Abstract
Our conceptions of underwater space are mostly based on images we have seen of it. These images, mediated through technology, have a great impact on how the environment is perceived. The article analyses how three different wildlife documentary series (Planet Earth, Dolphins – Spy in the Pod and Oceans) produce an oceanic environment and its inhabitants, and how these cinematic environments can affect how the ocean is perceived. The article’s approach questions anthropocentrism and maps the relation between cinematic features, the oceanic environment and the aesthetic possibilities of perceiving more-than-human space. The analysis emphasises how the films’ aesthetics are connected to the material movements of environments and animals. With the help of Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s concepts of assemblage and deterritorialisation, the article takes a posthumanist approach in mapping the possibilities of decentering the human and engaging nonhuman animals and nature as the proper cinematic subjects. The article argues that the audiovisual aesthetics of the analyzed documentaries are able to challenge anthropocentrism, but at the same time they are anthropomorphic in premissing their imagery on human comprehensibility.
Highlights
Our conception of life underwater has developed together with the technologies that have enabled filming deep under the ocean
The audio-visual aesthetics produced in documentaries have an impact on what we know about these remote environments
I pay attention to the ways in which zoe, bios and techne connect in the documentaries about oceanic environment, with the following research question: How is knowledge of the oceanic environment produced through audio-visual aesthetics created in the interplay between animals, humans and technology? By technology, I mean cinema and cinematic features, as well as the material technologies enabling the filming of and obtaining information on undersea environments
Summary
Our conception of life underwater has developed together with the technologies that have enabled filming deep under the ocean. I use close-reading and textual-visual analysis as methods to analyse the documentary series as cinema, as audio-visual apparatus, and as producing ecological, aesthetic, and affective compositions of nature and animals in the form of moving images. The material nature shapes and affects the technology used, as for example the movements of the camera are different in the undersea environment and on the surface, which affects the aesthetics of the films. This affects how knowledge about animals and the environment is visualized for us. I discuss the series Oceans (2008), analyse the cinematic ocean as a compound of humans, animals, and technology, and direct the discussion towards knowledge of ocean environment and a critique of anthropocentrism
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