Ecologies of the Object: Technology, Power and The Corruption of Nature

Abstract

Indicative theme: Critical Perspectives on Craft, Industry and Consumerism.
Landscape as a subject of representation has a long history in relation to the visual and applied arts, it can be argued that it continues to hold critical significance in examining conditions of power in the context of 21st century late-capitalism and the rise of “technocapitalism” as a new driver of social, cultural and political space. Any contemporary examination of material objects and the spaces of their production and presentation must confront the notion of virtual space and the circulation of the digital. It must also consider the effects of anthropogenic climate change as the environmental impact of global warming accelerates, resulting in an increasing fragmentation and reorganization of the geophysical and geopolitical terrain. In considering these shifting notions of space and the social, political and cultural urgency of an ‘ecological thought’ (Morton, 2010), this paper will argue that we need a radical repositioning and redrawing of discursive and representational territories and that craft processes and practices have a significant role to play in this field.

Through focusing on a number of contemporary objects that repurpose forms and motifs from the decorative and applied arts (specifically those derived from the pastoral traditions of 18th and 19th century blue and white ceramics) a question will be asked: ‘How might the objects and decorative images derived from this period of ‘high’ imperialism provide historical perspectives on the production and representation of landscape spaces and sites in the present period of high-capitalism?’ The selected objects will enact a discussion on the relationship between landscape, power and technology as their meanings and the values ascribed to them transform to reflect contemporary concerns about the precarious conditions of our social and ecological present.

Objects will be explored via theories of landscape that link the ‘conquest of nature’ (and its appropriation as a visual symbol) with the conquest of capital, (Mitchell, 1994 and Cosgrove, 1984). This discussion will evolve into a consideration of ‘new’ technologies and the effects of these technologies on our (Western advanced capitalist) relationship to space. Ideas of “acceleration” (Virilio) and space-time compression (Harvey) will be mapped in relation to the politics of landscape space. These themes will be reflected in the objects selected where historical forms/motifs are blasted and blown apart through the interventions of technology (via digital crafting), or where the presence of the handmade resurfaces and the physical and tactile conditions of production are key.

The contemporary objects selected present landscape and ‘nature’ in a constant state of flux. Once static forms and motifs are destabilized and corrupted in a process that, it will be argued, mimics the corruption of landscape space by capital.