Comments on: John Ganis: Ruptures and Reclamations

By: Vince Carducci

Vince Carducci — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:45:34 +0000

Michael, One of my favorite quotes from Benjamin comes from the Epilogue of “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”: “Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.” In John’s book, there are several stunning images of mine tailings.

By: Vince Carducci

Vince Carducci — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:41:28 +0000

Felipe, Surely you aren’t suggesting that the BP disaster is trivial compared to Japan because the images are less visceral. We don’t know what the long-term effects of either may be. One might argue that the environmental effects of the tsunami, outside the nuclear meltdown, might be more easily remediated than than oil spill. The loss of human life is of course more palpable in the short term in Japan. But even that is to prioritize human life over other elements of the biosphere. These days that’s called “speciesism.” In John Ganis’s book, mentioned in the post, there are several poems by late New School anthropologist Stanley Diamond to the effect that in the long run Gaia doesn’t care if it’s humans or cockroaches ruling the earth. It’s really our problem not hers.

By: Michael Corey

Michael Corey — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:31:45 +0000

Photography is a fascinating medium. It actually stops time and displays the world, as we don’t see it. Everything we see has an element of time and motion involved in it. A photograph stops time and motion, yet what we see in photographs helps us reflect on things that might otherwise go ignored. Some photographic images become iconic and become powerful political statements. It seems to be that photographic images are often better remembered and are frequently more powerful than video images. I can think of numerous examples drawn from the Vietnam War.

It is amazing to me how awful and yet compelling many environmental disaster images can be. I’ve spent a number of hours flying over forestlands at low altitudes. Few people can imagine how frightening and threatening the images of mine tailings can be (I’m thinking of copper mine tailings in the upper Midwest). The colors and shapes they form are visually arresting, and the potential harm they can cause is frightening.

Let us not forget, it takes a photographer eye’s to freeze these images for others to share; and their replication and dissemination by other mechanical means. Walter Benjamin had some interesting reflections on this.

By: Felipe Pait

Felipe Pait — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:55:03 +0000

BP oil spill doesn’t look so bad after Daiichi, does it?