How does man/media distort our perceived value of nature?

Media in its current state often attempts to emotionally entice the viewer by building a human character to which we emotionally apply/attach ourselves. This action is inherent when the subject is human but is still often at the behest of the distributor and as discussed by Bell Hooks in her essay “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators”, a reflection of the piece's creator (Hooks, 2010). This reflection is to the most part an unavoidable practice, as the creator brings with them a great deal of baggage collected through their personal experiences and knowledge. This projected image of self as a human has become more and more pronounced in the distribution of widely published biological media. The distributed materials have harnessed the humanity innate in the audience and morphed nature into natural theatre, a place in which the subject is imbued with the spirit of man where natural beauty is second to compelling stories that act as a reflection of human drama. In the theatre of nature evil exists. The personification and anthropomorphisation of nature is a practice that distorts human emotion, warping our perception of the nature of nature. Grizzly has become kind, the Aye-Aye a harbinger of death, the Oak a wise old man and nature itself takes the form of a woman. This begs the question: what is reality? What are truly the thoughts of nature? What is a movie for a tree? Or how can we expose that which has become subconscious? How much do you care for the tree you've only just met?

The Lion kills a Wildebeest and although shocking the kill is viewed as a necessary and unavoidable act of nature. Yet, when the Crocodile does the same it is an act of evil and a tragic loss of life. But, the act is the same and the result is the same so to the Wildebeest both acts are evil or perhaps that is an incomprehensible concept to them. This sense of natural harmony and the “just” kill is a formed concept developed from the lens we are given when viewing the act. A simple comparison shows us this. In the BBC’s nature documentary “Dynasties” 2018 David Attenborough narrates a lion’s hunt of a wildebeest (BBCEarth, 2022). First we learn of all the hungry mouths that need to be fed, then he proceeds to tell us the name of the lion “Charm”, he continues to justify the kill by telling us how unlikely it is that “Charm” will be successful. This setup defines the lens with which we view the act of killing which is only reinforced by the triumphant music that plays as life slowly drains away. In stark contrast we have “Trek: Spy On The Wildebeest” 2007 once again narrated by David Attenborough we now look through the lens of the wildebeest with just a glimpse of the crocodile used only as an act of foreshadowing (BBCEarth, 2019). The scene continues telling us the nature of the wildebeest while continuing to warn us of what “Lurks” beneath the water. Unlike the lion's kill, the sounds of the wildebeests’ screams are unmuted and the act described as a horror. We are then told the number of hungry crocodiles, but now that our lens is altered this reads as the evil that lurks rather than, in the lion's case, a kill to feed the family. By using case studies and researching film techniques I formed a basic outline for how to lead the viewer to become sympathetic to the “protagonist”.

This manipulation of the “lens” and abstraction of reality is what distorts the way in which we register the natural world. MS10 - “Environmental Registers” investigates this stating in that “each registration of ecological conditions (be it in the form of photography, classification, film, print, description) articulates particular meaning. From aesthetic or economic value to relationality to legal parameters to colonial and political motives.”. In particular my project focuses on the relationality that is formed between man and nature and how this has impacted the way we see what is around us.

By using the medium of film we peel back the subsurface techniques used in the distribution of biological and in this case botanical media to make us care about the plants partly as species but more specifically as individuals. The film utilises effects such as POV and the Kuleshov effect to morph and bend the identification of self within the piece, developing connection and attaching emotion to the protagonists in an attempt to expose our subconscious bias as developed through distributed biological media.