the artists represented in this cluster as “expressing the view of the public,” more than in the other clusters.

Artworks in Cluster 2—“The Challenging Dystopia” (7)

The “challenging dystopia” is the cluster with the weakest positive and the strongest negative emotional reactions reported on average by the participants. Artworks in this cluster make participants the least happy and hopeful, but manage still to “surprise” them. They make the participants feel most guilty, “apathetic,” “sad and disappointed,” “angry,” and “anxious”.

Regarding the cognitive variables, the challenging dystopia was rated third on the perceived quality of the artwork. It stands out by reaching the highest value on the variable “confrontational and shocking,” which is in alignment with the negative emotions the artworks in this cluster are causing. It also reaches high mean values for “challenging social norms,” “art has something unusual and made me stop,” “relevance for daily life,” and “awareness of impact.” Regarding the perception of the artist, the challenging dystopia rated lowest or among the lowest for all the perception of the artist items, indicating that the participants did not identify with the values or intentions of the artists.

Artworks in Cluster 3 —“The Mediocre Mythology” (7-8)

The artwork in the “mediocre mythology” show a relatively “flat” emotional pattern, causing neither strong positive nor negative emotions. The highest mean values for emotional responses in the mediocre mythology are reached for the emotions “sense of

awe” and “sadness and disappointment,” but even these emotions remain second lowest among all clusters.

For the cognitive responses, the pattern is similar, meaning that artworks in the mediocre mythology do not seem to reach explicitly high or low values on any of the cognitive variables, even though the cluster was rated second on perceived quality of the artwork. The highest value was found for the variable “the art has something unusual and made me stop”, which is in alignment with the emotion “sense of awe”. In addition, “showing personal consequences of climate change” scored second highest among clusters, which could be connected to the emotion sadness and disappointment. Concerning the perception of the artist, “the artist has values similar to me” scored second highest among the clusters.

Artworks in Cluster 4—“The Awesome Solution” (8)

The emotional response pattern to the artworks in the “awesome solution” presents the highest values for all positive emotions, while at the same time showing negative emotions ranging between “the dystopian future” and the comforting utopia. The only exception is a peak in “sadness and disappointment”. Regarding the cognitive variables, the artworks in the awesome solution have the highest values for the variables “perceived quality of the artwork,” “the artwork has something unusual and made me stop,” “the artwork highlights personal consequences,” and “highlighting one’s own role within the climate situation.” For the variables describing the perception of the artist, artists behind the works in the awesome solution reach the highest values for “the artist is like me,” “the artist is thinking and living differently than most people,” and “the artist has similar values as me.” This indicates that participants in this cluster perceived themselves to be different from the general population, and similar to the artist.

Characteristics of Artworks
“In order to answer Research Question 3 (To which emotional and cognitive patterns do different characteristics of activist artworks relate?), we looked for similarities among the artworks that constitute the clusters in the final step of the analysis. In order to identify similarities, we used the artwork characteristics rated by the researchers when the survey was conducted. As a method to avoid identifying random characteristics that only one or two artworks in a cluster have, we decided that at least three artworks per cluster (2 in the case of Cluster 4, consisting of only 3 artworks) needed to exhibit a commonality in order to assign it to the cluster. Table 5 gives an overview of the artworks in the clusters and their commonalities.” (5)

Discussion

With this study, we aimed at identifying emotional reaction profiles triggered by activist environmental art and related cognitive responses. We grouped the artworks based on these profiles and studied the common characteristics within each cluster, which might have led to the psychological effects on its audience. We hope to uncover which aspects of activist artworks have the potential to motivate people (to act in a more climate friendly manner). (9)

Limitations of the Study and Further Research

“The selection of the clustering method is based on the resulting dendrograms and theoretical assumptions, and it can be argued that a different clustering method would lead to slightly different clusters. However, the differences between cluster solutions were not substantially different as, for example, artwork No. 25 (Sertella Septentrionalis) was an outlier across all methods. The other possible cluster solutions have been added as online supplementary material to this study (available online). We chose the clustering method, which had the most interpretable cluster solution according to the emotional reactions the participants had to the artworks.” (13)

“Moreover, the postclustering characterization of the artworks and the assignment of common attributes are also qualitative, even though we tried to reduce subjectivity through the standardized artwork characteristics sheet. In addition, the researchers and their assistants were more trained in psychology than in art or art history. Possibly, a description of the artworks by people from the art field could have led to a characterization based on art theory
and history of the artworks and the clusters. Future research should prefer such expert classification. Most research on the perception.” (13)

Conclusion

“Based on the clusters of artworks and, accordingly, the reactions of the participants, we suggest that activist art including environmental art should move away from a dystopian way of depicting the problems of climate change, toward offering solutions, and emphasizing the beauty and interconnectedness of nature. The use of dystopian elements to initially catch attention, but with the remaining solution focused and hopeful, may be even more promising in encouraging action. Moreover, it is important to move out of the institutional space of museums into the public, in order to reach out to a bigger audience, and to avoid the connotation that art is something reserved for the educated part of the population.” (14)

“On the contrary, the fact that only three out of 37 artworks were grouped into the awesome solution deserves some attention. It is not easy to reach an audience, even if the intention of the artist and activist is to do so. It is not enough to simply show the problem in an aesthetic way, but according to characteristics of the awesome solution, it is essential to create a personal connection to the causes and consequences and offer solutions. “Painting things black” and inducing fear is also not the best way to go, since it induces more fear, which reduces motivation (O’Neill, Hulme, Turnpenny, & Screen, 2010). Artists can be positive and negative voices, which emphasize the creative or destructive potential of people and societies. We were able to identify similarities between artworks that can explain why an artwork engages its audience in a positive way. The commonalities of artworks, especially in the awesome solution, can be used by artists as guidelines for creating works, which have the potential to retell the stories of climate change in a way that activates the slumbering potential in our societies. Environmental psychology contributes by revealing the underlying emotional and cognitive mechanisms and helps to address environmental challenges, among them climate change. In order to do that, it is essential to bring together natural, social sciences and humanities, since “we cannot detach the stories we tell about climate [change] from the stories we tell about societies” (Hulme, 2009, p. 33).” (14)