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About Haunted Pastoral and the 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.

Shared Landscapes Between Nature and Civilization

Mar 31, 20222 min read

The last photo to wrap up the exhibition of haunted pastoral landscapes and the machines in the garden that accompany it is by far my favourite. Not only is it my favourite because it was taken at my cottage (a place that I love) but it is unlike the rest of the photos in a sense to the type of landscape it haunts. Within the photo below is the Pointe au Baril lighthouse. Now you may be wondering how a lighthouse can act as a machine in the garden and is considered to be in relation to haunted pastorals. Well, the lighthouse itself acts as the technology that haunts the present. While its surrounding landscape is not considered to be pastoral as in a sense of farmland or greenspaces that cows and sheep can inhabitant, the fish and water as well as the rocks and snakes can act as that pastoral landscape. The landscape around this area is what true nature once was, untouched, natural, and no technology in sight. However, as time went on, civilization and technology invaded this natural beauty in ways of cottages, boat traffic, and lighthouses. Now in present day, this lighthouse is the pinnacle of the machine in the garden, as it haunts the landscape and those that are in its presence, as it obstructs the natural landscapes and invites civilization into the area. Going from pure beauty to shared beauty with the cottagers, the landscape is no longer what it once was. “The ideological conflicts within the environment movement – the word <<nature,>> along with such other overblown abstract nouns as <<civilization>>, <<culture>>, <<humanism>>, and <<progress>>… these are all key words in the grand narrative of the progress of Western civilization” (Marx, 1996). This quote from Leo Marx relates strongly to the haunting presence that the lighthouse encompasses surrounding civilization in these natural landscapes that were once considered “nature”.




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