Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene (Critical Climate Change)

Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene considers our human responsibility for the world, at a time when life finds itself under a unique threat. Its goal is to rethink “life” and what we can do with it, in whatever time we have left—as individuals and as a species. This speculative, poetic book also includes a photographic project by the author.
This book was inspired by Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens’ wonderfully provocative wedding to Lake Kallavesi at the ANTI Contemporary Art Festival in Kuopio, Finland, in September 2012. I am grateful to Annie and Beth, and to Luke Dixon, for allowing me to develop further my ideas on ethics and the Anthropocene at their 2013 Ecosex Symposium at Colchester Art Centre in England. Many other people have generously provided a space—both mental and physical—for me to experiment with this project, in different guises. I am particularly grateful to my antipodean friends (Nina Sellars, Stelarc, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr of SymbioticA) as well as the innumerable generous interlocutors from Mexico (Ana María Martínez de la Escalera from UNAM; Alberto López Cuenca and Gabriela Méndez Cota from UDLAP; the Transitio MX_05 festival team and its guests), Kate O’Riordan and Btihaj Ajana. I owe a big thank-you to many of my Goldsmiths colleagues and students, for keeping both the question of critical thinking and the question of politics permanently alive and open. Last but not least, I am grateful to Sarah Kember, Sigi Jőttkandt, David Ottina and Gary Hall.