Slow Violence
by Abel Picogna
portfolio special mention call 'EXTINCTION. THE WORLD WITHOUT US', 2019
This project comes from the aerial view, without perspective, of escape routes, an unusual vision to the one we are used to, just like in these images (taken from the archives of Google Earth, Digital Globe and NASA). The use of unusual images emphasizes the beauty of certain places on this planet, yet in the images we find a detail that aims to confuse and reflect at the same time. Apparently tiny objects such as envelopes, glasses, nets and small plastic fragments, literally invade these places so as to make the boundary between nature and anthropization invisible. From the following reflections the choice of the title is born, taking up the innovative concept of Rob Nixon --'Slow Violence--', a term used to define an invisible, slow violence, dispersed in space and time, far from media sensationalism. This transcendent violence requires a different ontology, which goes beyond the individual and sees the world differently - perhaps, starting from its end. As the British eco-philosopher Timothy Morton argues, an ethics of the end is needed of the world: the end, in fact, in many respects is already here, and it is already now. In this new geological (or post-geological) era, also referred to by various scientists under the name of Anthropocene, the objects of the world change, and our way of knowing them changes. The everyday objects, in common use, are no longer detectable in the here and now, are distributed in space and time, hybridize with our existences. Morton calls them --'hyper-objects--': --'things massively distributed over time and space relative to human beings--'. So also a piece of polystyrene or a plastic bag, for Morton, are --'hyper-objects--', and they are because they interfere with other individuals in space and time in a distributed, non-punctual, radial and viscous manner. We are thus forced to admit an objective fact: the life of things is not foreign to our life.