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Hello and welcome to my first blog post about nature (neature!) for my Nature Interpretation course, I hope you enjoy :)

My relationship with nature has always been a strong force in my life. For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by what the outdoors and its creatures have to offer. There’s no way to tell for sure when my love of nature began, but I have a strong hunch it was after watching the original Lion King for two days straight as a child. It could just as easily have begun growing up visiting my grandparents farmland or cottage where my siblings and I would spend our days outside. Either way, a deep respect and appreciation for nature and all it has to offer has been instilled within me over the years. 

Growing up in southern Ontario and residing there for most of my life, I had access to lots of green spaces. However, I could feel myself wanting to experience more than what my little corner of Ontario had to offer. With covid pushing school online last year, I decided to move to the Rocky Mountains for a summer job and stay for online school. This allowed me to experience brand new environments and come face to face with an abundance of biodiversity I could not experience back home. My current relationship with nature has evolved greatly over the past year I have lived out here, and I continue to learn something new every day. Getting the opportunity to explore mountain environments has lead me to have a deeper respect for the ecosystems in these areas, as well as a greater appreciation for the ecosystems back in Ontario. Having access to beautiful scenery every day has reminded me how privileged I am to have had the option to live and work here, as well as remind me to never take nature for granted. Different places have different things to offer, and I feel some things in Ontario cannot be found in the Rockies, just as some things in the Rockies cannot be found in Ontario. Being present where you are is something I learned from being in nature, and experiencing different natural places has only further engrained that idea. 

I’ve met many different people along the way who all have their own strange and fascinating outdoor stories. Listening and learning from friends and strangers has allowed me to feel as if nature truly is a place for everyone. Seeing and hearing different perspectives from vastly different people helped me realize there is no wrong way to appreciate or enjoy nature, it has something to offer everyone. I suppose my childhood along with the people and things I have experienced over the years have collectively given me a sense of place within nature. Even different outdoor activities such as hiking or rock climbing felt extreme at first, until I realized all different types of people can, and do, enjoy these activities no matter their level of experience. What is important is how these activities are presented and who they’re presented to. I’m looking forward to this course to allow me to provide better representation to a wider variety of nature appreciators, embracing diversity all while encouraging a sense of community. 

I hope everyone is having a great week, here is a photo of a grizzly bear and a moose I took this summer :) 

Introduction 

When we think of realism we often associate the term with the representation of the word itself through the physical world. However, art challenges this thought. It challenges the extent to which we can push ourselves and creativity through technology and simulations such as ‘TeamLab Borderless’ and Refik Anadols installations. Rather than mimicking the ‘real’ world and the physical aspects of it, they go beyond the depth of imagination to create pieces which invoke sensation, experience, emotion and perception.  

“The desire for immediacy leads digital media to borrow avidly from each other as well as from their analogue predecessors”

Realism through immersion

Drawing on Bolter and Grusin’s concept of immediacy, when we look at art from an audience view we tend to have a desire to eradicate the medium itself creating a direct and unmediated sense of reality through the piece. Toshiyuki Inoko’s TeamLab Borderless installation creates an immersive, interactive digital space where image moves with fluidity across architectural space. Rather than representational, realism through Borderless is shown through immersion, movement and participation creating a rather experimental view of reality. 

“in this sense, a transparent interface would be one that erases itself, so that the user is no longer aware of confronting a medium, but instead stands in an immediate relation to the contents of that medium” 

Perception 

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology helps explain how perception is more than simply logical and casual. He goes onto explain how we make sense of things through body and experience thus further explaining how meaning emerges through embodies perception. The work of Refik Anadol and Toshiyuki Inoko creates an environment where realism is subjective and based on each person’s perception of reality and emotional connection to the piece.  

Both creators incorporating the use of engineering, immersive technology, data and networks to create such out of the box artworks and immersive pieces allowing for a new environment to be built off of strong emotional responses, sensory intensity through motion and more which brings to life a sense of realism rooted through the embodiment of emotions rather than visual accuracy. 

Conclusion 

Both Toshiyuki Inoko’s work with TeamLab and Refik Anadols artwork through data both challenge the traditional view of realism by diverting the boxed image of realism being strictly compared to the physical world to emotions, perception experience and more. Through simulation and data driven systems their works offer a wide range of possibilities for realism in creative practices. Collectively, they do not constrain the concept of reality through art in a frame, rather they allow art to flow freely through the walls of architecture and space. The concept of realism is very relevant to my practice through photography and digital media as I aspire to incorporate a limitless sense of reality through combining old media and new media allowing an unmediated experience through the viewers perception. 

References

Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin (2004). Remediation: Understanding New Media. [online] Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/a/ae/Bolter_Jay_David_Grusin_Richard_Remediation_Understanding_New_Media_low_quality.pdf.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (2013). Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge. doi:https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203720714. 

Refikanadol.com. (2019). Available at: https://refikanadol.com/works/machine-hallucination/.

Growing up, I idolized or adored you.

I always said that when I grow up, I want to be like you. I want to be successful like you—a good husband, a good brother, a good father, and a good son.

I idolize you to the point where I prefer you over my mom.

But as I grew up, the image you had in my head started to deteriorate.

You’re not the person I perceive you to be.

You lied; you put on a mask that can fool anyone.

You're not a good husband because you cheat.

You're not a good friend because you lied.

And you're not a good dad because you would rather spend time with your other woman than spend time with us.

It kills me inside to know something that I shouldn't.

You put me in the position where I pity myself and my mom for being such fools.

And it makes me think: what else did you lie to us about?

But why, Dad?

Why don't you appreciate what you already have?

Why do you have to find another woman to love?

When you were here, your family that you have

I hate you because even after all you’ve done, all the secrets you keep keeping

I still respect you as my dad.

I hate it because I still love you, Dad.

But why all people, why you, Dad?

When the loads were too heavy,You were there to carry it.

When the skies became too blue,You were there to turn the sun orange.

When the bruises were too painful,You were there to ease it.

When the night was too tiring,You were the bed I slept on.

When dinner couldn't make me full, you were there to feed what I craved.

When no one else cared,You were there to show you did.

When the desire to live became inadequate, you were the sufficient reason.

When I told you I didn't like my name,You were there to tell me how much you loved it.

When my father disapproved of me,You were there to accept who I was.