{"id":7395,"date":"2014-03-08T11:48:51","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T16:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=7395"},"modified":"2021-06-14T07:43:42","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:43:42","slug":"rethinking-the-three-ecologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/03\/08\/rethinking-the-three-ecologies\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking the ‘three ecologies’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or, process-relational ecocriticism 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Slide1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two of the courses I’m currently teaching — the intermediate-level “Environmental Literature, Art, and Media” and the senior-level “The Culture of Nature” — require introducing an eco-critical framework appropriate to a wide range of artistic forms, from literature to visual art, music, film and new media.<\/p>\n

The process-relational framework developed in Ecologies of the Moving Image<\/a><\/em> is synthetic and holistic in its scope, but it is too advanced for introducing in itself — accompanied by the philosophical underpinnings it requires — in these undergraduate classes. So I’ve been forced to rethink its categories to make them both more accessible and more broadly applicable.<\/p>\n

EMI<\/em>‘s PR framework\u00a0is loosely encompassed as a “triad of triads” built from Peirce’s and Whitehead’s categories and Guattari’s “three ecologies.” It expands beyond the usual forms of ecocriticism found in literary studies, which have generally tended to focus on “the text,” with some reference to real people (authorial intents, biographies) and places (usually the places written about), but with only rare exploration of production relations, media materialities, sensory-perceptual interactions, and the like.<\/p>\n

For the sake of a broader and more accessible “triadic” approach to the arts, what I’ve done with these categories in my current teaching is to render them as follows:<\/p>\n

1. MATERIALITY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Resources, substances, arrangements, assemblages, organization of production and labor, etc.<\/p>\n

2. EXPERIENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sensation, perception, affect\/emotion, aesthetics, phenomenology<\/p>\n

3. REPRESENTATION<\/strong><\/p>\n

Images, markings, emphases, narratives, metaphors, rhetorics, identities and differences<\/p>\n

— with each of these being considered in process-relational terms, that is, as relations unfolding in SPACE (location, place, site, region, globality) and over TIME (organicity, rhythm\/periodicity, interactive processuality).<\/p>\n

(See diagram above.)<\/p>\n

All of this loosely follows the Peircian framework of firsts (virtualities, or what’s “really there” in its givenness), seconds (encounters, or the actual experience of entities encountering other entitities), and thirds (the representations, symbolic meanings, and social constructs arising from such spatially and temporally patterned encounters).\u00a0The three categories are, in effect, the three “layers” by which an artwork, text, or natural or cultural object can be interpreted.<\/p>\n

So, for instance, when examining the work of an artist or musician like Joseph Beuys, Maya Lin, the Critical Arts Ensemble, Brian Eno, or Current 93, one can ask: (1) What materials are the artists working with, and what material impacts and production relations are assembled and reassembled through their work? (2) What experiences does their work draw on, elicit, and enable? (3) What meanings, metaphoric connections, and identities and differences are evoked, proposed, critiqued, transformed, etc. in their work?<\/p>\n

Ultimately, all of the questions I ask about film in Ecologies of the Moving Image<\/em>\u00a0 — summarized in the Appendix, “Doing Process-Relational Media Analysis<\/a>” (pp. 341-5) — can be asked using this new model of categories regarding any art form or media practice, though they may require some tweaking, adding or subtracting, and clarifying here and there.<\/p>\n

Comments welcome.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or, process-relational ecocriticism 2.0 Two of the courses I’m currently teaching — the intermediate-level “Environmental Literature, Art, and Media” and the senior-level “The Culture of Nature” — require introducing an eco-critical framework appropriate to a wide range of artistic forms, from literature to visual art, music, film and new media. The process-relational framework developed in […]<\/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":[4415],"tags":[291,25059,391,229,501,4421,16870,109055,109056],"class_list":["post-7395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecophilosophy","tag-ecocriticism","tag-ecologies-of-the-moving-image","tag-epistemology","tag-guattari","tag-music","tag-ontology","tag-peirce","tag-three-ecologies","tag-visual-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1Vh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10577,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/04\/29\/image-ecologies-spiritual-polytropy-and-the-anthropocene\/","url_meta":{"origin":7395,"position":0},"title":"Image ecologies, spiritual polytropy, and the Anthropocene","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"An article of mine by that title has appeared in a special issue of the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture on \"Popular Culture, Religion, and the Anthropocene.\" The article contains the theoretical core of the book I'm currently writing on image regimes. It builds on my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirit matter"","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5143,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/08\/04\/film-philosophy-article\/","url_meta":{"origin":7395,"position":1},"title":"Film-Philosophy article","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The new issue of Film-Philosophy is out, and it includes my article \"The Anthrobiogeomorphic Machine: Stalking the Zone of Cinema.\" The abstract is below. The first half of the article is an early version of the paper I gave at the recent Moving Environments conference, which encompassed material from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/08\/tarkovsky.stalker-275x207.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1377,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/24\/manuscript-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":7395,"position":2},"title":"manuscript update","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm recovering from a hard drive crash that occurred late last week. The only significant part of Ecologies of the Moving Image that I've completely lost are some fairly substantial recent revisions and additions to Chapter Six. I can reconstruct other pieces from earlier saves and from revisions made on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/07\/11\/cinematic-ecologies\/","url_meta":{"origin":7395,"position":3},"title":"cinematic ecologies","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As ecocriticism expands and deepens in scope (of subject matter & media examined), extent (internationally), and diversity (in approaches, connections with other schools of thought, etc.), its interactions with non-literary fields such as cinema studies, theatre\/performance studies, and musicology (as I posted about recently) are starting to develop in healthy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"stalker7.png","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/07\/stalker7.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12326,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/01\/17\/the-anthropocene-unconscious\/","url_meta":{"origin":7395,"position":4},"title":"The Anthropocene Unconscious","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Mark Bould's new book The Anthropocene Unconscious makes more or less the same argument as I made in my 2008 New Formations article \"Stirring the Geopolitical Unconscious: Toward a Jamesonian Ecocriticism,\" later expanded in the \"Terra and Trauma\" chapter of Ecologies of the Moving Image, but he applies it to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ride or Die? Mark Bould and the Fast-and-Furiocene","src":"https:\/\/external-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net\/safe_image.php?d=AQFF5hGJTSdb8ECm&w=416&h=645&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdev.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F01%2FThe-Anthropocene-Unconscious-Climate-Catastrophe-Culture.jpeg&cfs=1&ext=jpg&_nc_oe=6f696&_nc_sid=06c271&ccb=3-5>=1&_nc_hash=AQGDfgJaJugH5_2v","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1097,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/30\/earth-songs-michael-jacksons-cultural-ecologies\/","url_meta":{"origin":7395,"position":5},"title":"earth songs: Michael Jackson’s cultural ecologies","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=f8muMo0fw_M&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 The death of Michael Jackson has prompted eco-bloggers to take another look at Jackson's 1995 \"Earth Song\", which some consider the most popular environmentally themed song ever produced. The song remains Jackson's biggest seller in the U.K, having sold over a million copies there -- more than either \"Thriller\"\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\/f8muMo0fw_M\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7395","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=7395"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7405,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7395\/revisions\/7405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}