sections of Alpine landscapes as a symbol of the relationship human - nature
Topographies of Transience from my long-running series Alpine View examines sections of alpine landscapes as a symbol of the relationship between human and nature, and, through the forced decoupling of the once intimate relationship, points to the impending destruction of both.
Rapidly changing details of a mountain landscape, peculiar sculptures formed by melting snow, late afternoon long sharp blue shadows on mountain ridges, clouds seemingly clinging to a rock face, patches of hard green grass on wet blue rocks, mist softening a slope or early snow accentuating the structure of a mountain forest. Bizarre white patches of snow, silent red, liquefied structures as a synonym of emptiness, as a question of what lies hidden underneath, what will change and above all as an unnoticed symbol of silence.
All these motifs are transformed into new closed images which, precisely through their isolation and loss of relationship to their surroundings, point to their detailed beauty and at the same time their fragility and thus, in relation to humanity, to the double bond, the inseparable community of nature and man and their progressive decoupling.
The loss of silence, the arrogance of building interventions for the benefit of mass tourism, the disappearance of cultural circles, ghostly villages outside the tourist seasons, the retreat of glaciers and the use of nature as a backdrop for self-expression. Continuous interventions in vulnerable cultural and alpine landscapes that have evolved over thousands of years are now being labelled as the 'New Green Deal' and, according to Robert Habeck (The Greens, Germany), are supposed to end the 'war of the economy against nature'.
But isn't this cited 'war of the economy against nature' also a war against people? And will its intended termination by means of economics push the ever more loudly aspired transhumanism, and thus the now so evident aspired absolute control of humanity, much faster forward? And wouldn't this New Green Deal thus push the exploitation of human beings, equal to the exploitation of nature, ever further?
Transformations of nature through human intervention have always existed; the idea of an 'intact' nature, an untouched landscape, is unreal. However, the fact that the hyper-capitalism of recent years has further accelerated an extreme development of (alpine) landscapes and that the years 2020/22 revealed many of these interventions as pointless and useless is now, in retrospect, more obvious than ever.
The question we must all ask ourselves is: do we actually want nature? Or just a nicely prepared stage for our self-expression?
In today's situation, shouldn't we urgently endorse Alberto Acosta's view that: 'If the exploitation of nature for the purpose of accumulating capital is to be overcome, there is all the more reason to leave the exploitation of human beings behind us. We will have to recognise that we humans, as beings of nature, are not isolated individuals, that we are part of a community, that we are ultimately community. Communities, peoples, nations and countries should be in a harmonious relationship with each other. This double connectedness - with nature and in community - requires us to take that civilising step by which human rights and the rights of nature are fully recognised and valid.' (Buen Vivir, 2015)
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