Absences in the Video Archive 2 (VVP AVU collection) - Landing on Earth with Czech Audio-Visual Art and Searching for Earthlings on Artyčokhttps://artycok.tv/en/46499/absence-ve-videoarchivu-2-kolekce-vvp-avu-pristat-na-zem-s-ceskym-audiovizualnim-umenim-a-hledat-pozemstanstviStop being people living in nature and start being earthlings
Before we get to the selected films and videos, I will outline the environmental sociological context from which I approach and interpret the works. In doing so, I will attempt to answer two questions: what did it mean to be humans in nature in modernity? And what might becoming earthlings entail?
From the 17th century onwards, European modernity and the teachings of René Descartes gradually became characterized by a dualistic culture that pitted society and nature against each other. “Humans (but not all humans) were thinking things; Nature was full of extended things”, write Patel and Moore in their book A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. They describe how a dualistic conception of the society-nature relationship was invented, where humans became subjects endowed with the ability to think, while the natural world became merely an object of human interest or exploration. Nature became an extended exterior to man, animals had no ability to think and were considered mere machines in Cartesian thinking. “Nature was something to be controlled and dominated by Society. The Cartesian outlook, in other words, shaped modern logics of power as well as thought.” This led to an instrumental relationship to nature, which was necessary to examine, in the words of Francis Bacon: put nature on the rack so that she reveals us her secrets through torture. Nature came to be perceived as a dead thing, knowable through breaking it down into the parts we describe, as well as the relationships, the patterns between them. If we have the right method, we can know nature and harness it to work for humanity. This approach, by which the natural world has been subjugated, has subsequently enabled unprecedented technological development, and has brought humanity (or at least part of it) capitalism, consumerism, prosperity, but also environmental problems: pollution, loss of biodiversity and a climate crisis that threatens the very survival of human civilization.