Art-Science Works for Just Worlding: A Review Essay

This review essay delves into the art-science movement vis-à-vis the vibrant field of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS), foregrounding the movement’s potential to confront pressing planetary crises through imaginative, transdisciplinary approaches. Examining three pivotal texts—Ruha Benjamin’s Imagination: A Manifesto, Laura Forlano et al.’s Bauhaus Futures, and Dehlia Hannah’s A Year Without a Winter—the essay identifies their shared commitment to speculative methods for ecosocial justice. These works challenge disciplinary boundaries, blending speculative fiction, design, and critical theory to reimagine responses to the climate crisis and its imbricated socioecological inequities. Central to this analysis is the role of "speculative fabulation" (SF), a method found in art-science which integrates artistic creativity with decolonial, feminist technoscientific inquiry to inspire radical reimaginings of sustainable futures. These texts emphasize collaborative, community-driven interventions that decenter anthropocentrism and embrace multispecies justice. By juxtaposing dystopian and utopian imaginaries, they critique techno-solutionist approaches while fostering solidarity and creative resistance. This essay positions the art-science movement and the field of ASTS sites that produce vital frameworks for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, offering a blueprint for cultivating alternative, just worlds for all Earthlings. Highlighting the inseparable interplay of art, science, and technology as demonstrated in Imagination, Bauhaus Futures, and A year Without a Winter, the authors of this review underscores ASTS’s transformative potential for transdisciplinary scholarship and activism aimed at multispecies flourishing beyond the Anthropocene.