EcoLabs at Subtle Technologies Festival June 3-6 2010, Toronto | www.eco-labs.org www.subtletechnologies.com Artists, designers and other visual communicators have an important role to play in building an understanding of complex environmental problems and creating a momentum for change. Due to the fact that many of the necessary responses to global environmental imperatives are social and political rather than merely technological, cultural producers are key to catalyzing a transition. Yet before we swing into action to save the world from cataclysmic climate change and other converging environmental crises, a new type of learning must be embedded in our practice. This presentation will explore the emergent concept of ecological literacy (eco-literacy) as a starting point for an engaged cultural producer. American physicist Frijof Capra and educator David Orr defined the concept of ecological literacy in the early 1990s as an understanding of the organizing principles of nature. Ecological literacy has since been developed into a new educational paradigm creating a conceptual basis for integrated thinking about sustainability. Ecological literacy requires that an understanding of natural process become an educational staple. It creates a foundation to enable industrialized societies to re-invent sustainable ways of living. Ecological literacy is epistemic learning, it depends on critical analysis of our cultural assumptions. The associated concept of transformative learning implies that ecological literacy can only be developed with a process of engagement and through putting new ideas into practice. This presentation will demonstrate how visual communicators can use the concept of ecological literacy to contribute to the development of new cognitive skills, map new intellectual territory and help disseminate new information at a time of rapid societal change. I will present various projects from my practice based PhD research and my work with EcoLabs, a non-profit ecological literacy initiative.

1. ecological literacy
& creative cultures
www.eco-labs.org

2. ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
We have to learn to see the world anew.
Einstein
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3. ecological
literacy
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4. epistemic
learning
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5. sustainability
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6. 1. Context : converging crises
2. Basic concept : ecological literacy
3. Key ideas: systems, etc.
4. Development: ‘epistemological error’
5. Levels of learning & communication
6. EL in art / culture / media
7. Pictures / samples : EcoLabs
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7. 1. CONTEXT
Springer-Verlag. The New Scientist.
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8. www.eco-labs.org
Living Planet Report 2008. WWF

9. Living Planet Report 2006. WWF
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10. Earth’s Natural Wealth: an Audit. The New Scientist
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11. The Oil Age. Information design by Dave Menninger. 2006
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12. Global production of oil and gas
50
Non-con Gas
Gas
billion Gboe/a
40
NGLs
Production, barrels
Polar Oil
30 Deep Water
Heavy
20 Regular
10
0
1930 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050
Source: ASPO
The Oil Crunch
Securing the UK’s energy future
First report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES)
The Oil Crunch.
The UK Industry Taskforce
on Peak Oil and Energy Security.
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14. 2. BASIC CONCEPT
ecological
literacy
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15. The first step in our endeavor to build sustainable
communities must be to become ‘ecologically
literate’, i.e. to understand of the principles of
organization, common to all living systems, that
ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life…
Fritjof Capra, 2002
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16. This systemic understanding of life allows us
to formulate a set of principles of organization
that may be identified as the basic principles
of ecology and used as guidelines for building
sustainable human communities...
Fritjof Capra, 2002
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17. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to
the fundamental redesign of our technologies
and social institutions, so as to bridge the current
gap between human design and the ecological
sustainable systems of nature.
Fritjof Capra, 2002
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18. 3. KEY IDEAS
Systems thinking asserts that valid knowledge
and meaningful understanding comes from
building up whole pictures of phenomenon,
not by breaking them into parts.
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19. WHOLE SYSTEMS THINKING
= systems thinking + ecological thought
Not all systems thinking is ecological.
Not all ecological thinking is aware of systems thinking.
Stephen Sterling
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20. Paradigms are the lens through which we look
a the world and it therefore determines what we
perceive. A paradigm is a set of beliefs or as-
sumptions we make about the world, normally
beneath the level of awareness and therefore
mostly never questioned.
Stacey, 1996
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21. Paradigms have a normative aspect – they
tell people what is important, legitimate and
reasonable.
Patton, 1990
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22. Three components of a paradigm
ethos - belief - epistemology
eidos - ideas / concepts - ontology
praxis - action - methodology
Stephen Sterling
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23. Clash of paradigms
Dominant worldview as flawed, dysfunctional
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24. Mechanism Ecological
Objectivist Participative
Reductionist, Holistic,
dualistic integrative
Reductive Systemic
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Stephen Sterling, 2009

25. Epistemology:
The study of the nature of knowledge,
its origins, structure and validity.
‘how we know’
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26. Challenge of unsustainability requires a deep
learning response, which may be termed
transformative or epistemic learning
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27. 4. DEVELOPMENT
Gregory Bateson suggested we suffer from
‘a fundamental epistemological error’.
Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972)
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28. Seeing differently
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29. Put simply, the case against the dominant
Western worldview is that it is no longer
constitutes an adequate model of reality -
particularly ecological reality. The map is
wrong, and moreover, we commonly confuse
the map (worldview) for the territory (reality).
Sterling, 1993
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30. 70s - Bateson, Meadows, Laszlo
80s - Capra, Harman, Clark, Bohm, Reason +
90s - Orr, Macy, Berman, Shiva, Banathy, 100s+
00s - Sterling, 1000s+
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31. ECOLOGICAL
GOOD
DESIGN
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Problems as symptoms of systemic failure,
rather than random errors requiring fixes.
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34. Actions
Ideas/theories
Norms/assumptions
Beliefs/values
Paradigm/worldview
Metaphysics/cosmology
Stephen Sterling on transition from beliefs to actions: ‘Levels of Knowing’, 2009
www.eco-labs.org

35. 6. LEVELS OF LEARNING
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perc eption )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)
A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Actio n)
The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
www.eco-labs.org

36. Learning & Communication Levels
1st: Education about Sustainability
Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
Accommodative response - maintenance.
2nd: Education for Sustainability
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
Learning for change. Reformative response - adaptive.
3rd: Sustainable Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. Transformative response - enactment.
Orginally Gregory Bateson, adapted by Stephen Sterling
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37. What we already ‘know’ frames
what we ‘see’ - and what we ‘see’
frames what we understand.
The things we make are
an extension of the manner
in which we think.
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38. 6. EL IN ART / CULTURE / MEDIA
Cyberception:
Getting a sense of the whole, acquiring a bird’s eye
view of events, the astronauts view of the earth,
the cyberbaut’s view of systems. Its a matter fo
highspeed feedback, interaction with a multiciplicity
of minds, seeing with a thousand eyes...
Roy Ascott, 1994
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39. Transception:
Coined to add a dimention of values to
cyberception, informed by work of Joanna Macy
and others.
Klisanin, 2005
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40. Evolutionary guidance systems (EGS):
Designed to guide the development of
human systems such they will be capable
of encouraging the holistic development of
individuals and their systems.
Banathy
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41. Evolutionary guidance media (EGM):
Media designed in a context specifically for the
purpose of guiding and faciliating the social
emergence of planetary consciousness
Klisanin, 2003
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42. Planetary Consciousness:
The knowing as well as the feeling of the
vital independence and essential oneness of
humankind and the conscious adoption of the
ethics and ethos that this entails.
Lazlo, 1997
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43. 6. SAMPLES: ECOLABS
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57. We can’t solve problems by using the same
kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
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59. The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy
Jody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Why? Context Levels of Learning & Engagement
Presently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative
capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are 1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability
being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
What? Systems, Networks, Values
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with
Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
complexity and think in terms of systems to address current
ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful
tools to help with this learning process. 3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
How? Transformational Learning Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
The value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is
obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between
Stephen Sterling, 2009
our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to
address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project
uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This
approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice
based design work.
ECOLOGICAL
Actions
GOOD
DESIGN Ideas / Theories
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perception )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-
B: KNOWING (Conception) psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization A critical understanding of pattern, if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent,
that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first consequence and connectivity intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move Donella Meadows, 1982
towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to C: DOING (Action)
the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, The ability to design and act relationally,
so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the integratively and wisely. References
Fritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003
ecological sustainable systems of nature. Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Fritjof Capra, 2003 Stephen Sterling, 2009
www.eco-labs.org
j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@eco-labs.org
This poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org

60. EcoLabs
www.eco-labs.org
http://teach-in.ning.com
www.eco-labs.org