The use-value of “nature”: projection and estrangement or dialogue and mediation?

Abstract

Notions of nature have been vital for the visual arts since the advent of Romanticism. However the stability of “nature” as a concept has changed dramatically. A range of autopoetic theories in the work of writers such as Bruno Latour offers a useful pathway through the developing concept of a nature that is always mediated, no longer autonomous. The paper discusses the works of several artists who engage with the complex emotional and conceptual consequences of this situation. Artists James Searle, Ali Bramwell and Sally J. Morgan, and film-maker Werner Herzog in different ways re-think the nature/culture continuum. Their work can be seen in terms of cultural theory and offers the opportunity to think differently about the work that artists do in the world. The article was first presented as a paper at the Dawn Light Symposium in Ourimbah, New South Wales in 2006 in the context of public art projects around this topic.