Author Archives: Hayley Desmond

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Koyaanisqatsi

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Hayley Desmond

Hayley Desmond
Contrast and Ambiguity in Koyaanisqatsi
The resounding theme of Koyaanisqatsi is the disconnection between the natural world and the modern lifestyle. Starting with sweeping shots of natural landscapes, the film progresses to bustling scenes of urban life, then splicing the two together. While the contrast the creators seek to create is clear, the statement driving the piece is less forthright. One might wonder whether there is any thesis at all. In certain moments it seems to tentatively toy with issues such as income disparity, only to quickly retreat to sped-up footage of traffic. It sometimes seems to be a critique of consumerism, and other times of urban living in general. The cinematography is masterful, but it is used more to illustrate contrast than to comment on it.
Koyaanisqatsi juxtaposes several themes, the two most prominent being nature and industry. To do this, it relies heavily on abrupt cuts between scenes, sometimes accompanied by changes in the accompanying music. Following several minutes of peaceful shots of nature, a truck suddenly comes on screen, hurdling towards the audience. The next scenes, of electrical lines, digging cranes and explosions, are set to building music. A shot of a mushroom cloud slowly zooms out to reveal a tree in the foreground, again showing the vicinity of industry to the natural world. Perhaps the point is that these processes are not removed from nature: they take place within the context of Earth’s ecosystems. That is more a viewer’s extrapolation than anything deliberately stated in the film, however.
Some other sequences seem to bring in a related phenomenon, the military-industrial complex. An image of a camouflaged jet flying through a desert landscape brings another aspect to the juxtaposition of industry and nature. This theme is developed further by an aircraft carrier with the phrase “e=mc2” on it and gratuitous footage of explosions with frenetic music playing in the background. Demonstration of the human consequences of military action comes much later, just before the credits start to roll. It would have been much more effective to include at least some of the footage of wounded people nearer to the military montage. As in many cases, here Koyaanisqatsi would have benefitted from being more ham-fisted. The viewer is left guessing about the director’s prerogative for most of the film. Regardless, the military uses of technology and natural resources are certainly brought to the audience’s attention.
The other major relationship stressed in the film is that between nature and the modern lifestyle. A scene of people reclining on a beach, set to peaceful music, pans out to show some sort of giant industrial plant in the background. This the same technique employed earlier with the mushroom cloud and the tree. It hints at the failure of society to connect its use of natural resources with the actual natural world, as the beachgoers all appear to be serenely enjoying the setting, paying the plant behind them no mind. Clouds are also used thematically to connect nature and modern living. Much of the footage of nature features large, fluffy clouds rolling across landscapes. There are also many shots of similar clouds being reflected on glass skyscrapers. This particularly resonated with me, as it is a view I am very familiar with: my window at the residence hall faces the windows of Bellevue Hospital, and much of the sunlight that comes into my room is reflected by that glass. When I look out my window, I often see a blue sky and large clouds on the glass, so it was startling to see the exact same thing on screen. I consider myself to be fairly connected with nature for city-dweller, but the familiarity of the shot in the context of this film made me reconsider how we view nature in an urban context.
More than concerning itself with just the modern lifestyle in general, the film focuses on urban living. The first shots that are not of landscapes or giant hunks of metal are of the streets of New York. Throughout the rest of the piece, shots of cars on overlapping freeway ramps and of people rushing through city streets abound. There does not seem to be much distinction made between industrialization and cities. Urban environments are not presented as a third entity, but rather lumped together with factories and mining, in contrast to Earth’s natural state. Since the film is, if nothing else, a critique of industrialization, I, as a city-dweller, found this somewhat bothersome. While it is industrialization that makes cities possible, suburbs and rural areas also are affected and contribute to the waste and environmental problems that are so patent in modern living. It is not fair to present industry and cities as one and the same when indeed it is the lifestyle enjoyed by all people in developed nations that is depleting global resources. The association that I am complaining of is evident in certain sequences. A scene of a hotdog assembly line cuts to very visually similar footage of people on escalators. Sped up recordings of people working in a warehouse are juxtaposed with shots of New York waking up, the sun rising and people starting to go about their business. Interspersed in the film’s most cohesive montage of consumerism are glimpses of lone people in crowds, looking forlorn. I am not sure whether the film looks at city living in particular because it is the most disconnected from nature, but that is the best explanation that comes to mind.
Koyaanisqatsi, as just mentioned, has one major sequence on consumerism. It blends footage of children watching television, advertisements for canned soup, and other, similar scenes. For me, one of the most powerful moments in the film comes at this point: a billboard advertising “a place in the sun” stands before a backdrop of smokestacks. This exemplifies the commodification of nature. Our usual lives in the post-industrial world are so removed from nature and centered around consumption that even trees and unobstructed sunlight become things to be sold to us. This shot reinforces the divide between the natural world and our world. The rest of this montage also briefly touches upon income disparity, with a man being moved from street to stretcher just before a glamorous-looking lady gets in a cab. Shots similar to this are present throughout the rest of the film, but never more than a few seconds are spent on the topic of wealth distribution. I was disappointed that consumerism and social equity were relegated to such a small timeslot, while plenty of screen time was given to highway traffic set to the same few bars of Philip Glass.
This film is an amalgamation of themes, with only a couple being well-developed. I would say something about the major points, but there are no points, only themes. The viewer gets a general sense of the director’s stance, but this does not count for much given all of the room for one’s own interpretations. Thus, I feel that much of the analysis I have written here has been little more than my own biases manifesting themselves on the ambiguous canvas that is Koyaanisqatsi.

Particulates and Plastic

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Hayley Desmond

Our first class this week was particularly horrifying. It is no wonder that Detroit’s population is fleeing. Apart from the decaying infrastructure and other problems, toxic fumes are being pumped into the air! Smoke from paper products is bad enough, but plastic? I’d be interested in seeing some statistics on the cancer rates in Detroit. The cavalier attitude of the company running the incinerator towards both the wishes of the public and the undeserved tax credits it received was also appalling.
While I’d choose New York over Detroit in a heartbeat, some of the things we learned about our own city were also highly concerning. Everyone always talks about the city being dirty, but I didn’t think that meant that the subway stations are filled with particulate steel dust. Thinking about all the hours of my life I’ve spent waiting for trains has never been exactly joyful, but now it’s even less so.
Something that I was pleased to learn about was the widening of the tip of Manhattan with incinerated trash. Real estate in New York is crazily expensive, and if more can be created without displacing people in lower-income neighborhoods, that’s great. The downside, of course, is the potential leaching of harmful substances from the ash into New York’s waterways. I would think, though, that most such chemicals would have been removed during the burning process. Putting them into the air probably isn’t much better at all than dumping them in the water, but if the junk has already been incinerated, we might as well use the end product in a productive way.
The trends in refuse composition that we went over were interesting, if not too surprising. I would expect plastic to have been more than 10% of domestic waste by the ‘80s. Hopefully that seemingly low figure means that New York City’s recycling program saves a fair amount of plastic from landfills. A pie chart from nyc.gov shows that for 2004-5, plastic not designated for recycling was about 12% of residential waste, with recycled plastic making up 25% of the city’s refuse. So indeed, it seems that the plastic in New York landfills is largely reduced by recycling. The percentage could probably be shrunk even more if the city expanded its recycling programs to include more types of plastic. Types 5 and 6 stand out to me as particularly worthwhile. Currently, the city only accepts types 1 and 2. I see type 6 often enough, and 5 is used for most yogurt containers. At home I have two trash bags stuffed with empty Chobani cups, as my family eats a lot of Greek yogurt and Whole Foods accepts type 5 plastic to be recycled. This reminds me, I should probably haul those to Union Square before my mother gets impatient and just throws them out. It would be a lot easier, and the city would probably save a lot of plastic, if type 5 were collected. I must note that I don’t know how well types 5 and 6 can be recycled, though. I bring them up solely on the basis of their ubiquity. The city would probably need new equipment to process them, not to mention the energy needed to run the facilities, and it’s possible that the expenses would outweigh the benefit. I would definitely want to see the numbers before ruling it out, though: New Yorkers sure do eat a lot of yogurt.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/resources/wcs_charts.shtml#waste

Hayley Desmond Week Three

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Hayley Desmond

In our latest installment, the saga of corporate destruction and irresponsibility continues. It is truly dumbfounding that the EPA found Exxon Mobil dumping hazardous waste without a permit on three separate occasions and, seemingly, no real disciplinary action came of it. On top of that, Mobil cooked their books on the matter to make the claim that benzene concentrations were not as high as the EPA found them to be, and the Agency learned of this as well. Isn’t lying to a government agency some sort of crime? I suppose it might not have been worth the government’s trouble to pursue in court. That’s scary: a company powerful enough to not only flout the government’s orders but also dissuade it from pursuing legal action.
There is a trend in these companies we have seen wreaking havoc over the past few classes: they are all corporations. Because they are entities unto themselves, the people running them are harder to hold responsible. Without internal documents to condemn people in power, no individuals can be held accountable. And unfortunately, despite the fact that corporations are real people with inalienable rights as of 2009, you can’t put them in jail. All you can do is fine them, taking what is probably a small chunk of change in corporate terms, and hope that that’s enough of a disincentive to keep them from doing it again. The efficacy of this is doubtful, however. It would probably have cost more than the measly ten million dollars the government fined Exxon Mobil for it to have run its barge-cleaning business in a way that didn’t pollute bodies of water.
Also, the consent decree is laughable. The government needs to stop handing them out to businesses that are royally taking advantage of the American public. The five big banks behind the 2008 crash, including Wells Fargo and Citi, were given a consent decree and fined. Money is hard to track as it makes its way through the bureaucracy, so who knows what fraction of the $20 billion allotted for mortgage relief will get to homeowners, and how it will be distributed. The consent decree is especially heinous in the case of Exxon Mobil and Arthur Kill, as the EPA found that they had altered their numbers to try to evade blame, so obviously they were conscious of what they were doing.
The later part of the class got into some of the logistics of how we can use science to shift public policy. The example discussed, in which lead deposition rates were dated and matched to changes in policies and historical events (e.g., World War II and the advent of nuclear weapons), seemed to work well. This got me thinking, though, about times when the science would not be as clear-cut. Lead has been known to be harmful to brain development for years, so showing health effects was not an issue in the example given. For the myriad other substances running rampant in the industrialized world, many of which we know very little about and all of which are assumed innocent until proven guilty, scientists would have to first make a convincing case for the danger posed by the chemical before regulations could be imposed and progress tracked. This is very difficult, as it is not ethical to purposely expose people to something you believe to be deleterious, and finding people who are already exposed to it introduces countless other variables that must be controlled for, such as lifestyle choices.

Week 2 – Hayley Desmond

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Hayley Desmond

I’m almost disappointed that there are no libertarians in our class, as I’m sure they would make for some lively exchanges. Then again, it’s probably best that my blood pressure not skyrocket during class. The argument for increased environmental protections as a result of consumer demand raises a question of economics: does demand create supply, or can supply dictate demand? In today’s developed world, in which a few large corporations hold a huge percentage of the consumer market, it seems silly to insist that somehow average individuals can band together to change the practices of superrich and super-powerful businesses. I would even say that it reflects a downright disconnection from reality, but I will move on before I launch into a diatribe against objectivism. The point is that American businesses need to be regulated by an entity that can match them in force, i.e. the American government. Perhaps I long for the presence of a rightwing voice in class because it is much less fun to make political assertions, as I like to, if there is no one to engage with. In fact, this behavior probably makes me seem pretentious, as does being interested in the chemical nature of harmful compounds, apparently. Knowledge and curiosity are hallmarks of pretentiousness, don’t you know? I would say I wish we spent more time on mechanisms, such as looking at how a model of biotreatment works, but, the breadth of material that we have to cover aside, some of my peers would probably complain that this will “never affect” them. And again, I try to avoid seeing red while class in is session.
Something that piqued my interested during our first class this week was the all the legislation set forth by the EPA and its effects. Was the EPA actually not completely impotent in the 70s? In the 80s, the Reagan years? Were its rules observed? Was its board not filled with executives from Monsanto and Citigroup? These were foreign concepts for me.
During our second session, however, things became a bit more familiar. Despite the EPA’s ban on the production of PCBs for use in capacitors and its mandate for cleanup, progress on fixing the damage already done stagnated due to the efforts of the company in the hot seat: in this case, General Electric. Stalling via the courts, GE managed to take fifteen years to clean up just the areas where the chemicals were made and dumped from. Afterward, it also publicly criticized the EPA in a statement, at the same time praising the progress made by its own efforts. Meanwhile, GE would have still been producing and indiscriminately dumping PCBs in 2000 had the EPA not put a stop to it. This is the type of corporate shenanigans I recognize.
Another good point that we touched on was the issue of what to do with toxic waste. I thought Seong was insightful in equating the export of New York’s PCB-mud to the depressed Southwest with classism, but I also think that there is another aspect to this. The Hudson River is surrounded by astronomically higher population density than is a small town in Texas. This will hold true for any major city and the Podunk place to which it sends its hazardous waste. It can be argued that it is more ethically sound to store toxic substances where fewer people risk exposure to them, even if the waste was produced by or for the benefit of people in more crowded areas. However, large population centers will almost always be of higher economic standing than areas that are only sparsely inhabited, so in a way this still amounts to classism.

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