The Arts of Noticing in the Anthropocene

Introduction

• Ecological Awareness: Raising ecological awareness is a key issue of the 21st century, highlighted by increasing global crises such as population growth, pollution, deforestation, and climate change.

• Anthropocene: Described as a new geological epoch influenced by human behaviors on Earth's ecosystems, the term was proposed by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer (2000).

• Human Responsibility: Discussions surrounding the Anthropocene often overlook power asymmetries, responsibilities, and vulnerabilities across different societies and environments.

• Alternative Terms: Terms like 'Capitalocene' and 'Chthulucene' are suggested to highlight different narratives of exploitation.

Cinema's Role in Environmental Discourse

• Film as a Medium: Cinema can facilitate a reconsideration of our relationship with the environment, functioning as an 'art of noticing' as proposed by Anna Tsing (2015).

• Affect Theory: Emotional engagement in films can redirect current debates within ecocriticism and film studies, presenting new methodologies to explore how cinema shapes environmental understanding.

• Rhetoric and Emotion: Cinema's power lies in its ability to invoke emotional responses, where rhetoric acts as a bridge between aesthetics and social concerns.

The Arts of Noticing

• Revising Environmental Concepts: The 'environment' concept has evolved, criticized for reinforcing human-centric narratives that neglect nonhuman realities.

• Posthuman Perspectives: New materialist frameworks argue for an interconnectedness of nature and culture, emphasizing relational dynamics over binary oppositions.

• Agency of Nonhuman Entities: The discourse encourages recognizing nonhuman elements as active participants in ecological narratives.

Methodological Approaches

• Exploring Cinema's Impact: The research focuses on three aspects:

  • How cinema can re-contextualize our understanding of the Anthropocene.

  • Representation of human and nonhuman interactions onscreen.

  • Sensory and cognitive effects of eco-films on viewers.

• Analyzing Film Techniques: Methodologies will address cinematic techniques and their implications on perception, affect, and ecological awareness.

Theoretical Foundations

• Film Rhetoric as Intersection: Film rhetoric examines construction, response, and engagement, emphasizing how films influence viewers emotionally.

• Affective Ecologies: Alexa Weik von Mossner introduces 'affective ecologies' to explore emotional connections to environmental narratives, drawing attention to our responsibilities toward both human and nonhuman beings.

• Transcorporeal Ethics: Stacy Alaimo advocates for a deepening awareness of the interconnectedness of bodies and environments, prompting ethical engagement with ecological issues.

New Materialisms and Cinema

• Materiality's Role: New materialisms challenge anthropocentric views, advocating for a distributed agency among various entities within environments.

• Transformative Nature of Film: Examining how films like Chernobyl creatively visualize environmental crises can highlight the complexities of ecological interdependencies.

Conclusion

• Expanding Rhetorical Analysis: By situating cinema within ecological frameworks, new ways of understanding the synthesis between aesthetics and environmental narratives can emerge, emphasizing engagement over mere observation.

• Critical Engagement with Ecology: Understanding the complexities of the Anthropocene and the nonhuman world through film can influence how we develop narratives that resonate with our current ecological realities.