Visual Ecologies: Image experiences and lives in the age of Capitalocene
Écologies visuelles : Expérience et vie des images à l’heure du capitalocène
Published on Monday, December 18, 2023
Abstract
While “ecology” refers in a general sense to the science that studies the relationships of living beings with each other and with their environment, it is also used more locally and transitively to qualify the study of a specific environment. Similarly, while visual ecology can be broadly understood as a relational study of the visual field, it also seems possible to imagine more singular visual ecologies, localized around a particular imagery (colonial studies, gender studies, femenism studies, ethnic studies, etc.). As such, images are no longer just representations, they are both environments and entities that can be transformed and transformed, forms of action that are part of a pragmatic experience of the world. The ecology of images, images of ecology, the ecological impact of images… the hypothesis formulated for this international colloquium is to think together these major directions between, on the one hand, the question of images and their circulation, and on the other, our climatic and environmental situation.
Announcement
“Visual Ecologies: Image experiences and lives in the age of Capitalocene”, January 21st to 25th, 2025 - MISHA (University of Strabourg)
Arguments
The flames devour a Canadian forest the size of Austria. The soot- and smoke-laden air tinges the giant blaze from red to orange, enveloping a few frail pine silhouettes that eventually fade to black. This vision of what we now call a “mega-fire” is just one of many images to which the environmental crisis has accustomed us. It’s an image that we associate - to put it briefly - with ecology, according to a link that seems obvious: it’s through images - a television report, a weather app on a smartphone, an illustrated tweet, a disaster movie, a temperature curve - that most of us today perceive the general, globalized shape of climate change, on a scale that only our localized, individual situation only allows us to sense. However, on closer inspection, the link between ecology and images - in the sense of a concept, a notion - is far from so unequivocal. Of course, at first glance, this image of a mega-fire falls into the broad category of images of the environment “in crisis”. From the most subtle - the discreet change in hue of an ice core - to the most spectacular - the village of Lytton burnt to 90% in June 2021 - these images, television and film fictions, documentaries, scientific representations and various quantifications, mediate, translate and represent the changes affecting the earth’s space. Among a multitude of concepts proposed to describe the profound alterations to the planet’s bio-geochemical cycles (Anthropocene, Chthulucene, Econocene, Remocene, Homogenocene, Manthropocene, Megalocene, Oliganthropocene, Urbanocene, Plasticene, Mediocene, Northropocene, Plantatiocene, Polemocene, Technocene, Thalassocene, etc.) caused by human activities, we will mobilize that of Capitalocene. This means understanding the current ecological crisis as an event invested in an ideology defined by capitalist logics, developed by a European elite at the expense of downgraded human beings and at the expense of more-than-human beings.
Given these images of ecology, it’s tempting to think of an ecology of images, if we agree with the idea that images themselves evolve, live and die in environments that can be studied in the same way as a coastal zone or an alpine meadow. This, at least, was Susan Sontag’s intuition in the late 1970s, when she outlined a project that would later be taken up and amended by Ernst Gombrich (1983), Andrew Ross (1992) and, more recently, Peter Szendy (2021). Images occupy media environments - a media being nothing other than a milieu, an environment (Peters 2015). So much so that this mega-fire that reddens the pixels of our ipads is itself inserted into a flow of other images, comments and graphic signs that form a veritable landscape, or even a mediascape (Casetti 2021). Before reddening our screens and our eyes, this image has passed through a long chain of mediations (Latour [1999] 2007), of which it is the refined product: a photographer on the other side of the world, a press agency, graphic designers who saw fit to crop it, journalists who commented on it, technical systems, servers, undersea cables, a capricious wifi network, copper, silicon, electrons… Like the ash that hides fire as a thing and discovers it as a sign, so well described in the 17th century Logique de Port-Royal, an image is a surface that hides / discovers a depth. Its genealogy, its history, its context of production, the survivals it carries, the lineages in which it is inscribed, the relationships it organizes around itself or from which it takes on meaning… all these things are a priori what a visual ecology should be able to account for.
This detour points to a third direction in which the connection between images and ecology can be seen. It reminds us that the life of the images we create, consume or destroy is not maintained without effort and without means, despite what has been said about the immateriality of digital images, supposedly freed from a firm attachment to a support, and therefore without ecological impact. Numerous studies have shown that, in fact, the opposite is true. The trees that burn in Canada heat up the servers on which we store their traces. A sea turtle strangled by a fishing net washes up on a beach, while its image travels through the mesh of cables laid for this purpose on the ocean floor. In the end, this is the fate of all digital images, those images that our irrepressible need to see and document makes circulate continuously from one end of the world to the other, thanks to technical systems whose environmental consequences are largely underestimated. So much so that, alongside images of ecology and an ecology of images, it is becoming imperative to think about the ecological impact of images. Every image that is socially engaged, technically invoked, or caught up in a media regime, has an impact on its surroundings, and more broadly, on the environment.
The ecology of images, images of ecology, the ecological impact of images… the hypothesis formulated for this international colloquium is to think together these major directions between, on the one hand, the question of images and their circulation, and on the other, our climatic and environmental situation.
The word ecology comes from the Greek oikos [eco], “habitat” or “house”, and logos [logie], “science” and “discourse”. Ecology is obviously multifaceted. It is used to describe a system, an organization of species and environments, a scientific practice, a way of thinking, an everyday way of being, a political ideology, a militant activity, a civic practice (recycling, protecting the environment, plants, animals, planet Earth, etc.). As a scientific practice, ecology was founded in the 19th century by the biologist Ernst Haeckel. It therefore commonly refers to the science that studies the activity of organisms in their living environment, the whole forming a milieu, a mesh, a network (Morton, 2019).
In the academic world, visual ecology emerged in the late 1970s as a field of study dedicated to the multiplicity, functions and evolution of animals’ visual mechanisms (Lythgoe, 1979). In the natural sciences, visual ecology is therefore concerned with the observation and understanding of animal vision. The study of animal physiology is then correlated with the environmental study of species, where vision, the eye and the entire optical apparatus are at the heart of research (Cronin, Johnsen, Marshall, Warrant, 2014). Alongside the biological approach, visual culture studies have already shown that the term “visual” is not only reduced to what can be grasped by the organ of vision (visualis), but also refers to ways of understanding the world, under certain conditions, and from certain points of view. This definition of the visual extends beyond the aesthetic and sensitive limits of the visible that are commonly assigned to it, to encompass “the visual construction of the social field” (Mitchell [2005] 2014, 247). The visual is thus also a matter of what is given to be seen, notably by the dominant powers (Mirzoeff 1999).
While “ecology” refers in a general sense to the science that studies the relationships of living beings with each other and with their environment, it is also used more locally and transitively to qualify the study of a specific environment. Similarly, while visual ecology can be broadly understood as a relational study of the visual field, it also seems possible to imagine more singular visual ecologies, localized around a particular imagery (colonial studies, gender studies, femenism studies, ethnic studies, etc.). As such, images are no longer just representations, they are both environments and entities that can be transformed and transformed (Durafour 2018), forms of action that are part of a pragmatic experience of the world (Golsenne 2016). The fields convened are then multiple: environmental art, media ecology, ecofeminism, cultural studies, environmental cinema, ecocinema and ecofictions, visual activism, environmental aesthetics, technological obsolescence, cultural ecology, etc.
Panels
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The ecology of images
Contemporary visual phenomena invite us to conceptualize the migration or remediation of images, when they are reproduced, displaced, decontextualized or hijacked (Bolter and Grusin, 1999). Thus, the circulation of motifs (Warburg, 1929), visual ecosystems, i.e., those sets of images understood as places where images and ideas live (Durafour, 2018), are at the heart of the ecological approach to images. By conveying ideologies, singular ethics or moral values, images coagulate, transit (Szendy, 2021), seem to have desires, values, or want to tell us certain things (Mitchell, 2005). This first axis opens onto an epistemic and methodological approach in which images are no longer simply apprehended as representations that call for interpretation or decoding (Hall, 1973), but as phenomena that unfold in time and space, giving themselves to understanding in a relational manner (Gombrich, 1983). An ecology of images is fundamentally a visual study of the social life of images in their environments. Whether artistic, urban, landscaped or media-related, visual environments must be re-examined from the angle of conceptual, political, aesthetic and environmental conflictualities. If the images of ecology reflect the new temperature scales with which we are now confronted (presented in 2014, a fictitious weather report for the year 2050 struggled to represent as yet unheard-of temperatures, trampling on the extreme end of the spectrum of shades of red), an ecology of images might involve taking up Mitchell and Hansen’s project of media “meteorology” to “track the pressure system and storm front that runs through the artificial world of symbols we have created” (Mitchell and Hansen 2010, xiv). Or, to go further and dwell on the high and low definition of images, it could compose with the “visual meteorology” suggested by Pinotti and Somaini (Pinotti and Somaini 2022, 233), in order to capture the “temperatures of everydayness” (Casetti and Somaini 2021, 26).
How can we think of images in an ecological way, how can we think of them as environments, or in terms of the relationships they maintain with other environments? How can we think or consider images in terms of the singular, situated experiences they engender? And finally, what is the recent history and trajectory of image ecology in the field of knowledge? What is the origin of this approach, and what does it bring to the study of visual cultures? How does it clarify or complement what has otherwise been called a media ecology (Postman 1974, Proulx 2008, Strate 2017), where environments are apprehended as media (Peters 2015, Sprenger 2019)?
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Images of ecology
Images of Canadian mega-fires annihilating thousands of hectares of vegetation and ecosystems, the tsunami caused by the Anak Krakatoa volcano in 2018, melting glaciers, or toxic invasive species such as green algae on the Breton coast… these images, like many others, are omnipresent in the media, inspiring numerous fictions that have populated our imaginations for several decades. They seek to capture phenomena that nonetheless surpass us, from the hyperobject (Morton 2018) to “deep time” (Mitchell [2005] 2014). To these images, we could add the incredible variety of documentary, scientific or schematic representations of climate change, whose stakes are always already political (Schneider and Nocke 2014). Thus, from the point of view of an ecology of images, images of ecology open up in this second axis to contemporary issues linked to our properly climatic, environmental representations, in an unprecedented context marked by a major ecological crisis as much as by a crisis of ecological representations (Mirzoeff 2014). The aim is to observe the visual effects of these crises, adopting a critical and aesthetic approach to the motives manifested in images of ecology and nature.
What do these images actually convey in a media context? What are we to make of filmic representations of cataclysmic events and meteorological spectaculars, of the cathartic aesthetics of catastrophe, of images of culturalized nature, of wild animals in the city, of migrating communities, or of the media’s treatment of pollution? What do these images tell us about their authors’ intentions and our relationship with ecology? For what purposes are they intended, and what role can they play in the climate transition? In what way do they constitute a specific visual culture? Are they merely documentary traces, archives and artistic representations? Do they still have an impact on a public whose sensitivity seems dulled by the overexposure and visual superiority they produce?
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The ecological impact of images
Against all expectations, digital images are far from immaterial, with no effect on an environment that we would be too quick to congratulate ourselves on having been able to rid of printed paper or silk-screened posters. The slightest jpeg posted on a social network involves an infrastructure of servers, cables and networks, the ecological and geopolitical impact of which several authors agree (Cubitt 2017, Szendy 2021, Pitron, 2021). The events of recent decades show how crucial it is to become aware of the ecological consequences of the film and digital industries in terms of consumption and pollution (Ross, 1992). This third axis aims to question the materialist and “geophysical” dimension of images and media (Parikka, 2015). While we might think that images circulate on the surface of the world without any consequences for economic infrastructures, that they belong to the superstructure, a simple matter of taste or a depoliticized aesthetic of forms, numerous works show exactly the opposite. A selfie sent from a smartphone, a television program, a video from a website consulted during a break - the slightest of these actions can be viewed through the prism of its environmental impact. Cables cross and transform the seabed, the manufacture of electronic components exhausts scarce natural resources by exploiting labor, industries pollute water reserves, and datacenters gobble up energy and generate CO2.
Whether direct or indirect, what is the ecological impact of images in the age of global circulation? How can we assess this impact and raise awareness of it, when the chains of consequences (Dewey [1927] 2010) in which globalization envelops these images are so difficult to reconstruct and visualize? How does the very act of producing and exchanging images - one of humanity’s oldest and most commonplace activities - transform our environment on scales we never imagined? How has the degradation of our environment become part of our ordinary experience of the visual world?
Submission guidelines
Flash Conf: 15-minutes maximum presentations, in French or English, presenting a very specific/situated summary of current or emerging research (doctoral thesis, research programme, article subject, academic project, etc.). The aim is to cross-reference different conceptual and/or disciplinary points of view on Visual Ecologies, by offering an overview of current studies. A 20-minute discussion period will close the presentations divided into several themes.
Proposals must include a summary in French or English (between 1,500 and 2,000 characters), accompanied by a title (or even a subtitle). References should be in the form of authors and dates (no footnotes). Then, a bibliography and a biographical summary of the authors (between 500 and 800 characters), as well as 5 keywords. Please specify in which panel you wish to participate. Please send only one pdf named: FLASH CONF ÉCO VI surname_firstname_2025.
To be sent to : groupe.culturesvisuelles@gmail.com
before the 08/04/2024.
Timetable
- Monday 11th December 2023: Publication of the call for contributions for the flash conferences
- Monday 8th April 2024 : Deadline for submission of (complete) proposals for contributions
- Monday 6th May 2024 : Announcement by email of the selected proposals
- From Monday 10th June 2024: Announcement of the final programme (keynotes + guests + speakers from the flash conferences + exhibition/performances + masterclass workshops + film screenings and partners)
- Tuesday 21st January 2025: Opening of the conference at 5.30pm with introduction of the team, conference, buffet
- Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 22nd, 23rd and 24th January 2025: Presentations at the MISHA on the University of Strasbourg campus (one panel per day).
Intervention dates:
The presentations will take place on January 22nd (panel 1), 23rd (panel 2) and 24th (panel 3) 2025 between 2pm and 6pm, at the MISHA premises on the University of Strasbourg campus.
Scientific Committee
- Maxime Boidy (Université Gustave Eiffel)
- Margaux Crinon (Université de Strasbourg)
- Elio Della Noce (Université de Montpellier)
- Simone Fehlinger (École supérieure d’art et design de Saint-Étienne / Université de Strasbourg)
- Alix Gesnel (Université de Strasbourg)
- Mathilde Grasset (Université de Strasbourg)
- Sophie Lécole Solnychkine (Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès)
- Lise Lerichomme (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
- Dorian Merten (Université de Strasbourg)
- Vivien Philizot (Université de Strasbourg)
- Birgit Schneider (Potsdam Universität)
- Sophie Suma (Université de Strasbourg)
- Benjamin Thomas (Université de Strasbourg)
- Simon Zara (Université de Strasbourg)
- Mike Zimmermann (Université de Strasbourg)
Contact persons :
- Sophie Suma (Université de Strasbourg)
- Vivien Philizot (Université de Strasbourg)
- Benjamin Thomas (Université de Strasbourg)
Subjects
- Representation (Main category)
- Mind and language > Representation > Visual studies
Places
- Campus central - Université de Strasbourg
Strasbourg, France (67)
Event attendance modalities
Full online event
Date(s)
- Monday, April 08, 2024
Keywords
- écologies visuelles, études, cultures, visuelles, arts, visuels, écologies, images, ecology, visual, culture, studies,
Information source
- Sophie Suma
courriel : culturesvisuelles [at] accra-recherche [dot] unistra [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Visual Ecologies: Image experiences and lives in the age of Capitalocene », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, December 18, 2023, https://doi.org/10.58079/1cf6
