Eco-Activist Art and the
Environmental Documentary
VCC 308
Prof. Narine
March 2, 2015
AGENDA
 How do artists envision nature?
 Humans and the Environment
 ARE WE PART OF NATURE, or SEPARATE FROM IT?
 How do artists relate to animals (as nature)?
 Why has the Eco-Documentary become an Activist
form of media?
How do artists envision nature?
 Cave Paintings of Animals (32000 BC)
 Egyptian Art (1500 BC)
 Landscape Painting
 Activist Performers / Celebrities
 Environmental Documentaries
Human Domination
 Whether we look to the Bible, the
Koran, the Tora, or Hinduism, humans
are given DOMINION OVER THE
EARTH, to varying degrees
Humans and Nature
 A first step:
 How do we relate to Animals?
Jane Goodall
 Did you notice the shift in tone?
 Goodall begins as an observer, and becomes an
activist over the years.
People and Animals
 There is new evidence that horses were
domesticated in 3500 B.C.—about a thousand
years earlier than previous estimates.
 The dog was the first domesticated animal!
 estimates range from roughly 13,000 to 30,000
years ago
32,000 Years Ago, France
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
 The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)
 Werner Herzog, director
 Filmmaker: Encounters at the End of the World
(2009), Cave, and Grizzly Man (2005)
 Animals were central in human life
The Cave of Forgotten
Dreams
 The walls of the cave show people living with and
eating animals
But what is this
relationship now?
 Pets
 Food
 Zoos
 Cowboys
 Farmers
Humans “Training” Animals?
 “Breaking” horses
 Training pets
 Training whales and dolphins? (BLACKFISH)
Can animals and humans
work in harmony?
Mahout and Elephant
People Working with
Animals and Nature
 Animals had been together with people “at the
center” of our world: farming, horses and carriages
 In the West: Cattle, rooster in the morning!
 In the East: Elephants, ox for hauling and farming
Case Study 1: Joseph Beuys
 Performance Artist
 “For three days in May of 1974, Joseph Beuys lived
and communicated with a coyote in a small room in
the newly-opened Rene Block Gallery at 409 West
Broadway in New York…. It awakened the interest
and curiosity of many who heard about it, far and
wide.” (http://johanhedback.com/beuys.html)
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys, activist
Weapons in the war against coyotes have included:
 poisons such as strychnine and thallium sulfate
 leg hold traps, cyanide ”coyote-getters” designed to
explode into the coyote's mouth
snares and den-hunting to destroy pups
But is the artist being
ethical?
Why do we kill animals (we don’t
eat) like Coyotes?
A Split with Nature
Mass industry (1750s-1850s) brought people into
cities
People left farms (moreso in the Industrial West)
Those on farms used more mechanized methods
that detached people from animals
John Berger
 Leading Art Historian
 “In the 1800s, every
tradition that involved
people and nature was
broken” (John Berger
“Why Look at Animals?”)
This (tense?) relationship
Becomes…
Steam Engine Power
People, Animals, Nature
 People became less familiar with animals, post
1850
 Through technology, people are more detached
from nature
 Technology mediates our relationships with nature
Martin Heidegger
 German Philosopher
 A HYDRO DAM: “ ‘reveals’ the water as a
reserve of electricity”
 LOGGING: “ ‘reveals’ the forest as a standing
reserve of lumber”
Martin Heidegger
• Famous essay: “The Question Concerning Technology”
• We see the natural world differently through technology
 Epistemology: we know nature differently
 Phenomenology: we sense nature differently
What Does This Create?
 We share a strong desire to “return to nature”
 Nostalgia
 Peace
 Communion
 De-stressing
Activism 1960s-1970s: Flower Power
Activism 1990s-2000s:Nature Films
 Home (2009)
 The Cove (2009)
 Food Inc. (2009)
 Planet Earth (2001)
 National Geographic magazine and many
documentary films (1800s-present)
Case Study 2: Trash
Art and Waste
 The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, 2000) (clip)
 Gleaning is collecting refuse
Art and Waste
 John Knechtel Trash (link)
 “With every action, people make trash.
Casually, as a matter of course, we throw things away.
The concept of trash is the Midas touch inverted, and
its malleability allows it to convert any thing or any
one into garbage.”
Why is this the most seen film?
Why is this popular culture today?
Nature vs Capitalism?
 Disenchantment with industrial progress
 Human/technological capacity to destroy
the planet
 Impact of industrial development on
natural environment
 Consumerism/suburbia as spiritual death
 DETROPIA
Disasters and Civic Action
 1980s: environmental disasters (Bhopal, Exxon
Valdez oil spill, Chevron in Ecuador)
 1990s: global ecological crisis (Kyoto Accords
generated)
 2000s: climate change, BP Oil Spill 2011
 SO WHAT DOES THIS HISTORY MEAN FOR OUR
CURRENT RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE?
Nature as Visual Pleasure
Nature as Visual Pleasure
 Nature becomes a commodity
 Not just to be exploited (oil, lumber)
 But to be visited (tourism, zoos)
…Visual Pleasure
 So we can consume “Nature”
 But we also long for a genuine return
 (Is there a genuine return to nature?)
But we may be repressing
our knowledge that…
We inflict Trauma on
Nature
 And trauma is wrought by Nature on People,
which can be “natural” but can also show a
relationship out of balance…
Case Study 3:
The Eco-Trauma Documentary
 ACTIVIST FILMMAKERS
 Documentary has a long history (1960s-present) of
activism
 Nature documentaries were produced 1900-onward
Musser: The Eco-Trauma Documentary:
Grizzly Man (2005)
Grizzly Man
 “Timothy Treadwell’s method of making contact
with the creatures of Alaska’s Katmai Peninsula
departs radically from the standard tropes
found in excursion narratives. He is a
questionable “activist.” What is he seeking?
Grizzly Man
 In an unthinkable rupture of the boundary
separating the director and his subject matter,
nature refuses to stay safely on the other side
of the camera. (Seegert, 2012)
 Treadwell is attacked by a bear
Werner Herzog, director
Grizzly Man
Timothy’s opening
monologue
• How does he introduce himself?
• What is his role?
•
Contradictions?
Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell as a self-styled “spectacle”
A failed actor? A performance artist?
Identity crisis?
Trouble in the human
world but belonging
among the bears?
The Cove (2009)
 Activists and Actors address…
 The yearly dolphin slaughter in
Taiji, Japan
CLIP
The Eco-Trauma film: The Cove
 TV performers / celebrity activists join the fight
against the dolphin hunt
The Eco-Trauma Film:
Last Call at the Oasis (2011)
 CLIP
 (Dir. Jessica Yu)
Thesis: Suffering abounds
when water runs out.
Conclusion
 Activists take many positions against the
exploitation of animals and nature generally
 The Cove shows how targeting a specific, discreet
practice can change global opinion about eco issues
in general
 The specific become universal (a coyote etc)