Leiden University Student Repository

Ruzgytė, Aušrinė (2025)

Environmental awareness through hyperobject aesthetics in Aguahoja, Earth Workers Requiem/Jubilate, and Aerocene

Master thesis | Arts and Culture (MA)

This thesis examines how contemporary art practices mediate hyperobjects - vast entities like climate change that defy comprehension due to their scale and complexity. Drawing on Timothy Morton’s theory of hyperobjects, it develops the concept of hyperobject aesthetics as a framework for analyzing artistic strategies that recalibrate our sense of scale, duration, and agency. Three case studies ground the analysis. Neri Oxman’s Aguahoja (2018–2019) stages nutrient cycles through programmed material decay. Jonas Staal’s Earth Workers Requiem/Jubilate (2024) evokes deep time and multispecies solidarity through ritual and political symbolism. Tomás Saraceno’s Aerocene (2015-ongoing) engages the atmosphere via participatory, weather-dependent flight. I apply Morton’s concepts and assess their scope and limits in art, showing how these works train perception and can help audiences notice, understand, and care about hyperobject-scale issues in their lives.

Hyperobject aesthetics

perception

viscosity

non-locality

temporal undulation

Author

Ruzgytė, Aušrinė

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Museum Studies

Supervisors

Wild, K. de

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en