The international conference proposes to mobilise a broad variety of perspectives from a large disciplinary spectrum in order to analyse the strategies and imaginaries that are connected to the production, the circulation and the power of global environmental images. From icons of the environmental movement over expert graphics mobilised by the IPCC to satellite imagery, global environmental images form the sensory basis of our understanding of the planetary processes that govern the “Anthropocene”. The images all actively participate, at very different scales, in our interpretation and understanding of the changes of the Earth system as well as the consequences we closely associate to global climate change. As true mediators between different publics and cultures, between global processes and local impacts, new critical enquiries into global environmental images propose a highly fruitful discussion of the complex relationship between science, society, politics and nature.

Programme

Thursday, October 9, 2014

9:30-10:00                 Welcome coffee
 
10:00-10:45               Introduction

• Sylvie Joussaume, CNRS, GIS Climat-Environnement-Société
• Sebastian Grevsmühl, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie

10:45-12:10               Icons of the environmental age
Chair: Christophe Bonneuil, CNRS/Centre Alexandre Koyré TBC

• Global crisis, green consumers: environmental spectacle in a neoliberal age, Finis Dunaway, Trent University
• One image all over the world: analysing blue marble’s meanings, Silke Vetter-Schultheiß, TU Darmstadt

12:10-13:40               Lunch break 
13:40-15:00               Expert graphics and visual cultures of IPCC (1)
Chair: Hélène Guillemot, CNRS/Centre Alexandre Koyré 

• “Of exactitude in science”: the visual representation of uncertainty, Richard Hamblyn, University of London, Birkbeck College
• Visual cultures of IPCC: objectivity, judgement, futures, Martin Mahony, King’s College London

15:00-15:30               Coffee break
15:30-16:50               Expert graphics and visual cultures of IPCC (2)

• Uncertainty visualisation in the climate change discourse: from the IPCC reports to climate web portals, Thomas Nocke, PIK Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
• Visualising climate negotiations with the help of digital traces, Nicolas Baya-Laffite, SciencePo Media Lab

16:50-17:30               Visual cultures of the anthropocene (1)
Chair: Néstor Herran, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Paris
Imagining atmospheric technoscience: before, during and after the International Geophysical Year, James R. Fleming, Colby College 

Friday, October 10, 2014

9:30-10:00             Welcome coffee
10:00-11:20           Remote sensing and the global environment (1)
Chair: Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, CNRS/Centre Alexandre Koyré

• Observing from the outside, you feel as a part of the inside, Cathy Dubois and Michel Avignon, CNES/HT2S-CNAM
• Best effort: the uses of satellite cartography in disaster monitoring, Arnaud Saint-Martin, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University

11:20-11:50               Coffee break
11:50-13:00               Remote sensing and the global environment (2)

• Global environmental perceptions of Africa, Guillaume Blanc, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University
• Technology, satellite imagery and the environment, Johan Gärdebo, KTH Stockholm

13:00-14:30               Lunch break
14:30-15:50               Visual cultures of the anthropocene (2)
Chair : Charlotte Bigg, CNRS/Centre Alexandre Koyré

• How to do things with worlds: the natures of cosmograms, John Tresch, University of Pennsylvania
• Burning Worlds. A critical approach to the climate cosmograms of the anthropocene , Birgit Schneider, Potsdam University

15:50-16:20               Coffee break
16:20-17:40               Environmental aesthetics
Chair: Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University – TBC 

• Environmental aesthetics and the anthropocene, Nathalie Blanc, CNRS/LADYSS
• Costal landscapes as part of a global ocean, Hervé Regnauld, University Rennes 2

17.50-18.30               Concluding discussion
Introduced by Chantal Pacteau, GIS Climat-Environnement-Société and Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University