The Work of Art in the Age of the Australian Misanthropocene

Titmarsh, M

The Work of Art in the Age of the Australian Misanthropocene

Titmarsh, M

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Publisher:: Figshare
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Dark Eden Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference 2020, 2021
Issue Date:: 2021-11-22

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Titmarsh, M https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1033-3867
dc.date.accessioned	2021-11-26T04:44:56Z
dc.date.available	2021-11-26T04:44:56Z
dc.date.issued	2021-11-22
dc.identifier.citation	Dark Eden Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference 2020, 2021
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/151869
dc.description.abstract	Through metaphors provided by the Covid Safe app we can say that our relations with technology are inseparable from our coming into being, they design and seek to predetermine our socio-communicative (well) being. Yet it is an uncanny kind of (well) being since it is dissociated from any sense of location. Just as the moment of blue tooth handshake is not tied to a specific place, only the fact that there has been a rendezvous of viral proximity. In this way the truth of being has become unbound from place, since place has become an environment of code-space, a world of techno-mediation. In Australia this means that the process of de-localisation that began with the arrival of Cook has culminated in a variety of colonisations that operates at the level of both land and subjectivity. In this paper I will argue that the counter-project of decolonisation is a movement of liberation to twist free from the failed Western project of Modernity and its latest emanation in contemporary digital technologies. The former is captured in the single word the Anthropocene, the geographic era when human activity negatively determines the health of the global system. The latter is the latest version of hyper capitalism, masking capitalism’s colonial past with the gloss of techno-mediated connectivity. Using the writings of David Chandler, Bruno Latour and Martin Heidegger I will show that Australia has become the epicentre for the MisAnthropocene, a colonial nonplace where the failure of the enlightenment project, of modernity itself, is being played out as the failure of colonialism, both the crude legalistic version of terra nullius and the networked variety of data colonisation carried out in the back end of social media. This will involve a re-examination of the contemporary image and historical modes of visualisation, reaching from 18th century looking-as-possessing carried out by Lieutenant (Captain) Cook, 20th Century postmodern appropriation practices as a kind of hyperactive glancing in the work of Tillers and Johnston, and finally the long stare of digital surveillance in social media of the 21st Century.
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	Figshare
dc.relation.ispartof	Dark Eden Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference 2020
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.6084/m9.figshare.16993348.v4
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.title	The Work of Art in the Age of the Australian Misanthropocene
dc.type	Journal Article
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building/School of Design
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	true
dc.date.updated	2021-11-26T04:44:55Z
pubs.publication-status	Published online

Abstract:

Through metaphors provided by the Covid Safe app we can say that our relations with technology are inseparable from our coming into being, they design and seek to predetermine our socio-communicative (well) being. Yet it is an uncanny kind of (well) being since it is dissociated from any sense of location. Just as the moment of blue tooth handshake is not tied to a specific place, only the fact that there has been a rendezvous of viral proximity. In this way the truth of being has become unbound from place, since place has become an environment of code-space, a world of techno-mediation. In Australia this means that the process of de-localisation that began with the arrival of Cook has culminated in a variety of colonisations that operates at the level of both land and subjectivity. In this paper I will argue that the counter-project of decolonisation is a movement of liberation to twist free from the failed Western project of Modernity and its latest emanation in contemporary digital technologies. The former is captured in the single word the Anthropocene, the geographic era when human activity negatively determines the health of the global system. The latter is the latest version of hyper capitalism, masking capitalism’s colonial past with the gloss of techno-mediated connectivity. Using the writings of David Chandler, Bruno Latour and Martin Heidegger I will show that Australia has become the epicentre for the MisAnthropocene, a colonial nonplace where the failure of the enlightenment project, of modernity itself, is being played out as the failure of colonialism, both the crude legalistic version of terra nullius and the networked variety of data colonisation carried out in the back end of social media. This will involve a re-examination of the contemporary image and historical modes of visualisation, reaching from 18th century looking-as-possessing carried out by Lieutenant (Captain) Cook, 20th Century postmodern appropriation practices as a kind of hyperactive glancing in the work of Tillers and Johnston, and finally the long stare of digital surveillance in social media of the 21st Century.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/151869