Last night I rented the documentary manufactured landscapes in DVD. After the movie, I couldn’t help but feel like I should do something. Stop buying stuff. Sit at a desk to research and promote clean, renewable energy. It inspired change, transformation, transcendence, evolution, progression.
The images presented in the film by edward burtynsky, photographer, and jennifer baichwal, director, affected the intellect and the emotions by expressing the scale of our monumental impact on the landscape in terms of both space (the global reach, the scale of infrastructure) and time (the rate of change in booming China, the continued rootedness to our industrial dependence on fossil fuels and minerals, the rate of extraction versus geologic time).
In his images, Burtynsky often demonstrates this scale by contrasting a recognizable or sympathetic detail (a human, an everday object) within a sea of an unexpected surrounding context that’s visually evocate in its tone, repetition of form, directionality, and the depth or breadth of the perspective. Burtynsky’s mastery of his craft, photography, combined with his investigative and persistent drive to seek stunningly compelling subjects, views and perspectives create a visceral impact.
In a TED talk, he described an epiphany that brought new meaning to his work when he took a wrong turn on the highway and accidentally discovered an industrial landscape that evoked both beauty and disgust. He found a theme, a reason to dig deeper. Through his prolonged visual investigation into the subject, he raises questions and doubts through the tension created as visual attraction leads to intellectual repulsion once the viewer processes the symbolism of objects and scale tied to an abstracted image. These are not everday images in terms of the landscapes of average American daily life, yet they are everday images for those supporting the average American daily life.
Specifically, I admire that he uses an artistic craft to observe and interpret a landscape pattern that brings an really important issue, a really big issue, an overlooked or difficult to understand issue to the forefront. He makes the connections between globalization, capitalism, climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and land use real. His work brings clarity to a complex web of interrelations.
He had a medium, photography. He found an issue, industrialized landscapes. He built upon that theme into a body of work that stands for something. In the example of the oil tanker disassembly as subject, he heard about it first on the radio, connected it to his body of work, then traveled to Bangladesh to witness and capture the process.
I guess every artists wants to have an impact. I don’t think he started out his career by saying, “I want to change the world, I want everyone to realize how screwed up this place is and I want to find a solution.” It seems like he started out by wanting to investigate nature, his photos bordering on trite renditions of pristine nature. He found a more intriguing subject that questioned what is essential about the relationship between man and nature today? He used his craft to dig deeper, to find the most compelling examples, to witness the cause and effect, and to communicate the drama of it. He recorded and interpreted this drama through his carefully chosen medium (not just photos, but the size of photos, the skill in their artistry, the cooperation with others in the documentary, etc) to reach an audience, to elicit an emotive and intellectual response.
He didn’t need a desk job at a non-profit to do find an issue, get an assignment, or work on solving a critical problem in the world. He came up with this through some trial, tribulation, luck and working to find a meaningful, impacting subject to apply his craft. It seems to be the evolution of a career, some inspiration, mostly perspiration. He worked to master his craft. Then he had an idea, he dug deep, he created, he found the right communication channels, his work was noticed and is making an impact.
His career makes me question if I need to join a larger organization in order to make an impact. How much time do I need in order to find a subject and a medium? I have so many of each, yet so little focus or depth in either. I need to commit. I need to focus, dig deep and develop the ideas. I’ve been floating on various surfaces of subject matter and bouncing around between media. Perhaps I should pick one of each and see how they can mesh?
Even in the work I am doing today, I can start asking: what is the critical message related to this project? what larger themes does this fit into? what is the best medium for investigating the issue and how do i work within that medium to best convey that message.
