Haptic visuality

Keywords: Haptic Visuality / Digital / Deterioration / Optical / Dada / Uncanny

When previously considering the haptic qualities of my work It has been in relation to such as the surface of the paper screen, the perceived heat and smell evoked by videoed fire, and the tactile understanding of natural textures such as bark, leave or dirt. In Laura U. Marks essay 'The skin of Film' she builds on Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari to propose a concept of 'haptic visuality', in which the qualities of digital and traditional film are considered as a means to evoke sensory response. The graininess of the film, pixelation, changes in focus, under or over exposure, densely textured images; indeed she describes the haptic image as 'less complete'. The haptic image occupies our senses, inviting association with past experience. This sensory reading draws upon the phenomenological idea of “embodied spectatorship” which Marks's derives predominately from Vivian Sobchack’s 'The Address of the Eye'

'When our eyes move across a richly textured surface, occasionally pausing but not really focusing, making us wonder what we are actually seeing, they are functioning like organs of touch. Video, with its low contrast ratio, capacity for electronic and digital manipulation, and susceptibility to decay, is an ideal haptic medium, its graininess a lure for the roving gaze Marks describes. Film, however, may also invite a haptic look by speeding up or slowing down imagery, enlarging grain, or deliberately enhancing already deteriorating nitrate.' 

Melinda Barlow -Review of: Touch Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media', Canadian Journal of Film Studies - 2003

Footage in 'Process and Perception' as well as 'Chronos' show clear signs of deterioration. This is foremost caused by the process of making the work. A drawing is digitally photographed as it is made, this is converted in Photoshop to a stop frame animation and rendered. This in turn is projected onto a paper screen and recorded, again being turned into another digital film which is projected back onto another paper screen to be viewed. All these steps act to break the image down in the same way  a picture repeatedly passed through a photocopier loses definition.

During filming in order that the projectors can sit clear of any burning screens two out of the three have to be back projected, this has the effect of 'softening' or slightly blurring each image. As the screens burn the video camera struggles to maintain an even exposure, sometimes quickly alternating from under to over exposed.

When filming I tried to arrange each screen so that the maximum amount of the image could be used, however in every take there was a degree of zooming in to avoid any signs of picture edges which would betray the illusion of the work. This zooming in created further pixilation. I also didn't want to refocus the camera during filming as this would make the viewer aware the artists participation too early and 'pull' them out of the work. Therefore I had to compromise and the camera was focussed on the middle screen. This meant the first and third screen would always be slightly out of focus.

All these factors combine to breakdown the image, in each of my 4 attempts to film this sequence you discern greater or lesser amounts of picture deterioration at different stages. This is is caused by factors such as lighting, equipment used (projectors/ cameras) or how close the screens are in relation to each other, which affected focus.

The deterioration of the charcoal animation acts to 'soften' the image, especially in the first version where it appears more like a kind of blotchky ink drawing. The second screen of the forest I sought to keep as sharp as possible so it might function more 'optically', enabling the viewer to more easily believe the illusionistic depth of the filmed forest. Overall I am happy with the level of deterioration of the final cut, it navigates a path between haptic sensory surface and optical space. As the work progresses the spectator is pulled between the two modes of viewing as different surfaces and optical spaces are revealed.

Relationships between screen and image 

During the filming of 'Process and Perception' to avoid projectors 'hitting' more than one screen they were angled up over the top of the one behind. Behind my studio is a large oak tree, as a screen burnt away the action of the looped video continued to play on the leaves of the tree. Due to the darkened and fragmented surface presented by the leaves these images could be described as ghostly or ephemeral.  Action and landscape could not clearly be 'read', however moments such as my silhouette moving across the screen, or the burning transitions proved particularly effective. The jeopardy of projecting fire onto a tree created a destablising effect, despite understanding that it was a projection there was a feeling that at any moment the fire may really take hold.

Projecting onto objects/screens which have a dialogue with the image can be seen in work such as EXPORT's Tapp und Tastkino, Malcolm Le Grice's Horror film 1, Peter Weibel's Action lecture and Nekes's Operation (1968). In his essay 'Expanded cinema: The live record' Duncan white describes Nekes's Operation (1968)

'the supposedly 'neutral space' of the usually 'invisible' screen into a less stable, living surface that is already marked. Footage of what appears to be quite invasive abdominal surgery is projected onto the filmmaker's bare torso creating an uncanny sense of displacement'

I see the projections of fire into the tree functioning in a similar way to Nekes's projection of an operation onto a subjects bare chest. In both cases we are fully aware of the illusion but our perception fails to seperate the two events, trying to impose a false reading of reality onto us.  The objects wholeness feels threatened and there persists a nagging sense something is wrong.

In 'Paper landscapes' by Guy Sherwin the screen is a dynamic element and site of action. On the mesh surface an image is slowly revealed before being destroyed. In the process of its revealing its creation is evident and a 'slipage' between the projected and the actual occurs as the movements of Sherwin the performer become blurred with Sherwin's projected past actions. This transitional work goes to extend the role of the screen and has informed both my work 'Process and perception' as well as 'Corpse'.

'In Paper Landscapes the screen is a threshold, a fulcrum, a kinetic object, the locus of at least two different kinds of juxtaposed images (whose juxtapositions generate further complexities), a transparent frame and volatile membrane, Activated by Sherwin's actions upon it.' 

Nicky Hamlyn - Expanded Cinema (Mutable Screens: The Expanded Films of Guy Sherwin, Lis Rhodes, Steve Farrer and Nicky Hamlyn) - p214 - 2011

In earlier modules I have more fully explored projecting in the environment out of a gallery space, due to our private view being on the 1st of september I decided early on against pursuing this line of investigation for my final module. Although the location around the Waterfront in Ipswich is rich for site specific work at this time of year it will not be dark enough for effective projections, even by 8pm when the private view officially ends. This is something I am keen to pick up on post MA.

Disquiet landscapes

I have started developing my new digital forest collages into a large set of A4 photographic prints. After first experimenting with a range of pictorial spaces and surface qualities I have started to build a cohesive arrangement that at present contains around 50 images.

I have decided to present them in a tight grid arrangement which very much links to earlier drawings for the Letheringham Lodge project. Indeed on reflection these photographs function in much the same way as these earlier drawings, with representational elements emerging out of a tangled mass of abstraction.This also links in with earlier writing about a post-modern sublime generated by reproduction.

“networks of reproductive processes thereby afford us some glimpse into a postmodern or technological sublime, whose power or authenticity is documented by the success of such works in evoking a whole new postmodern space” (Jameson, 2010, p.145).

Re-considering these images as outcome and not just reference I have started to look at the work of photographers in whose work I see correlation with my own.

Paul Nash - Monster field

Nash's 1938 series 'Monster field' documented fallen great oak trees, these are awkward broke objects and encourage a reading of broken hands or limbs. Nash himself described them as possessing 'the mysticism of the "living animate"' They are imbued with a macabre melancholy, twisted,fractured, shards that are not dead but have become something other, something monstrous. Healthy living oak trees in the background of these images act as a counterpoint, evoking  the passage of time. To not take a metaphorical reading of these works is almost impossible, especially when considered alongside Nash's well known war paintings. These are not portraits of trees but portraits of deaths unknown horror.

Paul Nash - Black and white negative, ‘Monster Field’ - 1938

Paul Nash - Black and white negative, ‘Monster Field’ - 1938

Paul Nash - Black and white negative, ‘Monster Field’ - 1938

Paul Nash - Black and white negative, ‘Monster Field’ - 1938

Robert Adams - Skogen

In his body of work 'Skogen' (Swedish for forest) American photographer Robert Adams explores the dense forests of his home state of Oregon. The images suggest and untouched wild, even primordial landscape. An eerie landscape suffocatingly packed with foliage, somewhere not to get lost. The title suggests a dark nordic fairy tale aesthetic. Tonally the work is rich, there are no extreme contrasts, all is subtle nuances of grey. The play of dappled light on the surface of branches and tree trunks becomes another texture in these tactile images. Each image within his Skogen series nestles somewhere between beauty and terror, simultaneously occupying both positions.

Adams landscapes are documentary in nature yet he believes the works agency is derived from combining multiple readings which we internally synthesise inform our own pereception.

'Landscape photography can offer us, I think, three verities—geography, autobiography, and metaphor. Geography is, if taken alone, sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together . . . the three kinds of representation strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact—an affection for life.'
Robert Adams - Truth in Landscape - 2005

Many of his 'Skogen' images despite a wealth of detail are still very readable spaces. However at points Adam's creates more abstracted compositions, managing to capture a complexity with one pictorial layer which I have only managed with two or three!  

Seeing these images inspires and reminds me to visit nearby ancient oak woods at Butley corner in Suffolk. Time permitting I would like to experiment layering photographs of these old giants to be included in my growing set of prints.  

Robert Adams - Stika spruce, Capo Blanco State, Oregon

Robert Adams - Clatsop Country Oregon

Robert Adams - Clearcut, Clatsop Country, Oregon

Ansel Adams 

Ansel Adams is best known for his photographs of grand open vistas, big skys, wide rivers, and great mountains of the American west. A romantic sublime of untouched wilderness largely absent of the presence of man. 

In the following images Adams turns his lens under the earth, documenting magestic and vast rock formations found inside cave structures. These are other worldly spaces, dramatic lighting within the caves creating strong contrasts abstracting further these already foreign spaces. Ansel's work is often characterised by space, lots of it. But here the space is compressed and claustrophobic. The detail on the surface of the rock is caught by the stong light sources, forcing the image to be considered as 'Haptic' surface rather than 'optical' space. Formidable staligmites/ stalactites act like hellish mightly redwoods. Where Ansel Adams path to the sublime is usally through awe and beauty here it is through awe and terror.

Ansel Adams - Giant domes

Ansel Adams - In the queens chamber

Ansel Adams - Onyx formations

Film and Painting / Action and Object

Keywords: Performance / Object / Context / Time

As I continue to develop work using multiple screens and explore engaging the viewer as active participant I am aware my work clearly falls into the categorisation of Expanded Cinema. For me the label of expanded cinema implies the historic lineage of the work is film/cinema, also that the normal boundaries of passive spectator and screen have in someway been subverted. 

However I still feel the starting point for my work is not the moving image of cinema but the static image of painting. Taking my abstract and then more representational drawings and animating them I see myself logically processing the ideas of action painting begun decades ago.

'In Pollock there is the suggestion that the artefact could be replaced by action in 'real time', a suggestion that would be taken up a decade later in the work of an entire generation of conceptual, performace and process artists who believed that the tribal experience of real-time art was the key to overcoming the deadening effect of the bourgeois art object'
Peter Halley - Nature and Culture - 1983

However I do not fully share the idea put forward here that the art object always represents a symbol of bourgeois authority. Performance art, Expanded Cinema, Happenings etc.. all  run the risk of becoming contained structures supporting social hierarchies. After any 'event' it becomes conceptual object, which through documentation (this could be written, photographed, videoed or also verbally relayed) is susceptible to mythologisation and elitism. In some ways less tangible modes of artistic discourse are more at risk of mythologisation because direct experience of them is held by only a few, therefore we are forced to reassess the works impact, meaning, etc through a secondary lens. With traditional art objects such as painting and photography the object remains that we may encounter it through our own eyes and draw our own conclusions. Albeit from a different temporal and contextual viewpoint.  

Artist Liz Rhodes addresses these concerns in her essay 'Unfolding a Tale: On the Impossibility of Recovering the Original Meaning. 

'The continuation  of an idea is impossible, only a rendering of it. Within reproduction, modification takes place. Initial intention is fading fast. Its intrinsic purpose may have become irrelevant, incomprehensible, hence ideas may be modified or lost within or without repetition...
The continuation of the fact - of a thing performed or done - is in fact a facsimile or a re-make, a fiction, if you like, which may often be novel but is always a mock event. The continuation is an imitation. The paradox is that images 'here', although the same as they were 'there', cannot be displayed, repeated or repeat themselves in order for us to know the original. The images remain but the intention is irretrievable.'
Liz Rhodes - Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film. - p221-222 - 2011 

When considering an 'art object' one might think of a painting, photograph, sculpture or other such physical object, but what of the film screen? in my projectons the hung paper screen is vital to the agency of the work, is this then an art object? and if so does it only continue to be so during the screening of the work? In 'The matter of illusionism' Kate Mondloch describes the screen as 'a curiously ambivalent object - simultaneously a material object and a virtual window; it is altogether an object which, when deployed in spatialised sculptural configurations, resists facile categorisation.'
Kate Mondloch - The matter of illusionism - 2000
   

Founders of the 'Museum of Non Participation' Karen Mirsa and Brad Butler have a nuanced view of the validity of the art object in their practice.

'We do not completely disavow art objects, but are driven to dislodge them from their central position within the field of art... We choose to look past the art object and relate to the etymology of “object,” from the Latin obicere, meaning to present, oppose, or cast or throw in the way of. We explore obicere through multiple, ephemeral processes: artworks as well as events and actions that neither we as artists nor museums possess through sole authorship. In a similar vein, we see “collecting” as not merely assembling objects, but as an act that assembles and ushers forth action and agency and does so through disruption. Our own practice involves presenting work that is hard for the art market to reconcile or redistribute. In this way The Museum of Non Participation aligns itself with conceptual art and the legacy of the dematerialized art object.' 
Mirza and Butler -http://www.museumofnonparticipation.org/

I also do not see myself as subverting the relationship between film screen and viewer, for me it is the relationship between canvas and viewer that I am reconsidering. This may be evident in my choice of paper as screen. It is the viewers expectations of gallery and site specific spaces not the cinema which I am primarily interested in questioning. 

I continue to contextually explore the lineage of Expanded cinema and draw inspiration from artists such as Mersa and Butler, Liz Rhodes, Guy shewin, Chris Welsby, Mary Stark and more. Contextually I see my work existing in a limbo between the moving and static image, between the need to show time or imply it. 

Filming final takes 'Process and Perception' + 'Chronos'

The following images document filming of the 4th and final take of 'Process and Perception', as well as 'Chronos' which is made of footage from the first 8 minutes of shooting.

There are several amendments which I believe more fully resolve the work:

1) By focussing the camera on the middle screen and arranging them slightly closer together the first charcoal animation screen is better in focus. In the last version of the work the front screen was more blurry, I do like how the image quality degrades to a certain extent but in the last version this was such that it was becoming unreadable as layered tree drawings.

2) The second 'forest' video has been changed, the last video used for this was both too blurry and to zoomed in. Here I endeavoured to use as much as the image as possible and worked from a higher resolution original. However due to it having to be back projected the image is still 'softened' more than I would have liked. Due to the filming process however I see no way to avoid this and will have to live with this slight compromise.

3) Filming using a higher spec camera I was able to avoid the banding seen in earlier versions. This was caused by filming a projected image, it is same issue one has if trying to film something on a TV screen.

4) In the last version of 'Process and Perception' as the final screen burnt away the video of the studio jumped back to the beginning with me again seen lighting the screen. This jump visually jarred and in some way revealed the illusion of the projection. In the new version the final screen stays with the studio keeping on this image as it burns away to the void behind.

5) The final void itself lasts longer, holding on a black image for 25 seconds hints that it is itself a liminal or transitional space like earlier screens. This hopefully prompts a dual reading of the void as ending or new beginning.

6) As I enter the shot to burn the third screen the lighting conditions were slightly different to the last filming, with me here appearing as a black silhouette. On showing this new version to colleagues they all had the immediate reaction that the figure moving across the screen was behind them and in front of the projector, not on the screen itself. This 'happy accident' further destabilises the viewers perception.

7) The shorter 'Chronos' take now has a smoother, more seamless transition from the end of the clip  back to the start.

Three screens prior to burning

Setting up final 'void' transition

Revealing the void

LLOYD EVANS - Chronos (Final cut) from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.
LLOYD EVANS - Process and Perception (final cut) from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

Unpacking the Anthropocene

Keywords: Anthopocene / Shadowtime / Epoquetude / Slow Ennuipocalypse / Neopangea / Teuchnikskreis / Blissonace / Shinrin-yoku / Solastalgia / Atmorelational / Apex Guilt / Stuplimity

As I continue to consider my work from an ecological perspective I have decided to further 'unpack' ideas, contexts, and terminology concerning the Anthropecene. 

The term Anthropecene was coined by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and bilologist Eugene Stoemer in a article in Global Change newsletter of May 2000. It was used to describe the dawn of a new age, distinct from the Holocene the official current epoch. The Holocene stretches from the present back 10-12 thousand years, defining the time since the ice sheets retracted at the end of the last ice age and mankind began to better colonise the earth. They believed the formation of a new age was needed to define the impact of mankind's recent activity citing.. 

“mankind will remain a major geological force for many millennia, maybe millions of years to come”
Earth System Science in the Anthropocene: Emerging Issues and Problems - ed Eckart Ehlers, Thomas Krafft - 2006

This geological impact is seen in our use of finite resources and the irreversible damage we have caused to ecological systems, Crutzen and Stoemer use this as justification for a new epoch.

'They pointed to the explosion in the human population, the mass use of fossil fuels, demands on fresh water, the destruction of habitats and the dramatic loss of species as evidence for “the central role of mankind” in shaping the Earth’s geology and ecology. The word joins the Greek word 'anthropos', for human, to the suffix 'cene', meaning new or recent, to suggest an epoch defined by recent human activity.'

Ian Sample https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/16/-sp-scientists-gather-talks-rename-human-age-anthropocene-holocene

The exact start date of the Anthropecene is much debated, the dawn of a new age is usually denoted by geological changes in the fossil record, but these kinds of shifts happen over thousands if not millions of years. The changes caused by mankind are affecting the ecology of the planet in a myriad of ways, each new ecological intervention offers us with a different start date.

'One marker for the start of the Anthropocene that the group will consider is the sudden and global arrival of radionuclides left over from atomic bombs in the 1940s and 1950s. One advantage is that plutonium, caesium, strontium and other substances can be linked to a specific date in time as well as a clear line in rock, called a golden spike, in the business. “The boundary might be set at 1945 when that started,” said Zalasiewicz......Other options are the widespread use of plastic, the release of polyaromatic hydrocarbons from the burning of fossil fuels, and lead contamination from petroleum, which all leave stark traces in the Earth. Crutzen argued for the late 18th century as the start of the industrial revolution.'
Ian Sample - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/16/-sp-scientists-gather-talks-rename-human-age-anthropocene-holocene

In his article 'Generation Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for ever' Robert Macfarlane indicates that the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission On Quarterly Stratigraphy are likely to decide that... 'the “stratigraphically optimal” temporal limit will be located somewhere in the mid-20th century. This places the start of the Anthropocene simultaneous with the start of the nuclear age. It also coincides with the so-called “Great Acceleration”, when massive increases occurred in population, carbon emissions, species invasions and extinctions, and when the production and discard of metals, concrete and plastics boomed.' 
Robert Macfarlane - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever

The working group tasked with deciding if the Anthropocene is adopted offically by the scientific community and are due to report their findings in mid 2016. More information about this project can be found at: http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/workinggroups/anthropocene/

The Bureau of Linguistical Reality

The Bureau is run by artists Elicia Escott and Heidi Quante, it is a repository for terms which help describe feelings and processes linked to the ecological changes caused by mankind's recent activity. Anyone is able to nominate a new term for the collection which is made up of offerings from scientists, artists, environmentalists etc... 

'The Bureau of Linguistical Reality was established on October 28, 2014 for the purpose of collecting, translating and creating a new vocabulary for the Anthropocene.
Our species (Homo Sapien) is experiencing a collective “loss of words” as our lexicon fails to represent the emotions and experiences we are undergoing as our habitat (earth) rapidly changes due to climate change and other unprecedented events. To this end the The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is solemnly tasked generating linguistic tools to express these changes at the personal and collective level.
Cartographers are redrawing maps to accommodate rising seas, psychologists are beginning to council people on climate change related stress, scientists are defining this as a new age or epoch. The Bureau was thus established, as an interactive conceptual artwork to help to fill the linguistical void in our rapidly changing world.'
https://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/mission-statement/

It is worth noting that the Bureau of Linguistical Reality was preceded by Robert Macfarlanes own crowdsourced Anthropocene glossary called the “Desecration Phrasebook” which he describes as

'a glossary of the Anthropocene: a lexicon recording the particularities of the environments and phenomena that our actions as a species are bringing into being. It would gather terms that describe a heavily harnessed or drastically deranged “nature”: a “Desecration Phrasebook”, as it were.'

Robert Macfarlane - Desecration phrasebook: A litany for the Anthropocene - New scientist - Dec 2015

This he created in reaction to Finlay MacLeod's proposal for a "Counter-Desecration Phrasebook” which was intended to denote all which we perceive as vital in the natural world and in need of protection. The genus of this idea went on to become 'Landmark', Macfarlane's own glossery of terms which detail little known and specific terms for natural conditions. This is drawn from contemporary and historic langages of the British isles.  

'This wordhoard included such terms as rionnach maoim, Gaelic for “the shadows cast by clouds on moorland on a sunny, windy day”; ammil, a Devonshire term for “the ice-film that covers rocks and vegetation when a sudden freeze follows a thaw”; and zawn, Cornish for “a wave-smashed chasm in a sea-cliff”.

Robert Macfarlane - Desecration phrasebook: A litany for the Anthropocene - New scientist - Dec 2015

As my investigation continues I increasingly reference terms such as; Shadowtime, Apex guilt, and Solastalgia. The following is the definitive definition of these and other terms as recorded in the Bureau's collection, I have selected terms here which I feel correlate with my practice.

(I have changed text to blue to denote all information is in effect one long quote, drawn from the Bureau's glossary of terms.)

Shad-ow-time

Definition: A parallel timescale that follows one around throughout day to day experience of regular time. Shadowtime manifests as a feeling of living in two distinctly different temporal scales simultaneously, or acute consciousness of the possibility that the near future will be drastically different than the present.
One might experience shadowtime while focused on goal oriented conversations, tasks and planning for life as we have known it—(college, career or occupational ambitions). During such moments there is a creeping sense of concerns that would make all said planning obsolete or seem unimportant, i.e. the collapse of the Larson B Ice Shelf that will accelerate sea level rise. Shadowtime may also occur when one is preparing a meal for their child and suddenly realizes that an endemic flower that had evolved over 42.7 million years has gone extinct within their child’s lifetime.
Shadowtime is not exclusively a negative experiences demonstrated with epoquietude. It can make one reflect quietly on the tricksterish desire and escapism lying behind apocalyptic vision, as well as catalyzing an embrace of the unknown and a counteraction to anthropocentric hubris. While one may feel that shadowtime follows them always, the sudden experience of the presence of shadowtime amid day to day activities is often extremely disorienting.
Usage: Kane was intently working on his presentation which was due the next morning, but as he looked up and saw the moon it occurred to him that the moon had been rising and setting for 4.5 billion years, moving ever further away, he felt shadowtime for the rest of the evening.
Origin: Ranu Mukherjee, Alicia Escott, Field Study #009 Participants, California 2015

Epo·qu·e·tude

Definition: An antidote to crushing anxieties over the deteriorating state of the world, epoquetude is the reassuring awareness that while humanity may succeed in destroying itself, the Earth will certainly survive us, as it has survived many other cataclysms; and that, in the endless chambers of time, the lives of individual species, vast civilizations, and even entire worlds are merely brief notes in an inconceivable symphony, each sounding its distinct voice and then fading out, so that the music may continue.
Usage: As she gazed at the waves crashing to the shore, contemplating the ocean’s four billion years of existence, some of the pain and horror of the unfolding global catastrophe receded, and a sense of epoquetude settled over her.
Origin: Anthony Discenza, California, 2015

Slow·en·nui·poc·a·lypse

Slang: Slowpocalypse Definition: While media often depicts the apocalypse as a sudden and dramatic event, Slow Ennuipocalypse, or Slowpocalypse (slang) offers the concept of a doomsday that occurs at an excruciatingly slow day to day time scale. Slow Ennuipocalypse, may occur in a geologic blink of an eye, but for the Homo Sapiens in urban/suburban settings who are often disconnected from the natural cycles— it is painfully boring. As a result of the perceived slow pace of the apocalypse or Slow Ennuipocalypse those who live through it feel a compulsion to distract themselves with ever faster technology, media and economic systems— all of which feed back into a disconnect from the pace of the natural systems we need to survive.

Usage: Edgar escaped into his instagram account to distract himself from the news reports about the epic California drought that he had been listening to for four years straight.

Origin: Mike Arcega and Field Study 007 Participants, August 2015.

neo-pan-jee–uh

Definition: A hypothetical way of thinking of the world as no longer geographically separated. Neopangea, borrows from the concept that there was a “supercontinent” that existed approximately 200 to 300 million years ago, named Pangea. Neopangea, is the concept that because of global trade routes and the regular use of cargo ships, planes, cars, trucks ex cetera, once insurmountable geographic barriers (like the separation of continents) no longer exist in the way they have in the past, and we have returned to what can be thought of as a supercontinent like state. This affects how we think of species that are endemic to certain locations.
Usage: The Cutbow Trout is a species that can be thought of as endemic to neopangea, it is a hybrid between two separate trout species the Rainbow and the Cutthroat Trout’s that had, in the past, been geographically separated. The human induced introduction of the rainbow into the Colorado Cutthroats habitat poses a “serious threat to native cutthroat population” as the two mate and produce the hybrid Neopangean Cutbow.
Synonym: Repangea, Globalism.
Origin:  Jason Groves, Alicia Escott, Anthony Shore, California, 2015.

Teuchnikskreis

Definition: Using new technologies to tackle environmental symptoms and byproducts caused by other (possibly older) technologies, which will in turn eventually produce their own unintended by-products and problems— for which newer technologies will then need to be produced. Teuchnikskreis is characterized by a sense of being stuck in a vicious cycle or spiral, thinking technology will be the solution to the problems created by technology.
Origin: Andre Baier, Germany, during Paris COP21 Field Studies, 2015.

Blis-so-nance 

Definition:1. When an otherwise Blissful experience in nature is wedded to or disrupted by the recognition that: — One is having an adverse impact on that place they are enjoying by being there.— The understanding of how the place will be negatively affected in the near future by: urbanization, climate change or other disrupting factors. 2. The blissful short term experience of sunny, dry, pleasant weather that can accompany severe drought or other longterm climate changes — for which, the experiencer,  has long term concerns and which portends doom for all living creatures that depend on water in that area. In this context Blissonace can be used synonymously with Psychic Corpus Dissonance or Schadenfebruary. sometimes termed Blissodissonance (bliss.o.diss.onace)Origin: Stiv Wilson, and all participants in Field Study #004: Oceans, California, 2015, Portmanteau of bliss and dissonance

Shinrin-yoku (森林浴)

Definition: A Japanese term that means “forest bathing”. The idea being that spending time in the forest and natural areas is good preventative medicine, since it lowers stress, which causes or exacerbates some of our most intractable health issues. The “magic” behind forest bathing boils down to the naturally produced allelochemic substances known as phytoncides, which are kind of like pheromones for plants. Their job is to help ward off pesky insects and slow the growth of fungi and bacteria. When humans are exposed to phytoncides, these chemicals are scientifically proven to lower blood pressure, relieve stress and boost the growth of cancer-fighting white blood cells. Some common examples of plants that give off phytoncides include garlic, onion, pine, tea tree and oak, which makes sense considering their potent aromas.
Usage: Jasmine became depressed as she was no longer able to partake in Shinrin-yoku after they cut down her local forest to make way for new high rise condos.
Origin: Japanese 森林浴 (shinrin-yoku しんりんよく, “forest bathing”), from Middle Chinese 森林 (ʂim-lim “forest”) + 浴 (jowk“bathe”). Existing word.

Sol.a.stal.gia

Definition: Derived from nostalgia, Solastalgia is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home, but the environment has been altered and feels unfamiliar. The term is specifically referencing change caused by chronic change agents like climate change or mining. Used primarily to describe the negative psychological effect of chronic environmental destruction on an individuals homeland, or the place they call home. The condition is often “exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding change process.*”
Usage: Samuel noticed no one seemed to say “the fog is rolling in” any longer. Most people around him delighted in the sunny weather that was increasingly common as the drought progressed, but he experienced a mild form of solastalgia, longing for the often termed “marine layer.”  The speed of the city itself seemed different now— faster without the fog. He couldn’t compare this feeling to the experience of those whose homes were forever affected by mining or deforestation, yet still a sort of melancholia and longing hung over him, and places that he knew so well seemed foreign and unfamiliar.
Origin: Glen Albrecht, 2003, Australia. Derived from the Latin solacium (comfort) and Ancient Greek algia (pain)

The At·mo·re·la·tion·al

Definition: A relationship with, or interpretation of the world that is relational, and not object based. The Atmorelational Looks at the space or relationship between things as the primary point of focus. This idea offers that it is impossible to determine the exact beginning of a thing or its precise end and that there is a fluid porousness between where the body/self ends and another begins. The term The Atmorelational can be used in place of the term Nature. IE “let the atmorelational take its course”. The Atmorelational was influenced by the ideas conceptualized by the work of Caribbean poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant.Usage: Faiza could feel the atmorelational at work all around her.
Origin: Léopold Lambert and Field Study 010 participants, during Paris COP21 Field Studies, 2015

Apex Guilt

Definition: Ones contemplation of a deep understanding that humans are the apex predator on our planet and what that feels like to be very in-tune and self aware of this; how this knowledge impacts our decisions or enjoyment; the implications, responsibilities, and deep and real concerns that has for our own species and those we consume or kill for our own existence.

Stuplimity

The term Stuplimity has a different lineage and was first coined by Sianne Ngai in her 2006 paper 'Ugly things', It is generated as counterpoint to the Kantian sublime which is “involving an uplifting transcendence” – rather than the postmodern works which “tend to draw us down into the sensual and material” Sianne Ngai - Ugly things - p267

For Ngai's the stuplime is “The aesthetic experience in which astonishment is paradoxically united with boredom… This term allows us to invoke the sublime--albeit negatively, since we infuse it with thickness or even stupidity--while detaching it from its spiritual and transcendent connotations and its close affiliation with Romanticism” Sianne Ngai - Ugly things - p271.

This is a different kind of experience to the immediacy of a Kantian Sublime, It is not a moment of revelation but a “a series of fatigues or minor exhaustions, rather than a single, major blow to the imagination” Sianne Ngai - Ugly things - p272

I feel the phrases or words defined above help better describe/define existential concerns which my recent work touches upon. A new vocabulary appears to more succinctly convey the sensations of living in a new Epoch. It also has a political function, more explicitly relating that while things appear to be changing slowly we are racing through the 6th great extinction, and altering the environment at ecological breakneck speed. Welcome to the 'Slowpocalypse'!