Regarding the essay I am not overly concerned as to what it is called (critical review or dissertation) – I would like to write some sort of paper that combines my own ideas and an analysis of more “popular” or “nature” writing with “deeper” ideas eg simulacra. Writers who I think do this very well include Campany and Dyer (for me great teachers and writers, those that really understand their subject, can explain things clearly and stimulate their audience rather than making the subject so opaque the reader turns away). I would also like this to relate and even follow the thought process of my visual submission.
We discussed Marxism (academic theory vs political implementation, the latter element of which always puts me off since – despite numerous deficiencies in other systems – it has in my opinion demonstrably and quite spectacularly failed) and post-structuralism and the impossibility of awareness of all influences – the latter, and complexity, is very relevant to my work.
We discussed AI – DW mentioned Midjourney (www.midjourney.com) and the horrors of art produced in this way but I am not looking at this as a way of producing a final undirected piece. It is certainly becoming useful for tasks such as sharpening images, scanning and approximating voices, etc … beyond that, how AI works as a process may actually approximate natural processes more closely than is first realised …
JL mentioned the importance of randomness in programming – in a similar way that option pricing can seem complex but can really explained by variability and time, nature is perhaps surprisingly similar. So while the discussion regarding science (Carlson?) vs nature (e.g. Fowles, and many others) goes on with the latter proposing the undefinable mysticism of ongoing creation, in fact we have a slow but continuing randomness (not design) proceeding over a period of time that it is very difficult for humans to understand.
There is a very great deal here – for example mysticism can be linked to ancient religions (e.g. green man in UK and Native American Indian beliefs). We have lost those and moved initially to a monotheism that is now gradually abandoned and many feel has harmed the environment. Originally we worshipped the natural forces we could not understand. Perhaps we are moving back towards an uncomfortable appreciation of these. In the Anthropocene, we achieve a God-like power that it would seem we are not ready for yet … but simply sitting back and fencing off nature as other is (in my opinion) not the answer. Investigate the Eremozoic—a term coined by biologist and writer E. O. Wilson to describe the current era of mass extinction triggered by human activity.
Photography is a very interesting tool for representing/understanding time. Perhaps if you were forced to narrow it down to one thing photograph is about, then it’s time. AI can combine randomness and analytical power in ways that may help understand complex systems where the “fallacy of division” (discussed by Tree) fails for more simplistic “brute force” algorithms. AI cuts through the time element that the humans struggle with.
Another offshoot here is comparing the inadequacy of “brute force” with the issue of the male in the environment – e.g. Beard’s reference to the penetration of the interior by African explorers. This is not necessarily a path I want to go down, however.
Nature as symbol, as other, as a place we don’t live vs (for example) native American approach of living in nature.
Countryside (or farm) as a place separate from nature (e.g. by fence or barbed wire) vs a grazed pasture within a landscape.
Grazed pasture as a “common” environment, even if it looks very different – e.g. the plains of Africa, the Steppes, the great plains of America, all link with grazed pasture as described by Tree in Wilding.
So many connections! How to wrap it all up and present it to an audience …. aesthetically …
Level 3.1 Learning Log 