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A Tale of the Anthropocene: Visualization through Materiality_2018
Thesis
2018
The thesis is a Tale of the Anthropocene, a story that speaks to the intertwined concerns of visualizing climate change and spatializing effects that deforestation has on landscapes through materiality. Humans have transformed more than 50% of the Earth’s land area for our own purposes. Theory and practice of the conquest of nature has become integrated into Western aesthetics throughout the Anthropocene. Nicholas Mirzoeff in“Visualizing the Anthropocene” states that the“Anthropocene keeps us believing that somehow the war against nature that Western society has been waging for centuries is not only right; it is beautiful, and it can be won.” We are at a turning point where we must shift our perception of
the Anthropocene, to pose a radical gesture of renewed equality between living people and those nonhuman actors. Deforestation contributes to the cutting of 15 billion trees each year. It is important to know that deforestation is tied to illegal logging or areas which are not managed to ensure forest regeneration. The challenge currently is how to best address environmental disasters beyond the usual apocalyptic cultural imagery. How does one perceive, interpret, and represent climate, when people can experience local weather but not the global effects of climate change? How can one bring awareness through architecture?
text by Shaguni Gupta & Andrea Dominguez
thesis advisors, Julie Larsen and Roger Hubeli
Student Names:
Shaguni Gupta and Andrea Dominguez
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