prose: to observe - to be observed

This 'closeness of observing' as mentioned in the strawberry post, is the main theme of this book 'Pilgrim at Tinkers Creek' By Annie Dillard which my mentor recommended a few years ago to read. I dip in and out of it time to time - its a great book with some very 'dry-coated' anecdotes of the marvels and atrocities of the natural world. 

One particular observation which made me LOL literally was the mating ritual of the mantises - the section as posted below. 

The observer and observee have been a running theme within my work especially more recently with my research project from summer 2015 - 'Lexicon of Light' and numerous pieces centred around algae which began in 2014. The terms used, were more along the line of subject/object with the human as the subject and everything else surrounding as the object. This also suggests a power relationship between the two with the subject being the dominating power over this binary relationship. Focusing more on the non-human natural world of plants, animals, mammals right down to the microscopic of bacteria and cells, this power relationship translates to - extraction, exploitation - basically anything based on the 'ex factor'. 'Ex' defined as 'out of' - a case of 'out of' for humans benefit.  This area could be seen as a subset of the broader sphere of political ecology: 

..the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes.(1)

Perception and observation (which although mainly focuses on seeing, does include all the senses), are still important themes to me and embedding in the work. If I were to think of my work as a basic form of 'politics', it would be to show in abstracted/nuanced ways how we can relook at the non-human living world and how we relate to it. And perhaps just for a millisecond reconsider our place within the bigger picture. 

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ecology