In this video essay I made a kind of anthology out of some of my important references. (proper quotation in this pdf)

My most important references at this exact moment is Agnes Denes & Mierle Laderman Ukeles   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIhf3UBNTlA&feature=youtu.be 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few pages where I try to sum up my project and where I stand at this moment:

 

 

 Work In Progress list of further references:

 

 

 

 

If we produced/consumed the way we did in the 70’s, and re-invented what that would mean today,
research shows1, that we could turn the current ecological crisis around.

1 Naomi Klein. This changes everything. Canada: Random house, 2014, 80.

 

I have worked as
an artist collaborator for more than ten years with scientists on anthropogenic landscape
transformations, this crossdiciplinary approach is increasingly fruitful as our anthropogenic climate
situation collapses the distinctions between natural history and human history2.  2 Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Climate of History: Four Theses Critical Inquiry Vol. 35 2009, 201.

 

Art collectives like Laboratory of Insurrectionary
Imagination focus on direct action, they may be most famous for initiating the Climate-Games4 in
connection to COP 21 Paris. 4 See Climate Games, accessed december 6, 2017, http://www.artcop21.com/events/6450/

 

 

 

The collective Not an Alternative runs a Natural History Museum5 as an art
project. 5 See Natural History Museum, accessed december 6, 2017, http://notanalternative.org/2015/12/18/the-natural-history-museum-interview/

 

 

In the film industry, environmental themes are commonplace but in the rare cases where the production
process is considered there is a tendency to purchase carbon offsets to make projects carbon-neutral
rather than changing or challenging existing procedures and protocols6.

 6 Charles J. Corbett. Sustainability in the Motion Picture Industry. UCLA Institute of the Environment 2006

 

Although the studio Bavaria
Film GmbH7 is one example of a Company actually trying to create a sustainable production
environment.

 7 See Bavaria Film Studios, accessed January 2018, http://www.greenproductionguide.com/green-­‐film-­‐shooting-­‐a-­‐climate-­‐of-­‐change/

 

 

And at Calmers a recent master thesis carried out a Life cycle analysis of a performance at
the Gothenburg opera8.

 8 Francisco Izurieta, Johan Tengström, LCA of stage performances, Calmers University of Technology, 2010

 







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Rule-based generative art
For my PRODUCTIONWORLD I gather experience and knowledge from early fluxus-scores of the
60ies and art after the 70’s “legal turn”11. Tehching Hsieh’s contracts that he signs for his yearlong
performances, binding him to fulfil the performances conditions, The Dogme 95 film manifesto with
the purpose of introducing limitations in order to have more creative freedom in filmproduction and
Kajsa Dahlberg’s Femø Women's Camp 2008: Film and Agreement are works I learn from and Dahlberg´s
current research project Chronic Features at RIA, also offer valuable perspectives for my project. Also,
the Bechdel test is a relevant reference. The test asks a series of questions designed to spot inequalities
of gender representation in film. If a film passes the test it can be marked with an approval certificate.
Certifications like this can make visible invisible hierarchies and tacit power structures and in doing so
can spark change & action.
Worldbuilding art
2015 I participated in a workshop with Alex McDowell from USC school of cinematic arts and
Worldbuilding institute. Building environments and worlds has been part of my practice for a long time,
but the workshop gave me new tools and perspectives, especially when it comes to working together,
roleplaying, in teams and groups. Examples such as The World Building Media Lab (WbML), Alan
Moore’s Short Pieces, Sten Eklund’s Kullahusets Hemlighet, Aby Warburg’s Atlas, Walid Raad’s Atlas
Group and the Fifth World12 (a fictional universe for roleplaying with a climate theme) are important
references to me when it comes to worldbuilding. My currently ongoing research project Return of the
Silurians13, is an animated worldbuilding project rethinking and updating the science fiction genre of “the
revenging earth” and identifying current limitations in human image making.
Storytelling the temporal in film
Many films and artworks have inspired me to a more complex view on time and space. As a timebased
medium film is perfect for exploring the temporal conditions, Chris Markers La Jetee, (1962), is a great
example of a time travel fiction that unravels through a conceptual use of still and moving images. Other
works that has inspired how I think about time in my work is; The Otholit Group, The Radiant (2012),
Sun Ra, Space is the Place (1974), Tom McCarthy, Greenwich Degree Zero (2006), Julieta Aranda,
camera obscura, 2009, Daar, Return to Jaffa (2012), Matthew Buckingham, Muhheakantuck (2003)
Christopher Nolan, Inception (2010). In my work Molten Glass Movement14 I explore the relationship
between spatial and temporal understandings of labour, using animation theory of timing and spacing. It
was my deep interest in the way film, as a medium, has affected society and how the motions of labour
became subordinate to mechanized temporal units, that led up to this experiment, performed at Rejmyre
Art Lab 2016.
SIGNIFICANCE & SCIENTIFIC NOVELTY
In his book Convergence Culture, Media theorist Henry Jenkins shows that nowadays you don’t pitch
stories or characters anymore, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and
multiple stories across multiple media15. There is no question that worldbuilding is becoming increasingly
influential in film and media industry. But what I lack is the opportunity to include perspectives
concerning the biggest global challenges we are facing today. Scientists and the general public agree that
climate change is real and that it is most likely caused by humans. But still we don’t seem to be able to
act on this knowledge and bring about the necessary change to turn it around. There are many answers
to why this is the case, part of it may be in our storytelling conventions. George Marchal16 argues that it’s
because our familiar stories teach us to act in situations with distinct heroes and villains rather than
offering narratives based on shared common purposes. Dan M Kahan’s study17 suggests that it is
11 Daniel McClean. The Artist’s Contract / from the Contract of Aesthetics to the Aesthetics of the Contract, Mousse 25,2010. 195.
12 See The Fifth World, accessed January 2018. https://thefifthworld.com/
13 Lina Persson, Researchproject; Return of the Silurians, Stockholm Uniarts. 2018.
14 Lina Persson. Glass Movements. 2016. See https://vimeo.com/171392327
15 Henry Jenkins. convergence culture. New York University Press. 2006. 114.
16 George Marshall. Don't Even Think About It: Why our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. Bloomsbury USA. 2014. 74.
17 Dan M Kahan. The polarizing impact of science literacy. Nature Climate Change volume 2, 2012. 734.
because the idea of anthropogenic global warming goes against people’s cultural identity and ideology
too much to break through. Rob Nixon describes climate change as ‘a slow violence that affects the
poor’, maybe these long term perspectives which reach way beyond human lifecycles are not dramatic
enough for film narratives18? We also need to reinvent the environment’s role in storytelling from the
backdrop to drama between humans into mutual relationships between all kinds of more-than-human
existences.
It seems that science and knowledge are simply not enough. Scientists are increasingly looking to
creative practitioners for hope in finding ways to bring about action and change. For too long, art and
culture have failed to address the global catastrophe we are facing. Though recently it seems times are
changing. As environmental politics rises up, the film industry must prepare for a drastic change in the
conditions of film production, a topic discussed at a seminar at this year’s Gothenburg Film Festival19.
I want to contribute in this process by creatively negotiating aesthetics and ethics, by combining the
influential technique of worldbuilding with critical & creative perspectives on the environment. In a near
future, the majority of our activities will require radical readjustment in relation to the ecological
footprint. I predict that my PRODUCTIONWORLD will need to become a reality. I think artistic
research can test the possibilities of such future practices. And I hope my research will be able to shift
practices in the present, meeting the future that we desire halfway.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Decolonizing Nature & legal theory
I frame this research as taking place in a new phase of political theories of decolonialization. Colonial
exploitation goes back to the origins of Western civilization and accelerated during post-Enlightenment
modernity20. It’s been carried out in the name of the ideal human, identified as opposed to primitive
nature, where elite white males of European descent were considered more human21 while women or
indigenous people where considered less human and closer to nature. These oppressed groups have
fought hard and won some rights in a process of decolonization. But today we face the particular
challenge of overcoming the old hierarchy and divide between human and nature that reduces nature to
a resource for humans.
During recent years the human-centric world-view has been increasingly questioned with alternatives
being explored from various post-human perspectives. With concepts like more-than –human,
natureculture, new materialism, objectoriented ontology, ecofeminism, speculative realism, quantumanimism,
the living world beyond humans is acknowledged in a multiverse of ways. In my research
project Tunga Ting I investigated some of these approaches in relation to my animation practices22.
This movement also has its counterpart in legal developments through Earth’s jurisprudence, with earthentered
rather than human-centred perspectives on law where nature has legal rights. Legal theory is also
important in developing a certificate or contract for my idea of climate-just production. Though global
climate negotiations have shown that legal sanctions have limitations when it comes to enabling change,
the recent Paris agreement23 initiated a motivating self-regulation based on voluntary actions. In my
research, artistic approaches will both compliment and contradict the legal frameworks.
Decolonising futures and concepts of sustainability
Striving for justice is sometimes concidered naive and assessing climate-justice may be impossible but it
may also be the only way to reach global agreements and there are available tools for at least working
18 Rob Nixon. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. 2013. 149.
19 See Är filmbranschen en miljökatastrof? accessed January 2018. https://www.facebook.com/events/170915133672355/?ti=icl
20 TJ Demos. Rights of Nature: The Art and Politics of Earth Jurisprudence. University of California. USA. 2015. 3.
21 Edward Said. Orientalism. London: Penguin. 1977. 207.
22 See, Tunga Ting: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/265814/265815
23 See, The Paris Agreement. United Nations. accessed February 10, 2019: http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php
towards climate-justice24. In my research, I also want to explore the idea of our present state of as a
colonialization of the future. Too often it’s not taken into account that natural resources are limited.
Only if they are used in balance with what the earth can regenerate, will there be anything left for future
generations. As I see it, our current overdraw results in a growing climate debt. This reasoning relies on
concepts which describe earth’s capacity to regenerate resources in relation to how fast humanity uses it.
For example, Ecological Overshoot25 occurs when humanity’s demand on nature exceeds the biosphere’s
supply, or it’s regenerative capacity. The Ecological Footprint represents the human demand on the
planet’s ability to provide renewable resources and ecological services. Humanity currently needs the
regenerative capacity of 1.6 Earths to provide the goods and services we use each year. I will address the
questions of decolonization of the future by climate-justice certifying my process in what I call
PRODUCTIONWORLD. The future is not remote, but immanent in what is done now, in order to
bring about change26
Mapping temporal territories & quantum physics
I will also address the idea of ‘colonialization of the future’ in my work with the STORYWORLD. Here,
future generations will be able to confront our present thanks to a new time-technology. For this,
theories of time will be important, from the temporalities of theoretical physics and quantum physics to
the perception of time in indigenous communities. In 2011, I read the book Time Traveller: A Scientist's
Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. The book is about Ron Mallet, his life, and how he
developed a working theory for a time machine (recently Spike Lee bought the film rights for the book).
I became interested in how this technology would work. I got a grant to go to the university of
Connecticut and work with him for a month. He involved me in his research & in his models of the
machine. Ron also staged a few speculative scenarios together with me, resulting in sound recordings of
conversations27. When I started to really understand how this technology would actually work I realized
that it was something very different from conventional sci-fi time travels. This time machine would not
allow me to explore spectacular futures. This time machine would open a one-way portal giving the
future access to my time. We would open a door to the unknown that we would not be able to enter,
without knowing what we would let in.
When I studied imperialism & colonialism at Gothenburg University I became intrigued by the concept
of Terra Nullius. When the European colonial powers begun to take territories in the 16th century they
called it Terra Nullius, no-mans-land. There were no owners-contracts for that land, therefore it was
considered legitimate to appropriate it. The fact that indigenous people lived there without exploiting the
natural resources was considered primitive, irresponsible and wasteful. This viewpoint still dominates
our relationship with the environment. But as I see it it’s also time that is being colonized. Too often it’s
not taken into account that natural resources are limited. Only if they are used in balance with what the
earth can regenerate, will there be anything left for future generations. I’ve chosen to call the future
Tempus Nullius, a no-mans-time, who’s resources are up for grabs for those who can take as much as
possible as quickly as possible. Inhabitants in future eras have no means with which to claim their rights.
But Prof. Mallet’s theory of a time machine made me see the power relationship between the present
and the future in a new way. That machine would never give “us” the access to the future, but rather
allow the future access to “us”. In this way, it becomes a potential platform for discourse in relation to
rights claims of those currently voiceless inhabitants of the future. When Mallets time machine is turned
on for the first time a time-tunnel will start to grow. As time passes this tunnel grows. In any point in
time it would be possible to send information/subatomic particles, back in time as to the moment when
the machine was first turned on. But it would never be possible to go to the future simply because the
tunnel would not be there yet. This makes the moment of turning on the machine a moment of truth, of
facing the future on equal terms making totally new kind of legal claims possible.
24 Jeremy Baskin. The Impossible Necessity of Climate Justice? 10(2) Melbourne Journal of International Law. 2019. 424–438.
25 Living Planet Report, Risk and resilience in a new era. WWF International, Gland, Switzerland. 2016. 124.
26 Dave Beech. Introduction, Speculation, PARSE journal, 7, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. 2017. 8.
27 Lina Persson. Subatomic Particles/ Interview from hypothetical situation. Connecticut. 2012. https://vimeo.com/70935331
Time-based medium and biopolitics
Animation practice and theory triggers awareness of my existence in temporal and spatial dimensions
and it will inspire the rendering of the tempus nullius in STORYWORLD. Animation is part of a
tradition of analysing and mapping movements, time and space, starting with Étienne-Jules Marey’s
chronophotographic studies continuing with motion capture techniques and leading up to present
biometric surveillance. Film theorist Trond Lundemo writes about this and the film mediums
biopolitical implications28 and show how time-technologies affect reality and bodies. This important
knowledge was the startingpoint for the course Techno-Fantasy and Sci-Fi Images29 at the photography
department at Valand, Gothenburg and will be vital for speculating on the consequences the time
machine would have on our world.
METHODS
This research builds on my practice and interest in the way art generates, activates, mobilizes and/or
materializes abstract ideas, the way artistic practice moves things from fantasy to reality.
The method, the way something is done, is always somehow reflected in the outcome. I use this notion
as a possibility in my art practice. For example, in my work Boulder Eclipse30 I portray the minerals that
are vital components in the technology that I use to generate the very images themselves, from a camera
component to the computer chip enabling the light-animations, connecting my artistic practice with
problematic mining-practices all-over the globe. Now, in this project, I want to stress this concept even
further, to let my method be the work, to inhabit a “PRODUCTIONWORLD” for the duration of this
research project. This kind of generative art practice is indebted to the Fluxus movement and to art
forms such as instruction pieces, scores and contracts, where the emphasis is on the transformative
experience rather than a certain outcome or art object. However artworks are still important, especially
in the way they reflect on how they are made. Since I want to explore stories and images that involve the
environment in new ways I also have to relate to the environment in new ways via my process and
production. This way of working, putting up obstacles & regulations for one’s actions, stems from a
critical standpoint and a pressing need for change. It is also a way to make things that are not ‘out of this
world’ so to speak. Many of these methods have stemmed from my activist and collective work where
we wanted to challenge ourselves not to reproduce the very structures we were critiquing. I describe this
process in more depth and detail in my MFA degree essay.
Improvisation, hermeneutics, rule-based, legal & generative art practices
To begin with my artistic practice was an improvised hermeneutic feedback loop between the material I
was working with and my everyday life experiences, but rather than interpreting something existing it
was a process of interpreting what is about to come into existence, of what I am closing in on but
haven’t yet grasped. This way my work often became a parallel to the structures conditioning my
practice, revealing patterns in the environment. It was a way to understand my context, my place and the
things conditioning both me and my practice. But gradually I started turning my method around, setting
up conditions and limitations in order to elaborate on the framework, further articulating the parameters
conditioning the practice. For example, in my 10 year long project BILAGA31, we make four mailartworks
every year with the parameters of a small budget, limited time, low weight & size. This forces
us to make art that is more spontaneous, free of pretentions, involving in current debates.
In this research, I want to take this method even further and formulate it more explicitly. Making a
fictional hypothetical alternative environment, a PRODUCTIONWORLD out of the rules, in which I
will perform my practice. This approach is inspired by material feminist thought about making cuts in
the world32 enacting interventions that produce the world I inhabit, a “worlding” that acknowledges the
relations, how I am entangled in the world. As Donna Haraway puts it: the world is a knot in motion
28 Trond Lundemo. Charting the gestures, Glänta, nr 1. 2011. 80
29 Lina Persson. Techno-Fantasy and Sci-Fi Images. Course. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-work?work=433694
30 Lina Persson. Boulder Eclipse. 2010. http://linapersson.se/bouldereclips/boulder01.html
31 https://bilaga.wordpress.com/about/
32 Carol A. Taylor & Gabrielle Ivinson Material feminisms: new directions for education, Gender and Education, 25:6, 2013. 667.
and reality is an active verb33. This method is partly derived from the Fluxus movement and in the “legal
turn” in art during the seventies. In Essays on the blurring on art and life, Allan Kaprow describes the
Fluxus art as taking form in the consciousness34, how it alters culture and reality through one’s
perception when working consciously with how to pay attention to everyday things and life in general.
And today I think it adds another dimension in terms of the ways our consciousness is monitored,
analysed and responded to via algorithms in digitalized society. A society in which memes and viral
images exert direct influence on global politics. This was also the starting point for my work Spilled Milk
of Haunted Nations35.
Hypothesis & Extrapolation, Narration & Speculation
In my practice, I’ve learnt a lot from the way fiction operates and its potential to give rise to change.
This is especially so in relation to Speculative-fiction (spec-fi) and Science-fiction (sci-fi). Science fiction
uses scientific rhetoric in order to make its stories more plausible and persuasive, convincing the reader
of its becoming-reality-potential. I have investigated how the genre can reinforce current power
structures, but also how it has been subverted in afrofuturist, speculative feminism, eco-horror or queer
sci-fi movements. In my text Sci-fi & Makt36 I describe how I make use of Sci-fi modes in some of my
works. Speculative fiction is useful to me because it uses scientific methods of hypothesis and
extrapolation but with the freedom to ask more inventive what-if-questions. As Judith Merril says it’s “a
special sort of contemporary writing which makes use of fantastic and inventive elements to comment on, or speculate about,
society, humanity, life, the cosmos, reality”37
. Speculation as research method becomes necessary when there is
no other way of getting knowledge about something, like grasping alternate worlds or futures. It can
even be a way to open up a transition to an otherwise unlikely future38. That’s why it is also of interest in
forecasting-techniques in climate and resilience research. The speculation in Spec-fi deals with
fundamentals, with what is real or possible. It requires that the laws of the world are different in some
sense. It makes it a vital method in relation to world-building projects. My worldbuilding processes starts
with one altered law each. In PRODUCTIONWORLD there is a climate-just, built-in limitation in the
use of resources. In STORYWORLD Ron Mallets time-machine gives future generations access to our
present time.
Worldbuildning & transmedia storytelling
Especially in these Anthropocene times, we don’t have to accept the world as it is, we can make
assumptions and images that transform it. Creating worlds is an old art form, it can be defined by: 1) In
the ideal case, there will be a series of works that use the same world 2) That world should differ
noticeably from ‘our’ world 3) That world should have a geography and history of its own 4) That world
can be enhanced in its difference by having physical laws different from our own39. The purpose of this
research is to investigate and rework our relationship with environment and ecology. In world-building
the world sets the parameters from which characters and narratives can be derived. Therefore, it is an
appropriate approach when it comes to challenging the current hierarchy around from human centred to
earth centred perspectives. To create the multitude a world requires, I often tap into other systems of
narration. By diverting and linking my work to on-going fan-fictions, archives, circulating media,
scientific news, memes and viral facts it’s contours are blurred and it extends its tentacles into the living
on-going storytelling of the digital society. This way the sense of living world can be achieved also in
smaller independent projects. A collective process also contributes to a more vibrant and diverse
worldbuilding. I plan to make use of Alex McDowells roleplaying methods. In roleplaying sessions
persons connected to this project from different disciplines and specializations (activism, sustainability,
art, physics, geology etc) will contribute to defining the world.
33 Donna Haraway. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, Prickly Paradigm Press, Chicago, 2003, 6.
34 Allan Kaprow. Essays on the blurring on art and life. University of California Press. 1996, 202.
35 Lina Persson. Spilled Milk of Haunted Nations. 2007. http://linapersson.se/SpilledMilkofHauntedNations/spilledmil01.html
36 Lina Persson. Reflektioner kring Science fiction och makt. 2015. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-work?work=268000
37 Judith Merril, “Introduction,” in SF: The Best of the Best. New York: Delacorte Press. 1967. 3.
38 Juan Francisco Salazar. Anthropologies and Futures: Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds. Bloomsbury Academic. 2017. 161.
39 James DiGiovanna. Worldmaking as an Art. The International Journal of the Arts in Society, Volume 2. 2007. 118.
I am specialized in the depiction of landscape and some of my previous works come close to
worldbuilding definitions. Fault in The Tale is an installation work with film essays, sculptures and
animations depicting a world where mountains transform themselves in a dialogue with human society.
Return of the Silurian is an on-going worldbuilding project of a far into the future underwater world. The
worldbuilding in this research will be guided by what-if questions like: What happens if a time-machine
confronts us with our future generations? What if we were forced to think about temporal territories the
way we think of spatial territories? What if the future could make claims regarding natural resources &
compensation for ruined land? What if the future tried to sabotage the present in secret attacks? What if
there were rebels in the present siding with the future? What if a particle that can unfold into a game, a
film, could be sent through the time machine? By using traditional animation techniques mindfully, I will
try to establish dialogue with materials and environment in the design process. For example, in stop
motion animation, when I animate different objects and materials I transfer the movement from my
body into the animated object. In this transfer the self sometimes follows and I become the object that I
animate. It’s a trans-corporeal experience of ceasing to exist as a separate entity and instead becoming
one with something else. In my work Greening Cells40, a series of paintings on transparent celluloid, I
explore examples from animated films where an action or power materializes its own shape. The
paintings then make living images together with its environment, by merging with it.
Crossdisciplinarity
Cross-disciplinary methods are important to me and I think differentiations between natural and human science is
increasingly uninteresting. Sarah Demeuse writes: “I’m particularly called in by Persson’s seemingly ingenious, though
persistent way of approaching and attempting to work with natural scientists. Her drive to inform herself at the source signals
contemporary modes of research (a more networked world, after all, allows for more immediate access to experts), and forces the experts
to enter a messier terrain41.“ I often involve scientists in my research, work and teaching. Last February I took several
of my students to participate in Konnect42, a project where scientists and artists worked together during intense
workshop days. Art and scientific research have much
in common, although art seeks the particular and science the general. The problem, according to Lina Persson, is that science
is often coded as white and male, that it pretends to represent reality, despite the fact that scientific models are repeatedly proven
inaccurate and are constantly rewritten. Artists have always been very sensitive to the cracks that lead to scientific paradigm shifts, and
Persson through her playful, progressive futurism is identifying those scientific cracks, nevertheless in relation to socioeconomical
models43.
Quantitative methods & commitment
An external sustainability consultant will be measuring and certifying any climate-just method, I develop,
I will also be personally involved in the energy measurement process. There are many tools with which
to measure the climate impact of a person or process. There are text-based documents, footprint
calculators, surveys and logs, and measurement technologies available on the market and ready to use. I
plan to use of a combination of these tools and after measuring behaviour, collecting data on climate
impact, analysing the data, making conclusions from the analysis and formulating regulations, I will
personally commit to following these self-imposed regulations. Both my methods and my commitment
will be reviewed by the external consultant.
IMPLEMENTATION
The first level of the research is what I call the PRODUCTIONWORLD. I will develop a conceptual
framework for a self-imposed regulation of the use of resources in my artistic production processes.
That framework will be “the world” I will inhabit during this research project. Its purpose is to prevent
me from using more than my share of resources in a sustainable ecosystem. It will likely affect my
process to a large extent, by emissions, my travels44 and thus how I collaborate with international
partners or make site-specific research. It might affect the scale and the efficiency of my project. It will
40 Lina Persson. Greening Cells. 2016. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-work?work=265822
41 Sarah Demeuse. Speculating artistic speculation. Rivet, New York. 2011. http://rivet-rivet.net/pdf/speculating_artistic_speculation.pdf
42 See, Konnect; accsessed on March 5 2015; http://konnect.hi.is/
43 Ravini, Sinziana, 2011. Shifting the Real-Three Case Studies from the Nordic Art Scene, Code Magazine #3
44 Living planet report, Risk and resilience in a new era. WWF International, Gland, Switzerland. 2016. 109.
also affect my working hours45. In my essay Outsourcing Animation46 I elaborate further on what effects
sustainable practice could have on animation practices. Within this framework
(PRODUCTIONWORLD), I will stage an artistic process, a worldbuilding-production which will result
in the second layer of research; the STORYWORLD. The fictional storyworld is today an increasingly
common tool and engine to create a multitude of narratives within one media franchise. I plan to build a
storyworld, with text, sound and image, one that evokes narratives with new perspectives on the
environment. The starting point for defining and creating my STORYWORLD is the time-machine
technology and research in theoretical physics by Dr Ron Mallet with whom I have an ongoing artistic
collaboration since 2011. Through world-building I want to speculate how this time-technology might
alter the politics of climate justice. Since it would enable future generations to access our time, I envision
a scenario comparable to situations where indigenous populations have found ways to claim their rights
in relation to colonial powers. This will open up discourse on the colonization of the future and raise
questions around rights and the distribution of resources in temporal dimensions. At the same time, it
will also question the way the environment has been reduced to a mere resource for humans, often
referred to as a colonization of nature47.
1. I will start by setting up routines for measuring and documenting my climate impact in
collaboration with sustainability researchers. I will start to define the STORYWORLD in
crossdiciplinary workshops with invited specialists from diverse fields, and simultaneously
measure the climate impact of all action connected to that.
2. The climate-data that comes out of documenting this creative process will be the startingpoint
for the formulation of PRODUCTIONWORLD. This will be done in dialogue with and
through feedback from sustainability researchers and law advisors. As the
PRODUCTIONWORLD takes shape I will place my process with the STORYWORLD within
it and let it condition how I let myself continue its production.
3. Finalizing the PRODUCTIONWORLD contract/manifesto/certificate. Building the
STORYWORLD from text, sound and image. Building online platform for the
STORYWORLD.
Following persons are connected to the project as advisors or workshop participants: Ron Mallet,
Research professor in physics, University of Connecticut. Kajsa Dahlberg, phd fellow at RIA,
Stockholm. Diego Galafassi, Stockholm Resilience Centre. Gu›drún Pétursdóttir, Professor vid Institute
for Sustainability Studies, Reykjavik. Sara Eliasson, Paleontolog. Anna Åberg, Assistant Professor,
Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers, Gothenburg. Mirko Lempert, Lektor i visuell
media, SKH. Jenny Sunesson, Lektor i audiell media, SKH. Karin Ryding, PhD fellow at Computer
Games Research, Copenhagen IT University. Joakim Andrén, environmental activist. Nils Gustin,
marine biologist. Sandra Snan, role-playing game masters & storyworld builder. Lars Kristensen, Senior
Lecturer in Media Arts, Aesthetics and Narration, University of Skövde
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
As a pre-study for this project I have worked with Ron Mallet, Research Professor in Physics, University
of Connecticut, learning about theoretical possibilities of time travel. Together we have staged
hypothetical conversations48 in order to push our imaginations to consider the actual impact of such
time travel. By applying my knowledge in colonial history, I envisioned possible new ways to approach
problems of climate-justice. For more than ten years I have focused on portraying active landscapes and
after attending a workshop in worldbuilding for film in 2015 I have become more and more occupied
with its methods. Worldbuilding is wonderful for collective practices and I see great potential to link my
experiences in working with collective storytelling with fan-fiction groups, my activism in feminist and
45 John Stutz, Climate change, development and the three-day week, Tellus Publications, for a great transition, cambridge USA. 2008. 4.
46 Lina Persson, Outsourcing Animation. 2016. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-work?work=267241
47 T. J Demos. Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology, Sternberg Press Berlin. 2016. 19.
48 Lina Persson. Subatomic Particles/ Interview from hypothetical situation. Connecticut. 2012. https://vimeo.com/70935331
environmental movements, my commitment to alternative organisational models on topics ranging from
political platforms to food consumption to my artistic practice. I have also engaged role-playing game
masters to assist in organizing workshops. I’ve had meetings with sustainability CEO at Stockholm
County Council and researchers at Stockholm Resilience Centre in relation to structuring my research
regarding climate justice assessment as art. I am in dialogue with Chalmers University of Technology for
the possibility of making the climate assessment in my project as a degree project at the Division of
Environmental Systems Analysis. I expect the research will manifest itself through artist-certificates,
audiovisual storyworld, online platform, exhibitions, articles and essays. Below are some of my earlier
works that have led up to this project proposal.
• Tunga Ting, research project financed by Stockholm Uniarts. Investigating post-human
perspectives on the environment in relation to animation practices as well as exploring my own
position within the ecosystem through my practices of teaching and animation. For example I
generated my material by improvising lectures for various audiences I wanted to have input
from. I lectured to all possible entities in the ecosystem I am a part of, from blueberries to
colleagues to films in attempts to explore other than human- centric perspectives. I presented
the project at Royal Academy of Fine art’s Research Week 2016, in several exhibitions and in the
online exposition Animated Ecology. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/showexposition?
exposition=265814
• Return of the Silurians, research project financed by Stockholm Uniarts. 2016-Ongoing
worldbuilding project for rethinking and updating the science fiction genre of “the revenging
earth”. Also testing ways for storytelling about far far futures and time perspectives beyond the
human lifecycles. Exhibited at Gotland art museum and Gotland museum of natural history
2017 as part of exploring and questioning divisions between natural and human history.
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/384069/402780
• Labour of Textile and Animation, Stockholm Uniarts, (2016). An artistic collaboration investigating
similarities between textile production and animation production regarding working conditions
and sustainability. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/353153/353154
• Fault in the Tale installation, animated films, sculptures and video essay. Worldbuilding project
about the agency of geology, portraying landscape interacting with and against human activities.
Collaboration with scientists, museums and observatories.
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/273739/273740
• Fanmo jimte, DV, 26 min (2008). The film deals with how storytelling and environmental changes
are intertwined, it was made by engaging in collective fanfiction processes.
• Boulder Eclips. (Tantalum, Beryll, Petalit and Columbit), (2010) installation, Four animation loops
and sunfilm on windows. Exploring the connection between process and outcome and the way
my practice is connected to global environmental and human catastrophes.
http://www.linapersson.se/bouldereclips/boulder01.html
• Colonizing futures (2010) Medium-format, black and white film. The satellite was the metaphor for
the Swedish million-program suburbs. Located on a distance from the city center the suburb is a
city in the middle of nowhere. One winter night a visitor is exploring the wastelands between the
city of Gothenburg and the suburb Bergsjön. The photos are taken with a Hasselblad, the
camera that was used to take the first pictures in space and on the moon.
http://linapersson.se/colonizingfutures/colonizing01.html