Madness of the Anthropocene: Thinking with an Image

How artists rethink their work in the face of the Anthropocene's biggest challenges, including natural disasters and political upheaval

Published with 421 Online.

This book brings together artists and writers who use image-making and text as means to understand ecological change in the age of the Anthropocene. This experimental approach is inspired by Bayan al-Madrasa al-Kristaliyya (The Crystal Manifesto), published in 1976 by the Crystallist School in Khartoum. The manifesto delves into artistic and philosophical commentary on topics such as time, space and language. It also critiques artmaking practices within a growing "universal" imperialist discourse, a mode of thinking that resonated with concurrent African liberation movements of the South as well as Arab and African visual art movements from the 1960s. Madness of the Anthropocene draws inspiration from the "no-color phenomena" within the crystal--an object seemingly colorless whose visibility emerges under pressure. This dual state serves as a metaphorical and literal embodiment, echoing the overarching theme of the book's chapters that embrace madness as an artistic methodology for image-making today.