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Invisible Landscapes: Extreme Oil and the Arctic in Experimental Film and Activist Art Practices

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Arctic Environmental Modernities

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History ((PSWEH))

Abstract

This chapter examines the global interconnectedness of the Arctic and the role of climate change and resource extraction in contemporary environmentalist art. The author analyzes the effects of replacing the “natural” with an “industrial sublime” in Ursula Biemann’s Deep Weather (2013). She then considers the application of “modes of intimacy” deployed by the use of opera in Brenda Longfellow’s Dead Ducks (2012) and charts the use of amateur aesthetics and popular culture in The Yes Men: But It’s Not That Polar Bear Thing (2013). These experimental films and videos present images of global warming, climate change, and environmentalism that are not apocalyptic or sentimental, going beyond the spectacular icons of climate change, such as calving and melting glaciers or anthropomorphized melancholic polar bears.

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Work Cited

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Bloom, L.E. (2017). Invisible Landscapes: Extreme Oil and the Arctic in Experimental Film and Activist Art Practices. In: Körber, LA., MacKenzie, S., Westerståhl Stenport, A. (eds) Arctic Environmental Modernities. Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39116-8_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39116-8_11

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39115-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39116-8

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