Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Environmental Aesthetics Blog #2

Personally I found the assigned reading in the Nature book to be hard to get through and it left questions in my mind. That being said, I feel like there were definitely some good points in the text. I found it particularly interesting how the Hargrove describes the evolution of the appreciation of nature. Hargrove says that formal landscape gardens used to be "regarded as indifferent blobs of matter to be shaped into whatever forms the gardeners chose." However, as society entered the nineteenth century "the concept of beauty gradually expanded to the point that nothing was considered ugly." I found these concepts intriguing as it demonstrates society moving from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other; not really establishing a middle ground.

I also found aspects of the Koyaanisqatsi interview interesting as well. I really liked the metaphor about humans being the fish and technology being the water. It really hits home when you realize that literally everything you do, from waking up in the morning (by an alarm clock that most of set on our smartphones) to doing our homework (on computers) to getting to and from work and school (in cars) is fueled by technology. In a way, our dependence on technology is truly a scary thing.

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