Enclosing nature: a photographic enquiry into human categorizations of nature

This research project investigates the capacity of photography as a material and embodied practice to expound abstract processes involved in the categorization of nature. By adopting an ecocritical stance, I develop a more-than-representational approach towards photography to critique the abstract processes involved in anthropocentric interpretations of nature. To this end, my practice explores alternative modes of display such as the ‘selfie’ and smartphone technology, along with settings inside and outside traditional gallery settings.<br><br>The dissertation presents a number of correlating bodies of work completed in Brisbane and Berlin, the two cities I reside in and move between. Drawing on this migratory background and my tacit knowledge of both places, the project contributes to a re-evaluation of our co-existence with the nonhuman world, especially in the context of the urban and post-wild scenario of the Anthropocene.<br><br>The study includes an historical investigation of categorizations apparent in the iconography of the Hortus Conclusus, a short-lived but popular genre in 15th century European painting. I use these early modern conventions as a comparative model and inspiration in the interpretation of natural habitats within contemporary urban and post-wild contexts. This approach is theoretically informed by the early 20th century biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of Umwelten (sentient worlds) and his theory of biosemiotics. Von Uexküll saw ecology as a web of interconnected sentient worlds that all species construct around themselves in order to communicate with members of their own, as well as other, species.<br><br>Human perceptions of the nonhuman world are inevitably anthropocentric, as sensory processing and human Umwelten are prescribed by human biology. These perceptions are also subject to shifting cultural interpretations, which at the beginning of the 21st century rely increasingly on the use of technology. This project examines how digital photography, and the practice of taking selfies in particular, is embedded into human modes of communication and the biosemiotic exchanges that shape human Umwelten. My final exhibition aim is to visualize Umwelten, in which the selfie becomes a channel for incorporating the viewpoints of others into my own work.<br><br>Rather than presenting a defined single result, the outcome of this research constitutes a range of photographic viewpoints, each representing an individual perspective derived from natural as well as cultural triggers, neither of which are mutually exclusive. Instead, these multiple views need to be understood as a complex kaleidoscope that ultimately refutes traditional dualist distinctions between nature and culture.