brian castriota
dischronology
kodak portra 400VC
2008
this series is part of an ongoing body of work revolving around my own meditations on the twilight of human civilization and the natural world as we know it. in the 1970s, dr. james lovelock pioneered gaia theory -- the idea that all life on earth functions as a self-regulating superorganism, dangerously imperiled as a direct consequence of humanity's negligence. lovelock's more recent studies on climate change suggest that by the end of this century human civilization will ultimately suffer unimaginable devastation as a result of climate change. in his dystopian vision he describes how famine will become globalized as traditional agricultural practices collapse, leading to the destabilization of the entire world economy. our descendants, he explains, will be forced to abandon the cities and flee to the polar regions where government will have devolved into warlordism.
in part, these images are intended to elicit a sense of nostalgia in audiences living in this imminent epoch in which human civilization and the natural world have become unrecognizable. these images are also intended for a present audience, living in this civilizational twilight, in the hope that they might elicit a contemporaneous nostalgia for our own fleeting place in history. these images are an effort to challenge the temporality of human presence through the subversion of our own perceptions of the present.
