Økokunstens affekt: Sansning, fortolkning og politikk i utstillingene Radical Nature. Art and architecture for a changing planet 1969-2009 (2009) og Rethink. Contemporary art and climate change (2009/2010)

The increasing interest in ecological issues in the last decades has also manifested itself in the contemporary art field, visible by the large amount of thematic exhibitions in recent years; with nature, ecology and our relationship to the environment as key issues. Two recent exhibitions are Radical Nature. Art and architecture for a changing planet 1969-2009 (Barbican Art Gallery, 2009) and Rethink. Contemporary art and climate change (Stavanger Art Museum, 2010). Both exhibitions aim to make the viewer consider her own relationship to her surroundings. In this thesis I use these two exhibitions to raise questions as to how one can talk about such exhibitions effect on its audience. To do this I examine how the viewer may approach these exhibitions for them to have an effect. Thus, the thesis will revolve around how the viewer can search for the art works' signification through active interpretation, and examine what the work does through a sensuous approach. By the virtue of being thematic, and because of the interpretations made by the institutions ahead of the actual exhibitions, these exhibitions may be seen as hermeneutic projects. This is discussed by using Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of understanding. Even though this might close the art works for an alternative interpretation it may open up for a more sensuous approach to the art works and the exhibitions. In the inquiry of what the ecological art does the sensuous is an important aspect, and here I use Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari as a theoretical foundation. For them, art is a way of thought, along with science and philosophy, and by using their ideas on art as inextricably linked to the senses we might see the ecological art in the two exhibitions as producers of affect. By providing an account of Deleuze and Guattaris aesthetic thinking and relate it to the ecological art in the two exhibitions I try to explain how one can get a sensuous experience from visiting the exhibitions - in their understanding of the term. This leads into a further discussion of what art does, and how it might have a political impact. Here I present two different views on political art; the ideological perspective on one hand, and Deleuze and Guattaris idea of how art does politics on the other. In the latter the production of new forms and new potentials is, along with the production of subjectivity, vital, since this creative production might lead the viewer into taking action