The Formal Wilderness: Human, Nature & Image

Re-evaluating Nature

2009-05-04T07:08:00.001-07:00

Before taking this class I've always had a more general, vague idea of nature and how I relate to it. Nature always seemed to be something "out there" rather than something that could be in our homes (biophilia) or within ourselves (an ecological rather than anthropocentric view of our role in nature). This semester we've explored more traditional means of representing nature with the photographs of Eliot Porter and Subhankar Banerjee as well as those pushing the boundaries between art and science like Edward Kacs.

More than anything, this class gave me a heightened awareness of nature, both in the way artists are using and referencing it and how it's functioning in the broader context of our culture. While looking for artists each week for the blog I was introduced to a whole genre of work that I had never before seen (and that I'm now writing my paper on): green grafitti artists like Edina Tokodi and a political and art movement once known as the green guerrillas in the 1970s and are now called guerrilla gardeners.

While at Art Chicago this weekend I found myself drawn to artwork that referenced one or more of the themes that was brought up in class this semester. In the West Prize exhibition, Nathan Vincent installed sculptural pieces that had been knit or sewn and referenced artifacts of hunting culture. While he focuses on the idea of gender in his work, I couldn't help but notice how most of his work also included a natural element-- from the stuffed deer's head to the bearskin rug (reference pieces below).

Fish, 2006 Bear Rug, 2006

Deer, 2006

The piece that had the most impact on me in the entire Next and Art Chicago fairs was a video piece also shown in the West Prize exhibition. Titled "Metropolis" the video by Rob Carter uses paper and stop-action animation to produce an abridged narrative history of Charlotte, North Carolina. It quickly goes from referencing the actual city to constructing a fictional city that combines elements of New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Dallas. There's a focus on urban planning and our alteration of the natural environment with the building of skyscrapers, freeways and sports stadiums. Most profound was the ending, when the cities are abandoned and taken over by the natural landscape (which reminded me of our conversation about post-nature last week). Carter had this to say about the project in his statement:
"Made entirely from images printed on paper, the animation literally represents this sped up urban planners dream, but suggests the frailty of that dream, however concrete it may feel on the ground today. Ultimately the video continues the city development into an imagined hubristic future, of more and more skyscrapers and sports arenas and into a bleak environmental future."
Below is a somewhat low-quality version of the video but you can also see a better version on his Website.

Lastly, this semester has helped me see my current project through another lens, primarily that of biophilia in the interiors of the home I photograph. This comes in the form of floral wallpaper, kitschy landscape paintings and various knick knacks in the shapes of owls, deer, mushrooms and cats. While a few of my earlier photos invariably included these elements, I'm now seeking them out more purposefully when I shoot. Below I've included some of my own work that demonstrates biophilia.

Post-Nature

2009-04-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

This semester we've been examining the meaning of nature and the way artists have envisioned it through visual art, writing and film. It's fitting that nearing the end of semester we look at post-nature and what that might mean. There's something ominous about the concept of post-nature, to me it refers to two ideas: either a dystopian model of the world or a Post-Apocalyptic model. Ever since reading Brave New World in jr. high I've been fascinated with dystopias. Unlike other well-known dystopian novels like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World takes place in a world that I would describe as post-nature; human civilization has overtaken nature (in the form of our own biology) by replacing our normal form of reproduction by 'growing' children in hatcheries. While written in the early 1930s, Brave New World tackles the idea of a future society that has conquered conventional nature through the use of science and technology. In a similar vein, the 2005 "The Island" describes a seemingly utopian society in the mid 21st century where inhabitants are waiting to win the lottery so they can go to the last unspoiled place on Earth. Two of these inhabitants, however, Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta,come to the realization that they are actually clones and a product of a company that sells harvested human organs to those living outside of their facility.

Both Brave New World and The Island tackle the issues of our civilization's increasing dependence on technology and questions how the consequences of our tampering with nature. This is one form of post-nature, our control/power over our environment. The other post nature scenario stems from a post-Apocalyptic standpoint: civilization and Earth as we currently know it is dramatically altered due to a 'natural' phenomenon like a disease epidemic or disaster like a meteorite/giant tsunami/volcano/swamp monsters or a 'manmade' disaster like global warming, famine from overpopulation or nuclear war. Dozens of novels and movies have been based on this model of post nature, sometimes Earth is depicted as being harsh and inhospitable, with any surviving humans having to live underground or in highly controlled conditions while in other cases nature has overtaken manmade structures, thus returning the environment to a more pre-historic state.

William Christenberry, Kudzu with Storm Cloud, near Akron, Alabama, 1981.

The show at the New Museum titled "After Nature" grounds itself somewhere between the dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic models of post-nature. After reading through the curatorial description and viewing the pieces on the online exhibition works, the 3 works that most closely visualized how I imagine post-nature are the following: William Christenberry's photograph of kudzu (a type of parasitic plant prevalent in the Southern U.S.), a still from Walter Herzog's film "Lessons of Darkness" and the collaborative piece (?) by Allora and Calzadilla, Growth (Survival), 2006. Grafted tropical plants and Jenny Holzer’s Blue Wall Tilt, 2004. Christenberry's photograph, while taken in 1981, points to how quickly nature could overtake manmade structures. I have to admit to not seeing Herzog's film but the ominous billowing clouds of smoke reference science and industry and a future that could not be too far off-- a landscape that has become too polluted to inhabit. The piece Growth (Survival) combines a natural element and technology but falls into the Brave New World model as the plant has been grafted, so there has been human intervention in the growing and production of nature.

Allora and Calzadilla, Growth (Survival), 2006. Grafted tropical plants and Jenny Holzer’s Blue Wall Tilt, 2004

It could just be the edit chosen for the Web site, but the pieces shown don't necessarily reflect the curatorial description of the show. While I find the theme of the show provocative, the statement frequently lapses into hyperbole and is grandiose in its vision. One such example, the following is taken from the statement that describes the show as "A requiem for a vanishing planet, "After Nature" is a feverish examination of an extinct world that strangely resembles our own." It also states that the show is an examination of "wilderness and ruins" and is a story of "a story of abandonment, regression, and rapture." What most of the images available on the Web site lacked is tension and the struggle between what can be considered manmade and what can be considered natural (ignoring the fact that we are a part of nature). Is "After Nature" meant to be a warning? It's described as the "landscape of the future" by the curator, implying that there is still some sort of landscape in the future.

After looking at the images in the show I came to the conclusion that after nature/post-nature doesn't refer to a future devoid of nature but instead is a vision of an Earth that has been significantly altered by either the aftereffects of humans or has been dramatically changed through our direct alteration of nature.

Seeing & Vision: Antartica

2009-04-20T07:35:00.001-07:00

Before reading William L. Fox's article "Terra Antarctica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent" the only image I had of our southernmost continent is the above image of penguins set in a landscape of snow and glaciers. Up until this point I also thought the Arctic and Antarctic were virtually the same-- the only difference being that polar bears lived in the North (and Santa!) and penguins were in the south. Beyond this distinction I had never really examined these two geographical areas in a scientific or artistic way.

[Satellite Image of Antarctica]

While reading through Fox’s article, what came up right away was the difference between the Arctic and Subhankar Banerjee's depiction of it and Fox's description of the Antarctic. Banerjee's goal was to depict the ANWR in a way that shows how it is tied to the rest of the world; he did this by including evidence of global warming and also by exploring the communities that are native to the area. There are no indigenous populations in Antarctica, however, and Fox depicts the region as barren, harsh and disorienting. He describes the conditions of the continent to be so foreign that we as humans don’t have the biological facilities to fully understand the landscape.

[Photos by photographer Anthony Powell who currently lives and works in Antarctica]

Fox argues that since our species evolved in relation to a savanna-which contains both grasslands and trees—we are used to comprehending landscape in terms of placemarkers in the environment (like trees) and judge distance by the way particulate matter in the air scatters light (features in the distance become mistier and take on a blueish hue ie atmospheric perspective in painting). In Antarctica there are no trees and the atmosphere does not scatter light in the same way so there are no visual cues in which to aid those exploring this harsh terrain. During the most extreme weather conditions, in what’s known as a whiteout or Ganzfield, there occurs a visual field without contours; a human reaction to this phenomena is the loss of balance and coordination which can progress into a complete (though temporary) loss of vision.

Continuing the discussion about space and place from last week, Fox applies the same principles to the region: “A severe challenge in the Antarctic is trying to develop a sense of place where our ability to sense the space itself is so compromised.” In the Antarctic humans cannot rely on their vision alone as the conditions do not mesh with what has been genetically and culturally conditioned into us. It is in this space that we can explore the role that biology plays in art, in particular how it shapes our perceptions and artistic vision. Fox describes this translation as such: “human cognitive process that first turns land into landscape, then landscape into art.” (xv) It is this failure of our biology that has also led us to mapmaking, “cartography was the cultural means we deployed to overcome our neurobiological limitations in new and extreme spaces” (24). Through a map we can chart distances in a way that seems more objective and can be measured scientifically—but what are the implications of charting the Earth’s surface into grids? Fox seems mapmaking being related to power, “when we grid a landscape…we end up making the assumption that we rule over the land.” Through maps we create borders and superimpose boundaries rather arbitrarily, it relates more to a sociopolitical context rather than a relationship to the actual terrain.

[1934 map of Antarctica--click for a larger view]

One of the most intriguing points that Fox bring up in the article is how our tradition of landscape art can be considered a mapmaking activity. I had never before connected these two genres before but when looking at older, more detailed maps I can begin to understand the relationship between these two forms of depicting the land. Fox describes landscape art as “a way of getting us from the familiar ‘here’ to the unfamiliar ‘there’.” This is particularly true in photography, the images of various natural and cultural landscapes allow us to access what may otherwise be unfamiliar to us (in terms of both visuals and experience).

While a lot of the imagery I found of Antarctica were in the vein of National Geographic, I did find the below project done by American artist Jan Estep. Estep works in several media, including textiles in the form of installation. Below is my favorite piece, it's titled "TopoAntarctica" and is made from polar fleece and ripstop nylon.

[Above an installation view and two details below]

Another piece she created is titled "Language Snow Crystals" that are drawings of snowflakes made up of lettering. Estep says of the piece: "Language Snow Crystals present an image of a snowflake built up by language, the loops and line of the hand-written words approximating the lace-like structure of actual snow crystals. The text comes from two sources, Ernest Shackleton’s diary South and various medical manuals about hypothermia, what happens to the body physically as it slowly freezes and ways to protect the body from severe cold."

I leave you with a time lapse video done by Anthony Powell during his stays in Antarctica.

Place & Landscape

2009-04-13T07:39:00.001-07:00

It seems to be rare to find essays written by photographers about both their work and the genre that they are working in-- this week we read Frank Gohlke's "Photography and Place" and Robert Adams' "Truth in Landscape" from the book Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values. Surprisingly, Gohlke focuses on the writings of Thoreau and the photography of Herbert Gleason in his essay, citing them both as artistic figures that approached the question of what is "place" and what it means to us.

In his essay Gohlke investigates the origins of our idea of place and links it to memory: "The evidence of the actions of human beings in a specific locale constitutes a physical version of memory." He points out that we are the only species that create places and that they "don't occur naturally; they are artifacts." The use of the word artifacts infers history and an ascribed meaning and importance given to a particular object-- in this case the object being a space. Gohlke sees place as being both something physical and tangible (ie a natural element like a mountain) and mental (the significance we place on the mountain) and describes it as "a unique and significant intersection in space of human history and natural history." Thus we can think of place as claiming a part of the natural landscape as our own due to a role it plays in our culture and history.

Gohlke turns to the literature of Thoreau and the photography of Gleason as examples of his discourse on place. He sees Thoreau as being grounded in a particular area--Concord-- and praises his knowledge of place through lived experience.

Gleason seems to have slipped through the cracks of photo history, as I had never heard of him before this essay. I did a little research and found that in the early 1900s his landscape photos appeared in the Sierra Club Bulletin, mainly serving as illustrations to text written by nature advocates like John Muir. Below are a few examples allow with the original text.

"It is the counterpart of the Yosemite Fall, but has a much greater volume of water, is about 1,700 feet in height, and appears to be nearly vertical though considerably inclined, and is dashed into huge outbounding bosses of foam on the projecting knobs of its jagged gorge." - John Muir

Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VII. No. 4, June, 1910. Plate LXXXVIII.

"Hetch-Hetchy Valley is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain mansions. As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls glow with life, whether leaning back in respose or standing erect in thoughtful attitudes giving welcome to storms and calms alike." - John Muir

Source: Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VII. No. 4, June, 1910. Plate LXXXV.

Without the text, Gleason's photographs appear to be rather innocuous images of pristine landscapes. Muir's text adds a context, provides facts about the area that lend the photographs a sense of 'truth' and also ups the aesthetic value of the photograph by using words like "sublime" and "precious" to describe the landscape. Of course Muir's agenda was to promote the beauty of these places and he saw the photographs as another way of convincing the public to invest in the conservation of places like Yosemite.

Gleason also produced a set of photographs to accompany Thoreau's writings; they were taken in Concord of the woods and other natural settings that inspired works like Walden.

Pond Lilies at Fair Haven Bay.

Double Row of Arbor Vitae Near Battleground.

After looking at Gleason's images, I at first found it curious that Gohlke would reference his work as they seem to be the anti-thesis to his photographs and way of seeing the world. I've always understood the New Topographics movement as a reaction to the more pictorialist and idealized images of photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston; as they included elements of the 'manmade' like fences and housing developments and utilize a flat light that creates a bleaker view of the landscape rather than a dramatic, lush image that celebrates a timeless, untouched wilderness. Gleason's work seem more similar to Ansel Adams than Gohlke's; it seems, however, that Gohlke is drawn to Gleason's photographs of nature because of their relationship to place and how the Walden images survey one geographically confined locale.

Cows, Plainfield, Massachusetts- from 42.30 North: A Line on the Land, 2002.

Slate Quarry, under Pin Hill Road, Harvard, Massachusetts,- from 42.30 North: A Line on the Land, 2002.

The two photographs above, from a recent project of Gohlke's, both reference historical landscape traditions. The "Cows" photograph at first appears pastoral and is similar to 18th and 19th century paintings done of rural England. What disrupts this scene, however, is the sliver of paved road on the right side that places the photograph in a particular time period and doesn't allow the landscape to be separate from our everyday experience. Without its title, "Slate Quarry" would appear to be an image of untouched nature in the vein of Eliot Porter. Once we realize the context it allows for another understanding of the image that explores one of our relationships to the land; in this case our disruption of nature.

What is Gohlke's relationship to the other New Topographer photographers, especially Robert Adams? Before reading Adams' essay I was never fully aware of his ideas on place. I only thought of his work in a very limited way, mainly seeing his photographs as a critique of the sprawl of Denver and the relationship people had with nature in the 1960s and '70s in America. The following passage was particularly enlightening:

"...geography by itself is difficult to value accurately--what we hope for from the artist is help in discovering the significance of place." He goes on to say "We rely, I think, on landscape photograph to make intelligible to us what we already know."

Adams also described what he saw as the three elements that should make up every good landscape photograph: geography, autobiography and metaphor. I took this to mean that the photograph should be descriptive in some way, be subjective/reflect the artist's point of view, and also point outside itself to a historical reference or draw upon our memory.

Burning Oil Sludge North of Denver, Colorado

The above photograph is one of the first I'd seen of Adams and it has stuck with me since. To me it's powerful because the form of the cloud becomes formally beautiful, which competes with our knowledge of its toxity and the fact that it's a product of our exploitation of the land. The scale of the oil well and the tree is also the same, which runs counter to what we would expect--it goes against the idea of the grandness of nature.

Subhankar Banerjee & The Artic National Wildlife Refuge

2009-04-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

Known and Unknown Tracks, Oil and the Geese, 2006

For over a hundred years, socially minded photographers have been grappling with how their images can make a difference; by raising public awareness of situation to actually enacting change through legislative measures. Lewis Hine's photographs helped to reform child labor practices at the beginning of the 20th century and Nick Ut's image of a girl after a Napalm attack in Vietnam contributed to the anti-war sentiment of the 1960s. Could these images, however, have had such an impact without a specific context? Hine's work was presented with lengthy blocks of text describing the conditions of the factory and were distributed via journals. Ut's image circulated through the popular media and was also framed through the use of text. For photographs to truly have an impact, to spur change, they need to presented in a particular context in a receptive social climate.

INUPIAT CEMETERY | Inupiat and The Whales| 2001

Photographer and scientist Subhankar Banerjee's images of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are so powerful because of their titles, accompanying text and the locations in which they are presented. As author Finis Dunaway points out twice in her article, "Reframing the Last Frontier: Subhankar Banerjee and the Visual Politics of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge," on their own, Banerjee's photographs could be mistaken for images of "pure nature" that would slot into a kitsch aesthetic of calendars and greeting cards. While Banerjee draws upon a visual aesthetic influenced by painters like Bierstadt and nature photographers like Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, he eschewed a romantic, golden light in favor of a flat light more reminiscent of Robert Adams. He also takes a more ecological standpoint, rather than presenting an untouched nature, Banerjee presents birds and animals in the landscape, as well as the native people who live in this area.

CARIBOU NEAR KOKOLIK RIVER | Coal and The Caribou | 2006 |

Banerjee's scientific background influences his photographic work-- he seems to systematically approach his subject and the resulting images serve as evidence of a particular phenomena (like global warming) or documentation of a natural cycle (migratory patterns of birds and animals). The accompanying blocks of text, which provides information on geographic location, information about a particular bird/animal species and the human impact (in terms of drilling, land use, etc) furthers this evidence quality of the images.

SEA ICE ON BEAUFORT SEA AND BEAUFORT LAGOON | Oil and The Whales | 2006

Dunaway begins her article with a scenario that took place in the Senate in 2003-- when Senator Barbara Boxer held up one of Banerjee's images as "visual evidence" of why drilling should not occur in ANWR. Banerjee's images played an important role in this context, because Republicans had previously downplayed the ecological richness of the ANWR, portraying it as a vast, frozen land that had no distinctive qualities to the landscape. One senator went so far as saying that the ANWR was as empty as a blank, white piece of posterboard and thus had no aesthetic value. Banerjee's photographs demonstrate that the ANWR is not a "flat, white nothingness" and that it remains a vibrant place throughout the year.

When the Smithsonian censored the first show of Banerjee's images after the Senate debate, it had the opposite effect of what they intended-- while the photo show may have been regulated to the basement, stripped of their context due to the exclusion of the accompanying text; the censorship and consequently Banerjee's images received national attention when the major media outlets and government officials like Senator Dick Durbin publicly decried Banerjee's treatment by the museum.

NIKOLAI SHALUGIN | Yukaghir and The Climate | 2007

Banerjee has been savvy in the way that he displays his work; his photographs have almost exclusively been presented in natural history museums (like the Field Museum here in chicago) versus fine art museums and galleries. He also enrolled an extensive list of influential environmentalists, scientists and art historians to write essays for the exhibition catalogue. These texts, along with the text accompanying the photos, allowed for a richer understanding of the project.

What becomes problematic is the tension between Banerjee's intentions and the cultural myth that surrounds the ANWR-- it is often described in terms as "wilderness," "the last frontier" and as a "place frozen in time, a blank space that provides the setting for imperial nostalgia" (Dunaway, 11). These sentiments actually come up in some of the essays published in the exhibition catalogue and is also reflected in many environmental groups' vision of the ANWR as a pure, untouched nature separate from the modern world. Dunaway sees Banerjee being able to overcome this in his the way he documented the migration patterns of birds (emphasizing how they connect the ANWR to other parts of the world) as well as his inclusion of human communities in his images, which undermines the ideal of a pure wilderness.

SNOW GEESE II | Oil and The Caribou | 2002

I look forward to hearing Banerjee describe his own work and what caused the shift in the way he viewed the ANWR, from initially searching it out as the last untouched region of America to now seeing it in a way that connects it to our everyday lives.

Ode to the Geodesic Dome

2009-03-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

Buckminster Fuller, born in 1895, was one of the last New England Transcendentalists. Their influence can be seen in Fuller's rejection of established religious and political notions of the past and his ideas of a system of thought based on the unity of the natural world. While the Trascendentalists used experiment and intuition to better understand the natural world, Fuller also saw technology as being the means of understanding the universe; he was devoted to "applying the principles of science to solving the problems of humanity" (Fuller, 1965) .

He was ahead of his time in terms of understanding the limitations of natural resources and our impact on the environment. Fuller dedicated his life to finding an answer to the following question: "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?". Fifty years before the popularization of the green movement and a biocentric view of nature, Fuller already developed a systemic worldview and was concerned with energy and material efficiency in his architecture and engineering projects. Unlike many of the "doom and gloom" environmental critics of today, Fuller remained optimistic about humanity and our future; in the 1970s he went so far to proclaim that competition for necessities was no longer important and that cooperation was key for survival-- he went so far as to say that war was obsolete.

While Fuller made many contributions to the realms of science and art throughout his long career, I want to focus on what he's most known for, the form of the geodesic dome. The word "geodesic" comes from Latin and means earth dividing-- thus a geodesic line is the shortest distance between any two points on a sphere. Fuller devised the geodesic dome as a way of optimizing structural advantage by using the least material possible. The dome uses a pattern of self-bracing triangles that allow for local loads to be distributed throughout the structure. In contrast to conventional buildings, geodesic domes get stronger, lighter and cheaper per unit of volume as their size increases.

Surprisingly, Fuller was not the first to come up with the geodesic dome, but he did develop it further and helped to popularize the concept more widely. Originally Walther Bauersfeld came up with the idea during WWI for the construction of a planetarium in Germany. It was Fuller, however, who applied the concept to domestic and industrial buildings. Originally Fuller thought the geodesic dome would be ideal for addressing the postwar housing shortages. Due to design drawbacks, the dome was instead mainly adapted for industrial and institutional use.

Buckminster's Fuller's most radical idea involving the use of a geodesic dome to enclose the entire city of Manhattan. It was conceived as a way of regulating weather and reducing air pollution.

Unbeknownst to me, my first exposure to Buckminster Fuller was through my 11th grade AP chemistry class-- to better understand the structure of the spherical fullerene or "buckyballs." Little did I know at the time that the straw and marshmellow buckyballs we were creating had any connection to geodesic domes or the complex ideas of designer/architect/writer/inventor/visionary Fuller. Unfortunately the article by Elizabeth A.T. Smith already assumed we had an intimate knowledge of Fuller and his ideas and she only briefly references a concept when discussing how he influenced contemporary artists. Thus I did some of my own independent research to better understand Fuller and his ideas.

Where else has Buckminster Fuller's ideas infiltrated American Pop culture? Another example is a piece of playground equipment modelled on Fuller's geodesic dome. Children can climb up the latticework of the dome or swing from the bars at the top. Unfortunately most of these playground domes have been dismantled in recent years due to safety issues (they're made out of metal that can develop sharp edges/rust).

The Montreal Biosphère, designed by Fuller and built as the American Pavilion for the 1967 World Exhibition Expo. It was originally built from steel and clear acrylic and had seven levels of themed platforms. The clear bubble exterior burned in the 1970s; today the steel stucture surrounds the enclosed buildings of the Environment Museum.

The geodesic dome in an urban setting: Vancouver's Science World, originally built in 1986 for the Exposition on Transportation and Communication and designed by architect Bruno Freschi. Now it houses a hands-on science and technology museum geared toward children.

The first industrial building to be built in the design of a geodesic dome was the Union Tank Car building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was designed by Fuller himself in 1958 as a repair station for railroad tank cars. Unfortunately it fell into disuse and disrepair and was eventually demolished by the Kansas City Southern Railroad in 2008 after a long battle by preservationists calling for its historical status.

Home Sweet Dome? Since the 1950s, companies like Geodesic Domes and Homes, Energy Structures and Good Karma Domes have been producing prefabricated homes influenced by Fuller's geodesic dome structure. The homes are touted as being more resistant to hurricanes and storms as well as being more energy efficient than traditional buildings. Fuller actually lived in a geodesic dome home in Carbondale, Illinois that still stands today. Contemporary dome houses are geared more towards an off-the-grid living lifestyle that does not necessarily jive with Fuller's ideas of the geodesic home as a cheap, easy-to-make option for the masses. His utopian idea did not catch on in the domestic market due to practical issues like roof leaks.

Located on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood is my favorite incarnation of Fuller's geodesic dome. Built in 1963, the Cinerama Dome took only 16 weeks to build and cost half the cost of a conventional building. The top image is a vintage postcard that shows the Cinerama Dome the year it opened. In 2002 it became integrated into a larger multiplex and renamed the Arclight; it hosts star-studded premieres for movies like Shrek and Spider Man (the bottom two images show how the dome is redecorated accordingly).

From Sea to Shining Sea

2009-03-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Manifest Destiny/Manifest Responsibility exhibition catalogue dealt with many issues that we've brought up in class this semester: an anthropocentric view of the natural world versus an inclusive, biocentric model, the tendency to view the landscape as object and as a setting for human activity or as Michael S. Hogue put it: "the natural world, in other words, has long been regarded as a blank canvas upon which we paint our lives." The authors of the catalogue and the exhibition hope to chart our changing relationship with nature and how artists have started to "interiorize" nature.

Hogue pointed out an important aspect of the way the early English and European settlers viewed the landscape, they saw America as a wilderness-- both in terms of the natural environment and the people who had already settled there and cultivated the land--the Native Americans. In his article Hogue disusses the three types of wilderness that the early settlers faced: the physical wilderness of the land, the perceived spiritual wilderness of the native people and the psyhic wilderness of potential spiritual degration within the colonial Puritan mind.

Since the Puritans classified their new home as wilderness, they obviously saw the natural world as dangerous and something to be subdued. They also saw it, however, as a trial to be endured-- akin to the struggle of Moses in the desert, or to go to the source of the Christian idea of human versus nature, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the lush, protected landscape of the Garden of Eden into the untamed world beyond.

After the American Revolutionary War, there was a shift away from viewing the land in a religious context to an agrarian ideal put forth by President Jefferson. The natural world was no longer seen as a wilderness to be feared, now it stood as what Hogue calls a "source and metaphor for the nation's status" and a "model of civic virtue and enlighted democracy." From then on, the landscape of America came to be seen in a moral and political context rather than a religious one.

In the 1830s, with the presidency of Andrew Jackson, there was a push to expand America's boundaries. From the original colonies (which make up a small percentage of the land in the contemporary U.S.), we pushed Westward to claim what was once French, Spanish and Native American land. It was Jackson that forced Native Americans out of their settlements in 1831 with his Indian Removal Act, the beginning of what would later be called The Trail of Tears.

It is this part of history that I find most disturbing-- while we're all familiar with the forced removal of Native Americans to Oklahoma and other reservations due to the American idea of Manifest Destiny; the catalogue and exhibition does a disservice to these native peoples by also excluding their artwork from the pages of their visual history.

Who are the most well known American landscape artists? In painting it's Thomas Cole and the artists of the Hudson River School and in photography it's Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter. From what I can tell from the plates of the catalogue, the exhibition presents a Euro-centric, male-dominated view of the American landscape. This led me to wonder how Native Americans image the natural world and how it differs from the European American view.

"Hummingbird", 2009, James Lavadour

One contemporary landscape artist of Native American descent is James Lavadour, who is part Walla Wall and grew up on the Umatilla Reservation. He is known for his abstract landscapes inspired by mountainous northeastern Oregon. Like the abstract expressionist and action painters of the 1950s, Lavadour looks to painting as a kinetic expression of his physical experience with the landscape. He says this about his work: "At some point I made a connection between the ways walking conditioned my body movements and the way my body governed my hand when I painted. Links between muscle and memory, place and identity became the basis of my art."

"Little Bird" 2008, James Lavadour

Lavadour was part of a show titled "Off the Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination" that presented the work of five artists of native descent. The curator of the show, Kathleen Ash-Milby, described the native relationship to the land: " As a subject for Native artists, then, the land/landscape is laden with history and expectation. Land is home, culture, and identity, but it also represents violence, isolation, and loss." While European American representations of the landscape carry nationalistic and political associations, native American representations are often tied to identity and memory. I was surprised to find that these five artists also represent the natural world in a very abstract manner that seems to refer to a feeling about the landscape or a relationship to nature rather than attempting to represent a place. Ash-Milby explains this tendency: "The artists in Off the Map all use the landscape as both muse and subject, but none seek to represent a specific place you can locate in a guidebook or on a map. All landscapes, despite their intentions, are imaginary constructs, and these artists make no attempt to literally depict a specific place and time." Their work points away from a landscape demarcated by borders and boundaries and instead explore not only what we experience visually or physically but also how landscape becomes a part of the human psyche.

(Above, "Above Water" 2002 and Below, "Red Coral" 2007 by Emmi Whitehorse.)

Artist Emmi Whitehorse, who was also included in the "Off the Map" show creates large, abstract multi-media pieces done on panel. Of Navajo descent, she references aspects of her culture in her work as well as memory and land. Water is also another prevalent theme, which she attributes to growing up in a desert climate. Whitehorse had this to say of her work: “My work is about and has always been about land, about being aware of our surroundings and appreciating the beauty of nature. I am concerned that we are no longer aware of those. The calm and beauty that is in my work I hope serves as a reminder of what is underfoot, of the exchange we make with nature. Light, space, and color are the axis around which my work evolves.” What's intriguing is that she thinks of the natural world in terms of an exchange between us and nature rather than one element theatening or dominating the other.

"Mount Maude", 1942, oil on canvas.

Contemporary native artists seem to draw inspiration from abstract expressionist artist George Morrison, who was of Ojibwa descent and was born on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation near Chippewa City in Minnesota. Above is one of his earlier, more representational paintings of the landscape. In the 1950s he became associated with a circle of abstract expressionists artists in NYC and thereafter his paintings dealt with similar themes and subject matter but was executed in this new style.

"Collage IX: Landscape", wood, 1974.

Going Green with Vintage

2009-03-09T07:01:00.001-07:00

There's a myriad of reasons why people buy vintage and secondhand-- it's cost effective, the items are more unique than what can be found at big box stores and sometimes it's the nostalgia factor, your grandmother had a plate or bracelet just like it. For the past two years the majority of my wardrobe has been sourced from thrift stores, consignment shops and estate sales. Nearly all the furniture in my apartment was found on Craig's List, including our couches (which we had professionally cleaned). My personal reasons for favoring vintage is a love of a particular era (mainly 1950s-1970s) and the feeling of owning something that has a history. I've never considered my buying preferences as a political act until a recent e-mail from the Goodwill thrift store that urged me to "Go Green!" by shopping at their store.

Buying secondhand extends the life of an item that might have ended up in the trash heap; it also allows more people to experience what some consider to be a disposable/one-off item like novels, CDs and DVDs. How feasible is it, however, to completely give up shopping at stores like Target, H & M or The GAP? I came across the blog of a 24-year-old Australian girl who made a New Year's Resolution in 2008 to not buy any new clothing for the entire year based on environmental, ethical and personal reasons. She documents her experience with daily entries at The Vintage Year.

(Photograph of The Vintage Year's author in one of her secondhand outfits)

After the year-long experiment she had this to say: "Now, though, I'm hopefully going to maintain the shift in perspective that last year gave me. Not buying anything new helped me to rediscover how much I love thrifting; it helped me to break out of the cycle of earning and spending my money; it allowed me to think more deeply and thoughtfully about the environment and the world we live in. So I'm going to try and carry on not buying anything new unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm going to try and think about every purchase and not impulse buy. I'm going to try and plan and budget for each new item and have it be something to celebrate, not feel guilty about. I've been trying to think of ideas for how to stick to this plan. Do I donate a certain percentage of the price of new items to charity? Do I impose a limit on how much I can spend or how many items I can buy? Do I make a rule that each time I buy a new item, an old item has to go? I'm still trying to decide... but for now it's just my conscience that will dictate it, and I hope it has the mettle to follow through."

While The Vintage Year's blog focuses mainly on clothing/fashion, it is a good example of how someone is making a conscious effort to buy secondhand as a political act.

Interior design and home magazines are also pushing vintage as a budget-friendly and eco conscious choice, an article from Remodeling Magazine said "[w]hen you use vintage pieces, you bow out of buying something new, and potentially save usable material from entering the waste stream." Better Homes & Gardens presented a slideshow titled "My Vintage Way of Going Green" that features window valances made of old aprons and tableclothes, a coffee table made out of a chicken pen and a 1940s dresser enlivened with wallpaper scraps.

Design-centered blog, Design Sponge, often features DIY projects from users who rescue outdated and somewhat shabby furniture from thrift stores, relatives and even alleys and curbs and modernize them with a bit of paint and new fabric. Below are some 'before' and 'after' pictures.

A chalkboard/message board made from an old mirror.

(Above a footstool enlivened with a fresh coat of white paint and contemporary fabric. Below, a hand-me-down chair from artist leslie sigler's mother-in-law was given a modern facelift).

Buying vintage fits in with the "reuse" part of the familiar "reduce, reuse, recycle" slogan of the 1990s. I believe it's eco friendly in two ways: 1)it saves furniture, clothing and electronics from going to the dump, thus reducing land use for our waste and 2)It reduces our dependence on foreign imports and addresses some of the ethical dilemmas people face about purchasing clothing produced in sweat shops. Buying vintage is also a relatively easy way for the public to do something "green" and raise consciousness about what we use and dispose of on a daily basis.

A PoMo Approach to Environmentalism

2009-03-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

Like most children growing up in the 1990s, my first exposure to the idea of environmentalism and conservation came in the form of the cartoon, Captain Planet. The cartoon seems to be the result of a push during that time to educate the public about how they could do their part to save the Earth, primarily by reducing, reusing and recycling. The above clip is the first episode of Captain Planet; it stands as a good example of how we approached environmentalism then—the environment is shown as pristine, with features like natural features like the forest and ocean being prominent and larger animals such as dolphins highlighted. The danger comes in the form of manmade machines that clear trees and rip into the very core of the Earth, disturbing Gaia, the spirit/physical embodiment of nature. Captain Planet shows the environment as a pristine ‘thing’ to be saved and points to unregulated corporations (that cause oil tanker spills and pollution of the skies through their factories) as being the main problem to be solved by the Planeteers.

The cartoon’s model of preservation mirrors the second wave or modern form of environmentalism that authors Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus argue is no longer effective in the contemporary world in their essay “The Death of Environmentalism.” From this essay I gathered that Schellenberger and Nordhaus are wanting a more Post Modern approach to environmentalism—they want us to question our assumptions about environmentalism, to call for the examination of the underlying structure of the movement and to do away with a narrow definition of issues and to move towards a more inclusive model. Unfortunately a majority of the article is spent pointing out the evils of the old system and their new vision of environmentalism, as seen through the Apollo Project, is only briefly introduced and expanded upon. Their need to hammer their points into us makes sense when I understand their audience—a public generally satisfied with the way things stand and is able to easily grasp “technical solutions”, like buying a more fuel-efficient car. The public may also be rather jaded, thinking we already won this fight, the whales were saved, the parklands preserved. It also would initially be difficult to understand why environmentalists are now concerned with labor and industry rather than dealing with what traditionally has been labeled an “environmental” issue—the most difficult aspect of Schellenberger and Nordhaus’ vision is the reframing and relabeling the issues.

So how dated is this article? In the four or so years since it was published, the new green movement has been firmly established in the U.S. Out of this movement has come hybrid cars and the banning of plastic bags (which the authors would most likely see as only ‘technical’ solutions) and a renewed emphasis on organic food and sustainable farming. More people carpool, bike or take public transportation to work; our government buildings, offices and even homes are being built with more eco-friendly features that reduce energy consumption feature elements like solar panels. While I find all of this encouraging and progressive, it becomes problematic when going green starts being a trend rather than a solution to a complex problem.

The photograph above demonstrates how part of the public reacted to the banning of plastic bags in major cities that started in San Francisco in 2007. The women hold I'm Not a Plastic Bag by British designer Anya Hindmarch sold at Fred Segal in LA. This designer bag sold out within an hour in LA and NYC and spawned lines that went on for blocks. What happens when environmentalism becomes the must-have accessory of the season? While some may argue that it at least gives publicity to an issue and targets a new audience, it also undermines the gravity of the larger problem and falsely leads the public to think that our pollution problem can be solved with the purchase of a green accessory.

In 2008, when countries like China banned free plastic bags, the international artist community took notice. In London, a collective project featured photographs submitted by members of the public of plastic bags in the environment, whose goal mainly seemed to be bringing attention to the issue rather than offering a solution or a clear point of view.

Chris Jordan’s “Toothpicks” 2008: Depicts one hundred million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees cut in the U.S. yearly to make the paper for junk mail. Original size 60” x 96”

American artist Chris Jordan produces large-scale photo collages of disposable items that we use everyday and think little about—packing peanuts, plastic and paper cups and yes, plastic bags. Included with each pieces are stats like the following: “Depicts 320,000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc.).” and “Depicts 166,000 packing peanuts, equal to the number of overnight packages shipped by air in the U.S. every hour.”

Chris Jordan, “Plastic Bottles” 2007. Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. (Below is a detail shot)

Jordan’s work is intriguing because it visualizes statistics that otherwise would be vague and abstract; the images also astound due to the sheer volume of stuff that we consume on a daily/monthly/yearly basis. A problem I have with the work is that it aestheticizes the problem and it doesn’t go beyond the presentation of the facts—are we really called to action after seeing the volume of our refuse? Doesn’t it bring us full circle back to the “reduce” part of the popular “reduce, reuse, recycle” slogan?

In the summer of 2008, the media production group Squint/Opera presented its vision of a post-global warming London. “Flooded London” depicts the city in the year 2090 as a tranquil utopia set in a once-familiar landscape that was flooded when seas rose during global warming. The designer of the multi-media installation (that combined photography, 3d modeling and digital manipulation) sees the images as predicting how humans will adapt to a changed landscape: “the images are optimistic and reveal that far from being a tragedy, the floods have brought about a much-improved way of life to the capital city.” While many contemporary artists are guilty of aestheticizing environmental issues (which sometimes is an effective way to explore the topic), “Flooded London” goes too far—they see utopia as a result of global warming, which might be worse than those who still deny the existence of global warming.

As we as a society move toward a more broad understanding of environmentalism and conservation, so too will artists. With the moving away from one-issue politics, artists will began to re-define what is seen as environmental and will offer a new vision of our roles within nature.

Birding

2009-02-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

"A Bird Tapestry" by David S. Rubin serves as an indexical overview of how artists have depicted birds over the years, beginning with rough drawings created by shamans in caves for ritualistic hunting purposes which progressed into highly-detailed scientific 'specimen' drawings and paintings by naturalists like Audubon to the present day where artists deal with more ecological concerns in relation to birds. While Rubin is more descriptive of each artist's work rather than critical, the article did lay a framework for helping me understand the human relationship to birds and how this comes across in the images we produce of them.

These categories intersect with last week's article regarding biophilia and the general ways humans interact with nature. Throughout history we have appreciated birds for aesthetic, naturalistic and spiritual reasons. The earliest humans may have depended on birds for sustenance but they also looked to them as their gods, like the Egyptian god Horus who had the head of a hawk and the body of a man. Greek myths also tell of the coupling of humans with gods disguised as birds, like Leda and the swan (who was Zeus in disguise.) Birds have also figured heavily in Christian mythology, particularly a pristine white dove that symbolizes the holy spirit. This connection between birds and religion and the human spirit seems obvious, since birds have the ability to fly, they are creatures of the air and sky and are thus closer to the heavens, where god(s) are thought to reside. Like marine creatures who tend to have fins and gills and the ability to survive underwater, we are fascinated with birds because they possess what we don't have-- namely wings, and with that the ability to explore a frontier that until modern times we could only dream of.

When I was 10 years old I experienced this intersection of birds as an art form and as a source of spiritual inspiration-- at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu there is an extensive collection of ceremonial headdresses and capes made completely out of the feathers of native birds. Hundreds of feathers went into the making of these intricate items; the amount of feathers and the type of birds from which they came indicated rank and status. This was a highly specialized and intricate craft and only royalty and religious leaders wore the prized pieces.

Above is a feathered helmet typical of the kind worn by Hawaiian royalty into battle. The item pictured below is called a "ahuula cape" and is made from the feathers of the yellow oo, mamo and red iiwi birds. Royal Prince Kiwalao owned and wore the cape in the 1760s. The same type of feathers make up the second cape, the longer length suggests it was for ceremonial parade use rather than for battle.
The way the Hawaiians understood birds was similar to the way both the ancient shamans and we today appreciate them-- while it is now more culturally taboo to use the feathers of rare birds for ornamentation, we still hold the plumage of particular birds in high esteem, especially that of the peacock.

A more contemporary example of our relationship to birds is the ongoing saga of a pair of red-tailed hawks named Pale Male and Lola, who gained worldwide recognition when they built their 8-foot-wide nest on the ornate ledge of a posh apartment building on Fifth Avenue across from Central Park in NYC. The birds peacefully co-existed with the building's illustrious residents like Mary Tyler Moore and Paula Zahn for seven years until the administration evicted the hawks in 2004, citing the hawks as a nuisance and a potential hazard.

Protestors lined the streets outside the apartment as a battle ensued over the hawk pair-- was the building obligated to recreate the nest and to house the hawks and their brood? Legally they were not but the public outrage led to the rebuilding of the nest and a media fixation on the 'love life' of Pale Male and Lola-- would they be able to successfully hatch and raise chicks in a manmade nest?

The story of Pale Male and Lola was immortalized by a PBS documentary and at least three illustrated children's books. A Web site dedicated to their cause has been posting photographs of the hawks since 2002 and continues to update with photos on a frequent (sometimes daily) basis.

Why is there a continued fascination with Pale Male and Lola? While they do symbolize freedom and independence (like most wild birds in general), it is their location that is particularly important. Normally red-tailed hawks reside in the wide open spaces of Western states like Montana, not the densely packed urban streets of a metropolitan city of NYC. In a city like New York, where Central Park, the most accessible and biggest natural element, is manmade, there is a biophilic longing for the wild. New Yorkers only see pigeons, ducks and sparrows on a daily basis-- while technically wild they have become integrated into our daily lives to the point of depending upon our refuse for survival. Pale Male and Lola allowed city dwellers access to a little piece of the wild but in the relative comfort and safety of the world they know.

I'm intrigued by the hawks because they defy the notion of a formal wilderness and also demonstrate how nature has been able to adapt to a concrete landscape. Additionally, the media sensation around the pair is telling-- New Yorkers overlook the nature they have everyday contact with (ie the aforementioned pigeons) but romantize the hawks because they larger, more wild and thus in the minds of many, more free.

In the tradition of the naturalist 'birders' of the 18th and 19th centuries, who sought out rare varieties of birds in the wild, contemporary bird watchers search out species in their own backyards, even if that backyard is an alley rather than a green space. Cornell University, through their Lab of Ornithology, sponsors a Celebrate Urban Birds project and the Urban Hawks blog actively documents and photographs wild birds that call New York their home. This includes owls, eagles, hawks and herons that live in Central Park, the Bronx and Brooklyn.

(Central Park's wild turkey)

I've examined the story of Pale Male and Lola as an example of the wild living in a constructed/manmade environment; I'm also interested in the reverse, particularly the work of photographer Paula McCartney who places faux craft store birds (the constructed/manmade) in lush natural (wild) environments.

Bird Watching, (Yellow Warbler), 2003

McCartney says of her work:

"I decided to take control, buy my own birds, and create and photograph these idealized scenes that I fantasized about, where songbirds perched patiently on trees as I moved through the woods. By controlling the brightly colored bird’s position in the environment, I am creating a more idyllic scene than that which naturally exists, and creating a new environmental experience for the viewer and myself.

"Rather than only recording what nature has to offer, I have taken control and adorned the trees with their longed for, but absent, tenants."

Bird Watching, (Dark Eyed Junco), 2003

It's significant that she focuses on songbirds, that as a group are smaller and more colorful than predatory birds like hawks and also possess calls (or songs) pleasing to the human ear. Generally songbirds are appreciated for aesthetic reasons, McCartney brings this to a new level by using our idealized version of these birds and then placing them into idyllic natural settings. In the above quote she emphasizes control, she makes it clear that she does not want to observe nature or even interfere with it, instead she constructs her own vision of birds and how they function in our world.

Biophilia and Re-integrating Nature into our Sub/urban Lives

2009-02-15T11:46:00.001-08:00

(Photo I took of an urban window in LA-- that's a potted Bird of Paradise)

The majority of Americans do not live in rural areas, working everyday with the land; instead we live in the mainly manmade constructed environments of the suburbs and cities. Even though modern civilization has been removed from a hunting/gathering society more integrated with nature, we still crave a connection to the natural world. In the suburbs, many pride themselves on a lush, perfectly manicured lawn, while those in the city maintain herb gardens and potted plants and hope for ‘views’ from their windows, especially that of a lake or an ocean. In the public realm we build elaborate natural history museums, aquariums, botanical gardens and parks. Right in the middle of the bustling streets of NYC you can find a pond, acres of trees and geese, all engineered and placed by people, rather than nature, at the turn of the century.

Polaroid photographs I took of 'farm life' in Chicago-- this is an exhibit at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

So if we’ve adapted to a suburban or city lifestyle, why do we still yearn for this contact with nature? In their book, “The Biophilia Hypothesis,” Stephen Kellert and Edward Wilson examine the biological basis for biophilia or “the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. “ Kellert and Wilson postulate that there is actually an “innate” reason for why we seek out flora and fauna, that we’re genetically predisposed to look to nature not only for sustenance but for its aesthetic beauty and even for our own emotional fulfillment.

(Two scenes of a small strip of beach near the Museum Campus in the South Loop. I was drawn to what has become the integration of manmade materials and nature-- the weathered posts of a now-flooded dock and the bits of broken bottles now weathered and smooth by the tumbling of the lake)

While I’ve generally been aware of the concept behind biophilia, this is the first time I knew its proper name. It has played a role in my own life, especially evident when looking back on how my relationship to nature has changed due to my geographical location. During my childhood spent in Hawa’ii, a culture more integrated with the wilderness, I did not have to go far to directly experience the Pacific Ocean, tropical rain forest or a (dormant) volcano—they were either literally a few steps from my home or a 15-minute drive away. As a teenager in Arkansas, however, I lived in “the natural state” but experienced only my backyard and city parks on a regular basis. This is the time I began to make regular trips to Lake Fayetteville, a small manmade lake a short drive for my home, to walk the trails, read and generally experience a more “transcendental” view of nature, ie finding inspiration by being out there by the water. Now that I’ve lived in a city for almost six years (first LA now Chicago), I find myself raising potted plants in my kitchen windowsill and stopping by the farmer’s market for fresh flowers in the summer. While we’re landlocked here in Illinois, I still find myself drawn to water, the shores of Lake Michigan, for relaxation and escape from the sticky summer streets.

(My view of Lake Michigan from the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. It's surprising how abstract the people become at this distance)

Even though I’ve chosen to live in an urban environment, I’m still compelled to include nature in my life—is this due to a learned behavior (growing up on an island surrounded by water) or has it been hard-wired into me, and the rest of humans, to continue this relationship with nature? Kellert and Wilson would say that these tendencies are a result of a genetic advantage, that the brain evolved in a biocentric world and we have not evolved quickly enough in this now machine-regulated world to erase those preferences and behaviors. Wilson argues that biophila evolved by the means of biocultural evolution, that natural selection occurred in a cultural context. His theory of gene-culture coevolution seems to address the issues of both nature and nurture though I still question the ability of science to measure something as abstract as emotional fulfillment or “the human spirit” via the use of biological data.

(The trails at Lake Fayetteville are all paved which is fitting as it's a manmade lake)

What is the importance of the study of biophilia to us and the scientific community? Wilson cautions that since the natural environment is fast disappearing, we should ask what “will happen to the human psyche when such a defining part of the human evolutionary experience is diminished or erased?” He believes that “humanity will be poorer for all generations to come” with the loss of biodiversity. Thus we find out that Wilson is pushing a conservation agenda using an evolutionary theory as his basis. He ends his article with affirmations such as “other species are our kin” and “biodiversity is the frontier of the future,” and argues that humanity will not find fulfillment for our “spiritual craving” in space, but right here at home.

While I admire Wilson and Kellert for trying to understand our propensity for nature in biological terms, I question to what ends they are putting their findings. While biodiversity is obviously important for the world’s ecosystems, we need to develop a more practical conservation ethic, one that operates not only in theory but in practice. Most of us recognize that the tropical rain forests are shrinking rapidly (remember children’s movie Fern Gulley?), that we need to save the whales and that global warming is a reality. So what is the solution? Wilson and Kellert promote an awareness of our genetic connection to nature, hoping this will affect the way we view conservation. Kellert also argues that while Americans have a strong appreciation of nature, we only value more visible elements like mountain ranges or large mammals rather than taking a more ecological view. What’s frustrating about the conservation aspect of biophilia is that it remained largely conceptual within the articles, thus making if feel dated, if conservation was really the agenda of Wilson and Kellert, I urge a discussion of practical application (which I believe we are beginning to do in this more eco-conscious age that has even the largest corporations thinking ‘green’).

Recently I came across the interior landscape firm, Planterra, whose motto is "The tranquility of nature can provide us peace in our caverns of concrete and steel." They seem to represent one aspect of the biophilia tendency, bringing nature back into our lives. Being a commercial firm, however, I feel they overly romanticize the aesthetic experience and divorce nature from any sort of context. This is especially evident in their offering of replica foilage, an eco-friendly improvement on yesteryears' tacky plastic plants: "A preserved palm is made from organic tree material that is treated and expertly attached to a structural core of fiberglass. Everything seen and touched is from living trees. The material is harvested with annual pruning and grooming -- all without cutting down the tree or harming the environment. While I admire their efforts, some of their examples appear outright absurd (reference the photo of the 'living wall' with the flatscreen TV).

Another approach of re-introducing nature into our urban lives comes via a group of environmental artists who specialize in "green grafitti." Instead of using toxic spray paint to deface buildings, they instead cultivate growing plants to spell out their messages and create their illustrations on brick walls, concrete pillars and warehouse ceilings.

London-based artist Anna Garforth used moss to spell out the first verse of a poem on a brick wall, she is currently working on growing verses of the rest of the poem in various locations throughout the city.

Hungarian moss artist Edina Tokodi creates her moss art in the streets of NYC, best known for her rabbits and other animals, she has branched out to represent man-made objects.

Spanish artist Patrick Blanc went big and covered the side of Caixa Madrid in moss and grass, creating a vertical garden.

I leave you with this, a living bath mat that feeds off you and your bath water. The mat was created by Switzerland-based industrial designer La Chanh Nguyen and features three three types of live green mosses - ball moss, island moss and forest moss - that grow in individual “cells” of plastazote, a decay-free foam. It also requires little maintenance because mosses thrive in humid areas like bathrooms.

Look|Touch

2009-02-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

[Click on Diagram for the original/larger view]

Scientific discovery relies on the careful observation of organisms and natural forces; but to go beyond just surface description of these phenomena, scientists must intervene through experimentation. Since the invention of the microscope in the 1600s, there has been a desire to extend the biological gaze. Evelyn Fox Keller describes the evolution of what was once a didactic relationship between “looking” and “touching” in her article, “The Biological Gaze.”

In the pure realm of science, there is a value placed on looking over touching. Keller argues, however, that looking always has some effect or impact on the subject of the gaze. Before the advent of photography, natural scientists had to kill their specimens in order to accurately describe them through highly detailed drawings. Most geneticists rely mainly on observing the results of their crossings, but to achieve these results they must alter the course of nature through careful selection and pairings, which can be a form of touch (manipulation and control).

As evidenced by the above diagram, as technology advanced in the field of biology, the act of looking developed from what could be seen with just the naked eye to what could be made visible with the aid of the microscope. The invention of the microscope was the crucial step in the eventual convergence of looking and touching, as it required the alteration (using killing) of an organism to prepare it for viewing on a slide.

So what motivated the early scientists? From the beginning they were trying to find the “secret of life”, what we now know to be cells, genes and DNA. Their only desire wasn’t to just observe these natural processes, but to intervene in the fundamental processes of generation.

What I found surprising is that the relationship between looking and touching in this case was not causal (ie one allows/leads to the other) but more circular—we cannot see a cell in action through a still image like an x-ray because it kills what it records. Instead scientists insert viral vectors and genetic fragments into organisms to be able to visually observe the activity of a particular gene. This action of genetic alteration could not have occurred without the “eye” of the microscope, thus looking and touching become inextricably linked when peering into life at this level.

In her conclusion, Keller said: “The ‘secret of life’ to which we have so ingeniously gained access is no pristine point of origin, but already a construct at least partially of our own making.” This leads me to the question—if must intervene in an organism’s natural state in order to observe it, are we actually observing its actual state and functions? Thus while it seems that we have control over nature as scientists now have the ability to genetically alter organisms; nature still has the upper hand as it’s impossible to observe it in a ‘pure’ state without human intervention. Also, organisms like viruses change and mutate so frequently that we cannot always keep up—one of the reasons that we can ‘cure’ diseases like polio but not the common cold.

["Primordial Dance" 1991. Artist Karl Sims uses computer animation to describe natural phenomena. The video is the product of "artificial evolution", a technological process that mirrors biological evolution-- it's an interactive process between Sims and the computer in which the program randomly creates images based on imputed mathematical formulas; Sims then selects the most aesthetically pleasing images which then "survive" and "bred" to create another string of images. Sims describes the process as such: " The equations, or artificial genes, of the survivors are copied, mutated, and mated by the computer to generate new offspring pictures. This process of variation and selection is repeated, and with each cycle more complex and interesting results can occur."]

So where does this all connect to art? Recently, artists like George Gessert who wrote the article “Art is Nature: An Artist’s Perspective on a New Paradigm,” have paid attention to and commented on the evolution of scientific observation through what is termed “genomic art.”

According to Gessert, “From an ecological point of view, much of today’s art is at least 140 years out-of-date.” This proclamation startled me, as I previously hadn’t reflected on how Darwin’s theory of evolution affected image making. While many contemporary Americans acknowledge evolution as a scientific fact, there is a tendency to still see humans as the most highly evolved, the top of the food chain and the center of the known universe.

After the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, however, there was a realization that, at least genetically speaking, not much separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. In our early embryonic stage, humans vary little from other mammals. Artists like Suzanne Anker and Gary Schneider not only consider our role in the world in a new way but also employ methods that were previously regulated to the realms of science—that is they appropriate technology to present images of chromosomes and re-define genres like portraiture by using x-rays of their bodies and images of their own DNA.

["Panspermia, 1990 by Karl Sims. From Sims: "Panspermia is the name for the theory that life exists and is distributed throughout the universe in the form of germs or spores. This short computer animation places the viewer in the middle of a virtual world of an aggressively reproducing inter-galactic life form, and depicts a single life cycle of this unusual self propagating system." Through this short video Sims uses "artificial evolution" techniques to select random mutations of plants that reflect biological methods of selection that create biodiversity in the world. In this work he examines chaos and how it contributes to the nature of life itself.]

Even in this new way of looking at ecology, can we get away from human-centered art? While these artists draw parallels between the origins of humans and other animals, they still exert control over the bacteria they grow and dye, and in the extreme case of Eduardo Kac’s GFP bunny, the life of an animal. Gessert tends to gloss over the ethical implications of tampering with nature for the sake of art—only alluding to the idea that the ownership of these living artworks also constitutes custodianship.

Just by using the word “custodianship,” Gessert shifts the power of control in our favor—which makes me wonder if these artists who supposedly have a new awareness of humans and the environment we live in realize that by manipulating these organisms (especially in the case of the fluorescent rabbit or using DNA to spell out a passage from Genesis) we are still bending nature to our will.

In science we cannot observe nature without our own intervention, in genomic/ecological art there may be a more up-to-date idea of our role in nature but we generally still have to present these artworks in human institutions like the museum or gallery and also alter organisms to reflect a particular artist’s point of view. Gessert’s answer to this dilemma is to spend more time in nature, to get to know our ‘kin’ better. I agree, by acknowledging that we are wild and part of a larger ecological system, we are already one step closer to reconciling the Darwinian view of nature with our own art production.

Examining Hawa'ii: More Than Just a Formal Wilderness

2009-01-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

As the daughter of a botanist/horticulturist, I’ve always been a little more aware of the flora that surrounds us, both cultivated and ‘wild.’ Even my name, Leilani, Hawaiian for “heavenly flower,” reflects a native culture’s relationship with nature. Growing up in Maui, Hawa’ii and Fayetteville, Arkansas also helped shape the way I view both nature and wilderness, as both states are known for their pristine environments; Arkansas even goes so far as to proclaim itself as “The Natural State.”

In Hawa’ii, the wilderness is not a faraway place, a rain forest was my backyard and mango trees grew outside my front door. The people of Hawa’ii are in a unique position, they live year-round in what most consider to be a “tropical paradise.” The local economy depends on tourism and the maintenance of the white sands and azure waters, so the residents of Hawa’ii must serve as stewards of nature.

(Photos of downtown Lahaina and the Maui Mall in Kahului).

As you could probably tell by the title of this blog, the idea of a “formal wilderness” in Gary Snyder’s introduction to The Practice of the Wild caught my attention because it has traditionally shaped the way most Americans view nature.

Formal wilderness refers to the American (and arguably Western) idea of the wilderness as a harsh extreme—the dryness and heat of the desert or the frozen slopes of mountain ranges. Wilderness, in this view, is impenetrable, uninhabited and pristine. When boundaries are placed on wilderness, in the form of state/federal parks and reserves, it becomes a near mythical place that exists apart from our everyday existence—a place to be both revered and feared. These formal wilderness areas only make up 2 percent of land in the U.S. so what of the other 98 percent? Synder argues against the idea that wilderness can only be found within these prescribed areas; it can be found in our own backyards, and indeed in ourselves; as animals, we are wild.

Throughout history the term “wild” has carried a negative connotation—Snyder describes it as traditionally being associated with “unruliness, disorder and violence” and thus seen as a threat to civilized societies. It’s also defined by what it is not: uninhabited, without cultivation, undomesticated. This human view of the wild reflects a fear of seeming chaos and also the compulsion to organize the natural world by a systematic structure. The formal wilderness then conveniently corrals “the wild” into easily definable boundaries drawn by humans.

Snyder seems to idealize cultures that live in concert with the land (ie Native Americans) and also describes various Eastern religions that emphasize an extreme form of asceticism; to be closer to understanding nature people live outside of established civilization and give up everyday comforts like cooked food and a structured home. So how do we find a middle ground between the formal wilderness and living completely outside of society? Hawa’ii stands as an example of this gray area where the people actually live in this wilderness but also have tamed it in a way that allows for a highway to run alongside the Pacific Ocean. In Hawa’ii what can be considered boundaries between nature and humans come in the form of nets, they cover the rocky sides of cliffs that overlook heavily trafficked roads to prevent the crushing of a car by an rogue boulder; nets also appear 20 feet from shore to apprehend any sharks that might stray too close to swimmers.

(The first photograph I ever took--At the age of 4 I took this shot of a rainbow while standing on the backporch of my 2-story home in Haiku, Maui. The land you see is my backyard and the ocean is just beyond our property.)

While Hawa’ii would be considered more wild than most towns and cities in America, it still struggles to find a balance between preserving its most precious commodity, nature, and providing contemporary amenities like shopping malls and resort hotels to both tourists and residents. The islands are also not what they used to be before the Industrial Revolution, when American companies like Dole cleared the land to plant crops like pineapples and sugar cane. Snyder describes how by the 16^th century, many areas of the world became ecologically impoverished—people no longer had personal knowledge of animal behavior and plants, they traded this knowledge of the wild for rhetorical and human management skills that helped them to navigate human society. While being an island chain isolated Hawa’ii and staved off this change a little longer than the rest of the world, it’s inevitable that as a population advances and gets more specialized, that a majority of the people will lose this knowledge of the wild.

In the Dictionary of the History of Ideas, it describes a prevailing idea about human nature and trying to understand it by finding a pure human, this source shifted from the noble savage to a child to a peasant. By finding this unadulterated source, it was thought that we could find the source of our thoughts and impulses and what would constitute a collective consciousness. In present-day Hawa’ii there’s few people that could be considered either a noble savage or peasant, they may live in more wild areas, but they buy their swordfish from the grocery store, rather than fishing it from the sea. It’s unlikely that we’ll be able to find any sort of ultimate truth by examining an unadulterated human, even if we were able to find a source.

What lessons can we learn from Hawa’ii? I believe Snyder would approve of how 20 years before the green movement, residents of Hawa’ii were already mindful of the environment—we used cloth bags for our groceries, solar panels topped the roofs of homes and warmed our water and we practiced conservation by taking five-minute showers. Legal measures have been taken by the government to protect air from the smoke and fumes of the sugar cane factories. New construction, especially near beaches and other natural features, has been more restricted and indigenous wildlife enjoy protection.

After reading both articles and examining the culture of Hawa’ii I conclude with this: We need to re-define wilderness or re-examine the way we see it, live in it rather than fence it off, accept our place in the order rather than attempting to re-structure wilderness according to our own needs and ideas of it.

(Photo of the Hana Highway in Maui. Photo by Tom Vadnais.)