Dear all,
Last semester the IMS Green cluster became the IMS Environment cluster, thus opening up the group for examining how media and signs participate in the making and unmaking of environments. We organized readings of key theoretical texts from media ecology -- Mark B.N. Hansen on the concept of phenomenotechnics -- and hosted a lecture by semiotician Claudio Paolucci on semiotic lifeworlds. Additionally, we organized in collaboration with Chiel Kattenbelt a workshop on Lars Elleström's semiotic modalities with the aim to open a conversation about to what extent they are affected by recent media technological developments such as LLM:s and other machine learning algorithms.
A basic idea that we came back to time and again during these events is that the relation between an organism and its environment is recursive: the environment is made by the organism and the organism made by the environment. In human environments or lifeworlds, this recursive process is mediated by -- among other things -- technologies and signs. The human ecology is a semiotic techno-ecology.
As a next step to both widen and deepen these questions we operationalize the theoretical work by focusing on a question that is central in environmental politics and that may be very interesting for us as environmental or intermedial humanities scholars. We want to enter the mitigation vs. adaptation debate which originally is a debate about how to respond in the most efficient way to the climate-ecological crisis, but that will have crucial implications for cultural criticism too. It is our goal to expand it to include both the relation between society and nature and the relation between society and technology. We plan to develop these ideas for a while, with a sort of culmination in autumn 2028 where we will host the Association of Adaptation Studies conference in Växjö, on the theme of exactly these questions.
So, to begin our investigations we are sharing four texts for our meeting. The IPCC Summary for policymakers is of course a standard document that it is good to be familiar with, both as an intermedial communication effort and as a political document. Then we have the short 2005 “Introduction to papers on mitigation and adaptation etc…” that has some valuable phrasings for us. And then Wang et al’s “Climate Change: strategies for mitigation and adaptation” from 2026. A visually appealing and thus intermedially interesting presenting of our thematic. Read as much as you can of the three texts, they are meant to be a sort of basis for our future discussions.
And then finally, the proposal call for the 2028 Adaptation conference, where we continue classic intermedial discussions while also driving it towards environmental and adaptation questions.
As always, the seminar takes place in Dacke and on Zoom: https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/69646780177
Best wishes,
Erik and Jørgen
[https://res.public.onecdn.static.microsoft/assets/fluentui-resources/1.1.0/app-min/assets/item-types/24/zip.png]Ims_Env_october_2026.zip<https://linnaeus-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/ereraa_lnu_se/IQD85WfPAvi…>
[https://res.public.onecdn.static.microsoft/assets/fluentui-resources/1.1.0/app-min/assets/item-types/24/docx.png]Linnaeus AAS conference proposal.docx<https://linnaeus-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/ereraa_lnu_se/IQBud6siGJ0…>
Dear members of IMS Environment,
On June 10, we have a full day planned with a lecture in the morning and a mini-colloquium in the afternoon. As usual you can participate in Dacke or online through Zoom: https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/61066906240?pwd=RjgAgFEaHu7bPTOSzC7nyK3nYDXayL.1
Hope to see you there!
Best wishes,
Erik
Guest Lecture June 10, 10.15-12.00
Claudio Paolucci, professor of philosophy at the University of Bologna, joins us in the morning to present the concept of "semiotic lifeworlds". Below is the abstract from the article where he elaborated the concept and attached is a copy of the article. It is not necessary to read it in advance.
Abstract: If we think of cognition and experience from the enactivist idea of a
structural coupling between organism and environment, we see that this environ-
ment is first and foremost a semiotic environment, crowded with objects, norms,
habits, institutions, and artefacts that shape our minds and represent the back-
ground of our perception of the world. This semiotic environment, which goes far
beyond the opposition between nature and culture, (See Paolucci 2021. Cognitive
semiotics: Integrating signs, minds, meaning, and cognition. Berlin: Springer: ch. 1.) is
a semiotic lifeworld that is important to compare with the classic idea of lifeworld
coming from phenomenology. In this paper, (i) we will first start with a comparison
of the semiotic Lebenswelt and the phenomenological Lebenswelt; (ii) we will follow
the construction of the semiotic lifeworld coming from Peirce’s Anti-Cartesian
essays; (iii) we will make a deep comparison between the phenomenology
coming from Peirce (phaneroscopy) and the phenomenology coming from Husserl,
Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty; (iv) we will show how these very same principles
also ground structuralism; (v) we will show how this new semiotic lifeworld
grounded on phaneroscopy is neither pre-logical nor pre-categorial. Rather, it is
founded on the primacy of “telling” over “showing,” and on the primacy of discourse
over perception.
Keywords: phenomenology; interpretant; Peirce; lifeworld; intuition
Mini-Colloquium: The Meanings of Meaning and Subjects Across Media, 13.15-16
Media have a history. New technologies emerge with new affordances
shaping what can be thought, perceived, and communicated. The
materiality of different media types simultaneously enable and restrict
how meanings and affects are made and conveyed.
In this colloquium, we want to push this line of thought in a novel
direction. Yes, media have a history, And yes, they simultaneously
enable and restrict how meaning and affect are mediated. It seems,
however, as though the meanings of meaning and the affectivity of affect
remain the same -- and, as a consequence, that the subjects subjected to
them, either as producers or perceivers, stay firmly in place. Recent
developments in media studies suggest, on the contrary, that
computational media have paved the way to entirely new kinds of
meaning and affect. The questions that we want to pursue in this colloquium is how
to conceptualize these changes and how the new meanings relate to those
that we have inherited from the past.
Interventions by IMS researchers Erik Erlanson and Anne Holm and the invited guests Chiel Kattenbelt and Claudio Paolucci
Dear all,
Next week Jørgen Bruhn presents a text that elaborates the concept of intermedial subjectivity. We meet as usual in Dacke (for those of us who are in Växjö) and on Zoom. This time we will also be joined by the higher seminar in film and literary studies.
The text is attached and Jørgen has asked me to forward the following message:
Dear all,
Here comes a text on a topic I have been working on and thinking about for a while, I have been giving presentations, written small papers and I have tried to support my initial idea by reading in different areas. It falls, I am afraid, in an unhappy middle-position between regular article and preparation for a larger book-project, but apart from obvious repetitions and a faulty bibliography hopefully we will have something to discuss anyway. So clearly this is work in progress and therefore all ideas and critical comments are welcome.
Looking forward to seeing you all ther!
Best wishes,
Erik
Hi IMS: Environment-people,
after Easter, we are visited by our Artists in Residence via the HULT program: clearly of interest to many of us, so take the chance to meet the artists and get in dialogue with our guests!
Happy Easter to all of you,
Jørgen
Welcome to next week’s IMS seminar: “Art, ecology, community: The HULT residency projects 2026.” See below for more information. The seminar is on the 8th of April. from 10.15-12.00 in room Dacke, Växjö and on zoom: I you want to participate via zoom, please email: ims(a)lnu.se<mailto:ims@lnu.se>
April 8: Art, ecology, community: The HULT residency projects 2026
Click the link for the seminar’s homepage: https://lnu.se/en/meet-linnaeus-university/current/events/2026/ims-seminar-…
Ingela Johansson: A Labyrinth of Sorrow, Strength, and Healing
Ingela’s plans for the residency. I am interested in the intersection: memory politics, care-work, ancient knowledge, organic farming as cultural landscape heritage, and feminism. Through my project A Labyrinth of Sorrow, Strength, and Healing, I aim to explore feminist resistance to central authority, accumulation, extraction and how it has materialized or been socialized across disciplines. Much of my concept for HULT is based on Silvia Federici’s work on reproduction of labor and witch hunts as a form of social control. Additionally, I’m having a great pleasure of reading Elin Wägners 1000 år i Småland.
My work will pick up various threads. Take the legend of Blenda that has, in a real sense, served to strengthen collectivist and feminist ideals in Småland—a fictional legend that led to actual political change, such as equal inheritance rights. This legend is mentioned by Wägner, has been the inspirational source for many, for example recently the “Blenda project” in 2018. I am interested in monastic life with an emphasis on cultivation in relation to environmental transition, ecofeminism, and the commons. There is little written record on these gardens, but Nydala Abbey maintains cultivation as part of the green cultural heritage. This interest in the 1600-1700 century may also involve examples from peasant culture and the use of witchcraft. Who were the marginalized and free-thinking individuals who challenged the norm? I’ve looked a bit into Nydala Monastery and St. Sigfrid Mental Hospital, how can one compare these confined environments—one chosen and one imposed? The Småland Museum archives contain interesting leads, such as the 1960 Poverty Exhibition, Furthermore there are also examples within the art-design context of Småland with lots of silent knowledge. This will likely result in various dialectical treads, a montage-style work with different focal points.
Leandro Ferre Caetano: Methodologies for long-distance intimacy
Leandro’s plans for the residency “My curatorial approach focuses on creating conditions for collective processes of listening and co-learning, treating rural contexts as active sites of knowledge production where climate urgencies circulate between local and global spheres. I'm particularly interested in exploring how artistic practices can engage with the specific ecological and cultural landscapes of Kronoberg, developing methodologies that value non-academic knowledge and cultivate "long-distance intimacy" between rural territories and broader networks of thinking. My presentation will be dedicated to my practice-based research which informs my curatorial approach, followed by how this has evolved to consider the specificities of Kronoberg's local 'ecologies.'
The HULT residency program explores the interaction between humans and nature, capturing contemporary, complex issues around climate emergency and societal transformation. The starting point is Kronoberg's rural context where many different types of actors and interests take place. This includes cultural organizations, activists, community actors, municipalities and academic partners. The basis is a strong desire to promote the development of new ways of thinking and collective living as a response to the most pressing challenges of our time.
About the presenters
Ingela Johansson is a writer and artist based in Stockholm. Mainly working with video, installation, narrative film, textile and text, Johans son’s practice engage in topics such as social history and memory – she is known for her work around individual and collective experiences of history writing: poetics of solidarity, microhistories and archives on the labor organization. More recently she has taken an interest in the practices of care, mourning and healing, herstories, storytelling that is intersecting eco-feminism and cosmologies.
Johanssons most recent exhibitions, screenings and projects includes: Kin, Center for Contemporary Art, Kiruna (2025), Umeå Konsthall (2024), Havremagasinet, Boden: Liljevalchs, Stockholm: Modem, Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Hungary(2023), Bröhan Museum, Berlin (2022), Södertälje Konsthall, Luleåbiennialen (2021), Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Stockholm, Göteborgs Konsthall (2020) among others.
Ingela Johansson<https://ingelajohansson.net/>
Leandro Ferre Caetano, born in Mogi das Cruzes, Tietê River territory in Brazil, is a curator and researcher based in Copenhagen, working between the Nordic region and South America. His curatorial practice is grounded in art-based research and cultural mediation, with a strong interest in postcritical and decolonial approaches in artistic practices.
Leandro is a curator, researcher and project manager at ARIEL – Feminisms in the Aesthetics and has previously collaborated with institutions such as SESC (BR), the São Paulo Biennial, Videobrasil (BR), Museum of Impossible Forms (Helsinki), and Skēnē (Malmö). Leandro holds an MA in Visual Studies and Art Education (Aalborg University & Aalto University). Recent projects focus on socially engaged projects, ecological practices, and collaborative methodologies, developing projects that connect artists and researchers across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Brazil.
https://arielfeminisms.dk/
Sent from Outlook for Mac
Dear friends,
The next session in our work this semester is a text seminar dedicated to a working paper by Jørgen Bruhn on Intermedial Subjectivity. Abstract and text will be circulated at least one week in advance.
Please note that we have moved the meeting from our regular cluster slot to the HFL seminar time on Wednesday 6, 13:15-15:00.
Best wishes,
Erik and Jørgen
Dear all,
First, our upcoming seminar on Mark Hansen, critique, and the digital has a new time and place for the seminar next week: 13.15-15.00 in N1052V or zoom (https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/4131583665)
The reason for this change is that LIMO offers a very promising lecture by media scholar Oddgeir Tveiten in Kalmar at 10.15: 21st century Communication and the Age of AI - centennial canons, concepts and contexts (see more including zoom-link below). Tveiten's lecture speaks to similar qustions and problems that we are dealing with in our seminar, but with a different emphasis.
As a reminder concerning our seminar: under the topic Critique and the digital we are discussing the forms that critique may take in relation to contemporary algorithmic cultures and media environments. To give the conversation a direction we ask you to read Hansen, Mark B. N. ”The Critique of Data, or Towards a Phenomenotechnics of Algorithmic Culture”. I Critique and the Digital, redigerad av Erich Hörl, Nelly Y. Pinkrah, och Lotte Warnsholdt. Critical Stances. Diaphanes, 2021. The seminar will be introduced by Erik Erlanson and Per Israelsson.
Best wishes,
Erik Erlanson
Below is the invitation to the LIMO lecture:
We are happy to invite you to the next LiMO research seminar with Oddgeir Tveiten on 25 February 10-12 followed by an informal lunch.
Topic: “21st century communication and the age of AI – centennial canons, concepts and contexts” (abstract, see below)
Venue: Ra1141
Recurring zoom-link: https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/62094123938<https://fojo.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?u=587ae68969dad8cd07b603c28&i…>
Please contact LiMO-coordinator Andreas Önnerfors for more information: andreas.onnerfors(a)lnu.se<mailto:andreas.onnerfors@lnu.se> +46 (0)70 270 27 78
Abstract
“21st century communication and the age of AI – centennial canons, concepts and contexts”
The opening question is one that an increasing number of researchers and educators in higher education all ask: How are we to understand the meaning of Artificial Intelligence and what do we do with it?
While these concerns seem to point towards philosophy, technology design and education science, they also foundationally address 100 years of communication research as a scholarly field.
The introduction of ChatGPT in 2020’s impacted profoundly on communication institutions and social practice, reminding us that 100 years of communication research – developing models, concepts, theories and paradigms – now stands at a new juncture. The history of communication research is a history of observing the disruptive power of technology. A quarter into the new millennium the extension and intensity of 21st century communications technology is more profound than ever. Impacts on society and civic webs of meaning now challenge communications research to critically assess canonical models, concepts, and theories: The question is how.
Lofty words such as these might be put to better use through anchoring more concretely and quite pragmatically in already existing debates about these issues: In the presentation, the starting point will be the 1983 special issue Ferment In The Field, published by Journal of Communication, issue edited by George Gerbner. In that volume, contributors looked backwards, sideways and forward in search of answers to where communications research was at, at that time. Later volumes coming out on the same theme represent updates on a fast- expanding global field of research within the humanities and social science, but not with the same discursive force. Not even the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the subsequent demise of the Soviet Union, rendering the US as the sole superpower, created a comparable intellectual thrust within the communication research community.
To this and to a wide array of subsequent research publications exploring 'ferment', one might ask: Starting with the introduction of '.html code, also in 1989, what's AI got to do with it?
AI not being a new invention, the introduction of 'large language models' such as ChatGPT in 2022 and a host of others, could lead one to argue that not only do existing paradigm assumptions in communication research have to be rewritten (and indeed, are being rewritten); profound ontological and epistemological questions concerning what technology is and does, should be firmly placed on both the research agenda and the education agenda. On that order, what insight and what perspective might a review of key canons in communication research provide?
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Dear all, Swedish, Intermedial, international friends and colleagues to Ola.
This is a terrible message to write. I must inform you that our friend and colleague Ola Ståhl from Design passed away Tuesday February 3rd. I have not been informed about the cause of death.
I met Ola about a decade ago at a weird research speeddating event and we quickly found out that we clicked: we had common interests in art, theory, experimental literature and, slightly later, the ecological crisis and the idea of the “anthropocene". Among other things. We liked to hang out in Malmö, to have a beer or to check out an exhibition.
Our collaboration grew tighter over the years: with other colleagues we developed and co-taught the Climate Emergency Studies MA-course and BA-course, we taught classes at Design, we were part of exciting EUniwell-collaborations and shared long train rides to Kassel, Köln, Venice, Florence. For me it was an intellectual adventure. We had a great time and I learned a lot from Ola.
Charming, lively, engaged Ola was loved by students, and I think teaching was what he enjoyed most in academia - apart from sketching future projects and events perhaps.
A few years ago he became part of the IMS where he was involved in the Artist in Residence program and he lead the IMS: Green group, first with Niklas, then with me.
I know many of you have had conversations with Ola, met him at seminars and events, perhaps taken part of his knowledge on art, Documenta, Deleuze or Guattari, Krautrock or something else. Ola was a great addition to IMS, and we will miss him. I have lost an inspiration and a friend and a creator of new exciting milieus and educations; engaged in things that matter.
If some of you need to talk I am of course available - just send a mail or call me. On February 24 11.00 there will be a memorial event at Lnu in Växjö - more information via Medarbetare soon.
Let us take a moment to remember the wonderful smile and the charm and intelligence of kind Ola. I hope he will rest in peace.
Jørgen
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Dear all,
this is just a (late!!) reminder about today’s zoom-presentation that has clear environmental correlations! - info here:
/////
Welcome to next week’s IMS seminar with Asun López-Varela, titled “Intermedial Semiosis and the Agency of Attention: “Serious Noticing” in the Eco-Poetry of Kathleen Jamie”. The seminar will take place on Wednesday the 4th of February, 10.15-12.00, in room Dacke and on zoom: https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/61066906240?pwd=RjgAgFEaHu7bPTOSzC7nyK3nYDXayL.1
Abstract
Contemporary ecopoetry has increasingly challenged anthropocentric conceptions of perception, creativity, and agency by foregrounding the relational entanglement of language, matter, and environment. Rather than treating poetic expression as the projection of a sovereign human consciousness onto a passive landscape, recent work within intermedial and semiotic theory invites us to understand poetic form as emerging from dynamic exchanges among heterogeneous material supports—bodily perception, inscriptional practices, environmental processes, and cultural memory. This article proposes a theoretical account of Kathleen Jamie’s eco-poetry through the lens of Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics and the intermedial aesthetics, arguing that poetic “noticing” functions as a distributed semiotic practice rather than a purely subjective act of observation.
Drawing on Peirce’s triadic model of the sign and his phenomenological categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, the study conceptualises Jamie’s poetics as a field in which sensation, encounter, and habit converge to produce meaning across human and more-than-human agencies. Intermediality is thus understood not merely as the combination of verbal and visual forms, but as a process of transduction in which wind, stone, tide, birdcall, and inscription co-participate in signification. Language becomes one medium among others within a broader ecological semiosis.
Central to this account is Jamie’s practice of “serious noticing,” which the article interprets as an ethical and aesthetic mode of attention that redistributes agency away from the observing subject toward the relational event itself. Noticing operates as a form of interpretant activity: it mediates between material presence and symbolic articulation, allowing the poem to emerge as the trace of an encounter rather than an imposition of mastery. Through close readings of selected poems, the paper demonstrates how Jamie’s work enacts a non-anthropocentric poetics in which perception becomes participatory, writing becomes a site of intermedial translation, and the environment asserts its own semiotic force.
By situating Jamie’s eco-poetry within a Peircean and intermedial framework, the article ultimately advances a model of literary agency grounded in attentiveness, reciprocity, and material co-production, proposing “noticing” as both a methodological principle and an ecological ethics of form.
Bio:
Asun López-Varela is Assoc. Prof. at Facultad Filología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid<https://www.ucm.es/>. She holds a PhD Anglo-American Culture and Literary Studies (2002), a Diploma of Advanced PhD Studies in Spanish Literature from UNED (2004), and a Master in Education Management from the Open University London (2000). Her research interests are Comparative Literature, Science & Literature, Cultural Studies, Cognitive and Intermedial Semiotics and Green Humanities and Sustainability. <https://www.ucm.es/siim/eurasia-foundation-complutense-2022-lectures-webina…>
Something for environmental/affect group?
From: enscan-request(a)uia.no <enscan-request(a)uia.no> On Behalf Of Stefka Georgieva Eriksen
Sent: den 28 januari 2026 13:11
To: enscan(a)uia.no
Subject: [enscan] CfP: Eco-emotions on Earth, 2.-4. September, Oslo
Dear colleagues,
The Eco-emotions research initiative is happy to share the Call for Papers for our next annual conference, Eco-emotions on Earth<https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/research/projects/eco-emotions/annual-con…>, to take place on September, 2nd-4th, 2026, in Oslo.
Throughout the history of humanity, earth, with all its lifeforms, has had a crucial significance and impact on human existence, from providing essential resources, to symbolizing Mother Earth and home, or bringing forth earthquakes, draughts and landslides, and being a main motivation for violent conflicts and occupations. Whether hunter-gatherers' communities, the pioneers of the agricultural revolution, or inhabitants of urban and industrial centers, human cultures have always relied on stable relationships to earth and its resources and have strived to tame changes in these through different means, including trade, religion, or technology. With its rural and wild, cultivated and gardened forms, earth has enticed and inspired, as well as threatened and harmed, which has also led humanity to search for new lands, or to imagine alternative earths and lifeforms.
This conference invites scholars to explore how literature, on its own or in comparison to other humanities disciplines, has captured these shifting affective responses to earth and all its lifeforms in any literary genres, fiction and non-fiction, from any historical and geocultural areas, such as classical, medieval and modern literatures, Nordic and global. We welcome papers on topics including but not limited to:
* the role of earth and landscapes in representing and shaping emotional responses to climate change
* the aesthetical and ethical dimensions of earth
* earth as metaphor for affective responses to places and spaces
* agency of earth and all its lifeforms
* alternative/imaginary earths and lifeforms
Our keynote speakers this year are:
* Emily Lethbridge, Associate Professor at Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
* David Farrier, Professor at School of Literature, Languages and Cultures, Personal Chair of Literature and Environment, The University of Edinburgh
* Serenella Iovino, James Gordon Hanes Distinguished Professor in Humanities, Department of Romance Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
If you are interested in contributing to the conference with a 20-min paper, send a title, a brief abstract of 200 words, and a short bio to eco-emotions(a)iln.uio.no<mailto:eco-emotions@iln.uio.no> by March 15th, 2026. For more information, see the full Call for Papers here.<https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/forskning/prosjekter/affektiv-respons-pa-miljoend…>
Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, and feel free to share the CfP widely with other colleagues and students who may be interested.
With all best regards,
Stefka, on behalf of the organizing committee
Stefka G. Eriksen<https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/people/aca/old-norse-and-celtic-philology…>
Associate Professor, Old Norse Studies/Medieval Studies
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies
University of Oslo
PB 1102 Blindern
0317 Oslo
PI of research initiative Eco-Emotions<https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/research/projects/eco-emotions/> (2024-2028)
Head of Research ILN - Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studier<https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/research/projects/eco-emotions/events/mon…> (2025-2026)
