Ecopornography, slow violence and the deep, slow art of place

[Cathy Fitzgerald]

I've just written this article, part of my ongoing visual arts research on theory and practice, any comments welcome.

Are Ansel Adam’s photographic works ecopornographic? Do similar works obscure ecocidal, slow violence?

Read the full article here

http://ecoartfilm.com/2012/07/09/ecopornography-slow-violence-and-t...

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[bert louis]

Hi  :)

I never heard of the term 'ecopornography' before. Still I thought that I understood what it meant. I checked out you link, and saw that you are a professional. Your articles - for whom are they intended?

Your short films (I suppose) will bring across, your point of view to the common man, who is already bored with the way nature programs picture the beauty and grandeur of life. ... The amazingly colorful, diverse and integrated world of the reef ... Yawn! Zap. It has become like cheep pornography - two dimensional and ever so boring.

But in your text(s) you seem to be unsure to whom you write. Although you avoid being academic, it still seems that you write for your peers in the academic world - wanting to cover all your basis with lengthy references to other academics and so. 

From your text it's not easy to figure out where you stand. Could we maybe find one or two of your short films on the Internet?  

Thesis working title – 'The ecocidal eye: beyond the anthropocentric gaze to a relational gaze in cinema'

Right. It's a working title, to invoke comments on your text (thesis) from other professionals.

But here's a thought, forget them and condense your ecopornography article by a factor of 10, and be as opinionated as you can.

[Cathy Fitzgerald]

Hi Bert

thanks for your comments. I found them very interesting as you have picked up a lot about me and also my need to have my 'about page' clearer on my site.

I'm coming from a fine art, visual culture background and I'm in the early stages of doing a creative practice and theory phd. I have to do a thesis so my writing has to conform to academic criteria. I have no real wish to be an academic so I think you are picking up on that but I am finding the form helping my thinking.

 My films, are on my DM page but they develop on their own way and pace, that is they are not directly about 'illustrating' the theory.

So my writing is to serve academic role (& my college supervisors are looking at this material), with me battling still to share my work (for example these new ideas coming from environmental literary theory above) with a more general audience and battling with the writing in general. To complicate matters I was a microbiologist for 10 yrs and my first writing was all third person technical writing. I have never had any writing classes so all the ingredients of a very strange style no doubt. So while I'd love to do a shorter opiniated article I'd also find that difficult. Will try sometime.

[bert louis]

Hi Cathy,  

Cathy: I have never had any writing classes so all the ingredients of a very strange style no doubt. So while I'd love to do a shorter opinionated article I'd also find that difficult. Will try sometime.

With your response you just showed that you are already perfectly capable to write in such a way :)

Only after retirement scientists may be opinionated - then they may speak to the general public and express their personal opinions on society and life in general.

==

Slow food, slow art, slow money - slow living to encompass them all - is actually an age old and culture transcending wisdom to give some inspiration to the individual  who feels at odds with the normalized ways of seeing and doing things in this material world. In 1986, when the slow food movement started, I was already living slow - although I didn't know the term then.   
 
The faster change happens, the more people will feel that something terrible is about to happen, and that they will go down for sure, no matter what they do.  

I believe in you because you don't show any such lethargic symptoms in your work. Go girl go :)


About 're-birthing' local ecosystems, and your current hands-on work to rejuvenate your 'little forest' -  I gather you are familiar with the work of John D. Liu and Geoff Lawton.

If not google or duck-duck on them.

At the moment the servers for eemcp.org ( John Liu) seem to be down. Here's a You Tube video:  

G. Lawton:

[Cathy Fitzgerald]

Aw Bert,

thanks for that

Bert

With your response you just showed that you are already perfectly capable to write in such a way :)

 

I liked your perspective on 'slow' - isn't it just the way that so many words, phrases get so overused but then again maybe something is taking hold in a larger way.  Though all gets messy with the spin of marketing too. However, even though as I pointed out there are some dangers in linking the word 'pornography' to nature images, it would be good if the term caught hold if only for people to think about how we blind ourselves so completely in our media saturated world.

 

Response for you visually - a snap from my ongoing Hollywood Diaries - plantation to forest work (dog, 'Holly' has generously lent her name to the project)

 

ps many thanks for links too