Abstract
In this essay, I examine photographic representation of the massive spill at the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig that began on April 20, 2010. Pushing back against perspectives that see photography as an anthropocentric practice that separates human spectators from their environment, I argue that photography is characterized by a haptic mode of visuality that touches and is touched by the world, articulating interspecies relationships and enveloping all in a shared ecology. Examining pictures taken after the spill, I show how images of affected water and marine life invite human spectators to imagine touching the depicted subject matter, to recognize interspecies pain and distress, and to be jolted by their own complicity with environmentally destructive processes. These images suggest the possibility of a public ecological spectatorship contesting the excesses of extraction and consumption characterizing modern life.
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