Text written for Fotogalleriet in Oslo for the catalogue of the show of Benjamin Alexander Huseby called Nature and Youth.
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Nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man's. His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his mimetic faculty does not play a decisive role. (Walter Benjamin, "On the Mimetic Faculty" (1933))
Looking at nature photographs demands a certain distance combined with a notion of nostalgia. The appearance of nature is alienating, suggesting that late-capitalist westerners can no longer be in it. To experience an "authentic encounter" with nature is today almost impossible. The idea of nature has become nothing more than a notion, on the verge of becoming a cliche. Some may say that the only proper and respected way to enter the wilderness is to take photographs and leave only footprints. The photograph is thus environmental friendly, and maintains the distance and lack of boundary between human and nature, leaving nature untouched. Animals thus exist only through pictures, refusing us to engage with them other than something hidden, forgotten or nostalgic. John Berger argues that capitalism’s reorganization of society has separated us from the animals with whom we used to live. The use of images of animals can be seen as a compensation for this disconnection by functioning as an ideal figure of freedom. However, nature photography is the figure of an ideal relation with nature; although it provides access it is leaving it untouched. The photographs offer us an image of nature which we at the same time are forbidden to occupy.
In the Victorian age one looked at nature as the picturesque; Nature had to be composed according to human feelings. It was supposed to function as a healing space outside of society. The Victorian landscape was an improved one as the Victorians wanted to see nature as composed and artificial, which is still the notion of today; to become completely absorbed by nature seems unnatural and uncivilized. When photographing nature, the Victorians used stuffed animals to get the perfect and "natural" look they intended, today perfection is enabled through technology. What is wild must be put into the system.
The limit between the civilized and the wild and further between fact and fiction is crossed in the case of the feral child, the most famous cases of the 19th century being Victor of Aveyron, made famous by Francois Truffaut’s L’Enfant Sauvage, and by Kaspar Hauser, main character of Werner Herzog’s haunting film with the same title. Children living in the woods, alone or among animals, have for centuries inspired awe, fascination and disbelief, whereas the notion of the innocent child is replaced by that of a wild beast. There is a double side to this as the reason wolves take care of babies has to do with their innocence and beauty. What is beautiful is scientifically proven to be universally corresponded, in this case there is actually a relation between human beings and animals. According to this, one would understand why Walt Disney pinned a note over each of his animators' desks, reminding them to "Keep it cute!" The attributes of beauty are vehicular and transferable from human to non-human creatures and to hybrid forms. It is precisely this so-called illusion that unites biological, commercial and emotional concerns. The uncivilized and frightening have either to be manipulated to fit within certain aesthetics, or to be hidden away to make us forget.
Susan Buck-Morss has suggested that mass culture in our times both stimulates and is predicated upon mimetic modes of perception in which spontaneity, animation of objects, and a language of the body combining thought with action and sensuousness with intellect, is paramount. The optical unconscious is opened up by the camera and its techniques such as enlargement and slow motion. To narrate and act, as well as constantly reinvent the image one projects, has become crucial. The eclecticism of modern life creates a history which is increasingly personal and differentiated as well as filled with expectations of micro- and macro- spectacles at every stage. Narration is created individually, by piecing together extracts and facts to create meaning in the story of ones own life. Further, the notion of memory becomes crucial; every time an image appears, connections and interferences spring up around it. Triggering moments out of time, refraction and flash, images reveal a network of further connections. Then, the question concerning who is appropriate to decide what is history becomes important. What is going to be remembered, what are the generations to come allowed to know? In a time of extensive image-production and distribution, this process is certainly chaotic but also a more democratic one. The responsibility to create an impression is transferred to the receiver and his or hers ability to choose and decide. New techniques are allowing us multiple views where a range of mediations are covering different fields of history. An example is the French Resistance which consisted of both men and women, and they all had lovers and sweethearts. But none of this was written about by historians, and consequently did not exist. Fifty years later, cinema comes along as the appropriate mediation, further displaying a time-gap which also has to be taken under consideration when interpreting it.
Most of what scientists know about the universe they have learned from images. The distant and alienating is studied through the representation of the camera lens, feeding unknown information to clarify fact and distinguish it from assumptions or fiction. Hollywood uses images to produce entertainment and parallel lives where the narrative demands rapidity and easy consumption. Images as illustration is another notion, either complimenting another form or depreciating its own value. Godard talked about an indirect form of illustration; "...not like showing a photo of Marilyn Monroe when you are talking about her, but showing a photo of something else to introduce another idea". Refusing an easy reading, art stands in opposition:. As quoted by Richard Prince; "uncertainty is the only thing I can be certain of just now". The large amount of image production makes it difficult to differentiate between art and non-art. To navigate within culture is a skill. Culture's theft of imagery and styles demands overview and research skills rather than specific knowledge. To arrange and rearrange images is to personally or administratively produce or document history. Either using real documents, close copies or absolute fakes, the images exist to create meaning and commentary within their context. Truth and evidence may be questioned, but the image is till there. Science may answer anything and everything but we still do not know the truth about why there is something instead of nothing.
We have entered a culture made up of images, a thickening circle of images; culture is the new Nature, where one escapes to when there is a desire to leave, when boredom becomes uneasy. The longing to depart and to travel has established itself as a norm, and the longing is always easily fulfilled. We have entered the culture of choice where the importance is to know what is available, and how to choose, arrange and use it. You no longer escape by thinking or imagining, what to perceive is already visualized for you.
