The idea of displacing humans from our position of established viewpoints is provocative but necessary in order to better face our impending extinction. If we do not expand our visualities we will...Show moreThe idea of displacing humans from our position of established viewpoints is provocative but necessary in order to better face our impending extinction. If we do not expand our visualities we will not get this chance again. My research explores how nonhuman vision encourages us to confront anthropocentrism - to reconceptualise the way we see ourselves in our domination of all worldly inhabitants. I examine how we can develop ethical ways of living and interacting with others by creating a video work that imagines what it is like to see as a dog. Dogs are one of our closest companions and we have taken away their agency in almost every aspect of their lives. By looking with dogs through a makeshift camera apparatus, I have cultivated an empathetic understanding on how they perceive the human-constructed world. Dogs know how to live well, so we should start believing them.Show less
As we are currently witnessing what is often called the sixth mass extinction, photography is facing a new challenge. It can either respond with acting upon the “rescuist” impulse which often...Show moreAs we are currently witnessing what is often called the sixth mass extinction, photography is facing a new challenge. It can either respond with acting upon the “rescuist” impulse which often arises under such dark prospects (by keeping endangered species alive in the form of an image), or follow a more self-reflective path. In my written as well as visual research, I use lichens — the symbiotical growth of algae, fungus and bacteria — as a metaphor through which to explore the precarity of our environmental conditions. The resulting photograph which is normally said to “immortalise" turns out to be a trap, as lichens become less likely to die as they grow older. This thesis aims to investigate how photographing extraordinarily durable organisms in times of ecological instability challenges the notion of photography as an embalming practice. It delves into the aesthetic implications of the current condition — joined under the term Anthropocene, by introducing the concepts of Timothy Morton’s “hyperobjects” and Tim Ingold’s “leaky things.” Subsequently, it scales up to the level of photography as a medium declared dead multiple times, often following major technological shifts. Here, extinction as an affective threat takes the place of such a disturbance, and, understood as a generative process, serves as the basis for speculating about the future of photography.Show less
