"Echo, known for her beautiful voice, is a woodland nymph closely associated with Gaia, and with her eternal, passionate love of Narcissus. Though Echo offers Narcissus all that he can possibly desire, he tragically spurns the love of his life. He has fallen deeply in love with his own reflection.
Narcissus's inability to return Echo's love causes him to wither away. Even as he crosses the river Styx, he fails to note his ghastly surroundings or the lethal costs of his self-obsession.
Mankind boasts of our machines and conquests - yet we have precious little empathy for our home. We risk our own existence, as we selfishly ignore the destruction of the Earth.
Listen closely - you can hear the loving refrains of Echo everywhere - even in massive industrial machines. Echo continues her siren call, with a love that is constant, but unrequited by mankind."―Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
'Echo and Narcissus' is part of my "Men and Machines" Series.
Always remember, Nature looks back while you are watching. The screen reflects; it looks at you. Machines observe us, and so does nature. We often assume the positionality of the colonizing voyeur. Think of the language of filmmaking - "capturing" and "rendering" are verbs we associate with enslavement and colonial conquest. We often forget that screens reflect on / us in the larger philosophical sense. In remembering this, we cannot help but become more eco-conscious.
The 'Men and Machines' series invites meditation into the complex relationship between Human, Machine, and 'Nature' - the politics, philosophy and aesthetics of the sights and sounds of industry as they are mechanically mediated and manufactured by the camera eye / ear.
Videos in the "Men and Machines" series include:
Popular Science - vimeo.com/195072674
Planned Obsolescence - vimeo.com/195215047
Reliable Sources - vimeo.com/193291700
Inside - vimeo.com/189477394
Construction Site - vimeo.com/188719797
Johnny's Machines - vimeo.com/188380596
Col Bleu - vimeo.com/185865697
Machine - vimeo.com/190509450
Echo and Narcissus - vimeo.com/187504524
Mirror - vimeo.com/184270334
Not - vimeo.com/172252797
Waste - vimeo.com/165976297
Product - vimeo.com/179584124
Selfie - vimeo.com/178762302
Virtual Gallery - The Gaia Triptych - vimeo.com/176688332
"Echo and Narcissus" is created from recycled and repurposed images and sound in the Public Domain, or material released under a Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain license.
"Echo and Narcissus"― by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster.
Copyright © 2016 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.
