What is euphemistically called climate change, or more directly climate crisis, has already become part of both aesthetic discourses and critical research perspectives in culture and the arts. Yet, until recently, the focus has mainly been on the representation of the prevalent ecological relationships and cycles, or on the impact on the environment and contemporary society. Increasingly, however, future-oriented, ecologically conceived potentialities of artistic actions are being explored by new alliances of artists, curators, activists, scholars, and other actors of...

It would be futile to resist the feeling that the marvelous curls of smoke, photographed by Étienne-Jules Marey between 1899 and 1901, first elicit from us. We have the impression of witnessing a pure beauty in the process of making, unmaking, and remaking itself incessantly before our eyes. It is a supreme flow—images of flow and a flow of images all at once—from which approximately fifty instants have been randomly “drawn,” all formed differently and likewise admirable. Such simple beauty...