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In the last two decades, Aby Warburg (1866-1929) has become one of the main protagonists of not just art historybut Humanities at large. In recent years, artists have also been turning their faces towards Warburg, continuouslymaking references to his last and unfinished project: Mnemosyne Atlas (1927-1929). This paper will claim thatthis is due to similarities between artists’ increasing interest in intervening into narratives of the past, andWarburg’s conception of cultural memory in Mnemosyne, which was the accumulation of his life-long interests.In this regard, the paper will argue that both for Warburg and artistic practices, cultural memory is a dynamicprocess in which images act on creating new pathways into the past; and in return alternative understandings ofthe past in the present.

There seems to be a general agreement that reporting from war is of utmost importance and a necessary precondition to addressing a conflict. Reading and viewing the news in this context is often referred to as witnessing the unfolding crisis, even though the newsreaders/viewers are not present in time and space. Taking my art activist project “Gazes From Syria: Ten Years of Uprising / Multi-Sided Civil, Sectarian, and Proxy War,” which draws on ten years of reporting in the International New York Times about the war in Syria, as an example, this paper examines if and how following the news can be seen as media witnessing. Analysing the news reporting and photography as witnessing texts, I show how the specific conditions of news reporting and photography contribute to a sense of immediacy and actuality and can thoroughly affect media audiences. Inherent in news reporting from war is the demand to take notice and intervene, which implicates the newsreaders/viewers in the witnessing process of addressing and responding. Far from passive spectators, many newsreaders/viewers accept the responsibility of the witness to testify in a variety of ways, co-constructing the truth of the witnessed event, and shaping public opinion and collective memory. Finally, the paper points to the temporal horizons of witnessing texts, which change over time from immediate testimony to later potentially being evidence in a court of law, and finally how they become historical documents in the archive, without losing their witnessing potential.

This open access peer-reviewed edited book explores the crisis of witnessing as well as the individual and collective positions and responsibilities of the witness in times of crisis: How can various aspects of witnessing across disciplines and contexts enrich our understanding of our realities? And how do current changes to mediums of witnessing (both physical and digital) impact the way we receive, experience and share information?

This synthesis report is a meta-analysis of perspectives for biodiversity and ecosystems, with a strong focus on human impacts on the environment, and a work order to enable and manage the protection, survival and evolution of all species on Earth. The goal is to protect nature without any further species loss (Zero Extinction). With this report, we assess alarming signals from the environment; determine the needs of threatened biota and the required actions to manage and protect landscapes and ecosystems; and identify some inescapable tendencies, challenges but also possibilities. The story of humans on Earth is at a critical juncture.Human behaviour is inherently dependent on physical and societal relations, including orientation and positioning within the physical environment. There is no single cultural benefit that is independent of provisioning through ecosystem services. Humans are part of the environment, acquire all needs from it and, as such, depend on its integrity and management for life and well-being. Moreover, if human impacts to the environment continue to increase the risk of rebound effects impacting human life and health will increase as well.

Udgivelsesdato: Maj