From Abstraction to Action: Climate Change through the Lens of Digital Arts and Technologies

Speaker: Bina Venkataraman 

Abstract:

How do we grasp the consequences of climate change and reckon with it in our communities? Too many efforts run aground in the craggy rocks of scale and time horizon.  Mathematical abstractions – such as parts per million of carbon dioxide and degrees Celsius rises in average global temperatures over decades – fail to compel emotion or guide decisions. Slow change is often not visible with our eyes or our conventional tools. Can digital technologies and artistic works – from aerial imagery to data technologies to virtual reality to installation art – offer new perspective and paths for us to navigate planetary crisis?

Bio:

Bina Venkataraman leads efforts that draw on science and technology to improve public policy and sustain the health of people and the planet. Currently, she is a Fellow at New America and teaches in MIT's department of science, technology and society. Bina previously served as Senior Advisor for Climate Change Innovation in the Obama White House, where she developed policies and stood up coalitions, with a particular focus on private sector entrepreneurship and community resilience to climate change.  She is a former journalist for The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Bina is an alumna of Brown University and Harvard's Kennedy School, and the recipient of Fulbright, a Princeton in Asia fellowship, a Metcalf fellowship and a James Reston fellowship. She serves on the Brown University President’s Leadership Council, the advisory council of the Institute at Brown for the Environment and Society, and the Board of Earthwatch. She was named a 2015 Global Young Leader by the French-American Foundation.