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Nature, Art and Indifference Rob Bartram Nature, art and indifference Rob Bartram To cite this version: Rob Bartram. Nature, art and indifference. cultural geographies, SAGE Publications, 2005, 12 (1), pp.1-17. 10.1191/1474474005eu320oa. hal-00572144 HAL Id: hal-00572144 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00572144 Submitted on 1 Mar 2011 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. cultural geographies 2005 12: 1–17 Nature, art and indifference Rob Bartram Department of Geography, University of Sheffield This paper explores possibilities associated with contemporary explanations of nature through a con- sideration of the nature-based art of Damien Hirst. I argue that this art poses fresh and challenging questions with the potential to destabilize dominant explanations of nature. His art affords nature the transformative qualities that rupture both its unproblematical differentiation from society and the belief that nature can be represented as an objectified truth through art. We can best explore these ideas in relation to Hirst’s art by ‘using’ an interpretative strategy akin to Baudrillard’s ‘mysterious rules of indifference’ – the exploration of art’s capacity to activate and trigger metaphors, motifs and plays on meaning that form the ebb and flow of the cultural sign system, where attention is paid to the relational order between the components of meaning, rather than the material composition of specific objects. I argue that we should reconceptualize nature in terms of its alterity and undecid- ability, cultivating explanations based on indifference so that we do not succumb to the seduction of locating the meaning of nature. n this paper I want to explore the possibilities of discharging some of the tendencies I associated with contemporary explanations of nature. To do this, I am not going to turn to the post-structuralist critique of social and cultural theory that appears to be unfolding in geography.1 Instead, I will turn to the contemporary nature-based art of Damien Hirst, the British artist associated with the sobriquet ‘Young British Artists’ or ‘Brit Art’.2 I argue that Hirst’s art does not attempt to appeal to a generalized sense of what nature might mean (or, indeed, what art might mean), but instead strikes out beyond the conceptual limits of nature. That is, Hirst’s art forces us to question dominant modes of explanation used to comprehend nature. In the realms of academic debate for example, the dominant mode of explanation has been typified by dialectical enfra- mement. ‘Nature–society’ dialectics have been employed to equate the representation and meaning of nature with the ordering principles of commodification and capital accumulation. It is a mode of explanation that has left us with two distinct impressions: that there is a diversity of contested natures,3 and that nature is nothing more than a capital accumulation strategy because of its supposed role in the material reproduction of society.4 Thus, it has been argued that nature can be found ‘deeply embedded’ or ‘ingrained’ in the grand narratives of capitalism and modernity.5 Whilst there are notable critiques that counter this dominant mode of explanation,6 there has still been a tend- ency to assume that nature has an original, unitary condition that defines its reality, or that there is a version of nature that is distinct from its social construction and its for- mation of social identities. Subsequently, nature–society dialectics have never been far away from the mode of explanation. # Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 2005 10.1191/1474474005eu320oa Rob Bartram Hirst’s nature-based art poses fresh and challenging questions that potentially desta- bilize dominant explanations of nature. His art affords nature the transformative quali- ties that rupture both its unproblematical differentiation from society and the belief that nature can be represented as an objectified truth through art. Importantly, it allows us to think of nature, not as an ontological world on which we impose value and meaning, but as something that we continually configure through the production of images and ideas. By interpreting his work, we can begin to conceive of a natural world that is not fixed or differentiated from society and culture, but indifferent to them. Nature in this way of thinking is not so much a fixed point in the polarized nature–society frame, but a circulatory process of intensity and affects that are provisional and emergent in their configuration of meaning. We can best explore this idea in relation to Hirst’s art by ‘using’ an interpretative strategy akin to Baudrillard’s ‘mysterious rules of indifference’.7 The mysterious rules of indifference allow Hirst’s art to be understood in terms of its ability to activate and trigger metaphors, motifs and plays on meaning that form the ebb and flow of the cultural sign system. More precisely, the mysterious rules of indif- ference emphasize the relational order between the components of meaning, rather than the material composition of specific objects.8 Or, as Baudrillard explains, the mys- terious rules of indifference allow us to understand the production of meaning in terms of the matrix of the appearance of things, and the matrix of the distribution of forms.9 So rather than assume that art (or any social and cultural form) can be a reflection of nature, or even a component part of its social construction, art becomes a new capacity for nature. However, the ‘rules’ in the mysterious rules of indifference are not rules that can be applied according to a priori analytical frameworks and explanatory conven- tions. Indeed, the rules disrupt the notion of there being a unified position from which to command interpretation because it is assumed that this cannot be preconditioned. Instead, the rules are subject to reformulation through the practice of interpretation.10 Whilst this creates a deliberately unstable formula for the interpretation of Hirst’s art, in practice it allows us to see the failure in attempting to ‘locate’ meaning that enables the distinction between nature and art, or nature and society. It means that in practice the interpretation of Hirst’s art is like working with the indifferent signs of nature, because there is no dialectical polarity with which to reformulate distinctive versions of nature, either with reference to the ontological or unitary meaning of nature or by opposing versions of nature’s social construction. In terms of interpretive strategy, this leaves us with the task of describing Hirst’s art in terms of its momentum or pace of revision, and the unpredictable ways in which this happens. In projecting nature as a capacity rather than an objectified truth, as simulacra that blur boundaries between the real and the virtual, and as active and transformative in its relation to meaning, we necessarily free nature from its conceptual anchorage in social and cultural difference. This paper will begin by chronicling the career of Damien Hirst and will make refer- ence to the development of style, form and content in his work. I will consider Hirst’s preoccupation with the themes of birth, death, love and life which have been worked into his nature-based art. I then discuss the manner in which Hirst’s work prompts reflection on the perfected yet generalized ‘signs’ of nature, and the irreconcilable 2 Nature, art and indifference contradictions brought about by the co-presence of real and virtual natures. I do not intend to undermine nature’s reality, nor to suggest that nature has lost its social and cultural potency. On the contrary, through an interpretation of Hirst’s art I intend to argue that the meaning of nature has intensified because it has been endlessly perfected in relation to an idealized version of itself, through scientific, technological and media reproduction.11 I explore how Hirst’s art mimics nature’s ‘minimalist’ status and high point of definition, and how the glass vitrines that accommodate Hirst’s work parody the spectatorial traits associated with nature. I then direct attention to Hirst’s nature-based conceptualization of death, and parti- cularly Western culture’s denial of its erratic tendencies. I am particularly interested in exploring how perfected ideas of nature find little room for unpredictable events such as death, and how the matrix and distribution of meaning in contemporary culture can detach representations of death, indeed nature itself, from their own referents. An important aspect of this discussion is conceptualizing Hirst’s art as being ‘active’ and at work: Hirst uses live insects in one installation, and his installations in general are designed to assault the viewer’s senses. Hirst demonstrates how nature can be conceptualized in terms of multiple trajectories of sensory perception, recollection, memory and affectivity.12 In the penultimate section of this paper, I evaluate the destabilizing influences of Hirst’s work by considering some of its critical reception, the role of hype and the ‘wow’ factor that his work is supposedly indicative of, and how Hirst has resisted attempts to be pinned down according to a specific artistic genre. Damien Hirst, unforeseen spin Damien Hirst became widely known in the 1990s as an artist and a curator for exhibi- tions such as Freeze, staged at Surrey Docks, London, in 1988 and Some went mad, some ran away, staged at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 1994.
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