Hannah Landecker asks: ‚What colour is the Anthropocene?‘ since the changing Earth has created fluxes of chemicals and energy and therefore a myriad of shifting colour flows. Burning and ‚contaminated‘ (for whom?) environments produce flaring pigments which operate as both a defence and a signal of intensity, agents of stress and agents of care.
This PhD project thinks with microalgae and cyanobacteria as colouring agents regarding their colour shifts as signals of environmental change. It proposes an understanding of colour whereas it refuses to be perceived as a decorative feature of matter and is rather seen as an agentic force. Next to a Colour Catalogue, multiple instructions (‘Handlungsanweisungen’) are developed in order to understand their performative and communicative qualities.
References: Landecker, Hannah; Foreword to Salmon: A Red Herring; Isolarii; 2020
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis, Prof. Dr. Gloria Meynen, Maria Boto Ordonez
Short Bio
Sina Hensel is a visual artist and researcher with a special focus on critical colour practices whic include the kaleidoscopic transformations caused by the current and future chemical make-ups of landscapes and environments.
