outline

WORKING OUTLINE

WORKING TITLE: THE ECOCIDAL EYE: BEYOND THE ANTHROPOCENTRIC TO A RELATIONAL GAZE IN CINEMA

INTRODUCTION: (leaving until end)

• aims: why enquiry important, related questions, identify key terms
• overview scope of enquiry, domains and fields to be looked, why others not, boundary of enquiry
  
• context of enquiry
• type of study;  methodologies to be employed, how do I make knowledge as a creative practitioner
  
• possible audiences etc development of fields of green cinema/visual scholarship and art & ecology practices

(CONTEXT/PROBLEM) CHAPTER 1  -  THE ECOCIDAL EYE: THE ANTHROPOCENTRIC GAZE

Present and argue that global ecocide – is a profound yet largely unacknowledged crisis of culture. It is a crisis of the dominant, industrialised (and now globalised) culture that is set to radically alter and negatively limit life on earth in the coming decades.  The unprecedented and incomprehensible scale, violence and rate of global biosphere degradation due to the actions of our single species behaviour is now also  being referred to as: The Anthropocene (the age of man). Ecocide is a new term in play; examine it materially, politically, culturally, philosophically

• Written brief blog post on the history and definition of ‘ecocide’ in regards to recent work by environmental lawyer, Polly Higgins here

Examined the new term The Anthropocene and Ecocide in article and blog posts

• Written article on The Anthropocene:10 000 years of ecocide here
• Written brief blog post  about visual culture images/practices that refer to the Anthropocene (could be used as illustration in thesis) portraits of the Anthropocene by media artist David T Smith here, 
• also in conversation with the Geological Turn artist who is doing a residency with involvement with leading Anthropocene geologist, post to do. refer Canadian oil artist?
  
• refer upcoming article on the arrogance of the Anthropocene term by D Jensen, due Nov 2012

How has globalised industrial ‘culture’, and its  ideologies of ecocide, its blinkered anthropocentric gaze (my term), developed over the centuries (through its dominant ideologies, myths, religion, science, politics etc).

What is preventing us from ‘seeing’ that the fabric of the biosphere that supports life is so near collapse?

What is the role of mass media/cinema in this regard,

Can we characterise the ecocidal characteristics of the anthropocentric gaze in cinema and in nature cinema in particular

Explore ecopornography and its unacknowledged ‘culture’ (psychology) of denial/seduction, that completely masks the accelerating scale of destruction/violence to the more-than-human earth/indigenous cultures, look particularly at the rise of mass cinema and ‘The Great Acceleration’

• Presented the Ecocidal eye – outline of enquiry at The Home and The World Conference, Dartington Hall, Devon, June 2012 here
• Wrote article ‘Deep Sustainability and the Art & Politics of Forests (Jan 2012) plus links to experimental filmworks for The Home and the World, submitted post-conference publication Oct 2012
• Written an article on Ecopornography, slow violence and the deep art of place here   hope to submit it, with revisions to ASLE-ANZ 2012 conference proceedings  Nov 2012

Identify limitations/ anthropocentric conventions of nature cinema genre to date; further characterise the ecocidal characteristics of the anthropocentric gaze in cinema

• Discuss that nature cinema has been almost totally ignored in film theory to date; discuss chasm between the natural sciences and humanities as a possible reason for lack of analysis of nature cinema by film theorists; discuss dominance of film theorists on the psychological aspects of cinema from earliest film theory
• Discuss that nature cinema has depended on conventions settled by earliest nature documentary filmmakers often copying the exotic hunting expeditions of colonials; review 1/2 dozen books in this area
• propose and interrogate that the gaze of nature cinema has always been almost exclusively and highly anthropocentric concentrating on social trends and conservation environmental ideals, and most often completely distanced from eco, social or political realities.

• compare anthropocentric gaze’s similarities to feminist theory of the masculine gaze and extrapolate the limiting, exploitative assumptions presented in cinema about women, to the nonhuman/indigenous cultures

• if we take it that media/cinema (as the most powerfully available mass media in contemporary life) significantly shapes  how we relate and reflect upon the earth/living communities, discuss nature cinema examples that outline above conventions and limitations.

(ADDRESSING PROBLEM) CHAPTER 2:  Whats the problem with ‘environmental’ cinema? ??? title needs work

INTRODUCTION
notes:
(what is ecocinema,
what is environmental cinema?
environmentalism – define – limitations
towards deep sustainability -define, expand ideas from UCC talks
problems with ‘nature’
expand with art & ecolgy/film responses of others and my own work)

- SEEING BETTER SO WE CAN RECOGNISE AND IMPLEMENT DEEP SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES; seeing ecology not species

(POSSIBLE NEW DIRECTIONS) CHAPTER 3:  BEYOND THE ANTHROPOCENTRIC GAZE to a RELATIONAL??? GAZE?

present the possibility/impossibility of employing of aspiring to more ecocentric ideas for more considered cultural responses to global ecocrisis in cinema and art & ecology practices (granted one will always becoming from an anthropocentric position, being human but we could at least ‘extend our duty of care’ substantially to the more than human world), look to indigenous peoples animism to examine cultures that lived in areas for 10000 years without wrecking their environments.  Tending the wild…. academic book on nat. americans relationship with their non-human neighbours.

• difficulties and limitations in perceiving/representing a more ecocentric perspective in experimental cinema and in art & ecology practices
• look at recent ‘The Forest‘ 2011 video installation by Andrej Zravic in Trenta, Soca Valley as key example,
• also review others in experimental film looking to use film to perceive/relate to nature/land differently. Scott MacDonald’s 2 books which are a wide survey of exp. filmakers will be a key source.
  Also look at allores and caldzilla experimental film on hurricane Katrina and everglades.
• These filmmakers are not preoccupied with environmental themes or narratives but looking at formal techinques in presenting other ways to perceive the world around us. May also look at nonwestern filmmakers who deal with representing the ‘other’.

• also look at new empathy studies  in neuroscience discussed recently in film editing theory Pearlman - Cutting rythmns