Emergent Habitability
Produced by Patricia Olynyk, Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art, Washington University in St. Louis and hosted by the Off-Center for Emergence Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas
Emergent Habitability is part of the Creative Disturbance platform for ArtScience dialogue. This podcast series explores a deeper and more nuanced understanding of “habitability,” not just in biological or environmental terms, but through the dynamic entanglement of humans, technologies, and cultural systems. Dialogues at the intersection of art, science, and the environment challenge the limits of conventional astrobiological frameworks of habitability by highlighting the evolving relationship between people and place while fostering an integrated understanding of our position in the universe.
Conversations with artists, scientists, and humanists illuminate how creative practice intersects with planetary resilience, shifting values, and evolving technologies. At the center of these dialogues is the role of the artist—not as an observer, but as a co-creator of emergent systems of habitability. The series showcases boundary-crossing projects that arise from studio-lab collaborations and transdisciplinary networks, moving decisively beyond environmental determinism.
