Sean Barnes MFA Visual Studies Thesis 2016
All That Remains: Fragments of the Anthropocene
All That Remains: Fragments of the Anthropocene investigates humanity’s dissonant relationship to the natural world. Landscape and nature are cultural constructs that order and harmonize the natural world, reinforcing this dissonance. This paper explores how interpretations of human ecologies inform an alternative conception of nature and landscape that is entangled and fragmented.
The aim of the work in response to this research is to reveal a multifaceted view of nature beyond the frame of traditional landscape art. Remnants of experimentations with human and nonhuman materials are recontextualized as artifacts suggestive of a post-human era; evidence of an epoch of global, environmental human impact.