Aesthetics as ecology, or the question of the form of eco-art
In this chapter Clive Cazeaux argues that eco-art poses a problem to classification because its two terms have such a broad meaning: after conceptual art, there are no restrictions on the material form art can take, and ecology covers notions of environment, nature, interactions with nature, interconnection, and the fundamental, ontological condition of belonging. He considers recent attempts to classify the field, and suggests that, while they can be helpful, the full force of the problem of categorisation is better addressed by turning to the position given to aesthetics by phenomenology. This takes categorisation down to the level of how categories can be applied to experience when conventional, subject/object frameworks have been suspended. Although this leaves the classification of eco-art open, it nevertheless shows that the openness is a result of the complexities of our aesthetic rootedness in the world, where ‘aesthetic’ is understood in sensory, causal and metaphorical terms.