aren't we beyond this?

while looking at the online exhibition of the "after nature" i couldn't help but think that the design was either the worst i've ever seen, with uncoded characters, chaotic and multiple links, poorly placed text, unsized and unrefrained images... etc, etc.. but then i thought maybe this exhibition must be viewed in firefox or some other browser. but no, this is a conceptual representation of the show that makes little sense to me. again, shouldn't we be beyond this in a post-nature era? if the human race comes to an end at a loss for the nature that supports life, won't our technologies be our only pristine presence? isn't that what we are giving nature up to; our carefully designed cinderblock and cyber-presence? this online exhibition is disjointed and fails in that respect. there is nothing organic about its presentation, if that is what it is trying to convey. i was simply disconcerted looking at this website, and not at all in an insightful way. the exhibition statement is articulate and equally poetic. it reflects the language of the concerns and the thinkers/makers of this verbal and visual dialog we continue to address in this corse; but it breaks down and abandons hope beyond that. i am not discouraged in our ability to approach a post-nature era, or at least not because of this exhibition, but rather our ability to articulate it in any cohesive sense as a movement. in this case, fragmentation, which i do believe is a growing burden in our technological expansion, does not strengthen the argument of the show or its premise centered around herzog's manifesto. the problem here is that we will continue to organize and articulate the human objective with such certainty and vigor, that nature will wither away for such cause. the work may do this, but its cyber-presence fails miserably. it is ironic that the slide show of the artists' work that the new museum felt inclined to add to the webpage, shows a comprehension of this growing concern for our future that the online exhibition does not.

with that said, there are some works in the exhibition that reflect the curatorial premise, which in tern, articulates the works further. first, we should consider the term "after nature;" what it may insinuate beyond this context. "after" in this case, can be used to denote replication, to be made in the image of; linearly, to come or to be made after; consecutive or cyclical, indicating the death and birth of two things connected or interrelated. this actually leaves a wide verity of interpretations and how i may interpret this show. the first paragraph of the curatorial statement seems to exclude these addition interpretations, but as you read further and encounter phrases such as, "fascination for personal cosmologies and visionary languages,""a peculiar form of magic realism," and "a renewed belief in art as a tool for mythmaking," the reader must get a sense that this show exhibits ideas and realities beyond environmental disaster and catastrophe within wilderness, resulting in ruin. there is a strange sense of life and optimism in these words and corresponding works that show a humanity and the nature "in" humanity; a single hope, not just disorder and degeneration. this brings us to the issue of conflict: human "and" nature. one interpretation of "after nature" may be based on our relationship to nature; that we no longer, some of us, see humans separate from nature... no longer in conflict with nature as something to dominate, to control, and to tame; but rather to live harmoniously with and integrate culture and nature. nature has been seen as the "other" since the death of pan and the pagan gods. but there is life after death that is in a linear and circular continuum simultaneously. in this regard, after nature is the same as pre-culture, pre-industrial, and concurrent with modern technology; concurrent with its own death.

Roger Ballen, "Children on bed"
i heard an npr show last week, that discussed how the western proclamation: "the death of god" has allowed for a reinterpretation, reinvigoration, and a renewed sense of god. "god is now alive," he has been reborn.

Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled, 2007
in maurizio cattelan's "untitled, 2007" piece, as ridiculous as it may seem, the re-presentation of a severed horse, elevated and protruding ass first from a wall, albeit real or not, has very similar connotations in this sense. if dead, as it is meant to be seen, there is a beautiful and inherent life in this piece that exists in contact with the viewer. through the reexamination of this familiar icon, in a way never, ever considered before, it takes on a whole new meaning that is poetic, comforting, and intriguing; at the same time cruel, frightening, and abject. this is the renewed vision of nature, of-the-human-hand, and natural that we must consider to move beyond that which we take for granted.

the significance of vision and the sublime

when reading singer's article on werner herzog it was difficult to follow and too complex to understand. i certainly understand some of his points and key words, but in the dark as to how it all came together. i'm not sure i am much clearer on his thesis, but after looking at some of herzog's movie trailers and interviews containing movie clips, i began to understand the impetus behind corrigan's writing. herzog's work seems very complex and grandiose in many ways, it only follows that singer would pack as much semiotic theory in his review of herzog's work; it is of course, the language of film making and criticism. this is one of many reasons that i feel inadequate reporting on such writing, but from what little i've seen of herzog's films reminds me of landscape paintings with the sublime as their subject matter. his landscapes are absolutely stunning, overpowering, and strangely mystic; on a human level, on a godly level, and everything in between. i can't tell you whether it is a herzog is coming from a kantian or a burkian point of view in this regard, but he certainly envisions the most dramatic and disparate sense of human conditions as they relate to human psychosis, or just psyche; nature; and the wild, or other, ie. indigenous cultures.

listening to herzog speak, you get a sense that he is both tranquil and hostile.. his tranquility is subduing his hostility to a point of invisibility. he is said to be german but he corrects this suggestion in uneasy defense. germany seems to have produce complex artists after world war ii that carry the baggage of the war in their attempt to bring themselves and society at large to terms with the absolute horrific acts committed by the nazis. joseph beuys and ansalm keefer are such examples that utilize historical, mythological and literary themes to animate the war, deal with post-war German culture, and the taboo of expressing sentiments over the war.









even though singer pegs herzog as a german realist, or at least working in the vain of german realism, i think there is a direct link between the german realists and the german neo-expressionists. both are dealing with myth and human hierarchal descent from mystical or spiritual order (be it christian or otherwise... humanitarian if nothing else). all of europe was confronted with these issues after bearing witness to unfathomable human nature occurring everywhere, on every level, within this particular war. hostility became the language of much european art, but the term is quite tame considering its source. the human psyche was much more aware of its own abyss following this war, that artists to this day, herzog included, explore the transformative nature of the human dimensions, in singer's words, of their lived reality... "an image of their own mortal needs" and the artifice of reality "remains an unpologetic formal element."




view herzog's trailer for "encounters at the end of the world."





william fox's article made me realized, or remember is a more accurate term, that once you get past a visceral response to a place, be it to beautiful or foul in nature, there is a lot to discover. i am thinking how mediated imagery limits this exploration and that there is no substitute for experience. i think it is interesting that governments send artists to the antarctic to document and re-present it; but can hardly fathom it would prove valuable for these governments in relation to expansion and habitation??? can we transform this terrain into territory and what do artists have to do with this? i guess banarjee might prove otherwise, but it seems we are far off from inhabiting antarctica. i know global warming is taking its toll.. but this is not a hopeful scenario and to presume we can inhabit this climate at any stage of global change is premature on every level; we may not be able to inhabit this planet at all if the antarctic was actually inhabitable for humans on any realistic level.



according to the national geographic website, for antarctica "the question still remains as to whether the changes we're observing are permanent or are a more regular purging of the system. In the case of Greenland the amount of ice that the glaciers has lost is very small relative to the size of the ice sheet so the ice sheet could restabilize and even grow again with a small amount of cooling or increased precipitation. However the glaciers in Alaska or the Antarctic Peninsula aren't supplied by a vast ice sheet, so for them to regrow or even stabilize for the long term would take a much more drastic reversal in current climate trends." equally and according to the bbc, these "immense ice sheet has a big effect on the Earth's weather, reflecting great amounts of heat from the sun back into the atmosphere, tying up large amounts of Earth's freshwater, and acting as a freezer at the end of the Earth." balance is key to keeping our entire planet habitable... forget antarctica. we need to study it to death to help reduce further global climate change.



A panoramic view just as you get off the plane. Photo: CARA/Greg Griffin

in the land of sprawl

the new topographers are positioned in a crucial time in both political and photographic history. photography’s role in conveying the contemporary condition of landscape must be identified through the socio-political concerns within the landscape genre. it seems that landscape photographs facilitate perceptual change through a dialog between the photographer, his or her subject, and audience. what the the new topographers did, and the tradition those that follow in their wake continue, was to reinvent, reinvigorate, and reconceptualize the once idyllic landscape invented by painters. they also negate celebratory, albeit isolated depictions of the landscape presented by the "old" topographers.



this is where GFR's insight hits its mark. the idea of systems would seem to be counterproductive to the old topographers work; isolating their subject matter allowed pristine nature to be exhibited without human intrusion and intervention, which could be seen as close as 5 feet behind the camera or within miles in any direction from the camera's view. the new topographers saw a great importance in identifying the broader cultural trend that threatened the landscape, specifically to human-alteration. GFR uses "system theory to conceptualize and illuminate this shift in thinking, and identifies the new topographers understanding of the relationship of parts in the landscape and their affect. the relationship between landscape politics and its photographic representation is inversely influential. as artists’ boundries in photographic representation continue to expand and contract, a simultaneous influx occurs in subject awareness. photographers’ aesthetic and geographic styles reflect these temporal shifts throughout the differing social, political, and ecological contexts.





as pointed out in ""systems Everywhere": New Topograpics and the Art of the 1970'," and previous discussions, rachel carson defined a new relationship to the land based on the destruction of the romantic views that fueled westward expansion. this foreshadowed the rejection of traditional landscape photography for its romantic aesthetic and paved the way for a realist’s version of the american west; that realist vision includes these human-based systems. robert adams once stated, “there seem to be moments of revelation when we see the transition of one part to another, the unification of the whole...." (then comes) "a sense of comprehension.” this comprehension was lacking in the old-topographers photographs and certainly in those that viewed them. building upon visual language and unifying symbols facilitates visual comprehension. an institutional recognition of style is the culmination of these relationships.



jo deal stated in an interview, “none of the photographers whom i have spoken to in new topographics would ever attempt to change anything with their photographs. they are just not that kind of photographer. they are making observations rather than being politically active in any way… talking about my own work i didn't think that being non-judgmental is avoiding anything as much as it is saying that it is just not important. i am more interested in a kind of vision that is a function of seeing things without making judgments, but to see them really for what they are. it is something that i am very fascinated with visually – trying to make a flat space that is rich in details with man made objects placed against a continuous, unbroken, “natural” environment. my intention is to see that clearly – just that alone – not to make judgments about it but photograph it in a way that is non-hierarchical, so that it is a flat of concave space where there is no predominance of one object over another – which is really the way the lens sees. i just have a fascination with that kind of vision, with the lens as the photographic tool.”
when i first read this, i thought deal wasn't aware of what his photographs and those by other new topographers would come to describe. though in the light of our recent readings, i understand that when deal mentions his objective, read "scientific," view of the landscape, he is thinking of it as a system to be analyzed; there is no single, simple component to read or interpret, rather there are many factors that effect the subject, view, and necessary actions.



i think adams took a slightly different view/stance and was most intelligent in his approach to the suburban landscape, both literarily and photographically: confronted by contradictory photographs, human beings do what they often do to resolve awkward and sometimes ambiguous moral evidence; they resort to irony, where one thing’s obvious or intended meaning becomes its opposite. this approach makes the very medium of photography itself visible by exposing the contradictions, in turn becoming the actual subject matter. This in part defines postmodernism and has, in many ways, expanded the visual language and allowed for the newer topographic work such as the photographs by richard misrach, peter goin, and david maisel; the nuclear, infestuous and disparate landscape. these photographers may have returned to more isolated subject, but through our understanding of carson and the new topographers message, we see them in connection and proximity to us.


r. adams


r. misrach

j. deal



r. misrach



d. maisel

sze tsung leong is a more recently acclaimed photographer and a guggenheim fellow. his "horizon" series depict expansive, but detailed views of a broad spectrum of environments. the places he photographs are geographically distant and his subject matter is diverse, yet a consistent horizon line, linked together and interchangeable for various exhibition arrangements, unifies tsung leong’s images. his photographs suggest an “unfurled view” of the earth’s surface when viewed in a continuous line. This view does not necessarily correlate with conventional perceptions of proximity and distance; as places, they are seemingly unrelated or unconnected and then adjoined. the relationships are meant to reflect the complex and perpetually transforming relationships between global regions, cultures, and nations that give them form to the contemporary world. the arrangements shape the experience of each viewer and challenge interpretation in similar ways to cadaver exqui, the surrealists’ exquisite corpse. tsung leong mirrors robert adams’ notion of geography or more accurately, creating a spatial continuum out of geographically distant locations by unexpected juxtapositions. each arrangement will offer a particular take on the world. the landscape is an event under these new terms and rooted in the new topgraphers’ approach. this allows for historic, psychological, and spatial interpretations of the landscapes. they suggest the politics of a particular place may be the same as or affect the politics of another across the globe. ecological devastation now has the ability to affect the entire globe. atomic blast tests and those dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki formed radioactive “dust” that has penetrated most of the world’s atmosphere; now a component of the air we breathe. isolated pockets of ozone depleting have affected global warming worldwide. sze tsung leong's photographic arrangements start to make these connections and push global issues: social, political and environmental to the forefront.










recent landscape photography is increasingly concerned with land-used and humans’ affect to the landscape over possible land-use. this is due to the efforts of the new topographers, earthwork artists, and scientific thinking. considering there are as many people now living than have died on our planet, the repercussions for our environmental choices involve every ecological system, and thus political on every level. landscape photographers are intelligently responding to environmental politics; their aesthetics both mirror and convey their political stance.

global warming makes things pretty!

is any one else frustrated by this weeks readings? "reframing the last frontier", "the visual politics of the arctic..."??? my brain hurts thinking about all the reasons this seems wrong. it is a very flattering piece of writing for a body of photographs Subhanker Banerjee made, but it seems to fall very short in its criticism and its physical length is due more to its redundant components, statements, and information than the accomplishments of camera club photographers. maybe this is what from results in steeling a piece of the controversial pie, so to speak. i commend banerjee for his efforts and what has come from his photographs, but i fear he is being yanked around by a war deeper set than his photographs can begin to scratch the surface.
everyone knows that photographs can be great evidence and used in political persuasion; everyone knows that controversy and sensored material sell... but does everyone know that our government makes a living off of controversy? regulations are made from them and the government is payed to make regulations. this is an ongoing issue and nothing new. the reason porter and adams are mentioned in this article is because they were of the same dilemma and recontextualized in the same fashion: there is something seriously wrong with glorifying wilderness and as we consume it. ANWR IS habitable, just in a different way than the west was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; which, by the way, saying banerjee went west from seattle is just ridiculous. his photographs are beautiful and intended to be so. i wonder if he would have photographed the arctic if it wasn't controversial? most likely, he himself says that he wasn't sure what he was looking for, but his scientific background, so to speak, makes natural this series of events. with the current political climate, i think it is the topic that is controversial and not the photographs. i think the smithsonian should have censored global warming... oh wait, the government's been doing that! why are they worried about some pretty pictures? from them, i concur the the arctic looks just fine and global warming is bringing warmth and life to the arctic that will make it more suitable for human progress and solve future human density issues. we just need to lift this "refuge" border and buy up our plots of land.
how dunaway frames these issues itself is controversial and, i feel, somewhat convoluted. the photographic chioces baneriee employs varies dramatically, yet dunaway discusses arial perspective verses human perspective; how one supersedes another as they relate to banerjee's work, praises them both, yet does not address how they work together or contrast in the larger body of work.




so which is it and which is more affective, making the viewers removed from the scene to understand the importance of ecological interrelatedness and the reduction of human influence, or "making the viewers feel part of the scene, as if the bird were right in front of their eyes..."? i say the later; let's fly to the arctic tomorrow for a guided trip of bird populations and migratory routs!!! I love wilderness tours...
i'm going to book my ticket right now!!!
and go dick durbin!!!