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About Haunted Pastoral and Machines in the Garden

"It doesn’t take a culture critic to tell you that nature is one of those concepts that is really difficult to define: many of us likely regard it as just one of those things that you know when you see it” (O’Brien, 2010).When we think of nature, the first thing that comes to mind is the peaceful wilderness, animals scattered throughout the untouched lands that they call their homes. The protectiveness of the blooming trees that provide shade and shelter on hot or stormy days. What we don’t realize is that nature expands far beyond that. Nature can also represent the farmland or the aquatic waterways. What makes nature so hauntingly fascinating is the haunted pastorals that are hidden in plain sight. To further expand on the meaning of haunted pastoral: the idealized spaces that become interrupted by technology. The growth of technology can be seen everywhere within the nature landscapes and creates the presence of a machine in the garden. These machines are visible to the human eye, but we may block out the objects as they are not what we want to see when we view nature. The blog posts below will go through and explain how technology haunts the pastoral land and creates a machine in the garden in various ways that you may not have imagined. Technology is more than just computerized processes.

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