TY - JOUR

T1 - The pencil of cheap nature

T2 - Towards an environmental history of photography

AU - Levin, Boaz

N1 - © 2023 Intellect Ltd

PY - 2023/4

Y1 - 2023/4

N2 - This article sets out to draft a preliminary sketch of an environmental history of photography, as opposed to a history of environmental photography. It shows that such a history should be rooted in a conceptualization of our geological epoch as the Capitalocene: the age of capital. Seen in this light, photography can be understood as part of a longer history of what the article describes – building on the work of activist and journalist Raj Patel and environmental historian Jason W. Moore (2018) – as the ‘cheap image’. In this way, photography is shown to offer a succinct expression of the Cartesian dualism that Patel and Moore see as being at the heart of the Capitalocene: the externalized image of capital N nature that this world ecology necessitated. The article considers Mining Photography: The Ecological Footprint of Image Production (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 2022) a recent exhibition and catalogue that attempted to narrate in exhibition form a history of photography from such a perspective. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of the work of several artists from this exhibition who are seen as exemplifying ‘metabolic realism’, a new critical photo-based artistic approach.

AB - This article sets out to draft a preliminary sketch of an environmental history of photography, as opposed to a history of environmental photography. It shows that such a history should be rooted in a conceptualization of our geological epoch as the Capitalocene: the age of capital. Seen in this light, photography can be understood as part of a longer history of what the article describes – building on the work of activist and journalist Raj Patel and environmental historian Jason W. Moore (2018) – as the ‘cheap image’. In this way, photography is shown to offer a succinct expression of the Cartesian dualism that Patel and Moore see as being at the heart of the Capitalocene: the externalized image of capital N nature that this world ecology necessitated. The article considers Mining Photography: The Ecological Footprint of Image Production (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 2022) a recent exhibition and catalogue that attempted to narrate in exhibition form a history of photography from such a perspective. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of the work of several artists from this exhibition who are seen as exemplifying ‘metabolic realism’, a new critical photo-based artistic approach.

KW - Cultural studies

KW - Anthropocene

KW - capitalism

KW - capitalocene

KW - metabolic rift

KW - realism

KW - Science of art

U2 - 10.1386/pop_00069_1

DO - 10.1386/pop_00069_1

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 14

SP - 19

EP - 47

JO - Philosophy of Photography

JF - Philosophy of Photography

SN - 2040-3682

IS - Issue Violence, Part 2

ER -