Ash Fox

Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept

Timothy Clark believes that there is a direct correlation between the interpretation of the subjective expression of climate change by ecocritics and an understanding of the devastation of the natural world. Through an interrogation of the use of symbolism in climate change communication he claims that climate change media is an artistic act, with representations and symbols acting as means to assign ‘good’ or ‘bad’ moral connotations to human actions.  Clark sympathises with the idea that a vast ‘reimagining’ of the human condition and it’s direct effect on the planet is required to enact positive change. He voices this claim by stating that, “The work of an ecocritic is seen as one of ‘reimagination’, to change ‘the imaginary’ of his or her culture” (p. 19). This ‘reimagining’ is the direction that Clark believes media needs to take in order to reconstruct the problem of climate change in a fathomable and coherent way that will be recognisable across cultural boundaries. This is all contextualised in the idea that the Anthropocene, as a contemporary expression of the current phenomenon, needs to be redescribed through revolutionary means of symbolic change. It is through the Anthropic lens that Clark believes there is an opportunity for “recognition of the limits of cultural representation as a force of change in human affairs” (p. 21), compared to other factors which have been used to measure the ongoing impact.

Climate Change and Post-Political Communication: Media, Emotion, and Environmental Advocacy

Philip Hammond’s position on climate change communication is that the communication modes are a political act. The politics of this messaging come from a notion that climate change is often interpreted as only an important issue for people in government and positions of power to worry about. The nature of climate change communications must also be politically weaponised by the public in order to change His writing is supported by the claims of Anabela Carvalho. Carvalho observes the way in which the public is represented in contemporary climate change media as “passive” and “childlike” (p. 10). The descriptions of these dormant states instil in the audience a false understanding that they are powerless, and will never have the opportunity to enact positive change. Carvalho also points to the use of media communication expressing ‘millennial fears’ and ‘apocalyptic rhetoric’ (p. 10). This undermines the actual severity of the situation by diluting the validity of the situation, while leading the audience to assume that their fears are ridiculous and illegitimate.

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change

Much like Clark, Joanna Nurmis also believes that the most effective way to cause active engagement within the broader representation of climate change media is through an artistic lens. Nurmis’ argument stems from her claim that there is a disconnect between the events of climate change on a global scale and the emotional engagement with the citizens of the world. This is illustrated throughout her piece as she draws on concepts similar to Clark’s – the most fundamental of these is that imagination is the key to connecting the human experience with the natural world. As Nurmis states, “Art, finally, can ‘educate the senses’ themselves, providing a space for imagining what can be done and what the future will bring.” (p. 505). This ‘education of the senses’ is a vital part of the process in creating engaging and meaningful media as it invites the consumer to understand the problems and impacts on an emotional level, without feeling inundated or inferior from a misunderstanding in scientific language and concepts. It’s the raw interpretation of the art which connects the audience to the issue through this emotional level which Nurmis believes is the most important product of ‘reimagining’ media messaging.

 

References

Clark, T 2015, ‘Chapter One: The Anthropocene- Questions of Definition’, Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept, Bloomsbury Publishing, p.19-21.

Hammond, P 2017, ‘Introduction: ‘Post-political’ climate change’, Climate Change and Post-Political Communication: Media, Emotion, and Environmental Advocacy, Routledge, pp. 1-17.

Nurmis, J 2016, ‘Visual climate change art 2005–2015: discourse and practice’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, vol. 7, no. 4, p.505.

Ecological grief is consistently a major influence on my mood. I’ve advocated for progressive climate action since I entered my teens and in that time I have heard every perspective and opinion that could possibly be expressed. My perspective on positive climate action has changed over the past 15 years as I have experienced the ways in which family, friends, and society at large deal with the trauma of a rapidly changing system. To grieve for the loss of an ecological system is to ride on an emotional journey through towards understanding. Here are some of the ways that my experienced has been shaped:

Confusion

When I was 15 I decided to stop eating meat. This was a radical move in  the mid 2000’s because the importance of restricting the consumption of goods sourced from industrial animal agriculture wasn’t popular, or really understood at all. There was a passive aggressive tone in the debates that people threw at me – “you’ll get sick!”, “where will you get your protein?”, “What about fish?”. It seemed like people around me were actually personally offended that I didn’t want to do what they were doing. However, I made the decision based on what I had learned about the environmental impacts of intense farming, not on my opinion of my friends favourite meals. I couldn’t understand why more people weren’t making the same decisions as me. We all had access to the same information –  Al Gore was running around the planet to speak his Inconvenient Truth, and climate change was becoming a regular topic of conversation on panel discussion shows.

 

Frustration

When something makes so much sense to you, but others don’t seem to understand the importance in what you’re saying, it can lead to immense frustration. As I educated myself about the effects on consumer choices, global markets, agriculture, building trends, etc. the more frequently I found myself in debate with people about their own choices and habits.

Throughout my early 20’s I would become engaged in horrible, frustrating conversations about what were the right and wrong things to do, how one person couldn’t make a difference, why what I was doing or saying was extreme and unrealistic. I understand now that everyone has their own experience with ecological grief and the hostility I felt from people wasn’t a personal attack, but usually just an opportunity for them to express their own frustration at an ongoing hopeless situation.

Apathy

When I was 25 I withdrew from the debates, accepted that I couldn’t make a difference, and moved into my van to travel the East Coast of Australia. Amongst other factors (stress, mental health) I didn’t want to keep burning myself out with the constant battle of justifying my actions to other people. A sense of dread and apathy had firmly settled into my regular personality and a lot of that came from anxiety about watching the Earth scraped clean of natural resources for the sake of profit. I felt that everyone did a lot of talking, but not a lot of doing. Friends were express their concern for societies environmental impact while they sipped from a take-away coffee cup, or ate a Big Mac. Overcome with the irony of it all I ejected myself from the conversation and withdrew into complete complacency. That isn’t to say that I rejected my own sustainable practises or consumer choices, in fact it lead to a realisation that I needed to do more personally.

Self-Sufficiency

After a period of living as minimally and as self-sufficiently as possible while on the road I discovered that I wanted to be stationary and set myself up properly in Melbourne. The more I implemented environmentally sustainable strategies at home, the more my anxiety, apathy, and complacency started to dissolve. Today I try to learn as many new skills as I possibly can with every spare moment that I get. Not only have my emotional experiences pushed me to learn more about my impacts, but I am now learning to be proficient in the way I communicate my concerns and solutions with others. My ultimate long-term goal is to equip myself with enough theoretical and practical knowledge that I can build my own off-grid house, apply the principles of permaculture to farm my own produce in a sustainable and meaningful way (still all vegan of course – that trend never went away in all that time), and have enough wealth of knowledge to work in sustainability communications as a profession. I still experience a low-to-mid level of ecological grief, but I know what I need to do to deal with that. By executing the measures I believe in I can keep my emotions in check and actually make real progressive steps towards addressing the impending doom that may actual befall us.

 

 

1000 words that closely analyse two examples (of your own choice) of climate change media; ONE example that you’ve found to be impactful or persuasive, and a SECOND example that you’ve found to be lacklustre or ineffective. There are no “right” or “wrong” choices, it’s your subjective opinion!

 

Good – It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia “The Gang Solves Global Warming”

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is an American sitcom produced by FXX and created by Rob McElhenney. The plot is based around a group of friends who run a dive bar in a poor neighbourhood in Philadelphia. This particular episode aired on November 6, 2019 and makes up part of the latest season.I’ve been a fan of IASIP since it first aired. The character development is incredibly elaborate – each character seems to wander further down their own self-destructive path the more the story progresses. As of the most recent season (season 14) the ‘gang’ have broached topics that are in direct correlation to contemporary issues; human rights, gender politics, the oil crises, morality, etc. This is always done through the lens of their morbid self obsession and self interest. There is rarely any consideration for other people in the character’s worlds, and most people who they encounter end up in a far worse position as a result.

In keeping with the usual dirty, grungy feel of the show, the entire episode takes place during a disgusting heatwave. All of the characters complain about the heat, but none of them are educated enough to know what to do, how to respond, or what it really means. The concrete streets of Philadelphia are brightly lit and not many pedestrians are seen on screen. In one scene Charlie makes a singlet out of a trash bag and a sun hat from an old pizza box, while Dee wears a pair of medical sponges on her feet. There is an apocalyptic sense that the story is portraying an impending reality.

This episode discusses global warming by subverting the characters usual reactionary attitudes towards major issues. Audiences expect the ‘gang’ to show no interest in climate change, which is true at the beginning of the episode, but this is turned around by Dee who is proud that she has purchased shoes made from recycled ocean plastics. The shoes end up being tossed over some alleyway power lines while Dee complains that they are too uncomfortable to wear. Mac and Dennis make the most of the heatwave which has lead to their pub filling up with patrons, which has also put an enormous strain on their air conditioning. The nuance in the characters rationale for caring about the changing climate is what makes this work so effective. In the clip (see above) Dennis pleads with his patrons to take a break from enjoying themselves so much so that they can maintain the party for longer. This is met with severe hostility and a refusal to slow down on the consumption of resources. Dennis’s dialogue in this scene is poignant and perfectly illustrates societies current attitude towards sustainability and, at the same time, incredibly ironic as we know that he’s pleading for participation so that it benefits his earnings from the bar.

 

Bad – Barnaby Joyce “Merry Christmas” Tweet

Merry Christmas pic.twitter.com/QGYPv51pTN

— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) December 24, 2019

Wow…what can you say about this?

Firstly, this is not media that I sit down to watch for entertainment. I don’t have a Twitter account, and I definitely don’t follow Barnaby Joyce on any social platforms. I know who he is and I know what his politics are and that is enough for me to disregard every word he says and spend absolutely no mental or emotional energy on acknowledging that he exists. That being said – this is worthy of everyones attention.

There is no way that this could ever been interpreted as ‘good’ in any sense. There’s so much to mention that I’ve carved it down into a few major points:

• Character – Barnaby is not a likeable character. There is nothing about the way he speaks, or the way his patchy red sweaty face looks on a shaky phone camera that inspires any action from an audience one way or another.
• Tone – I feel like I’m being told off for doing something wrong. Was I supposed to feed the cattle? Have I not committed my faith to the right higher power in the sky? The words that he’s speaking are obviously coming to mind as he’s shouting them through his phone screen at a bunch of straw covered cows. There is no conviction in either his words, or his sanity.
• Message – This is definitely one crazy rollercoaster. He starts by acknowledging that the climate is changing. We’re then treated to the insight that it’s all in the devine plan of God, a being who just happens to live in the clouds like a real magical ghost man – which this grown man actually says/believes! If there was any point to this video, pro-or-anti climate action then I definitely don’t know what it is. I’m certain this is a man filming himself having a full on dummy spit because no one believes him that there is a man in the sky.
• Irony – He is the government.. that is all.

To sum up – this is not only bad climate media, bad publicity, bad communication, and bad media making skills; it also just blatantly shouldn’t exist.

300-500 words reflecting on the process and outcome of our workshop media making task. Please ensure you include / embed your FINAL media making artefact onto your blogpost. Consider: how did you respond to the prompt? How did you go about sourcing and appropriating your found footage + found sound? What influenced your choices? How did your editing choices respond to the task constraints? What could be improved in your media artefact, if you had more time / resources / etc?

 

My response to this prompt was to play with images of innocence and childish behaviour, juxtaposed against background images of fire, destruction, irradiation, and extinction. The footage was sourced from various public domain websites. I began by searching for clips of children playing, people walking together, carnival rides, happy couples, etc. I then switched gears and went exploring for footage of arid farmlands, fire, heat, and wastage (dripping taps).

I chose to place the footage over the top of the song “Happy Together” by the Turtles. There were a few reasons for this choice:

• It is upbeat and unsettling to hear played over images of destruction.
• The lyrics are the wonderings of a man who wants something that he can’t have – I feel that this applies to humanity in general. Some people want positive climate action and aren’t being heard; others want to hold onto the destructive comforts that their lifestyle demands, and they aren’t getting any reassurance.
• The final line in the song repeats: “so how is the weather..?” – this was a cheesy/vaguely topical line that I wanted to include to satirise contemporary climate media.

The final edit of the piece was the original edit. I wanted to challenge myself to stick within the allocated time to develop this media and I felt reasonably satisfied with work that I had produced. The slow transitions mixed in by jump cuts was intended to be unsettling and create a vague anxiety in trying to predict what sort of imagery would appear next.

Given more time I would have smoothed out a few of the cuts and transitions. Given more resources I would have included more visual elements such as graphic animation and  animated text to highlight some of the messages I was trying to present.

300 words outlining your goals, expectations, desires as a media creative taking this studio. Consider the studio prompt, and your own experience of climate media in recent times (Aus bushfires, etc). 

 

Goals – I want to engage with current climate messaging on a deeper level. My understanding of the media that I consume is wrapped up in my understanding of other facets of learning. I want to explore climate messaging as its own practice, without conflating it with prior knowledge on semi-related subjects. My goal in this course is to come out the other side with a level of understanding that can influence my approach to making media and change my personal behaviour in a positive way.

Expectations – I expect to be challenged by what others think, say, and believe. It’s very easy to live in a confined bubble of positive affirmation and agreement, and I want to experience discussion of current issues from outside of my own interpretation. There are certain habits that I maintain which I feel are progressive steps towards enacting climate action, but there is definitely more I could be doing. Open discussion within the classroom will hopefully give me a better insight into how people outside of my social circles deal with the impending crisis, and what habits they undertake in order to adjust to the situation.

Desires –  I need to become more accepting of the situation that intense climate change presents. As much as I believe I know how to communicate ideas for direct change, I realise that I barely know the fundamentals. I want to be better than I am now. I also want to be better, and smarter, as a collective industry which strives for concise and effective messaging around real issues.

Documentary Folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LmxPuCAvB-_1Peik9YPvHp5sDkjk4riW?usp=sharing

Blog Posts:

Week 4

Week 5

Interview with Sam

 

Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/357151031

This interview task was a complete disaster. The footage/questions/answers were all great, but my Macbook trying to process Premiere Pro is excruciating. I’ve now purchased a new SSD and battery as a result of this.

The edit on the interview doesn’t really meet the brief. There are moments when you can here the questions being asked, there are only 2 cutaways and they’re not very creative, and the cold open doesn’t stand out (it just looks lazy).

This is the best I could do with what I had, and I just had to get something together..

The characteristics of the essay documentary relate similarly to written form of essay, but are spread across many avenues of information. The voice of the essay film resembles the traditional written voice that carries through an academic or opinion piece of written text. This formation of the opinion is what ties the two mediums together. Narration in essay films and the presence of the documentarian form a continuing argument from observer to subject, much like a written piece. We are never left wondering what the opinion of the creator is (unless the structure of the argument is too confusing or left uncontextualized).  As Paul Arthur states in Essay Questions: From Alain Resnais to Michael Moore:

The literary essay’s single determining voice is dispersed into cinema’s multi-channel stew.

The combination of audio and visual material in the essay film does more to prompt an emotional response from the viewer than a finely crafted written piece can from a reader, but it always maintains the presence of the argument. This may help the film maker to mask opinion, or speculation, as fact, much like a well structured written argument might. Both the documentary and the written essay maintain a similarity; they both seek to convince us of an argument through the presentation of evidence and elaborate logical conclusions.

Perhaps essay film is seen as difficult to categorise because of the nature of the material used to support the claims made within it’s argument. With written essay work it is easy to draw authenticity from the evidence provided. There are rules that define how information must be verified, and if those rules aren’t met than the argument is disregarded. The addition of visual material and emotive music to support essay films could be seen as cheating if the same rules are applied. This would make the written essay a more ‘intellectual’ argument, and the documentary a more ’emotional’ approach. This is a very broad definition, but undoubtedly the appeal to emotion that supports essayist documentary is almost impossible to replicate in a written essay.