Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

Art and Entertainment have the capacity to change minds by

broadening access to groundbreaking ruptures in lofty subjects. I

would like to present an analysis of theory and cultureentangled in

the wake of an incredible academic rupturein order to promote a

serious reconsideration of the Environmental Movement. I will end in

an investigation of the potential for Art and Entertainment in a

conscious move away from Environmentalism. In support of such an

argument I will be revealing the shaky foundation of classical ontology

and epistemology on which the Environmentalist Ideology stands. I will

present an example of visual culture that I believe to be moving

toward recognition of Karen Barad’s Agential Realism as onto-

epistemology proper, and postulate how this could impact the way in

which we engage with our environment. I do not expect this analysis to

erase Environmentalism completely, as the counterpart I am

presenting could never compete with Environmentalism upon the

grounds of its ideal compatibility with Advanced Global Capitalism. It

could however, by comparison, acknowledgement and intra-action,

disrupt the hegemonic perception of nature built upon the

Environmentalist foundation. I must credit here, that I building upon

Slavoj Žižek’s notion that Ecology is an Ideology, which has distorted

our perception of nature. I am not attempting to wage war with an

entire scientific discipline, operating in vastly diverse modes. I am

however prepared refine that notion to an assault on the

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Environmentalist Ideology that does not in fact follow from all branches

of Ecology, but from a common root within. At issue is the fundamental

problematic that we perceive nature as an organic, predetermined

thing or totality that our species has somehow disturbed through

hubris. While Karen Barad shows us that nature is in fact the

entanglement of infinite unimaginable catastrophes precedent and

antecedent of humanity. The field of visual culture is a cogent catalyst

for consensus and revolution and has the potential to espouse fact as

fiction and vice versa with incredible efficacy: I am relying on this

realm to reveal a different Ideology, that is in direct contradiction with

Environmentalism, which if not welcomed, then could at the very least

be considered in its differential relationship to its impetus. It is my

belief that visual culture can seed the post-iterative re-figuring of the

way in which we perceive our environment.

I believe that the Environmentalist Ideology is in large part a

result of the dominant hegemonic ontology and epistemology that

Barad is writing directly against. In this case, by Ideology I mean not

just a hope, an idea, a dream, a perfect something that we can only

strive toward, inevitably failing short of as a byproduct of our

humanness, but righteously succeeding in the progressive act of

participation. If this were simply true, I would have no issues. It is that

this Ideology addresses a very real problem, which it then mystifies,

that has it under my scrutiny. The perversion occurs as a result of the

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

Ideology resting on the foundations of classical ontology and

epistemology. For specific example, Environmentalists would have you

believe that we once lived in a balanced world, a perfect world that we

are now trespassing upon and destroying. This is a determination

made through measurements and calculations based on a historicist

and Cartesian Perspectivalist viewpoint, wherein the human observer

and the apparatuses used are for all intensive purposes taken for

granted. Environmentalist Ideology would have you believe that we are

a keeper of the earth, in bondage to, and responsible for sustainingas

is/wasthe idealized notion of a perfect Nature in danger. At issue is

that the influence of the observer and the apparatus on Western

scientific endeavor through the scientific and iterative method is

neglected: from hypothesis to measurement, through calculation to

theory development. This neglect is compounded each time a theory is

adapted, reiterated, and fed back into the cycle.

“Embodiment is a matter not of being specifically situated in the

world but rather of being of the world in its dynamic specificity”.

-Karen Barad

Barad explains how the very acts of observation, manipulation,

recording, etc. are intra-actions that are enmeshed with both the past

and future possibilities of the phenomena at hand as well as the past

and future possibilities of the other phenomena; human, apparatus, or

otherwise. Agential Realism disrupts the foundation of ontology and

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

epistemology from the distorted binary of subject/object toward an

understanding of humans as entangled in their intra-activity with

phenomenon and not things. Entities do not determinately precede

their interaction but emerge through intra-action. Thus, human

engagement with phenomenon is inextricable from and dependent on

its material relationship to the entire network of prior and future

engagements throughout the universe. Further, every measurement

we take in observation of our environment is both mutually exclusive,

and changes that which is being measured. Every observation is not

objective because the subject/object separation is essentially a

mystification of phenomena by empiricist epistemology, through a

quantification of the dynamicthe ever changingthe reactionary. It is

impossible for any phenomena to be situated outside of this system of

entanglements; human beings are of course no exception. Our

presence on the earth, and every engagement with it is an intra-action

that must be accounted for as a part of the very nature we observe.

Upon Barad’s strong foundation, I propose that it is necessary to

reify an understanding of the Earth not as a fragile autonomous and

human disturbed entity in need of protection, but as a chain of horrific

traumatic phenomena, past and future, that human beings are

inextricably bound to, a part of, and at combat with. Each material-

discursive apparatus we introduce has an impact on the conditions of

possibility for every entity within the entire system of entanglements

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

throughout the universe, and not on the survival of an idealized

conception of a distinctly separate Earth. It is not the Earth that is in a

delicate balance, but our species. Capitulated within the

Environmentalist Ideology, recognition of global climate shift is

interpreted through this myopic epistemic lens where our collective

actions are aimed at reversing, or somehow rectifying the issues with

that which we measure, rather than anticipating the affects of our prior

engagements and preparing accordingly. The subjectivity and

objectivity assumed in these measurements and any attempts at

changing future measurements only service a perception of nature as

separate from humanity. If you, like myself, believe that we are of the

earth and not on it, then necessary considerations should be made to

re-figure the moral dialectic of Environmentalism to calibrate with

Agential Realism. Upon doing so, it becomes clear that we have an

idealized perception of nature attained through a compounding of

material-discursive practices. Nature, is perceived through

Environmentalism as a distinct and predetermined absolute, outside of

humanity, and as such, a responsibility of humanity. In a Historical

Materialist view, the Environmentalist Ideology is a manifestation of

the alienation from the fundamentally social relations of production

magnified by the material relations between social beings.

It does not service my argument to dissect any specific component

of visual culture surrounding the Environmentalist Ideology. The plight

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

of environmentalism permeates all aspects of culture, and is a clear

and present trend one can sense in virtually every industry, from

construction to convenience food. So instead of breaking apart just one

of the visual devices used, I would like to address what about

Environmentalism is so compatible with the advanced stage of global

capitalism we presently find ourselves bound to. At issue, is that the

green revolution is presented in a manor that allows an individual to

identify with contributions that they are making in a concerted effort

toward resolving the issues of global climate shift. Opportunities are

presented for people to quantify their impact on the earth by

calculating the trace of the material possessions they consume. If the

quantity of their consumption is deemed to be harmful to the earth,

indulgences may be paid in the form of more consumption. By

purchasing new environmentally friendly material and disposing of the

old harmful stuff in color-coded receptacles for easier sorting (blue of

the sky and sea, green of the earth, black and gray of the detritus)

your are saving the world from waste, and simultaneously assisting the

waste management magicians who make all of that detritus disappear.

An ‘environmentally conscious’ individual thereby contributes in a daily

individualizing effortas through the unique sum of aspects of material

life that have come to conflation in the formulation of personal

identity to remedy the catastrophe that threatens the face of

humanity as a whole, all at their personal convenience. The

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

Environmentalist acts in an orgy of guilt and arrogance in these efforts

to fill a paradoxical role as a guest on a planet of which they are an

objective observer now trying to supplant their status as active

destroyer. I would like to interject here, to say that an Agential Realist

account of our trace on the planet reveals that we leave no trace as

such. The privilege and prowess we give our actions do not hold to the

sands of time. We do not leave static scars that can either be assuaged

or left to fester into desolate abscesses, but reverberating hemophiliac

punctures on the flesh of the earth, spilling into the sea and swirling

into a penultimate whirlpool of cyclical catastrophic entanglement

toward a re-figuring of the planet for a new and vibrant era, with or

without humanity.

The advanced stage of global capitalism, the socio-politico-

economic system that the Environmentalist operates within, is already

set up to provide them with everything they need to fix the earth.

Essentially, the same infrastructure that delivered the industrialist into

crisis will deliver the environmentalist from catastrophe. This is a shell

game.

While my sardonic words weigh heavy on the page, they also very

clearly reveal the complex nature of what I am proposing. They reveal

that what I am in fact suggesting is a hope, an idea, a dream, a perfect

something that we can only strive toward, inevitably failing in as a

byproduct humanness, but righteously succeeding in the progressive

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

act of participation. However, what I am highlighting from visual

culture is an Ideology firmly rooted in onto-epistemology proper, that

accounts for the reverberation it induces and the shortcomings of its

own infeasibility, which resolves the issue at the heart of my noted

criticisms of Ideology.

The generative Ideology I speak of is Beautifully exemplified in

the 2009 episode of Discovery’s Mega Engineering entitled ‘Dome Over

Houston’, the fantasy/proposal document reveals the true potential for

human endeavor to overcome the challenges we face. By design, the

audience for this text must come to it with an acceptance of the

inevitabilities of global climate shit and have some awareness of the

tipping point as defined by the field of climatology; essentially, the

start of an intense and drastic transition phase between two stable

environmental states. I have written at length about these challenges,

and do not wish to present the science of global climate shift for the

sake of this visual investigation. At this point, I would like to dive into a

visual analysis of the dome itself.

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

What we have here is a futuristic rendering of the most

expensive proposed public works project in the history of the United

States. With a circumference of over 3 miles, the dome would act as a

climate controlled safe haven in the face of overwhelming heat wind

and rain. If you were to drive toward Houston, you would see the dome

from miles away, the cool blue of the ETFE plastic film radiating like a

super-massive led. Upon approach, it would take on a much more

looming feel; the exposed ring of concrete like a modernist glacier, just

hinting at the exponential amount below the ground that is required to

hold up such an incredible behemoth. However, after tunneling

through the shockingly thick limen, and entering the dome, one would

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Henry Witecki Environmental Confidence

be catapulted into a bizarrely sublime experience. From within, the

dome seems eerily supple, the fresh calm breeze, the comfortable

humidity, and the safe sunlight sweeping over the skin are the sensory

notes that accompany the backdrop as it curves up to diffuse and

vanish in the sky in an unfamiliar harmony. Every building entered is

itself within a building, every package opened remains enclosed; one

more level of separation from the free radical environment that we

inhabit. Comforts contained within comfort.

This proposed further alienation from our environment sets up a

paradigm that is in direct contrast to Environmentalism, which

recognizes the earth not as dependent on the conditions humanity, but

humanity as dependent on the conditions of its intra-actions with the

earth. While theoretical, the dome is a representation of the technical

capacity we have to change the stance of our species in the face of a

rapidly changing environment. My position is that the essence of this

Houston Dome proposal is Agential Realist in its onto-epistemology; as

such, it and visual texts like it are gnawing at the heels of

Environmentalism, re-figuring the hegemonic perception of Nature as

other.

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