Breaking Paradigms: Electronic Arts and Humanitarian Actions
We are living in a world that is reaching a critical point where the equilibrium between a healthy environment, the energy our society needs to maintain or improve its way of life and interconnected economies could pass more quickly than expected from the current complex balance to a complete new reality in which imbalance would be the rule and human beings would need to be as creative as ever before to survive. Environmental problems, economic uncertainty and political complexity have been around for a long time. What was different before was the speed and depth of transformations compared with today’s sudden changes. The frequent occurrence and severity that certain weather and climate-related events are having around us are increasing, and the ability of human beings to modify adjacent surroundings as well as distant places has turned into a power capable of altering the planet. Does electronic art have a role in all of this? Do electronic have artists a responsibility in this context? Aiming to use electronic art as a catalyst with the intent of engendering a deeper awareness and creating lasting intellectual working partnerships to resolve our global environmental crisis, three initiatives were launched: Balance-Unbalance, “art! ⋈ climate” and EChO.