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nature on screen

can ecocinema forms and global networked filmic

spaces reconnect us to a sense of place and planet

Cathy FitzgeraldVisual Culture

Theory and Practice

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talk outline

•context

•related research questions

•scope of enquiry (so far)

•key terms

•methodology

•theory practice

•outputs

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context:

looking at experimental film and ecology to respond to this age of climate change/ resource depletion, biosphere instability

‘Everybody knew. Nobody admitted to knowing. If other people began to discuss it, you tuned them out, because what they were saying was both so obvious and so unthinkable […] We’re using up the Earth. It’s almost gone. ’ Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 2009

main problems: exponentially increasing global population with ever increasing consumerism >>> ecosystem collapse, climate change, resource depletion

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• background in science, green politics, sustainable forestry

• interested in how the arts and sciences communicate/present, ecological concerns and in particular, to general audiences - have been reviewing art and ecology practices, exhibitions, conferences on my blog for the last 3 years in detail but have long been interested in the area... my undergrad thesis was to be on art & ecology

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we have always mediated nature

interested in how today’s most powerful media, cinema, is facilitating or not, our relationship to the earth

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how is nature represented in environmental themed films and documentary,wildlife (natural history) films, in mainstream films, experimental artists films?

are formal conventions used in such films distancing audiences further from their understanding that they are complicit in the ecological crisis ?

is presenting overtly didactic films the only way we can relate to the earth?

related questions

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• are there formal/conceptual/theoretical tools that can expand the way we use film to present a more comprehensive ecological view, over and above films that primarily address environmental/conservation themes?

• what potentials are offered by new social media filmic spaces* to engage global audiences in ecological concerns or to envision more sustainable futures

particularly interested in how cinema is distributed online and how social media is enabling filmmakers of all levels and nations to create a mosaic of ecofilm works - intrigued that such technology may have the potential for the world to perceive itself more ecologically

related questions

Global film festivals inviting filmmakers to make work on ecological themes: UN global call for filmmakers working on forests to submit films for 2011 Int Year of the Forest to distribute to global audiences

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biggest paradox in my enquiry is while i’m interested in nature on filmis acknowledging that movies, tv, internet etc accelerate our rates of consumption and hence place the ‘natural’ world, that supports us and other species, in greater jeopardy ...

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will confine investigation to artists experimental cinema

through my own practice and perhaps case studies of artist filmmakers ecocinematic work

believe that experimental film practice can be a valid place to unpack outworn nature film conventions, perhaps offer new perceptual perspectives

scope of enquiry how might the practice demonstrate/respond to the enquiry

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what is ecocinema?

recent term from 2004, further defined in 2010

‘are films that overtly engage with environmental justice concerns or those that make ‘nature’ from landscapes to wildlife, a primary focus

has broader philosophical implications of what it means to inhabit this planet.. to be a member of this ecosphere and to understand and value this community in a systemic and non-hierarchial way (biocentric and ecocentric viewpoints rather than anthropocentric -that human views or interests are of higher priority than non-humans

key term:

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scope of enquiry

for both my theory research and practice - my first stop was film theory, film/media history

on nature films: ‘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’

(Upclose and political - three ruminations on nature film, MacDonald 2006, republished in his complete works of Adventures in Perception, Cinema as Exploration, 2009)

where is the bear’s mother?

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• however these few books do analyse conventions in wildlife (natural history) camera work and the cameras limitations in representing nature and the economic forces behind such productions

• generally argue ‘that the wildlife genre has been underrated as an area of filmic creativity, yet overrated as a tool for science education and nature conservation’(Bouse, 2000) School of Arts & Sciences, Lebanon US Uni.

‘as such films are increasingly technologically sophisticated. they move further away from depicting nature on its own terms...as more people in 21 century (75% of planet soon will be in urban environments) what will be the consequences of portraying it as a place of sound and fury, or as a place where our own moral and social values can be so easily applied (Bouse 2000)

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my practical research in experimental film will attempt to investigate the possibility / impossibility of creating ‘ecocinema’ works

• begin with analysis of ‘nature’ films formal conventions of representation

• create work that may disrupt/counter these conventions

• practice may include: extended formats, unusual montage and editing, use of silence and natural sounds, elimination of ‘voice of god’ narration, foregrounding of nature/time/seasons, capturing the everyday sublime in nature as a means of presenting the unknowingness/complexity of ecological world view, investigate ecopoesis forms - poetic format that is both pre-political and pre-scientific to lessen the didactic quality of the work

• aim is to create work for general audiences

methodology:

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theory have begun to examine the small but rapidly growing field in literary criticism -ecocriticism that have evolved since mid 90s. It is the literary field that is driving ecocriticism as an interdisciplinary endeavour... and generally literary types that are presenting ecocritical readings of ‘nature’ films... they are drawing much experience from nature writing/poetry and eco literary movements such as Romanticism

• ecocritical reading of works will become like gender or marxist readings... non-nature film works will increasingly be read ecologically

• will look at counter arguments that the camera (Heidigger to Sontag).. serves as ‘an instrument of distancing, domination, objectification, dehistorization and commodification of things... spreading a dangerous sense of irreality in our midst - that it enframes and conquests the earth’

methodology:

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my work has been about

creating backyard filmic

narratives connecting my

local eco stories/actions to

planetary concerns

still from burning bright 2008

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• my film work subject material is from a broader long-term art and ecology project, where I’m converting the 2 acre conifer plantation in which I live to a permanent forest

• dialogue with involving leading foresters and my local community but using my own voice to create a personal response

• made contact with Oxford University of Trees - globally 80 art forest projects now listed

• very active in trying to get online art and ecology networks working more effectively globally

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film work•2006 the local project 25 min - env documentary format - interviewed farmers and the trees they planted that were part of a new native woodland scheme in south leitrim - a local project with global perspective

•2007-2010 working full-time so concentrated on creating blog to review art and ecology area, came aware that exp. film on ecological perspective v. small area of activity

• 2008 set out to make another env documentary tho had been unhappy with the talking head format I had used before

• created a short 1 min film, burning bright http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6PaMZTx0c4 , narrated by myself and interspersed with just observing a natural phenomena, though cut with footage that I had been considering to use make a longer doc about people learning about sustainable forestry

• pov - not an expert, shared my learning about close to nature and letting the forest tell the story in places....

• felt like I was working in a poetic way... work was less overtly political or scientific

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• in late 2009 I made another short one minute film once i counted birds

• wanted to convey again another personal film poem touching on rising sea levels and my own small attempts to address it

• came across a chapter in literary theorist Jonathan Bate’s book Song of the Earth, about why poetry is essential in this age of ecological crisis; his reading of Heidegger’s text ‘What are poets for?’ text suggested arguments that the poetic may be a valuable means to consider how we might dwell more responsibly on this earth

• ecopoetics - a hybrid strategy to literally make (poesis) the earth (eco)?

• Bate also argues that poetry is a unique way of experiencing the earth, rather than describing it and that it is

also ‘a pre-political space’

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subjectivity in nonfiction cinema, prevalent with low cost video & Internet, is a reflection and a consequence of

our fragmented, globalised world.. we are all condemned to decentredness, fragmentation and liquidity...

the

autobiographical (film) feeds the hope of

finding or creating unity in this world... Rascaroli 2009 The Personal Camera -Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film

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disclosing the work: to peers and broader community

•feb 2011 - 8000 word paper on networking the arts to save the earth - encouraged to publish it - detailed examination how online networks have unrealised potential to connect & develop art & ecology field

• as result of submitting paper to Leonardo Art & Science Journal - my short film once i counted birds featured on Leonardo editors blog; shorter paper for VAI now being prepared

• peers: received email from Harrisons ‘From our perspective, very good work’.

• since returning to college begun collecting sound and visual recordings from my forest in the making to begin to make new film works

• ecoartfilm blog to house more specific ecocinema research and resources i am finding, to share with tutors and peers

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so what? benefits of such a study•if nothing else, mapping/highlighting the context of relatively new field of ecocriticism and overlap with exp. film may be a contribution in itself... may deliver new understandings, for fine art/visual culture, in particular

•practice may serve to succinctly illustrate some limiting conventions & diversity of possibly more engaging ecocinema forms - it will be a qualitative study

•science appears to have failed somehow to engage the world’s audiences about the urgency of impending biosphere instability: can only be timely to investigate the world’s most powerful and pervasive media: film + internet

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thank youwww.ecoartnotebook.com and ecoartfilm.wordpress.com

facebook.com/ecoartnotes

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