Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework...Show moreThis written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework in photographic practices that engage with the ecological crisis by means of its construction of more affective modes of communicating a phenomenon that is itself often marked by incomprehensibility. In doing so, it conducts a comparative visual analysis of two photographic series: Anthropocene by Edward Burtynsky and Oil and Moss by Igor Tereshkov. It concludes that Burtynsky’s series constructs an awesome visuality that pursues a revelatory approach but, in actuality, ends up reasserting a set of beliefs that are already widely known, consequently not inciting new, critical modes of contemplating the ecological crisis. Tereshkov’s work, on the other hand, works to recombine the aesthetic with the critical; focusing on the interactions between the images’ visuality and their tactility, this thesis argues that Oil and Moss’ critical potency is established by means of its destabilising, disruptive aesthetics of the opaque. The ecological crisis is also a crisis of imagination: as humans, we struggle to grasp and make sense of the scale and severity of the devastation that appears to be creeping closer and closer. As such, we are in need of new, innovative modes of imagining our physical environments and how we relate to them. Photography, in its simultaneous ability to remember the past, to contemplate the future, and to imagine alternative iterations of the present, is one itinerary through which that may be achieved.Show less
‘Disaster threatens world’, read an ominous headline on the frontpage of the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Tuesday August 31st, 1971. “If life remains business as usual for everyone, an...Show more‘Disaster threatens world’, read an ominous headline on the frontpage of the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Tuesday August 31st, 1971. “If life remains business as usual for everyone, an absolute catastrophe will hit us within mere decennia. It is only a question whether the catastrophe will be caused by hunger, exhaustion of essential resources, or pollution of the earth. Radical measures will be necessary – immediately! – if calamity is to be avoided”, NRC’s science journalist Arie de Kool started one of the opening stories of his paper. De Kool had not personally discovered a major disaster that was about to hit planet earth and its inhabitants, he was quoting directly from a leaked early version of a report compiled by a few experts working at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Although warnings like this one are common these days, when De Kool first showed his editor his scoop on The Club of Rome and the foreseen dangers of economic growth to the future of mankind in 1971, this was not the case. Back then, computer models were relatively new and although many of the warnings by The Club of Rome had been uttered by politicians and activists for decades already, attempts to create a holistic model for a combination of interconnected risks had not found a very receptive ear in most countries. De Kool, whose career could use a major scoop by 1971 as this thesis shows, found a massive audience with his story on The Club of Rome and its distressing model. Not just the general public, but also politicians from left to right across the many waning political pillars of Dutch society in the 1970s read the Club’s Limits to Growth-report. This thesis - which provides an answer to the question why the report made such a splash in the Netherlands in particular - is grounded on research of the most important Dutch contemporary sources, that is, on a close reading of the most important and widest circulating articles, reports and op-eds concerning the ideas and suggestions of the Limits to Growth-report as it came out in the early 1970s. To this body of sources, in order to explore the political relevance of such an emerging environmentalism, this thesis adds an overview of parliamentary debates and governmental deliberations, which are crucial to further embedding the Club of Rome’s reports into the Dutch evolving socio-political landscape. Finally, a large body of secondary literature helps this thesis to problematize and operationalize the most important terms of the discussion, from environmentalism to modelling, while contextualizing them historically and geographically.Show less
This BA-thesis focuses on cisterns in early modern Amsterdam, building upon the research conducted by Gawronski and Veerkamp in 2007. In their research, a number of topics are treated, such as...Show moreThis BA-thesis focuses on cisterns in early modern Amsterdam, building upon the research conducted by Gawronski and Veerkamp in 2007. In their research, a number of topics are treated, such as cistern sizes and capacities. However, little attention is spent to different functional applications of cisterns. Furthermore, spatial dispersion of cisterns in Amsterdam is completely left out. Therefore, in this thesis functional application of cisterns, divided into seven categories of context, and their spatial aspects are focused upon. Data was retrieved from the Amsterdamse Archeologische Rapporten (AAR), in which ninety-one cisterns are documented. This thesis has emerged clear differences and relations between size and capacity, and different categories of context of cisterns. These differences are explained both by functional application of the cistern, as well as wealth of its owner. Spatially, clear clusters of cisterns are recognised in post-17th century neighbourhoods, such as the Jordaan, canal belts and the islands of Marken and Oostenburg. Even in pre-17th century neighbourhoods, many cisterns are located in association to newly built 17th-18th century structures. In order to make more detailed conclusions about the use and dating of cisterns, more extensive documentation, and new dating methods are needed.Show less
