The Anthropocene and Aesthetics 

Lusatia has been heavily influenced by the use of carbon-based resources. In the 18th century, the beginning of lignite extraction for energy brought about significant social and material transformations in the region. Coal-powered steam engines fueled mass industrialization, reshaping work patterns and land use. As time progressed, the role of carbon-based fuels expanded as it became a key source for generating electricity in thermal power plants, leading to the emergence of a new civilization, as noted by social critic Lewis Mumford (1934:156). “To be cut off from the coal mine was to be cut off from the source of paloetechnic civilization,” as Mumford (ibid) describes. The artworks shown in Part 1 are derived from a world view that legitimizes the human utility of the environment, demonstrating an anthropocentric perspective. In this approach, mining is depicted as a technological means to achieve modernization. This anthropocentric view is exemplified by the monumental aesthetics of mining, as illustrated in the previous part. However, despite its significant contribution to industrialization, the extensive burning of coal and other fossil fuels has released substantial amounts of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, resulting in unprecedented climate change. This situation has led some scientists to propose that the Earth has now entered the Anthropocene epoch, where human activities are profoundly shaping the Earth's environment.

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Paul Crutzen, the scientist who popularised the term Anthropocene, suggested that its origins can be linked to the invention of the coal-powered steam engine by James Watt in 1784 (Crutzen & Stoermer 2013:479). This invention marked a significant shift in the relationship between humans and their environment, brought about by the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism. This provocation resonates with the paradigm shift in the history of Lusatia, where lignite mining fueled not only energy production and industrial development but also conflict over land use and displacement. Around the same time, Immanuel Kant published The Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), which serves as a foundational treatise in modern philosophical aesthetics (Crawford 2013:46). Kant's perspective on aesthetics rejects the notion of objective principles of taste and emphasizes the subjective nature of judgments. For Kant, the aesthetic experience of the sublime is an expression of human self-awareness, highlighting the transcendental power of the human mind. It allows us to become conscious of our superiority to nature (ibid). 

This concept of the sublime has traditionally positioned humans as separate from nature, shifting away from today’s prevalent concept of interconnectivity and mutual dependence between human society and nature. However, as the Anthropocene discerns the marks that left by humanity into the rocks of the geological surface and found in the air of the atmosphere, it provides a useful framework to contemplate the question of what an anthropocentric framework of aesthetics entails. In the case of Lusatia, as the overburden conveyor bridge ravaged the land for lignite, it affected both humans and nature. Lignite mining has not only destroyed numerous villages with thousands of people being displaced to make way for mines, but also caused various overwhelming environmental impacts, including damaged ecosystems, degraded soil, acidified water, and air pollution caused by micro-particles and heavy metals. In other words, the concept of Anthropocene confronts us with the realization that modernism has not only led to ecological destruction but also social division and conflict.