A Sustainable Photography Practice
Full transcript below.
*** news clips and pics // flood, forest fire, pandemic, populism
Just about three hundred years ago - right at the pivot point of the post-anthropocentric paradigm shift - earth was shook by climate crisis, a global pandemic and political populism. We know now that earth withstood also this impasse. But being a human on earth in the beginning of the 21st century, was for many a most uncertain existence.
In this episode of Digital Archaeology we’ll look at the practice of photographic artist and researcher Carl-Mikael Björk and his work during the year of 2021.
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This episode is possible by means of the Internet Way Back Machine. Through rare digital artefacts such as solid state memory cards and restored mechanical hard drives - typical for the time. Our digital archaeologists have decrypted, restored, analysed and interpreted an artistic, photographic practice unknowingly ahead of his time.
*** post-humanities grounding
The anthropocentric paradigm shift is often dated to the early or mid 21st century. Carl-Mikael Björk was primarily active when humans were still considered supreme. When the convention of separating nature and culture was still in effect. When humans claimed subjectivity in favour of non-humans.
Scholars and philosophers contemporary to CMB were advocating the dissolution of dichotomies such as nature/culture, subject/object and even human and non-human. Feminist and post-modernist Donna Haraway critiqued the Anthropocene, de-emphasizing human exceptionalism in favor of multispecism, wanting to label this period the Chthuluscene. Feminist technoscientist, Karen Barad, acknowledged the symmetrical relationship between humans, non-humans and objects and defined “agency” as a relationship rather than as something “one has”.
*** Method & methodology
There a several traces in CMB’s practice that point towards an interest in non-human agencies and how socio-material intra-actions form both the process and product of photography. In several of the documents restored, the following phrase was found: “…explore space and structure with special regard to non-human agencies and agential realism”.
Patrick Maynard might have categorized the explorations (and resulting photos) of space as: Place, Shapes and Topology. But looking at CMB’s reading notes it seems he was more inclined to the exploratory practice of co-perceiving the world through embodiment.
*** Quote? “The awareness of the world… not separable.”
CMB’s images do present a “seductive surface layer”, but it’s through the conceptual subtext that we can distill a methodology where non-human agencies consciously and continuously are given attention in the photographic, artistic process.
We can see how CMB purposely adds socio-material aspects to the photographic workflow and acknowledges non-human agencies to aid and challenge the research question.
Using brought objects (such as a rope or a hoop) to explore space.
Out-witting the high quality (for the time) digital camera, by use of a self made pinhole lens.
Limiting his self-portraits by a) doing in-camera analogue diptychs and b) restricting composition and range by use of a 6 meter pneumatic shutter release.
Also in the product of photography there was a socio-material dimension. No doubt the use of embroidery on paper photographs, influenced viewers’ understanding of an image. Not primarily in a representational semiotic fashion as suggested by Roland Barthes, but as intra-action and material semiotics as suggested by Barad and Haraway.
Carl-Mikael Björk’s visual style was at times described as disjointed or incoherent. We understand through the digital artefacts that he was not concerned with producing a cohesive visual style or a given narrative. His practice was mainly set on using photography as artistic research. To pose questions and possibly supply answers.
He was not researching to be able to produce photographic work. The work itself was the research. It seems he was aiming for a felt knowledge in how he often used his own body as a means of exploring space and structures. As such CMB turned his back on yet another dualism - the cartesian one of the mind-body separation. In CMB’s research journal we found a reference to Mike Simmons who describes the artistic research process as a rhizomatic network.
*** Sustainability
Rhizomes. Dissolution of dualisms. Embodiment. Non-human agencies. It seems Carl-Mikael Björk was scholarly grounded in post-humanities research. That is the trans-disciplinary theoretical field which preceded and led to the post-anthropocentric paradigm shift. By today’s discourse it’s hard to fathom that CMB lived at a time in history when humans considered themselves supreme.
This anthropocentric world view resulted in “a capitalist appropriation of nature for the exclusive benefit of human culture”.
While we have no traces of CMB being an environmental activist, he did seem concerned with sustainability. In the research journal we found an entry quoting Cecilia Åsberg:
In the context of the ecological crisis […] we can certainly no longer uphold the division of labor where “nature” is left to science and “culture” to the humanities. (Åsberg, 2020)
This entry seems to be the script of a podcast recording. Let’s listen to the recovered voice of Carl-Mikael Björk himself.
If I see my work as the production of photos, prints, books or exhibitions - I’m getting stuck in the “minimise carbon footprint” discourse.
I curiously looked at the environmental credentials from my camera and lens manufacturer. Fujifilm have a set of Action Guidelines for Sustainable Development. They, like probably most tech manufacturers, have a neo-liberal green capitalist approach where technology and geo-engineering is supposed to reduce carbon emission. For example:
We will contribute to solving environmental issues with original and advanced technology in the product life cycle.
Fox and Alldred again:
In the present climate change crisis, (post)human responsibilities go far beyond liberal environmentalist actions such as reducing one’s carbon footprint, eating less meat or avoiding single-use plastics.
That’s a little bit dark. So…
If I instead see my work as the process of photographic research, maybe I can contribute to knowledge around concepts such as nature-culture and rhizomatic entaglements. Possibly my artistic research can ask questions of subjectivity and human supremacy. Maybe photography is the transdisciplinary field where science and humanities meet.
So rather than phrase strategies for the sustainable production, dissemination and consumption, I’ll approach my visual practice to form a sustainable (post)human becoming.
*** conclusion
Carl-Mikael Björk most likely didn’t work purposely towards the post-anthropocentric paradigm shift, but his exploratory artistic research practice focusing on non-human agencies, did contribute to the knowledge making this philosophical and political pivot possible.
Two decades after his passing, the geological epoch labeled Anthroposcene was declared ended. Instead, the Chthuluscene, the age of entanglement, connectedness and “making kin” was announced as in affect.
And we’re still here. In a seemingly sustainable future.
Next week on Digital Archaeology…
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