conscient podcast

e182 ian garrett - modelling what we want on the other side

Episode Notes

• Whether or not we get to a complete and total collapse or we're looking at collapses of very specific systems for it…  Right now I'm concerned with modeling what we want on the other side as best as possible so that whether or not it's a person or a machine learning algorithm as artificial intelligence, when it's looking back on the things that is basing its future decisions on, that it’s not just the dominant systems that got us into this mess.

Ian Garrett is Producer for Mixed Reality Performance collective Toasterlab; and director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, a think tank on sustainability in arts and culture, as well as Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University. He maintains a design practice focused on the integration of ecology, technology and scenography.

My first conversation with Ian was during e54 called empowering artists and took place by zoom on May 25, 2021. At the time we were both serving on the Mission Circle of SCALE but had been exchanging about art and sustainability for years. 

This time we met in person on Monday June 18, 2024 at Ian’s home in Toronto where he lives with wife Justine and their two dual citizens, Miles and Henrietta as their dog Maggie whom you’ll hear in the background once in a while. 

We talked about the many interconnections between his work as designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture as well as spoke of the challenges facing the art and climate movement in Canada.

It was especially interesting for me to revisit our 2021 conversation in part because of this statement by Ian that has stayed with me since that time, sometimes inspiring me, sometimes haunting me:

• I don't want to confuse the end of an ecologically unsustainable, untenable way of civilization working in this moment with a complete guarantee of extinction. There is a future. It may look very different and sometimes I think the inability to see exactly what that future is – and our plan for it - can be confused for there not being one. I'm sort of okay with that uncertainty, and in the meantime, all one can really do is the work to try and make whatever it ends up being more positive. There's a sense of biophilia about it.

There is clearly more uncertainty now than ever but as you’ll hear Ian does a lot of positive work for the benefit of the arts community and that we are best served to be both aware of our pain and grief while being fully engaged in action for a future we cannot yet see but is unfolding.

Ian recommends 

• Groundworks (2022) documentary about ‘restorying’ land in California (contact Ian to view)
• Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Drilled podcast by Amy Westervelt (oil industry in Guyana)
• Outside In (new hampshire public radio) about social infrastructure, notably the 'Powerline' series
• In Too Deep by Rachel Kimbro

Episode Transcription

Excerpts from this episode 

• Whether or not we get to a complete and total collapse or we're looking at collapses of very specific systems for it…  Right now I'm concerned with modeling what we want on the other side as best as possible so that whether or not it's a person or a machine learning algorithm as artificial intelligence, when it's looking back on the things that is basing its future decisions on, that it’s not just the dominant systems that got us into this mess.
• I don't want to confuse the end of an ecologically unsustainable, untenable way of civilization working in this moment with a complete guarantee of extinction. There is a future. It may look very different and sometimes I think the inability to see exactly what that future is – and our plan for it - can be confused for there not being one. I'm sort of okay with that uncertainty, and in the meantime, all one can really do is the work to try and make whatever it ends up being more positive. There's a sense of biophilia about it.