I focussed on one of Burtynsky’s images before for this course, but it seemed an obvious step to look at his work in more detail. Apart from the images itself, it is useful to look at how the presentation of the work has developed.
As well as individual projects and books on subject such as oil and water, Burtynsky has collaborated with film makers Jennifer Baichwal and her partner Nicholas de Pencier on the trilogy Manufactured Landscapes, Watermark and Anthropocene.
The later is now a much-expanded project, incorporating a book, film, and even augmented reality, with its own website: https://theanthropocene.org/ (Accessed 22.7.2022).
Manufactured landscapes is an older film that sees the photographer/film makers outlining their position, as seen in two quotes from Burtynsky:
“There is an importance to have a certain reverence for what nature is because we are part of it and we are connected to it and if we destroy nature we destroy ourselves and I believe that as a fundamental philosophical position when I look at the world” (Manufactured Landscapes)
“I have thought about putting my work into a more politicised environment. If I said this is a terrible thing we are doing to the planet then people will either agree or disagree. By not saying what you should see that may allow them to look at something they have never looked at and to see there world a little differently.” (Manufactured Landscapes)
This approach puts the work firmly in the environmental (as opposed to deep ecological) viewpoint – at least at this stage.
“It’s not a simple right or wrong, it needs a whole new way of thinking” (Manufactured Landscapes)
This is a film about the modern, industrial landscape – not glorifying or damming it but simply observing. Nevertheless the repetitive work begins to look like a type of madness, and when we learn that recycling materials are sent to China where the toxic remains leech into the water table, meaning they now have to import their water, the unsustainable nature of the situation seems confirmed.
China is a focus for a number of Burtynsky projects, where the huge growth and sheer size of the industrial undertakings create an overwhelming picture of the effect of human activity on our planet.
Some of the film looks a little dated and the ominous music, presumably meant to lend gravitas and emotion to the imagery, gets annoying after a while!
Watermark, the second film, shows a very obvious jump in cinematic quality and a clear focus on a particular topic. Nevertheless the tactic of turning the sound off for certain sequences is frustrating. The style is at times over-dramatic for the subject (an excess of gravitas starting to work the other way, conferring non-factuality) and the pacing is a little unnatural between the more contemplative sections and the rest of the film. Perhaps allowing the dialogue to overlap a little more with the video sequences, and using less music, would have made it more coherent and less arthouse?
However to be fair the situation is conveyed more pressingly than simply via Burtynsky’s stills – although this works better for negative message than pretty pictures of surfers, which seem a little like visual filler given the obvious direction the film takes. The film reveals a little of Burtynsky at work, using a Hassleblad, including the negotiations involved in getting some of the images in China and also the co-ordination using a team of helpers that make some of the shots appear more like a Crewdson shoot and definitely show Burtynsky directing the viewer towards his interpretation of what he finds on the ground. There is of course the question as to whether the end result conveys reality. In the film Burtynsky makes the significant claim that “I understood what nature is…” (Watermark), thereby granting himself permission to represent his understanding as truth and indeed to go beyond that with an emotional interpretation: “this work is a lament for that loss” (Watermark).
Burtysnky is perhaps becoming more than an observer at this stage, although a short film entitled Where I Stand on his website which accompanies the water images actually refers to the camera viewpoint – He used to search for altered landscapes in America by car, whereas now he uses internet technology to research and pre-visualise his images. He then uses technology such as cranes, pneumatic poles, drones and even helicopters, along with remote triggers, to find the ideal viewpoint wherever it is in space – sometimes thousands of metres away.
Burtynsky sees the diversion of water for agriculture use by farmland that was not originally suitable as such to be the greatest issue. Pattern and the disruption of pattern are used to convey human impact on the environmental. Lack of colour (grey and brown) is used to emphasise the unhealthy state of the environment, sometimes penetrated by blocks or flows of overly vivid colour representing pollution, such as the waste water from industrial processes such as leather production tainting river water used by others to wash.
The images of the 12th C step wells in Rajastan were very beautiful.
The film makes the point that the history of our weather is one of ice ages with only (relatively) short periods in between – we are now 11,000 in to one of these brief and in fact unusual periods. However not all the “science” in the film was necessarily accurate – for example I believe it is still debated as to whether all water on our planet came from space?
However “For the first time we are not just passive watcher of what nature does – we are responsible” (Watermark). Again we have a supremely ironic example in the case of Owens Lake, drained by Mulholland to supply water to LA so that it could continue to grow, which caused the lake to dry up. The lakebed dust polluted nearby towns and now it has to be kept wet to stop that!
In part this film shows Burtynsky at work, so that it acts like a companion piece to the still images.
Anthropocene, by contrast, is a wider project in which each of the elements stand on their own. As well as a book and film there are exhibitions and even augmented realities, as shown growing out of my iMac below:
The subject is the human epoch, after the end of the Holocene (geological epoch) humans now affect the earth’s processes more than all natural processes combined. For example humans move more sediment that all the rivers in the world, and extact 60-100bn tonnes of material every year from the earth. This subject is therefore less focussed than watermark, although more ambitious would be a more positive description, and more subject variation means more visual stimulation which works in the film’s favour. I was unsure of the use of Alicia Vikander as a big name narrator, whose voice seemed more suited to a chocolate advert and hence perhaps detracted slightly from the serious message.
There have been 5 great extinctions on earth – the film makes the point that we are in the process of the 6th with human activity controlling the pace.
Burtynsky and still imagery do not feature directly in the film, although the subjects are clearly the same as in his images. We move in a giant arc from ivory burning in Nairobi, to Norilsk (most polluted city in Russia), to Italian marble quarries, to lithium mines in the Atacama desert. The scale of the 12 thousand tonne excavators terraforming (altering the earth’s surface for human need) Immerath in Germany is truly outstanding, giving the film a science fiction feel like something from Blade Runner. Technofossils (human created objects that persist in the biosphere) are also discussed – the technosphere is estimated at 30 trillion tonnes.
The film returns to Kenya for the Dandora landfill, home to 250,000 people and truly horrendous workplace for 6000 of them. I chose Burtynsky’s still image of this for my ecocriticism image: https://photo515050level3.wordpress.com/2022/05/29/ecocriticism/.
But the images of the potash mines in Berezniki, Russia are undeniably beautiful, like a Paul Kenny print (see Fig. 1 at top).
The narrative arc returns to the ivory burn at the end, and a plea to use man’s ingenuity to readjust the balance.
Annoyingly the Anthropocene film is not available in the UK – my bluray copy refused to work on my UK player although I discovered a useful technical workaround – pressing STOP – 1 – OK – STOP – 1 – OK sends an infrared sequence to the player that overrides the regional block!
In the Wake of Progress, the latest project, sees Burtynsky go further, embracing the cinematic to emphasise his message using a highly produced immersive experience to re-represent his work. This is a retrospective with a difference, incorporating augmented reality and Change Stations “where visitors will be encouraged to become positive agents for change in their own local environments” (https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/projects/in-the-wake-of-progress). Burtynsky is using his material far more actively to call for change, creating significant art installations which reshape his oeuvre into a powerful message.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- Burtynsky, E. (2017) Uralkali Potash Mine #9, Berezniki, Russia. At: https://www.flowersgallery.com/artists/145-edward-burtynsky/works/167293/ (Accessed 22.7.2022)
- Burtynsky, E. (2016) AR #3, Big Lonely Doug, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. At: https://theanthropocene.org/interactive/augmented-reality-big-lonely-doug/ (Accessed 22.7.2022) – iphone photo of AR representation on my iMac.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Level 3.1 Learning Log 
2 thoughts on “Edward Burtynsky”