Disconnected from Nature- no "buts" about it

As I went about deciding on topics for this project, I came to realize that my daily, urban relationship to nature is prevalent, yet altogether tenuous and far-removed. Every day of the week I see trees, flowers, grass and other plants, yet rarely do I actively interact with these things in a fashion other than agreeable observance. In creating my Vines (which aren’t technically Vines; no smartphone…), I decided to focus on subjects that show a relationship to the outdoors/nature, but also evoke a sense of human involvement or interference. The first video of the birdfeeder illustrates this idea, with the desire to bring more birds to our backyard. I know not of a single human who dislikes the natural sounding, contented chirping of a chickadee, and my family is no exception. We want more birds. But here’s the kicker: for some reason, we dislike the squirrels. The squirrels are a natural, living being, struggling through an awful winter just the same as the birds, but we do not wish to encourage them. Perhaps it’s the scrounging, gnawing habits of the squirrels, or perhaps it’s their lack of color, but we cannot accept them the same as the birds.

The next video moves away from the topic of animals, and rather focuses on greener. My family has enclosed a few plants in chicken wire, obviously in order to prevent rabbits from killing them. I say obviously because, while not everyone does this, everyone knows what the enclosure does: keeps nature away from nature. Like the squirrels, the rabbits have an apparently abhorrent tendency to eat, and since we humans gravitate towards the idea of nature as a pristine being, we wish to guard our ornamental plants from the destructive wild. The irony herein is that by keeping food from animals, we are actually destroying them.

Finally, moving away from living things, the third video aims to show an interesting human relationship: as children (and now), we love to play outside, running through the woods, rolling in the grass, hiding in the shrubbery, etc. However, apparently these activities are dangerous and uncouth, so we build playgrounds and twirly-things for ameliorated enjoyment. In the case of SPA, we built a giant fake rock. We understand that kids will be kids (that is to say, they’ll climb on stuff), so we gave them a “safe-place” to do so. Perhaps there is an inherently more natural feeling of enjoyment when playing on something that resembles nature, so we simulate this idea with man-made plaster and concrete. Trees would be too “dangerous.” Playgrounds would not be “classy” enough. So a fake rock fits a man-made bill of societal-built ideals.

Overall, these videos aim to portray and exemplify an inherent desire we humans have to surround ourselves with natural depictions, but remove ourselves from the turmoil, concern and annoyance that nature actually entails.