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Abstract: Whereas mainstream theories of environmental art and sustainable development consider art as a domain suitable for the application of environmentally friendly procedures, such as the circular economy, trash management and digitization, this research article focuses
on the internal development of the autopoetic and selfreferential art machine, which generates an art-specific sustainability. The circular environmental economy coexists with the circular art economy, which implies changes in the aesthetics and poetics of the artwork; it deploys upcycling
to use art trash in creating a new, higher value object. Art-specific sustainability contributes to the power and complexity of the art machine with new conceptual interventions and devices. These devices allow art to resist threats from other fields and to redefine itself. As sustainable
development agendas of international organizations take into account the social, political, and economic initiatives that promote ethics, inclusion, and tolerance, this article discusses the contributions of contemporary environmental art to expanded concepts of the political and science.
In particular, art activism, in cooperation with civil society, can be an important driver in areas that parliamentary politics overlooks.

Abstract: Contemporary post-aesthetic art implies an expanded concept of the work of art that also includes political functions. Beuys's concept of social sculpture and Marcuse's idea of society as a work of art can be complemented by Abreu's project of
a musical orchestra as a social ideal (the Venezuelan example of the music and education project El Sistema) and the Neue Slowenische Kunst transnational state formed from the core of art. These concepts are close to the views of Hakim Bey (Temporary Autonomous Zone), with D'Annunzio
also touching upon them with his State of Fiume (1919–1920), for which he wrote the constitution and defined music as its central governing principle. Although the art state is a utopian project, art can serve a variety of emancipatory functions even in the dystopian present to intervene
in and change the political. In this article, we also discuss the case of art activism in Slovenia, where culture (with many engaged artists) has become a central part of civil society oriented towards social change. Art activism contributes to an expanded concept of the political, which includes
new subjects and new forms of antagonisms. Likewise, such repurposing of art emphasises its role in research.