This essay analyzes the depictions of urban nature in Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018). The theoretical framework consists primarily of Astrid Bracke’s thoughts on “urban ecology”, Christophe Den Tant’s descriptions of “the urban sublime” and William Cronon’s thoughts on the concept of “Wilderness”, all of which work in the ecocritical field. My Year of Rest and Relaxation explores the concepts of naturalness and artificiality through language and various themes. It takes place in an urban environment where the main character chooses to isolate herself in her city apartment, hence the existence of nature in the traditional sense is absent, yet the text works consistently with elements of urban nature in varying situations. The way in which this urban nature is presented relates to other themes such as the exploration of borders and dichotomies such as nature and culture, organic and artificial as well as animate and inanimate.

As a medium of modernity, film has always been entwined with the energy regime sustaining it. This thesis is interested in the interrelation between film and oil, and approached as a piece of petro-fiction, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s film The Wages of Fear (1953) is subject to a close, ecocritical analysis. A selection of four additional oil-films are used as points of comparison. By looking at a variety of representational and aesthetic aspects, the study explores how the film visualises the Anthropocene and negotiates the oil culture in which it exists. By reading the film in terms of oil, this thesis finds that the film in various ways expresses an entanglement with oil culture, while also criticising the same dependency. From the five oil films that have been analysed, catastrophe is an inherent motif, and part of the attraction of oil as subject matter, mirrored in broader culture of exuberance. In contrast to the other films, The Wages of Fear plays less into spectacle but opens to a critical examination of the various exploitations involved at the hands of the oil industry.

Recent work in the geohumanities has renewed a call for the inclusion of creative work within the discipline of geography. This dissertation works both creatively and critically to answer that call, and to contribute to the geohumanities generally and the subfield of geopoetics particularly. In the theoretical portion of this work, I draw from and dialogue with creative geographies, emotional geographies, nonrepresentational theory, and post-human geographies, arguing that geopoetics is both theory and practice-based and focuses on how to apprehend the world, how to acknowledge and practice the act of perceiving, and the relationship that grows through the act of perceiving and being perceived. This attendance is an ethical act; it helps to enrich understandings of place and of human relationships to the world. I use this understanding of geopoetics to rethink relationships to place through the embrace of poetic technique, an ethics of care, and an acceptance of situated, autobiographical emotion in practice. I use the work of three philosopher-poets (McKay, Zwicky, Lilburn) to argue that geopoetics is a relational ontology that helps contribute culturally to embodied understandings of ethics, landscape, and environment through its practice of attendance and perception. Separately, all three writers contribute variously to conceptualizations of wilderness, home and place; together, I propose that their work serves to further define geopoetics through the manner by which one attends to the world. I also specifically use Zwicky’s work on lyric to intervene in non-representational theory, clarifying ideas on a body-in-the-world. Attendance, for me, involves emotional, sensory, and philosophical engagement but is focused on the world, not on the perceiver. The creative portion of this dissertation puts the theoretical work into practice, adding to understandings of what geopoetics might do. This creative work is an act of attendance, which has as its root a geography of love and an emphasis on how to perceive. Its inclusion further validates creative practice and the inclusion of creative professionals within the discipline of geography. / Graduate / 2022-08-25

Our impact on the planet's functioning has allegedly become so profound that during the last years the scientific community has been considering assuming a shift from the Holocene - our current geological epoch - to the Anthropocene, the Age of Man. According to philosopher Bernard Stiegler, this "era of Humans" is not only visible in the devastation of natural ecosystems, but also through the destruction of human skills and methods of transmitting knowledge. The Anthropocene, which was initiated by the industrial revolution, thus passed through the industrialization of culture, and has disrupted our understanding of the world. Philosopher Rosi Braidotti proposes that with the advent of this new era, we ought to be aware of not only the ever-present environmental catastrophes, but that we also ought to use it as a tool for reappraising what it means to be Human. According to her, the Western subject was created as a product of the Humanist cultural hegemony which defined it within a logic of binary opposition. In light of these ideas, this Master's thesis attempts to show that art can provide us methods for redefining our relationship to each other, as well as to the wider world, and help us navigate the contours of the ongoing crisis. The work uses Posthumanist thought and its affiliated...

I have in this thesis problematized the Swedish climate transition potentially making Sweden one of the first fossil free welfare states in the world. The forest industry has been designated as one of the central components of climate transition in that it will help replace fossil fuels and other unsustainable materials. One group being affected by the increased forestry is that of the Sámi reindeer herders. Not only are they already affected by the effects of climate change to a great extent, but the forest industry in turn causes problems for reindeer husbandry and is a direct source of reduced quality in forests which provide lichen, the primary food source for reindeer. I have conducted interviews with five reindeer herders in the Malå forest Sámi village, in Västerbotten, in northern Sweden, to gain a keener understanding of the effects of climate change and the forest industry on reindeer herding, from a security perspective. The results show that the interviewees perceive climate change and large-scale forestry as a threat to their livelihood connected to reindeer husbandry and, in turn, a significant part of Sámi culture and existence, and that the two exacerbate the effects of each other. Among the effects, are the loss of forest that provides shelter and sustenance for reindeer, as well as the wellbeing and spirituality of the reindeer herders. Using theories drawn from Anthropocene and postcolonial literature, I hereby problematize the climate transition in Sweden in that it is based on a particular way of viewing the relationship between humans and nature. This causes problems for reindeer husbandry, and ultimately a reduction in security for reindeer herders that is reminiscent of and upholding the frictional and colonial bonds between Sweden and Sápmi (the region inhabited by Sámi people).

Using slow camera movement in 20 minutes in five video scenes of completely CGI-rendered environment called Area of Universal Latency, I am mapping space-time of the zone which is located in the north-western Slovakia. Minimalistic narration of the autonomous single-channel video projection is confronting subjectivism with universality of the Anthropocene, vanitas and spirituality with the belief of consumerism in infinite accumulation and simulacra of virtuality with the absolute truth. The story of this video-poem is communicated through virtual environment, composed sounds and natural noises. This thesis is presenting a fragment of my attempt to record the morphology of the specific place through which, as the title of the video states, I am indicating the state of reality and its consequences yet not describing it explicitly.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis investigates the connections between Sara Ekholm Eriksson´s artwork and the concept of nature in the Anthropocene. Three examples of installations are analyzed and put in a context of the Anthropocene, about the political, moral, and aesthetic value in art. The artwork has qualities that can be described as eco-art. Communicative aspects of raising awareness to nature and its processes can easily, and in this case rightfully, be read as statements to preserve biological diversity. Both the formal properties and the intellectual references can be described as a part of forming the cultural judgement. Connecting Ekholm Eriksson´s artistic work to theories about the cognitive properties of art shows that her works offers the emotional experience of climate change. An effective way to learn about climatic changes are by experience which is what makes the artistic works pedagogical and cognitive aspects so valuable. Even if her intention mainly was to make open artworks that invites the viewer to discover details in a new way, Ekholm Eriksson also works with time layers and processes in nature.

[pt] Esta pesquisa investiga de que modo saberes das artes, das humanidades e das ciências da Terra têm sido mobilizados por experimentos estéticos, sobretudo cênicos e performativos, empenhados em abordar os desafios existenciais trazidos à tona pelo Antropoceno — aqui interpretado como consequência direta de um projeto de modernidade antropocêntrico e capitalístico. A pesquisa investiga, portanto, propostas críticas e criativas que fazem da cena uma contra-cena, isto é: experiências que se apresentam como contraposições radicais às premissas ideológicas que fundamentam a modernidade e que engendram o Antropoceno. Trata-se de respostas estéticas que se empenham, sobretudo, em deslocar o humano das ilusórias posições de centralidade, soberania, onipotência, autossuficiência e de independência em relação à trama da vida. Na etapa final do trabalho, as noções de polifonia, de simpoiesis e de composições interespecíficas são investigadas enquanto dispositivos reflexivos e formais capazes de estruturar propostas performativas que, em forma-conteúdo, em dramaturgia e em encenação, se instauram enquanto contra-cenas ao Antropoceno e ao antropocentrismo. A partir de obras como Stifter s dinge, do encenador Heiner Goebbels, podemos vislumbrar formas de experiência cênica em que o humano deixa de estar representado enquanto protagonista único, soberano e indispensável da cena da vida — tanto da Terra como, também, do Teatro. / [en] This dissertation investigates how knowledges from arts, humanities and Earth sciences have been mobilized by aesthetic experiments, especially scenic and performative, engaged in approaching the existential challenges brought up by the Anthropocene — here interpreted as a direct consequence of an anthropocentric and capitalistic modernity project. The dissertation investigates, therefore, critical and creative proposals that make the scene a counter-scene, that is: experiences that present themselves as radical counterpositions to the ideological premises that underlie modernity and that engender the Anthropocene. These are aesthetic responses that strive, above all, to displace the human from the illusory positions of centrality, sovereignty, omnipotence, self-sufficiency, and independence in relation to the fabric of life. In the final stage of the work, the notions of polyphony, sympoiesis and interspecific compositions are investigated as reflective and formal devices capable of structuring performative proposals that, in form-content, dramaturgy, and staging, establish themselves as counter-scenes to the Anthropocene and anthropocentrism. From works like Stifter s dinge, by Heiner Goebbels, we can glimpse forms of scenic experience in which the human ceases to be represented as the only and indispensable protagonist of the scene of life — of the Earth as well as of Theater.