Millie wrote:
<I suspect that many people my age and younger are likewise alienated from
nature. I am sure there are others who are able to appreciate the natural
world only with the help of a digital camera or camcorder to mediate their
experience. When I am camera-less, I feel there is no point in looking at
the scenery because I can't make art out of it. >
2 points:
on a recent visit to the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay, I was struck by the fact
that the great majority of people seemed to be more concerned with taking
photographs of the art than of looking at it. These are 'touristy' art
museums, but I wondered whether there is an increasing incapacity to
interact with art as well as with nature without the mediation of the
camera.
But even beyond that, increasingly people are filming the births of their
babies. What kind of mediation is that, and why the compulsion to mediate?
I'm sure it has to do with the marking of presence ('I was there') in the
first place, and with recording the moment for the future, a kind of
insurance for memory in the second. But I also think that there's something
more going on here, having to do with the framing and focusing and
distancing that the camera allows.
(2) Donna Harraway's work on companion species seems to be relevant here.
Species like dogs (and cyborgs) exist on the boundary between nature and
culture, but also blur that distinction. Perhaps the relation to nature
through technology that Millie describes is another way of creating a kind
of companion species, but this time of natural landscape? I'm not sure how
(or whether) this will work out, but thought I'd throw it in anyway.
Annamaria
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