{"id":1269,"date":"2010-05-25T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/05\/25\/spillcam-reality\/"},"modified":"2010-05-25T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T05:01:00","slug":"spillcam-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/05\/25\/spillcam-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Spillcam reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"Oil-spill-1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been wanting to post something about the images of the Gulf oil spill<\/a> (or, rather, of the unmitigated man made deep water volcanic vent of crude oil and gas<\/a>) — about what they indicate<\/a> (i.e. directly inform us about), what they symbolize (i.e., mean) and iconize (look like), and why it might be that CNN and other cable news outlets are so fascinated by the Spillcam<\/a>. Of course, they mean different things to different people: corporate<\/a> negligence or ecocide<\/a> to some, more disappointment<\/a> in political saviors to others, the dark ecological eye of the Real to yet others (at least that’s something like what I would expect to hear from Zizekians, Mortonites<\/a>, and maybe dark vitalists<\/a>), and perhaps just a vague of sense of weird (un)reality to most.<\/p>\n

We leap from rock to rock across a raging river — economic crash, volcanic fog, oil spill, and so on — and these are the images that link the chain for us, the dream of globality, the chain we can use as a string of prayer beads or as the rope to strangle ourselves with.<\/p>\n

… And about the Middlesex philosophy fiasco<\/a>, which one can hope isn’t a harbinger of academic seismic shifts to come. (We have some power<\/a> not to let that happen.)<\/p>\n

I’ve been too busy writing and dealing with other matters to do much of either. But it’s a good time for thinking about the sorts of things Jane Bennett writes about in her political ecology of things<\/a>. The reading group should be getting started over at Philosophy in a Time of Error<\/a> shortly (and winding its way over here eventually).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been wanting to post something about the images of the Gulf oil spill (or, rather, of the unmitigated man made deep water volcanic vent of crude oil and gas) — about what they indicate (i.e. directly inform us about), what they symbolize (i.e., mean) and iconize (look like), and why it might be that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[689354],"tags":[8,16896],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-image_nation","tag-media","tag-oilpocalypse"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-kt","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14231,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/09\/02\/process-semiotics-in-a-nutshell\/","url_meta":{"origin":1269,"position":0},"title":"Process semiotics, in a nutshell","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It's what informs my analysis of images, imagination, and the digital in The New Lives of Images. Here is the three-minute version of it. The universe is a living, dynamic, and responsive universe. It is made not of static objects, but of events -- events which elicit other events. Its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/08\/20220422_133709-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/08\/20220422_133709-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/08\/20220422_133709-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/08\/20220422_133709-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/08\/20220422_133709-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/08\/20220422_133709-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1279,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/05\/29\/its-the-unknown-thats-killing-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":1269,"position":1},"title":"“It’s the unknown that’s killing us”","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Associated Press is reporting that the \"oil spill cam\" has become an Internet sensation. On Thursday, apparently, \"more than a million people watched it. Many found it hypnotic.\" Also, apparently, watching the video can \"offer clues to who is winning in the battle \u2014 BP or the oil,\" according\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/HxZoKuyOTG0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3434,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/04\/10\/slice-of-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1269,"position":2},"title":"Slice of time","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Chris Vitale has a nice post up on Deleuze's Bergsonian notion of the image as a \"slice of time,\" or a \"slice of the world\" -- which for Deleuze amounts to more or less the same thing. In a similar spirit, I thought I'd post briefly about a Whiteheadian notion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/04\/black-hole-illusion-large-275x161.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1109,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/08\/25\/spinning-the-earth\/","url_meta":{"origin":1269,"position":3},"title":"spinning the Earth","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M&hl=en&fs=1& Just by linking Carl Sagan's eloquent little Pale Blue Dot to the teachings of Gautama Buddha, James Ure's Buddhist Blog brings out the buddhism inherent both in Sagan's words and in the imagery of the Earth from space. That imagery (as I've discussed before here and here) is multivalent,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/p86BPM1GV8M\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4287,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/30\/what-a-bodymind-can-do-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1269,"position":4},"title":"What a bodymind can do – Part 2","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This continues from the previous post, where Shinzen Young's model of core mindfulness practices was expanded into a system of classifying what a human bodymind can do. Here the model is deepened following the process-relational insights that are at the core of Shinzen's system as well as of other (especially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/work.3741708.2.flat550x550075f.spiritual-art-chi-flow-mind-eye-heart-power-and-the-primitive-mirror-soulbeing-275x183.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/05\/28\/mapping-identities-in-global-cultural-studies\/","url_meta":{"origin":1269,"position":5},"title":"Mapping identities in global cultural studies","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"People's identities are an object of study in a range of fields, but it's the field of cultural studies that has most singularly, even obsessively, sought to understand how identities interact with politics in changing media environments. Cultural studies first emerged in a British milieu marked by very specific relations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural politics"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cultural_politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-8.03.26-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-8.03.26-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-8.03.26-PM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-8.03.26-PM.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-8.03.26-PM.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-8.03.26-PM.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}