Corina Thornton R00222092 Yr Two CAA 2021 | Arts7046_26736

THE ANTHROPOCENE
This era, the Anthropocene, is so called because of the unprecedented impact of humans on the natural

environment. Habitat destruction, extinction of species, and climate change have been identified as examples of

this negative impact.

Give a brief summary of the issues at stake, and then select two works – from the fields of either architecture,

OR design, OR applied art – which engage with ideas about the destruction or conservation of the natural

environment.

Situate each example firmly within its historical geographical and cultural context, then address the following

questions:

a) How is one key practical response to the environmental crisis [e.g. sustainability, recycling, conservation,

weather-proofing, renewable energy] mobilised within each of your two examples)

b) Is this aspect referred to in a way which is literal, or which is abstract? How is technology –old or new –used?

Is there a narrative element? Does colour, texture, site, or choice of raw material play a part?

Tutor: Sarah Foster

Submitted 15th November 2021 Words:1541

colleagues still pertaining to the Holocene as our current Epoch. This term links humans as a great force in Gaia’s

recorded history through radioactive fallout, climate change, acidifying oceans, carbon, nitrogen, forests and habitats

transformed, rivers altered and species transport and introduction.1. Human’s first major evolutionary jump is globally

recorded through an isochronus stratigraphic marker at 1945 with the Trinity test of the atomic bomb, echoing in Earth’s

rock strata for eons.

2 3

If this is the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, and we are only recently conversing on the catastrophe that is

annihilation of life as we know it, then two questions from Ellis’ book, The Anthropocene echo long after its reading. ‘Why

did humans gain capacity to transform an entire planet?’ And ‘What does nature even mean, in an age of humans?’4

Humans have influence over all biological and physical systems of the planet. Almost no species, land area, or part of the

oceans has remained unaffected. Recent scientific findings suggest that ‘the entire earth system now operates outside

1
Ellis, Erle. Anthropocene – A very short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Hampshire U.K.pg.3
2
GSSP (Global Stratotype Section and Point or golden spike) marking the Ediacaran Period. Image source: Core Ideas -A
Paleolimnology Podcast
3
Trinity site monument. Photo - Huffington Post
4
Ellis, Erle. Anthropocene – A very short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Hampshire U.K.pg.51
the normal state exhibited over at least the past 500,000 years. Biogeochemical systems are utterly insufficient. More

fundamental and applied research is needed.’5

Extiction rebelion is a contemporary, global, multi-cultural response to the omnipresent issue of ecocide, and

people of all ages are coming together in creative gestures and actions on the streets, in front of government

buildings and global gatherings to bring the people’s voice together as a battalion of earth song in the name of Gaia.

They bring installations, performance art and sculpture together with voice and facts resounding through

mainstream media. In the world of art, eco-feminism and Earthwork is at the leading edge of sculptural practice

delivering aesthetic response to this epoch through sustainable and vital artistic practice that ‘not only solves

problems but dares to ask questions and seek answers across disciplinary boundaries’6 These materials are not

mined, carry no human pollutive or carbon footprint separate from the art itself which is built in communion with

nature. Green is the new Blue as it is ‘Green’ on every level which draws trust and positive choices from the

Earth-conscious public wanting to be a part of the solution, creating positive change through choice.

5
Biermann, Frank. Earth System Governance: World politics in the Anthropocene. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2014
6
Orenstein, Gloria Feman. Article: The Greening of Gaia: Eco Feminist artists revisit the garden. Ethics and the environment,
Spring issue 2003. Vol. 8 Issue 1, p103.
7
Brunt, James. Land artist - Image source - www.thisiscolossal.com Feb 8, 2018. Viewed - 11/11/21
‘This is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead

of calling it work, realize it is play’. - Alan Watts8

In 1987 Gloria Feman Orenstein wrote -’In the creation of new cultures that neither pit humans against nature nor set

them above it, but rather situate humans within the cycles of the cosmos and celebrate the interconnectedness of all

things, the arts have begun to play a major transformational part.’10 Later in January 2003 she writes about Lynne Hull.

Lynne Hull is an ecofeminist from Texas, USA, creating environmental activism which responds to our existential

crises in an apologetic manner to Earth’s species displaced and harmed by humanity. In Orenstein’s essay on

ecofeminist artists, Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian and activist, describes such artists as ‘recognizing landscape

not as scenery, but as the spaces systems inhabit, a system our own lives depend upon.’ ‘communicating with the

elements of nature in a way which awakens intentional healing for Gaia’. Orenstein states in this article, ‘If we can

8
Source - www.doorofperception.com Quote by Alan Watts.
9
Land artist - Foreman, Jon. Image source - www.thisiscolossal.com Dec 02, 2020. Viewed - 11/11/21
10
Orenstein, Gloria Feman. Peer reviewed critical essay: The Greening of Gaia: Eco Feminist artists revisit the garden. Ethics and
the environment, Spring issue 2003. Vol. 8 Issue 1 Indiana University Press
understand nature as a living landscape in which we participate, any site anywhere is a potential art site, inspiring

dialogue with nature as the primary artist’.11

12 13

Poet, Play-write and Novelist, Ronald John Vierling views Lynne Hull’s work as ‘an encounter of the fourth kind’,

conservation through art (Hull calls it ‘eco-attonement’); Hull has created installations through 3 continents and invites

animals, birds and aquatic species to become a part of them, ‘so that nature can take over as the art disintegrates’14.

Offering drinking water in the desert where the rivers have been diverted for use by Man, the design of Flowing Water

Moon Hydroglyph resonates with our ancestor’s love and understanding of the desert canyon in which it is placed. The

pre-historic tribal inter-species’ co-existence, echos through the eons, catching precious drinking water in hand-carved

petroglyphs . Communicating through this vibrational, geometric voice often used by our ancestors, maybe the animals,

11
Orenstein, Gloria Feman. Peer reviewed critical essay: The Greening of Gaia: Eco Feminist artists revisit the garden. Ethics and
the environment, Spring issue 2003. Vol. 8 Issue 1 Indiana University Press
12
Hull, Lynne. Flowing water moon Hydroglyph - A water cache basin for desert wildlife. Carved sandstone; 9’x 6’x 5” near
Moab, Utah. Picture Source: www.landviews.org viewed 12/11/21
13
Hull, Lynne. Twist - an Osprey nesting platform. Wood, 30’ tall; Green River Greenbelt; 1993. Image source www.landviews.org
viewed 12/11/21
14
Hull, Lynne. Article by Birtolo, Janina. Green Art: Eco artists inspire by giving back to Nature. Natural Awakenings publishing
corporation.www.naturalawakenings.com viewed 9/11/21
birds and insects still remember when we cared, and know now that some humans still do care, enough to act, to create,

to sculpt a prayer for the animals?

15

In a literal and very practical sense, Flowing Water Moon Hydroglyph is Lynne Hull’s response to any space and species

in the world suffering from this environmental crisis, her art and designs are an act of conservation. This is a permanent

work, created in the silence of a canyon using small hand tools whose echoed sounds articulate conversation and

deepening communion as she works in a role of conflict resolution. I feel that Hull interprets a need, from nature and

plays a role in alleviating that need with her art in a practical way, working with environmental biologists.

The second example of an eco-artist working for the higher good of nature, and human’s relationship with Earth, is

sculptor, photographer, land artist and environmentalist, Andy Goldsworthy, from Cheshire, England whose works consist

of natural materials, found in the landscape depending on the seasons e.g snow, rock, clay, twigs, ice, leaves, feathers,

grass, petals, sand and much more. Nothing mined, no chemicals. His installations are produced and photographed

himself and like Hull’s installations, are most usually situated within nature on specific historical points of land, with

stories to tell. He intuits the space and focuses on the relationship between organic material and the human presence

on Gaia, exhibiting his love for nature and the environment’s delicacy through the cyclical, spiral journey of death, decay

15
Hull, Lynne. Working on Moon pond and another desert Petroglyph by the artist. Picture: Natural awakenings publishing
corporation. www.natural awakenings.com
and renewal. The book, Hegal’s Aesthetics speaks of this quality of nature in art, thus, ‘dying is not taken at all as the

whole meaning, but only as one aspect of it: The absolute is indeed apprehended as a transcendence of its immediate

existence, as a passing and a passing away of that existence, but also ...a return to itself, a resurrection to a life inherently

eternal and divine.16

When viewing Icicle star, I am absorbing its inevitable meltdown, imagining the renewed version of life leaving in

warmth, dripping from the exorbitant and fragile tips reaching, spreading out through the dimensions of space and time of

our consciousness. A return to its liquid state is conjured as the sunlight illuminates the cosmic entity, a pure form with

memories of once being water. This is, I believe, a large slice of the emotional mystique Icicle star offers the viewer.

Another piece of this sweet wonderful mystique is how? Certainly most imagine gloves and glue and others a vague

16
Hegel’s Aesthetics - Lectures on Fine Art. Translated by Knox, T.M. Clarendon Press. Oxford University Press. 1975 Pg. 349
sense of machinery (Which IS a natural thought phenomenon these days), however bare hands, spit and pain, patience,

deep focus and transcendent communion with the elements are as much a part of the raw materials as the Ice itself.

17 18

Icicle Star reminds the viewer of the delicacy and impermanence of nature, and draws our instincts of conservation to

the fore. This, I believe is how there is such calm in the photographs, a relief, an awe, wonder at how nature colours life

through its cycles of life death rebirth, preserved. It will not stain our walls with mould or water-melt, but enhances

aesthetic presence, life and feelings of wonder at nature’s song through human hands.

Unconsciously we are there, in the presence of the improbable beauty, dying, melting, a mental witness in imaginary time

with the sun illuminating the slow, organic growth in bumps on each single icicle. Creation vs destruction, voice versus

silence, the dance of Shiva, the spiral of life, duality in motion. Goldsworthy prizes our soul open in an aesthetic sense,

at a molecular level to feel the depth of the extraordinary conversations between colours, textures, air and water, earth

and sunlight colliding, in abstract form bringing new dimensions of possibility.

17
Alec Soth. USA. Ithaca, New York. 2004. Artist Andy GOLDSWORTHY with Icicles. p.1,
https://jstor.org/stable/community.9718298.
18
Icicles Frozen to Icicles. Midday Sun Warming The Bank Above Where I Worked. Causing Some Ice To Melt And Fall. Continued
To Freeze In The Shadows. Cold Overnight. (Dunfrisshire, Scotland. 8 January.© Andy Goldsworthy. Source www.wnyc.org
Published by The Leonard Lopate Show.
 I conclude that Art and nature as healer is no longer just a hippy theory, but illuminating fact in mainstream thought. Lock

downs over the past two years have enlightened many to the power of nature to ease our pains, grow our food and health,

mentally emotionally, physically and spiritually. Nature teaches, awakens and touches the senses in a way which

invokes positive changes and creative inspiration throughout time, with no boundaries. Lynne Hull and Andy Goldsworthy

are amongst many artists who are applying art deeply within and for nature, and we can feel their invocations. We are

reminded that we too must sacrifice easy comforts and powerful machinery, poisons, greed, chemicals and more, for

clean and sustainable environments and systems, full of different lives and glorious wonder, endless possibilities unfold

when we think creatively, outside the box.

Illustrations:
2. GSSP (Global Stratotype Section and Point or golden spike) marking the Ediacaran Period. Image source: Core Ideas -A
Paleolimnology Podcast
3. Trinity site monument. Photo - Huffington Post
7. Brunt, James. Land artist - Image source - www.thisiscolossal.com Feb 8, 2018. Viewed 11/11/21
9. Foreman, Jon. Artist. Image source - www.thisiscolossal.com Dec 02, 2020.Viewed - 11/11/21
12. Hull, Lynne. Flowing water moon Hydroglyph - A water cache basin for desert wildlife. Carved sandstone; 9’x 6’x 5” near
Moab, Utah. Picture Source: www.landviews.org viewed 12/11/21
13. Hull, Lynne. Twist - an Osprey nesting platform. Wood, 30’ tall; Green River Greenbelt; 1993. Image source www.landviews.org
viewed 12/11/21
16.Hull, Lynne. Working on Moon pond and a different desert Petroglyph by the artist. Source: Natural awakenings publishing
corporation. www.natural awakenings.com
18. Alec Soth. USA. Ithaca, New York. 2004. Artist Andy GOLDSWORTHY with Icicles. p.1,
https://jstor.org/stable/community.9718298.
19. Icicles Frozen to Icicles. Midday Sun Warming The Bank Above Where I Worked. Causing Some Ice To Melt And Fall.
Continued To Freeze In The Shadows. Cold Overnight. (Dunfrisshire, Scotland. 8 January.© Andy Goldsworthy. Source
www.wnyc.org Published by The Leonard Lopate Show.

Bibliography

Books:
Ellis, Erle. Anthropocene – A very short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Hampshire U.K.
Hegel’s Aesthetics - Lectures on Fine Art. Translated by Knox, T.M. Clarendon Press. Oxford University Press. 1975 Pg. 349

EBooks:
Biermann, Frank. Earth System Governance: World politics in the Anthropocene. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2014

Articles:
Orenstein, Gloria Feman. Article: The Greening of Gaia: Eco Feminist artists revisit the garden. Ethics and the environment, Spring
issue 2003. Vol. 8 Issue 1, p103.

Hull, Lynne. Article by Birtolo, Janina. Green Art: Eco artists inspire by giving back to Nature. Natural Awakenings publishing
corporation.www.naturalawakenings.com viewed 9/11/21

Websites:
www.thisiscolossal.com Brunt, James. Feb 8, 2018.
www.doorofperception.com Goldsworthy, Andy. Quote by Alan Watts. Viewed 14/11/21
www.naturalawakenings.com Green art. Viewed 9/11/21