Abstract
Oil is deeply entangled with art. Through their art, contemporary artists play key roles in community organizing and social justice activism in response to the environmental effects of oil. Systematically considering artworks engaged with science and technology has the potential to add new dimensions to STS studies, including on studies of oil. Ethnographic and aesthetic work concerning the sociotechnical systems around petroleum and petrochemicals is becoming increasingly prominent. In this paper, I adopt tools from the emerging interdiscipline of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS), which takes the art-science phenomenon as its principal subject, for a close reading of artwork exploring the influence of the petrochemical industry on the region known as ‘Cancer Alley’ in Louisiana. Such science and technology-engaged artworks have the potential to reveal the cultural, social and political meanings of subjects like oil and are useful to ASTS scholars not only as examples for analysis but as potential tools of analysis.
Original language | English |
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Journal | History and Technology |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 3 |
Pages (from-to) | 201-217 |
Number of pages | 17 |
ISSN | 0734-1512 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- Art
- art-science
- ASTS (art, science, and technology studies)
- oil industry
- petrochemical