the ecocidal eye melbourne conference 31 august 2012
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Talk presented at the 2012 ASLEC-ANZ conference on Regarding the Earth: in word and image, Monash Uni, MelbourneTRANSCRIPT
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the ecocidal eye: beyond the anthropocentric to a relational gaze in cinema
we understand and relate to the world by the cultural works we create
cathy fitzgerald, nz/irelandASLEC-ANZ regarding the earth conference, melbourne, 2012
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How have we managed to create such global change?
PART 1: the anthropocentric gaze
The 9 planetary boundaries recently adopted by the UN 2012
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‘The Great Acceleration’ (last 50 years) in “Welcome to the Anthropocene’ viral video (2012)
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A profound crisis of ‘civilized’ culture
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Term ecocide is closely associated with Vietnam war
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CULTURAL ROOTS / characteristics of anthropocentric gaze? ‘the hero’, KingGilgamesh’s affect 4500 years ago in ancient Iraq
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The idea of the ‘Great Chain of Being’, was and continues to be an incredible powerful and in this example, a visual metaphor of divinely inspired hierarchy, giving man dominion over all he surveyed
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Ironically while the enlightenment saw great improvements for humanity, for the natural world it was the dawn of new dark age
Joseph Wright of Derby: Experiment on a bird with a gas pump
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...that continues today in our biotech age
Nature 2000: continuing desires: cathy fitzgerald
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Nature has almost disappeared from our view, almost like in the movie ‘Soylent Green’ 1972
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‘probably no substantial dimension of film history that is so widely admired by a public audience and so frequently utilised in academic contexts has been so thoroughly ignored by film critics, historians and theorists as the nature (wildlife) film’, film theorist, Scott MacDonald 2006
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Berger’s highly influential book in early 70s unpacked the politics and power inherent in visual culture that perpetuates & supports dominant ideologies
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in european art Berger drew our attention to the fact that women were often portrayed in paintings as ‘the surveyed’, as property, for male pleasure and prestige, that there is a power relationship in how men survey women, represent them and how men treat (exploit) women.
‘the surveyed, as property; there is a power relationship in how women are surveyed, represented and how men treat (exploit) women’ - the male gaze
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It was the ‘manifest destiny’ of the invading Europeans to grow and develop this EMPTY new land
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American Progress John Gast, 1878
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in recent ecocritical analysis of visual imagery the term ‘ecopornography’ would appear to both be useful and bring attention to the politics of contemporary nature/indigenous representations. ≈
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in very recent ecocritical analysis of visual imagery the term ‘ecopornography’ would appear to both be useful and attract attention to the politics of contemporary nature/indigenous representations.
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such cultural works have done little to overcome our estrangement from the natural world
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• Scott MacDonald who coined the word ‘ecocinema’ believes
• experimental cinema has potential in
‘retraining perception’....allowing an examination of the conventions of media-
spectatorship (and production) that
largely ignores the earth’
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IDENTIFY RESOLUTION: RELATIONAL
PART 2: towards a relational gaze in cinema and my arts practice
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When one starts to look at ‘Nature’ in a creative practice, one feels like one is in a hall of mirrors
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Leading ecocritical thinkers are turning back to consider uncivilised worldviews where the word and concept of ‘nature’ didn’t exist Tim Morton’s ‘Dark Ecology’
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Jensen reminds us over and over that indigenous people from many parts of the world never, ever see the world as a metaphor, the way it has become in the west.
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... artists should move towards ‘an ecological sympathy’
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... in ‘lawyer-speak’, Polly Higgins suggests for peace and for the survival of all species that ‘that we must urgently extend our duty of care to all life’
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I have been interested in the moments in my films where I stop speaking and allow space for other non-human presences
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see 40 yr+ residency in this forest as a continuing dialogue - my relational films becoming an audiovisual diary that I share with other humans online.
ecoartfilm.com ...15 million followers :-)
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looking/listening with my camera and mic is certainly making me much more aware of the vast complexity of the dynamics of the living communities & elements - my neighbours that I need to relate to
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‘Tending’ Anderson writes suggests a healthy tension, a specific application of wisdom, of culture practices that fosters active relations
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A tiny forest in-the-making, in rural ireland, may have something to teach us about
one most important living communities on the planet on which so many of us depend, as well as teaching us a thing or two about the wisdom of
employing more kincentric perspectives in our cultural activities”
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read more: issuu.com/cathyartsee more: ecoartfilm.com