Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Good afternoon.
My name is Kathy Hart.
I'm the Associate Director and Curator of Academic Programming here at the museum.
And I'm very excited to welcome you to this lecture this afternoon which is being presented
with "Looking Back at Earth: Contemporary Environmental Photography
from the Hood Museum of Art's Collection."
Now though we're not open past 5 this evening, we'll be open till 9 tomorrow.
So, if any you miss it come back tomorrow, if you haven't seen the exhibition so far.
In January 2011, New York Times Art critic Roberta Smith writing about the exhibition
of J. Henry Fair, at the Gerald Peter Gallery in New York,
referred to his work Industrial Scars as being the toxic subline.
She wrote "The vivid color photographs of J. Henry Fair lead to an uneasy double life
as potent records of environmental pollution and as ersatz evocations of abstract painting.
Information and form worked together to devastating effect.
When I saw his work for the first time at this exhibition, I was personally taken
with the beautiful ascetic of this abstract aerial landscape thing
and also stricken by their subjects.
I've been working on assembling a collection
of environmental photography for the Hood's collection.
So it could be used for teaching and in particular
with a very strong environmental studies department here as well
as the photography department here at the college.
J. Henry Fair's work brought up so many important and interesting issues.
For instance, about the conundrum of the beautiful and the toxic being contained
within the same image or about the relationship between art and documentary photography.
A third issue is the relationship between the activist artists
and the work of art he or she produces.
This last issue will be a major part his lecture tonight or this afternoon.
It's not night yet Mr Fair's work has been featured in segments on The TODAY Show, CNN,
NPR's Marketplace, and WDR German TV, as well as in most major publications,
including The New York Times, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine,
Harper's Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, and so forth.
Additionally, his work travels around the world in fine art exhibitions at major museums,
galleries, and educational institutions.
In 2010, the students in the Hood Museum
of Arts non-curricular museum collecting 101 course chose him
as the artist whose work the museum should acquire for its collection
and selected the work you will see upstairs in the exhibition.
It's also on the cover of our current quarterly calendar in case you have missed them.
Mr. Fair has an active lecture schedule, in which he presents photographic symposia
to audiences in the US and abroad.
He also gives readers the first hand look inside the important issues he studies.
Writing and blogging about or art in the environment and is a regular contributor
to the Natural Resources Defense Council's OnEarth Magazine and the Huffington Post.
Most recently in November 2011 Mr. Fair was a guest speaker at the TED talks conference
on "High Energy" Berlin, Germany and you can see that online, if you wish.
Mr. Fair's first book, "The Day After Tomorrow, Images of Our Earth in Crisis and there's a copy
of the series in the exhibition was released in February 2011 published by powerHouse Books
in cooperation with Random House.
In January 2012, his new multimedia piece Das Lied von der Erde Heute,
was premiered in Germany by the Weimar Staatskapelle.
This performance piece re-imagines Gustav Mahler's classic orchestral work,
pairing it with an animated series of Fair's electrifying environmental photographs.
Please join me today in welcoming J. Henry Fair whose work talk today is title
"Industrial Scars: The Art of Activism"
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you Kathy.
It's really a pleasure to be here.
I can't tell you Dartmouth is one of the great institutions in our country
and to be here is really quite an honor and to be hanging in the museum is an honor as well.
I think maybe we'll do first something about mercury pollution in the air
and climate change whether or not you believe in climate change
and can we turn off the lights, please?
The largest single cause of mercury release
into the environment is the burning of coal maybe you noticed.
So, a little bit about what I'm going to do today.
I try to establish two narratives when I talk.
One, with the pictures, and the pictures will tell a story and another with what I say.
Sometimes they will coincide but other times they will not, which puts a bit of a demand
on the audience for you to either appreciate the pictures as abstract art.
What is art?
Or to query me at the end of the thing and say, hey what was that picture we saw?
But to just to fit it, I will explain most of what the pictures are.
I'm one of those people who torments themselves-- can you hear me on the back?
Why you're sitting on the back, I don't know but fine.
[Laughters] I'm one of those people who torments themselves even if I answer a question
and then not many questions that can be answered.
But even if I answer a question, I always end up coming back and asking it again.
And this question of what is art is a big question for me
because I ask myself repeatedly, am I creating art?
Am I creating reportage?
What am I doing here?
So, with that in mind, we come back to this question what is art?
I mean, can art be a picture of ***?
Pardon my-- pardon my-- but I don't how I was to say it, that's what this is.
It's pig feces from the factory farming of hogs in which they keep thousands hogs
in small buildings and that's where we got our bacon.
And of course the reason I take this pictures is to make us all think.
Okay, well cheese, is that really-- but do I want to support that.
In this case of course the way maybe you know about the factory farming of hogs.
But they feed those animals a lot of drugs and they spray them down with pesticides
and so we're reading that and of course we know we are what we eat.
The next picture is really, really gross.
So, if you're easily grossed out I recommend you close your eyes.
I'll describe it first.
It's pig fetus floating in fecal mater because of course these poor pigs live in the sheds
and everything is-- they live on a grate and everything goes through the grate
down to these giant lagoons of wastes.
So, I will skip through it quickly.
I've made more than one vegetarian out of this picture and yes,
it's pretty gross and we support that.
If we buy that bacon from supermarket, we usually--
you know we're supporting that and we're eating that which means we are that.
And this is-- this is a wetland right this most of the pig farming in the US happens
in North Carolina and this is a wetland next to that-- next to one of those giant pig sheds
and of course all of that fecal matter causes increased nitrogen in the water
which causes the algae to bloom which sucks up all of the oxygen
and therefore kills everything else in that water body.
Before the gulf spill made us forget about it, we were all very worried about the dead zone
in the Gulf of Mexico which is all basically the fertilizer running
down the Mississippi and pouring out.
But fortunately, BP took that off their minds.
We'll get back to that later.
A lot of what I want people to come away with is the idea that first off,
my pictures are really about hope.
They're not about despair and I would like people to come away with the idea
that we can change things and it really isn't that often,
and I don't like to term environmentalist, but often environmentalists are cast in the light
of being draconian purists who would drag our country back to a darker age.
And of course I don't see it this way.
I see environmentalists, I guess I count myself in that category, as wanting to push this
into a new age of health and light and security for our children.
That's I think a lot about-- about what we will leave our children,
and on that note, I will talk about toilet paper.
What could be a more boring subject, right?
But it might be the most important decision you make at the shopping trip.
If we-- you know if we all change the brand of toilet and I should know this number,
forgive me for not knowing this number.
If we all change the brand of toilet paper we bought, problem solved, forest saved.
If-- do you like Animal Planet, do you like to look at the wolves and the bears,
the nice babies, you want to save those animals?
Change the toilet paper you buy.
Really, I'm not kidding.
This is-- it went up to Northern Ontario to look at deforestation by one of the large--
I usually don't by the way mention the names of the companies that I'm looking at,
mostly because I want you, me, not to be a consumer, I want us to be citizens,
I want us to spend our dollars responsively.
So this is where the world's largest paper company whom I will not name is cutting
down all growth boreal forest to make the brand of facial tissue, sorry.
I almost slipped there, facial tissues and toilet paper,
I mean really they are the largest brands.
You have them in your house and therefore you're supporting deforestation.
Not-- I'm not, I don't want to make you feel bad.
I don't want, you know, I'm not trying to say, okay you are guilty, you are bad.
No, I'm trying to say "Hey we get-- do we want to change this stuff?
We can do this."
And again now, is this document or is this art?
I think this is document.
This is art.
It's an old projector so we're loosing the detail and the whites.
This is the waste treatment where they make the world's largest brand of facial tissues.
Anybody want to make a guess?
No never mind, don't go there.
Don't go there.
This went-- ran in National Geographic and this instant what--
how do we separate this idea of art and reportage
and again I think about this a lot so forgive me.
Let's talk about aluminum a little bit.
We don't-- remember the Iceland Economic Prices?
And of course what we know in the United States in our--
in our self-centered world is that somehow there was a run on the banks and all the Icelanders,
well actually what happened is very interesting.
One of the largest aluminum companies went to Iceland and said "Iceland is trying
to market their hydropower, aluminum is all about electricity."
So one of the largest aluminum companies went to Iceland
and said "We'll build an aluminum refinery in the north of your country
and we'll ship our bauxite up from Jamaica where most of it--
most of bauxite comes from Jamaica and Brazil.
And we'll process it there getting free electricity."
Nothing is free of course.
This by the way is bauxite waste, this one is in Baton Rouge
so they started building this giant aluminum refinery
and what happened is it was the largest capital project in Iceland so it started
to suck up all the capital in Iceland.
And so of course what happened is interest rates in Iceland start to go up, money starts to pour
in from Europe, the Icelanders are saying "Yeah we are, you know this is good.
The money is coming in.
We're flipping our apartments like New Yorkers,
let's take a trip to New York and spend a little money."
And of course all of that sort of went and went and went until it crashed down and nobody knows
about that aluminum connection with Iceland.
So I have a lot of partners, a lot of people support me
in what I do and these are some of them.
There's some pilots who, bless their hearts, they fly me wherever I want to go,
the two that come to mind in the north, a fellow named Bob Keller
and in the south a fellow name Tom Hutchings basically fly me wherever I want to go
and that's really, I'm so grateful.
So as I say, we live on a little rock right?
I mean a lot of people sort of wax, metaphysical--
I'm not that way and we had an interesting conversation at lunch about this,
I don't really care about saving the little bears
and the wolves, I mean I do but I really don't.
I'm into this to save us because really if we save those bears and wolves,
well to do that we have to save their habitat, and saving their habitat means saving ourselves,
'cause their habitat is what provides us with the free services
that we get, clean air and clean water.
These are so valuable.
We don't place any value on these things that this--
their complex system of which we were apart provides us.
But so yeah, change your toilet paper.
These are again, this question of is it art, is it document, we're looking down at the top
of the giant oil tank here and you'll see another one which is even prettier than this.
It's become one of my new obsessions and they just rust, those oil tanks.
I will mention one name, it's pet peeve of mine, the Koch Brothers.
This is one their refineries in Texas City.
So I'm going to touch on Mountain-top removal mining, I love Max so you can see roughly
where it is, south of Charleston West Virginia.
Now this is the Appalachians are the water source for most of the Southeast United States.
And we've basically cut down about 500 mountains.
That's a big number.
We've destroyed, we've taken 500 mountains off the planet.
That's really-- so that we can leave our lights burning at night.
Yeah, I mean a million acres have been lost to Mountain-top removal mining.
Here I was lucky enough actually to catch the blast, again I should know the amount
of ammonium nitrate they use per day in West Virginia.
I don't-- it's an awful lot.
A lot of people are killed by fly rock.
The coal companies are exempted from liability because of course it's an act of God if one
of those rocks hits someone when it comes down.
We had an interesting conversation this morning.
We met in the museum and talked and someone said "Well okay,
well you know these are big questions where would you start?"
And I thought about it and I said "You know, I think the first place
to start is taking away subsidies from oil and gas, from oil, gas and coal."
Let's just start there.
Sure the questions are big, sure, converting our economy to a sustainable economy is,
it's not an easy you know, that's not a mistake, it's not an easy thing
but let's say the level of the playing field maybe.
Let's just-- let's say okay, you know, take away those oil and gas as well establish, oil,
gas and coal, no subsidies, sorry you know fight for yourself.
But so that's my-- that's my solution.
Problem solved.
These are coal slurry.
This is the liquid that's used to wash coal after it's mined.
And of course it's mixed with a lot of water and a lot of chemicals and nasty business
and quite often, if you see here, I don't-- you know, it's fascinating.
I'm flying around photographing this stuff and you don't always know what you're shooting.
I suspect that this-- they're creating a giant impoundment
to whole coal slurry here 'cause you can see it is literally a bowl.
What happens of course is they'll fill that in the-- do I have a cursor?
I do not have a cursor.
They'll fill that, end up with dirt essentially and fill this up with this toxic liquid
and then along will come a heavy rainstorm and burst that dam and all that toxic slurry will go
down the valley and wash away the homes there but again they're exempt
from liability because it's an act of God.
And here they are-- they are basically remediating so they cut down the mountain,
like Jimi Hendrix chop down the mountain with the edge of my hand and their only obligation
for remediation is to plant grass seeds.
So they're taking an old-growth forest,
again this is so we can have our-- we leave our lights on.
They are taking an old-growth forest and taking off the forest, chopping down the mountains,
scraping up the coal and then leveling it out and planting grass seed.
And to add insult injury, the grass seed is an invasive grass seed from China.
It called hydroseeding, it's the same stuff they spray on the side of the highways.
You can-- and that's what this guy is doing.
He is spraying this mixture of hydroseed and of fertilizer and grass seed.
And yes, the colors are real, I mean, the reproduction of the projector is not dead
on accurate but yes the colors are real.
So back to my philosophical questions that keep me up at night, this is, you are interested
about extractive industries, they never enrich the places, the enrich Wall Street,
they never enrich the places from once they are extracted.
We'll talk at the end of this about hydrofracking.
I don't know if it's as big an issue up here, as it is in New York but be afraid.
This is Twilight West Virginia.
It looks like Twilight West Virginia, doesn't it?
I was fascinated and it's-- I was actually I was so fortunate I was here with James Hanson.
I don't know if you know who James Hanson is.
He is the NASA scientist who kind of figured out the climate change issue in the 80s and was one
of the first people to start waving the flag about it and he and I took a road trip
down to West Virginia because we have a mutual friend who is--
who's land is surrounded by Mountain-top removal mining.
So I started this project wanting to make picture--
you know I had this foreboding of where are we going?
What are we doing?
And I wanted to make pictures that told this story.
And I'm also fascinated by machines, I mean, it's interesting, the works of the man are
in some ways are our highest pinnacle you'll see a drill rig.
I'll show a drill rig in a minute and-- call me crazy, these things are beautiful right?
I mean-- so I had this sort of this A. this desire to make a statement
about what's happening to these natural systems that support us
and B. this fascination with the beauty of the machines.
And so I was starting to take these pictures to try to tell the story and again, are they art?
They're sort of how-- I like them, I mean I love this image.
This is a refinery on the Gulf of sorry-- on the Mississippi River Delta that actually
after Katrina was close for 173 days, oh and by the way they want to ship that tar sands oil
down to the refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, let's call it Hurricane Alley
and of course meteorologists tell us that the hurricanes will increase so they want to build
that key stone pipeline down to the Gulf of Mexico and process tar sand's oil--
it doesn't make much sense to me but anyway let's go on.
You know, we've all seen too much of this right, and our eyes are just sort of,
our eyes are already closed or they were a minute ago.
They don't really grab us.
I mean it's a documentation of deforestation but it's just that it's not art.
It's document.
And then I was flying on a red eye flight one time again I apologize
for the reproduction quality.
It's really a beautiful-- one feels the fog on the river and the cooling towers poking
through the fog and I said, "that's it, just get above it."
And so that's exactly what I did.
I went down in New Orleans and hired a plane and flew up Cancer Alley which is this region
of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and got these amazing pictures
of stuff and I had no idea what I was looking at.
I went back to New York with these pictures and this was before Katrina
and it was before inconvenient truth and so the editors at the magazine said,
"Yeah it's kind of interesting what is it?"
I said "I don't know what it is."
This is actually ozone hole central.
This is where CFCs are made or actually now it's HCFCs which by the way are also a tremendous--
do we know what HCFCs are propellants that are used in refrigerants, air conditioners,
basically anytime you need in spray cans, propellants.
They are-- you may remember the Montreal Protocol, we as a world,
we acted to right our wrong, we noticed that the ozone was being eaten
up by the CFCs and we switch to HCFCs.
Well it turns out HCFCs are only marginally better
and they are tremendous climate change gas and this is where they are made.
There was a company called Allied Chemical, there I go mentioning a name again
and Allied Chemical was doing all kinds of nasty things and then Richard Nixon under pressure
from a Democratic Congress, decided to pass the Clean Air Act.
And so yes, and let me get back on track,
decided to pass Clean Air Act where was I-- help me out here.
So I'm like Lenny Bruce, my head goes-- I'll come back to it.
So back to the Koch Brothers, you know I went to Lincoln Center
and one of the Koch Brothers supports the Ballet Theater and I couldn't bear to go in.
I just really-- I couldn't.
So if you want to support the Tea Party, you all know about the Koch Brothers right
and so if you want to support the Tea Party, I recommend you buy Brawny paper towels
because this is Georgia Pacific, there I go mentioning names again,
I promise I wouldn't do it and the Koch Energy owns Georgia Pacific,
Brawny is one of its brands et cetera, et cetera.
Okay, I'll stop now.
I won't mention anymore names.
So now we're going to talk about coal ash.
And that's a picture that's in the hood.
This is in my home state of South Carolina.
This is just South of Charleston at a power plant.
Okay I promise I wouldn't mention anymore names and there's--
it won't mean anything to you anyway.
This is one of the mini coal ash impoundments that is known
to be leaching arsenic into the ground water.
We don't really think about this stuff when we turn on the lights.
You don't really think "okay I'm turning on the light, that means arsenic
in somebody's ground water" right?
I mean who thinks about other than me, who thinks about that stuff?
But it's true, coal ashes are a tremendous problem, you may remember 2 years ago,
Christmas there was the largest toxic spill on American Mainland which was in Kingston,
Tennessee where one of the TVA plants spilled all of their--
all of its coal ash wastes, is this ringing a bell?
It was a major disaster.
This is it.
And you can see how this-how the coal ash impoundment burst
in basically filled up the Emery River.
Fortunately, it was Christmas time so and nobody was on the river so nobody died.
We produce 140 million tons of coal ash a year.
The number is a little bit in dispute.
I've read everywhere from 120 to a 150 but and we're running out of places to put it.
It's a big battle right now if you want to do some good, call up your Senator and Congressman
and say "Hey let the EPA regulate coal ash, it's their job, it's our largest waste stream
in this country, the EPA should regulate this."
But-- so we're running out of places to put it so industry has come up with a brilliant idea.
They found a new place to store coal ash.
Has anybody renovated their house in the last couple of years?
Put up in a sheet rock?
Did I mention the coal ash was full of arsenic, uranium, boron, mercury,
cadmium they're also using it as fertilizer, paint, roofing tiles, carpet?
Anyway, so selenium is another product of coal ash, this is one of the places.
This is right outside of ash-- no, Charlotte, North Carolina.
This is right next to the airport.
This is one of the high hazard coal ash dumps.
Look at those nice suburban homes.
They probably don't realize that if and when that coal ash impoundment breaks,
it will come rushing into their living rooms.
Is it art or is it journalism?
I ask you.
This is one of my favorite power plants.
The blue is not quite right but it's essentially right.
We're seeing sky reflected in the water that's standing on this.
This is actually a bottom ash which is, as you might suspect, it's the ash from the boiler.
This one is called Big Cajun.
Actually the power company that owns Big Cajun is trying to--
Is trying to improve their practices and you've got to respect that.
I mean, we vilify, right.
I'm not here to vilify, a power company-- sorry it will come back to me.
Duke Energy is saying that they're going to, you know they're going
to change the way they do things.
We've done things for a certain way for a long time.
We're knowing better now, so it's-- it's not time to vilify and to--
you know, it's really, it's time to say okay.
We know better now, let's change the way we do things, you know.
And I believe that as citizens, we are the ones who have the power to do something about that.
And again, it can be as simple as changing your toilet paper.
It can be as simple as buying your food from.
You know, I want to pay more for food.
I want to buy my food from the farmer that lives near me and I want her to be happy
and I want her to live a good life and I want her children to go to a good school.
So, and these things, you know, they seem so small.
They make a big difference.
Bicycle whenever you can.
This stuff matters, turn off the lights when you leave the room.
We don't need to live in the darkness,
but why waste electricity, why pay extra money, you know.
This is in Germany, these last two pictures.
And this is one of the largest carbon emitters in Europe.
And I was fascinated to-- I'm always trying to follow the story.
I always want to know the beginning right to the end.
Where does the coal come from, and where does the ash go?
And I was fascinated.
There's a story behind this actually.
There is a crazy Dutchman who flies a kite and he was bugging me for years.
He said, "Henry, come on fly with me-- fly with me."
So we go on this very cold day last year in November.
It was a beautiful day and literally, it was a kite.
So I'm sitting, a kite with a cage under it.
So I'm sitting on the front of the kite and Leo is behind me and we had to drive
around until we could find the proper place to take off
from 'cause it wouldn't, you know it's not a plane.
So, you're not really flying from an airport.
Now, fortunately I carry an ancient GPS and I have a habit
of marking the airport where we-- where I fly from.
So we get up and we fly and we go over this giant coal mine, giant.
You have no idea how big.
And we take great pictures and we're coming back and so I said,
okay Leo I've had enough let's go home.
Sun was setting, it's getting really cold.
I'm getting numb.
So, Leo says, okay home is that way and looked at my GPS.
I happen to be an old sailor.
So I'm pretty good with this stuff and I said to my self, oops, he knows what he's doing?
I must have made a mistake so da, da, da, da and this kite doesn't fly very fast.
So, we're flying along and I'm looking in--
I said, Leo we're going the wrong way here, I had visions, you know.
And at this point it's getting dark.
I had visions of coming down in a field and wrapping myself and Leo up together
in this giant kite, it was not a pretty picture.
So, fortunately, my GPS was right and we made it back to the airfield in time to-- yes.
This is tar sand.
Do you know what the tar sands are?
America is already getting 10 percent of its gas from the tar sands.
Projections are within the next 10 years, we'll be getting 20 percent of our gas.
Basically, we're ravaging the North of Ontario.
We're digging up one of the-- oh sorry Alberta.
We're digging up one of the world's most viable wetlands which also contains bichimen saturated
into the soil and this is what the excavation looks like and then we boil it with natural gas
which is why Canada is using up all the its natural gas on the tar sands.
Canada used to be the largest exporter of natural gas to the US,
but fortunately we have hydrofracking now.
So, we boil it and then we spin it in the centrifuge and extract this very heavy tar
and then we're going to now build the Keystone XL Pipeline and ship it all the way
down from northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico and process it there.
Does that seem like a good idea?
Not to me, and of course you remember the pipeline spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan last year
which I forget how many gallons of, or how many barrels of oil, that was tar sands oil.
And tar sands oil contains a lot of sands, so it's very abrasive.
So, it's very *** these pipelines.
You can expect more of these spills.
And this sort of illustrates the process.
They first strip off the topsoil and what not, and they use that to make the dams around the,
around the toxic lakes of tailings and once the soil is stripped off,
you can see these little bulldozers are actually pushing the bichimen-saturated dirt
down to the giant steam shovels which are loading them into the wheelbarrows
and here we've got an overhead view of that.
These are-- they are interestingly,
they're electrically-powered steam, not steams shovels at all.
They're electrically-powered shovels.
I guess they've decided that's more efficient than diesel,-- I don't.
You can see the scale of one of their refineries.
This is the SunCoal finery.
One of the things that fascinates me is these giant mountains of sulfur.
It's a very dirty petroleum and in the refining process, they extract sulfur.
Look at those and remember them.
First, I'm going to ask one of my philosophical questions.
Should art have meaning?
Thank you, pause on that.
So, this is looking down at the side of one of those pyramids of sulfur
and this is looking straight down.
The yellows are not quite right, but it's close.
And you know this is one of the-- a lot of what I do is research and trying to figure stuff out.
What's the answer?
And it took me a long time on this one because I'm a little stupid.
The red, which looks like the blood of the earth, to admit it's great.
I circled this, the pilot thought I was crazy.
This was not one of my regular pilots.
So, we circled to get this picture.
I probably circled 20 times.
'Cause you know, you're only in the right spot for one second to get this picture.
So, the red sulfur is the only element that A, increases viscosity as the temperature goes up,
very interesting and B, it's red in its molten state.
So that's liquid sulfur coming from the refinery being pumped to the top of these pyramids
and here, that was actually a place.
So, what they do is they stacked these, they have these walls,
containment walls that they stack along the edge and then once they have filled up to the top
of that wall, they go and they move it in a little bit
and that's why it's in the shape of the pyramid.
And this would be where one of those walls fell away and that red liquid sulfur ran
down on the side of this pyramid.
How do I wish I had been there when that happens?
Imagine that red liquid running down the side of that giant pyramid.
I can't have everything in this life.
This is the tailings ponds.
So, the tar sands process entails millions and millions of gallons of water to wash all
of these very dirty bichimen-infused soil.
And so, they have these giant lakes of tailings they call them, and basically it's water
and chemicals and sludge and of course this is a real route for migrating waterfowl and they land
in here all the time and die a horrible death but you know, who cares.
They're only birds.
You can see somewhere in this picture one of the scarecrows that they--
they set these scarecrows in these tailings ponds and would give you some sense of scale.
I don't see it now.
So, if I had to say this is giant.
A person would be like that here.
I mean these are giant-- giant lakes of sludge.
And here we're back to my-- I love finding these motifs, so I'm repeating them.
This is looking down on to the top of one of these oil tanks--
this giant floating roof oil tanks.
Actually, the Times published this picture and it received a lot of criticism,
oh that couldn't be, the colors can't be.
So, I actually got a letter from the guy who made this tank.
The guy who went around the world making floating roof tanks
and we just established a very nice dialogue, Axle White
and he said, yeah it's a floating roof tank.
It's doing its job, the rust is no problem, don't worry about it.
And he even told me how much this tank, he calculated for me how much this tank holds.
I have those numbers written down in a data base.
So, moving on, down to the Gulf of Mexico where we're no longer worried about the circle--
the-- what's the word I'm looking for?
The zone of hypoxia, the dead zone and hypoxia means, without oxygen of course and that's
because when we add nitrogen to an aquatic system, the nitrogen promotes an algae bloom
which sucks up all the oxygen and therefore kills all the other aquatic life in the system.
But that's not what's going on here,
what's going on here is this nice plane is spraying Corexit, what a wonderful name that is.
How many people here like that name?
I love that name.
That is the most Orwellian word I have ever heard.
So, I assume you know that Corexit is a dispersant.
And basically, without all of that Corexit, we would've all been down there protesting
on the beaches of Alabama and Florida because those beaches would've been covered
with oil sludge, instead, now the bottom of the Gulf in Mexico is covered with oil sludge
because Corexit did its job and dissolved it all, yes.
So, when this thing happened, I was literally getting on a plane to Europe
and I was kicking myself, my first big exhibit in Europe and I was thinking "But I should be
down in Mobile, Mobile is actually the land-- the airport that's closest to the Gulf spill.
So immediately upon my return, I contacted SouthWinds which is one of the pilot groups
that fly me and I said, "Do you have anybody down there?"
And they said, "Yes, we've got this guy Tom Hutchins in Mobile.
Now, I happen to have a family in Mobile being from the Deep South.
So it was very nice for me to also be able to go and stay
with my family and they were very supportive.
And Tom turned out to be a real hero.
He flew me out at night.
There is no pilot that will fly you over the open ocean at night.
They don't want to do it because-- and it took me--
I didn't understand why because if the engine fails, they can't see the water.
So if the engine fails when you're out of the water at night,
you can't make that emergency landing because you can't see the water
so you don't know where-- this night, fortunately we had a big moon
and Tom was willing to go out and do it.
And it was very-- it's quite a thrill to fly, you know we've flown
over this six to seven times already.
But to do it at night with this roaring fire I can't imagine the people
who worked on those rigs.
It was so hot, you'd fly over this thing at a thousand feet
and you would wince, because of the heat.
And what they're doing here of course, no one talked about this.
You may remember, we had this gushing well at the bottom of the ocean and BP,
in their every ready preparedness, kept trying to figure out what to do with it.
God knows why they didn't figure this out before they have the problem.
But-- so, and they were essentially dropping funnels on top of it.
I don't know if you follow this as closely as I did.
But the Lower Marine Riser Package was essentially a giant funnel.
The idea being-- let's try to capture what's gushing out of here and bringing it
up to the top where we can at least get some of it.
They weren't able to get much of it actually,
the volume that they were capturing was quite small.
And what they're doing here is burning off the methane.
Now, what no one talks about is the fact that so much methane was percolating
out of the water during this crisis.
And of course methane is a tremendous climate change gas.
So, no one was talking about the climate change impact of this crisis.
In here, you can see the solids that were leaking out of the--
I mean, you can see they're not catching any of it, relatively.
The oil was-- many different colors, the colors are a little off here, it's a little too dark.
These fishing boats are scheming to pick up the oil-- another--
back to those philosophical questions again,
we're having over lunch this question of what is beauty?
And it occurred to me, is beauty always-- because it often comes up, well,
Henry your pictures are beautiful but they're horrible.
And so I thought, I wonder, is beauty always connected to nostalgia?
Is beauty always connected to something we know?
You know, a flower is beautiful but it's beautiful because we know it.
So here, you can see after they've skimmed for the oil, they're burning it along
with whatever marine flora and fauna got caught in those nets.
And I also love finding these Rorschachs.
This is, you know we spend hours just zooming over the water looking for patterns in the oil.
This one reminds me-- it almost feels like an infant spewing oil, never mind, it says--
I guess Rorschachs say more about the viewer than about the Rorschach itself.
So yeah, that's what we zoomed over and looked for these patterns in the oil.
And again, it was every color you could imagine.
And there's also-- you can see, it's below the surface and on the surface.
And it was photographically, it was a real challenge because there's tremendous amount
of haze and there's all this reflection.
And the Gulf of Mexico is so blue.
So it was really-- I'm using a polarizer and I'm trying cut through the haze and trying
to get a feel-- what's more interesting, what's floating on the surface
or what's floating below the surface?
You know again, I think of the people that were
out there killing themselves to stop this crisis.
And I have to think of them with the greatest respect because, you know, they're just people
like us that are trying to make a living and I know that it was harsh out there.
I could feel how harsh it was from a thousand feet.
So I can't imagine, this is one of the rigs that was drilling--
there're two rigs if you remember drilling the relief wells.
I would love to get on this rig.
I would-- because I'm fascinated by technology and-- but there's a beauty to this.
And yeah, I mean, you know it looks like just a giant machine
but I don't know, I find them amazing.
Here, the oil is coming into Barataria Bay which is the giant wildlife sanctuary that is just
to the West of Mississippi river delta, because of those circular currents in the gulf,
it was the first one to be hit by the oil.
And yes, it's a giant pelican rookery, I love pelicans.
Those pelicans do not look very happy to me.
But maybe I'm just projecting.
And this one, you know it's interesting,
you don't always know what of your stuff is the good stuff.
And the editor of the art director of the book said,
we were looking for that sort of lead off shot.
And the art director said, this is the shot, I said, "Oh no,
it's really not such a great shot."
So I had to go home and live with it over the weekend and she was absolutely right.
Well, she said it with a German accent, maybe that helped out.
Sounds more authoritative, you know when the art director is German and-- yeah.
And, you know the-- I do a lot of work in Germany and they sort of have a bit
of a superiority complex because they make things really well and what not.
But-- so I figured out to better go and take them down a notch, no I'm just kidding.
But, you know it's interesting, we all-- we're all making mistakes,
"Hey my carbon footprint is bigger than almost anybody, I fly around world.
I hold up my hand and bow my head.
But this is where the Germans are digging up their country for brown coal
which is a horrible fuel in lignite brown coal.
It's 65 percent water so you got to use a tremendous percentage of your energy--
oh, and by the way, carbon capture, if anybody says, "Oh, you know clean coal, carbon capture."
Just laugh.
To capture the carbon from burning coal, it takes about 40 percent
of the energy produced by burning that coal.
So carbon capture is a joke.
Just thought I'd throw that out there for you.
This is a bucket wheel excavator.
The Germans call them buggers.
And-- can you believe that, you know it's very interesting, in the United States,
they would never let me into a coal mine.
They would beat me to a pulp and leave me by the side of the road, really, I mean this happens.
In Germany-- a friend of mine is a journalist for Der Spiegel and he told me about going
into this coal mine in the East and I said, "I want to do that."
So he said, "Fine, here's the number for the press rep, for it's--
Vattenfall which is a big Swedish conglomerate.
And again, you know I try not to vilify,
Vattenfall which owns these horrible brown coal mines and they bought them
from the East Germans when-- right after reunification.
And they're desperate to get out of them.
I mean they are, again, we should talk about hope.
It's so easy to-- these pictures are not about despair they're about hope.
They're about saying "We have done things wrong in the past and now it's time
to start changing way we do things."
And we need to do it in a way that-- that floats all the boats.
And there's a lot to really-- there's a lot of good stuff happening out there.
I mean, you know, look at the amount
of electricity we started to generate with wind and solar.
Things are changing.
And we need to continue to support that change.
This is the marks left by the ***.
There's a great story here too.
So I'm photographing this guy, this ***, this bucket-- and it's giant.
I mean you can't even imagine how big it is.
Actually I wasn't photographing--
his taking over burden, he's taking dirt to get down to the coal.
Here we see the coal.
So I'm photographing this one, this bucket wheel excavator.
And I'm, you know, photographing and back pedaling.
And again, brown coal, it's like-- it's like a swamp.
Brown is coal really-- it's mock.
So I'm back pedaling and photographing and one of those giant machines is, you know,
I'm not moving that fast but moving towards me.
And I'm sort of backing away and taking pictures.
And all of a sudden, I sank to my knees in this.
If you can imagine this swampy nasty mock.
Where all of the machine operators practically fell
of the machine laughing, there's no danger really.
I was interested in the difference and liability concept between Germany.
In America they wouldn't let me anyway near this thing.
Yeah, fascinating.
And he's spearing the over burden after--
you must first dig off the earth on top of whatever you're mining and get rid of it.
And so that's was he's doing.
He's spreading the over burden to the other side of-- the depleted side of the mine.
And these are patterns in there all right, I love finding this stuff.
And again, I apologize for the-- it's really a beautiful image of this back and forth patterns.
And it's basically dirt that's been spread.
And here's another one.
And this is-- I love this conveyor.
I still am in shock that they let me into this.
And here, this is in the generating room.
If you can imagine-- this would never happen in the US.
I mean, this is where the giant generator was, generating electricity for Berlin.
So this is-- that same power plant, it's one of the--
that I showed you the coal ash from at the beginning,
it's called Fremersdorf [phonetic] and this one called [inaudible].
And this one, you know, Bobby Kennedy, he's really such a great environmentalist.
And like all artists, he refines what he does.
I mean Beethoven, he did the same piece over and over and over again, right?
I mean, you know, you listen to one Beethoven piece you've heard them all.
And Bobby Kennedy has this great speech that he gives about environmentalism really being--
it's our heritage we're talking about.
And this shot really speaks to me about that.
You can see that coal mine is coming towards this old German town.
And it speaks to me about that-- that intrusion--
in a minute we're going to talk about hydrofracking.
Do you all know what hydrofracking is?
Good. For those who don't know it's the extraction of natural gas from the layer
of shale which is about a mile below the surface.
Hydrofracking is a perfect example of this encroachment on our heritage.
So in Pennsylvania, where hydrofracking is running rampant,
you have these farmers, and again, back to food.
You have these farmers who basically can't support themselves
because America has driven the price of food down to commodity level.
And so, all of a sudden these farmers are faced with this Hobson choice of "Okay,
you can lease your land to the gas drilling companies but they're going to poison your water
and turn your farm into an industrial zone or you can go bankrupt."
Let me think which is, you know, either way we leave our children nothing
or we leave our children a despoiled industrial zone.
Anyway, so, hydrofracking it's a big battle in New York right now.
Como [phonetic], who wants to be president, and is just is setting himself
up to allow the gas companies to start drilling in the Catskills
which is the watershed for New York City.
For those who don't know I'll give you-- as we go I'll give you a little background.
This is the Catskills.
So, hydrofracking involves drilling drown to the shale layer and then horizontal drilling to get
as much as exposure to that shale layer as possible.
And then bringing-- using millions of gallons of water and chemicals at extreme pressure
to fracture that shale and release the natural gas that's stored there.
That's the basics of the process.
It involves several stages.
Here we see, you know, farmland that is now industrial zone.
And look at all those-- all these pipelines that are being cut.
And of course natural gas the EIA, Energy Information Agency has basically said "Okay,
well, America is going to move to natural gas."
And they're basing that on this expectation of high production volume from hydrofracking.
Now, a hdyrofracked well really doesn't produce.
It's not like a traditional natural gas well where you're tapping into a giant pocket
of natural gas and it produces natural gas for years.
No, these hydrofracked wells-- if you can imagine drilling down into a layer of rock
and trying to fracture that rock with water pressure,
you're not going to fracture giant cavity, you're basically just going
to fracture what surround your drill pipe.
So each of these wells really doesn't produce so much gas.
This is a pipeline that's being dug in the endless mountains of Pennsylvania.
So, it's two stages, we have the drill rig.
He's drilling down.
And then drilling horizontally into this layer of shale which is
about a mile below the earth's surface.
That's the first stage and it involves its own damage, its own pollution.
This is the tailings that drilling muds and the cuttings from the drilling stage.
And these layers of shale also have uranium and radium in it.
So when you drill, and you bring back up these rock shavings, they are all radioactive.
And they also are mixed with all of these drilling muds which are chemicals
and heavy metals which are used to lubricate the drill bits.
So you have these open pits of radioactive heavy metals.
So that's the first stage.
And this is another shot of one of those drill bits.
And of course you're drilling down through the aquifer.
It's very important because if you're-- how many of you have concrete in your basement?
If you have a basement you probably have a concrete in the basement.
And let me guess, that concrete has cracks in it, right?
All concrete cracks.
I'm a construction man, I know about this stuff.
All concrete cracks.
So when the gas companies say "Oh, no, we put a concrete collar around the drill pipe.
Excuse me?
And it's a one inch concrete collar?
Give me a break.
So, here we're still in the stage of drilling but they're filling up this reservoir.
You can see the tractor trailers coming in and filling up this reservoir with water.
Am I an artist or am I a propagandist?
What's the [inaudible].
But it gives you some sense of how much water is used on each of these wells.
And it begs the next question which is, water depletion.
This is a tremendously water-hungry process.
I dwell on it because it's such a big issue.
I mean it's really-- and America is basing its future on hydrofracking natural gas.
And it's really bad idea.
We'll talk about the climate change impact in a minute.
But the farm house up there would fit into this reservoir.
I mean that's how much millions and millions of gallons per well, per frack.
So the volume of water enough-- it's fascinating stuff.
Nobody adds up the numbers from beginning to end.
If you add up all of the permits that have been issued for fracking wells and then say "Okay,
how much water does each well need?"
It's more than the flow of the Delaware River which is where they're getting their water.
So they're going to drain the Delaware River for hydrofracked natural gas.
These are-- so now, we're at the fracking stage.
So these are the compressor trucks backed up to the wellhead
and you can see they've got a manifold in here.
That blue manifold and a wellhead is basically right here.
And of course, if you can imagine the pressure of all
of these compressor trucks pressurizing this system, then you can be fairly safe to assume
that accidents are regular occurrences.
And they are, and if you can imagine, all of these compressors pressurizing this system
with all o f this water mixed with all of these chemicals and then all of a sudden,
maybe the manifold breaks, the green things or the wellheads, one of those valves pops off
and you have a geyser of toxic liquid shooting up into the air
and then running down into the stream.
And that one happens to be right next to a wet land.
Go figure.
Generally, when you see a flare, it means there has been a problem.
I don't know this, but right before we did this flight with the great Bob Keller, thank you Bob.
Bob is one of those other pilots that when I call,
he comes and says, "Where do you want to fly?"
Bless his heart.
This was-- when we did this flight, there had just been a major accident.
I suspect this was the site of the accident.
I don't know that.
But when you see a flare, it's indicative that there has been a problem.
Hydrofracking, there's another thing, how do you photograph global warming?
You know, it such a-- it's, I mean, here we are in a country
where we don't even agree that global warming is an issue.
The hydrofracking process, because of course at every stage, there is leakage.
So when you pressurized this well with water,
then you have to burp all that water out of there.
And during this process, methane leaks out and, of course,
methane is a tremendous climate change gas.
And then at every stage, there, you know, all of these pipelines
and compressor stations, they all have leaks.
So there is a recent study by a professor named Howarth or Howarth, I don't know,
which says that on a 20-year time span, and this is fascinating stuff, on a 20-year time span,
hydrofracked natural gas has a larger climate change footprint than coal.
So, anyway, that's-- this is the last picture.
It's one of my favorites and it speaks to me,
the artist in the crowd will know who Alberto Giacometti was.
He's definitely one of my favorite artists and he was very much about the alienation
of modern man from, well, I think he was more about the alienation of modern man.
This issue of our alienation from the wild is a big issue for me.
And again, not because I do care about the little wolves
and the little bears, yes, they're very nice and all.
But what I really care about is also in our children,
and if we can change our behavior a little bit, I don't even think it needs to be draconian,
then, I think we can save the wild and thus,
live a nice place for our children, and that's it.
If you have any questions, I'm ecstatic to answer them.
[ Applause ]
I answered all the questions already?
Fine. Let's go have a drink.
Anybody? Comments?
>> What type of camera are you using?
The sort of [inaudible]?
>> Yeah, because I'm flying in an airplane and sticking my head out the window, I couldn't--
I'd loved to use a larger format camera, but yeah, it's just--
it's a high-end digital camera, but it's nothing that special and long lenses.
I'm a bit of a photographic purist so I don't-- the picture I take is the picture I print.
I don't crop once.
So it's a hard job and a lot of times we fly and we circle and we circle.
But, yeah, it's a Cannon.
I'd like to go back to Leica but we'll see if Leica will come out with a digital camera.
Yes sir?
>> Is it difficult to separate yourself emotionally to some other things that you--
>> I'm very good at shutting down the emotional response and the pressure is so high
when I'm doing one of these shoots that-- you don't really have time for thinking, you know ,
and it's really-- it's all about, when you're a photographer, you know, it's all--
you're moving so fast and you have to be so focused on what you're doing, you know,
is the aperture right, is the shutter speed right, you know, is the--
what about the polarizing film, you know, you really have--
so there is no time for contemplating the horror or anything.
You just have to take the pictures and then-- but I'm also very good at de-emotionalize them.
>> Delaying it perhaps?
>> Yeah, I mean, you know, I feel the stuff very greatly but, you know, I mean, that's what I do.
I do it everyday.
So-- and I live with it everyday.
So-- but it makes me a bit of a tiresome guest, I will tell you.
I'm trying to improve, you know.
Imagine the guest that comes to your house and looks at what kind of toilet paper you're using.
You don't want that person come and turns off your light, you know, all of a sudden,
you turn around, "Wait a minute, that light was on."
Oh God, anyway, all right, yes sir?
>> Well, you've show these beautiful pictures of these horrible events and--
but what is the alternative, I mean, what type of event, I mean, it's just that population
of the world was getting so big, get more and more demand for energy.
So everybody's looking for shortcuts for things and you come up with the--
these new ideas, supposedly, they're going to be less--
there's a less of an effect on the environment but it turned out to be worse with--
[Inaudible Remark] It's very frustrating, but nobody ever has a good--
you can [inaudible] a little bit the bad things.
But so what?
What do you about that?
>> Well, I-- for me, you know, as I've really dived, driven,
dove as I have-- as I-- it didn't work.
Anyway, well, I love English, I love the language.
As I have immersed myself in these issues, I have had to change my own behavior.
And, of course, what does that mean?
That means I carry a handkerchief I don't use, Kleenex.
I-- you know, I won't drink out of plastic, you know, I won't buy plastic.
I buy my food from a local farmer.
You think about it.
And suddenly there is a lot you can do.
I mean, I'm lucky I live in New York City so I don't need a car but, you know,
everything you do really, okay, you know, cut down on your meat consumption.
Meat is a tremendous environmental problem.
There is actually a lot we can-- and the good things are happening.
Back to hydrofracking, we've got this major-- what seemed like and it's funny sometimes,
the most important things seem so obscure.
It's a-- one of the things that's a major issue about hydrofracking is the liability
and the fact that mortgages don't allow there
to be industrial activity on a mortgage residential lot.
Now, this is, I just worked on an article with a lawyer in New York
who wrote really a groundbreaking article for the New York Bar Association Magazine
where she said, "This is a major problem that all these land owners are leasing their land
for this industrial activity and that's in violation of their mortgages."
This is such a-- so just this week, one of the insurance companies, I forget which one,
I should know, said, "You know what, we're not going to renew insurance
on land where there's hydrofracking."
This is major-- I mean, that's a game changer.
You know, suddenly, one insurance company has said that, then all of a sudden,
mortgage companies are going to have say, "Wait a minute" 'cause, you know,
banks don't want to lend on something that there is no insurance on.
So suddenly, it's going to all come crashing back on those gas companies
and they will have to "Okay, fine."
So you're self-ensured, but that's a game changer.
So there's a lot of good stuff happening and we have to keep that in mind.
And, you know, I'm a real believer in the ability of one person to make change.
So, you know, you have to change the toilet paper you buy.
Buy your food from a local farmer.
These are very important things and they would-- that changes the world, you know,
one little thing that you do changes the world.
>> Have you ever had any legal problems getting some of these pictures or-- ?
>> I'm usually gone before I'm in trouble.
I have had the FBI waiting for me once or twice.
But, you know, I'm pretty transparent.
I mean, what I'm doing is I make an art, I'm not-- or it's a document, I can't remember.
But it's not useful to anybody with bad intent.
I won't even say the T word, by the way.
There are couple of words I won't say and the T word is one of them because I don't even--
you never know who's listening and I'm pretty sure they're listening
to me, and maybe that's an honor.
But yes, I don't say the T word.
And I'm not one of them.
I'm an artist and what I'm doing is not useful to anybody with bad intent.
And, you know, that bad-- violence never works.
What works is changing people's hearts and minds, and so, yes.
I've had some run-ins but, I mean, I'm sure I'm on a watch list but, you know,
they haven't stopped me at the boarder yet.
Yes ma'am?
>> Have you-- do you have any interest in actually taking photographs of something
like a positive change, some good change?
>> Yes.
>> -- you know, landscape or in a large scale?
>> Actually, I'm talking to the-- what was that at the end of your question?
>> Some of it is happening at the [inaudible] still as, you know,
[inaudible] these photographs that you do aerially which--
I think that bird's eye view has--
>> Yes. And I've done some pictures of wind farms and whatnot.
They haven't made it into my presentation because they haven't--
I haven't gotten the powerful image.
I'm working on an exhibit with the museum in Salzburg.
And they really want to include positive.
And so I think what we'll do is-- Salzburg is powered by a lot of hydropower,
don't get me started on hydropower, it's-- hydropower is, you know,
everything has a down side and there's-- I've read an interesting article which says
that there's a big climate change impact of hydropower because, of course,
when a water reservoir goes down in the summer and then plants grow up around the perimeter
of that reservoir and then that water comes back up
and submerges those plants, those plants rot anaerobically.
And what happens when something rots anaerobically?
You know. It produces methane and that methane-- anyway.
Yes sir?
>> [Inaudible] yesterday because, about the wind farm in Burma
and people got concerned about the--
>> I did not know.
>> -- Cape Cod, so maybe there is a place that [inaudible] the landscape.
>> Every-- you know, it's a real-- everything has a downside.
And do we complain about-- and I know there's also a deforestation issue
about deforesting ridge lines for windmills.
Yeah, that's a toughie, I mean, for the Kennedy's at Cape Cod, my--
I say get over it, you know, put those damn windmills out in the water where they're not,
I mean there, they're really not doing any harm.
The issue on the ridge line in Vermont, you know, that's a little tougher.
It's hard for me to come down on either side of that one, I mean, I tend to want the windmills
because coal is so bad, you know, and coal is what we're replacing right now,
50 percent of our electricity is coal.
So it's a tough one.
Which way do you go on it?
>> As long as they're not in my backyard.
>> Questions?
Comments? Not in my backyard.
[Inaudible Remarks] Of course.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> It's really fascinating to take a photograph of that from the air as compared to a landscape
where you're just doing [inaudible].
>> Yeah.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
Well and it begs a great-- you know, what do we need to be happy?
Do we need to leave the lights on?
Do we need Charmin toilet paper?
Do we need, you know, what-- and of course, we know the answer is actually, in some ways,
the less we have, the happier we are, I mean, things-- we've based our economy on consumption
and disposal, and it hasn't really made us very happy.
Yeah. And back to what you're saying about--
I have a number of good friends in the environmental world
and one in particular who's very high up at NRDC, I don't know if you know NRDC.
And he said, "You know, the most important environmental organization
in the world today, the Green Building Council."
You know, changing our building codes is possibly the easiest
and most affective thing we can do for, you know,
I mean why are we burning oil to heat our houses?
How stupid is that?
You know, geothermal passive source, it's easy stuff, and yeah, I mean it's crazy.
Yes?
>> One thing that you can do at personal level is invest in the future now, like in our house,
we have 10 percent really heat and lighting.
>> Yes.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> And you're also investing in technology.
>> Exactly, I'm supporting new technology which will [inaudible] first thing came out,
they were 40, 50 dollars a bulb and now you can get it
for seven dollars a bulb but the same amount of--
>> And they have the same base so you can put them into in it.
You know, I need to start, I walk around with the lights off,
I'm a little bit crazy I will admit, but I need to start replacing all of my--
I mean, I really do, I'd-- if I have one light on in a room and when I leave the room,
that one light goes off, and I have therefore justified not replacing all of my lights
by saying, "I just don't use light," but it is time that I--
and I think LED is the better answer that compact for us.
[ Inaudible Remarks ]
Well, it's actually, you know, color such and-- color is all here.
>> Exactly.
>> Color is all in the brain, and actually, it's only blue because you're comparing it to a 2700,
but 5,000 is white; I mean 5,000 is daylight color, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, I'm fascinated.
These perception questions are so interesting, the way our brain tricks us, but yeah.
For those who don't know, he is talking about the scale--
the color scale of light and there's a rating tungsten lights, like these are 2700,
2800 daylight, you know, noon sunlight is about 5500.
So-- and that's-- and bulbs are rated by this scale.
And that's, yeah.
But it's very interesting that, you know, you can take a white sheet of paper
and my brain knows that's white so therefore I see it as white,
but it's really not white, it's yellow here.
If I take it outside, it's white.
But, yeah, perception.
Anybody else?
Yes ma'am?
>> I changed toilet paper 20 years ago.
I [inaudible] everybody here to leave the label on the back of all Seventh Generation products,
whether it be this detergent, toilet paper, any of that.
I don't allow anything in the house that isn't biological.
>> Yeah.
>> -- in years.
Sometimes, they keep [inaudible].
>> It makes a bit--
>> So they will tell you on the back, Seventh Generation anyway,
every household [inaudible] one bottle
of [inaudible] how much you are going to save, how much water.
>> And that's, you know, the other things is we are--
we live in a consumers country and we're pushed to consume and consume and consume.
And a lot of times, that means doing things that really aren't that healthy.
For instance soap, that's one of magic soap.
What does soap do?
It breaks down water tension, right?
It breaks the surface tension of water.
What are we?
We are water.
So people, you know, and we're trained to use a lot of soap, I mean,
that's the American way clean, clean, clean, but yet, you're--
I don't think it's that healthy to use-- I see people pouring the dish soap into a dish
and washing it and I think, "My god, I wonder-- " you know, and I don't know this stuff,
this is just me sort of torturing myself a little bit.
>> I heard people say it's too expensive [inaudible].
>> Yeah, no.
>> Regarding [inaudible], I think they're gorgeous.
>> I love [inaudible].
>> I mean, to me, they represent caring, intelligence, serenity,
and you'll see the beauty around them, quite they represent the future in,
you know, something that have [inaudible].
>> My-- back to my question about, is beauty tied to nostalgia?
If you go to Holland and look at a windmill, you think "Oh, it's so beautiful."
If you go wherever right next door and you see one of these modern windmills,
many people think "Oh, it's so horrible."
It's very interesting though, it's-- you know, what is beauty?
What do we-- yeah, yeah, and you had a question, yes?
>> So it seems to me that you're in a business sort of perception, how to use art
or documentary for perception and thinking about the windmills and thinking about Holland
and nostalgia and there's a beautiful farm of the coast on England,
West Coast of England [inaudible].
And what we have done to our ridge lines is that we're not [inaudible] putting
up cellphone towers and a whole bunch of [inaudible]
that we have already had a huge imprint on where our ridge lines sort of like.
Let's turn around now and say, "Oh well, oh no, I got to go forward, I'm going to win this."
What's the perception of the value [inaudible].
So I think you're in business perception, and I wish you the best
of luck to changing and [inaudible].
>> Thank you.
And, yeah, I would have to come down on build those, I mean, I'm very much about fragment,
forest fragmentation also and that bugs me if they are really fragment--
and one of my friends has a place in Vermont and she is just dead set against the windmills.
And-- but I would come down in favor of the windmills, I really would.
And they say, by the way, that the Midwest of the US is the Saudi Arabia when.
I mean, they say if we would-- if they would, I mean, Obama wanted to build smart grid,
if we would just build smart grid and build these windmills
out in the Midwest, problem solved, you know.
I think it's a real-- the obstruction that's going on in this country is a real problem and,
yes, we will block any progress to gain power, I just-- I resent, as a citizen, I resent that.
I don't care about a political party but I do think we need to move forward in this world
and not-- more comments, questions?
Yes sir?
>> Every cell tower and every windmill windmill [inaudible].
>> It's actually not a bad idea, is it?
>> Not really.
>> Why not?
>> Well, I'm sure there's interference problems with frequency so they could sort that out.
>> Yes, ma'am?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
Well, and, you know, again, I-- so I broke in to one of those ho sheds and they are horrible.
And there are so many reasons to be a vegetarian.
I'm not a strict vegetarian, I will eat meat occasionally if it's happy meat.
But, you know, you look at those-- and we all know this stuff, we just kind of don't want
to know it, because bacon is so good, right?
I mean, come on, who doesn't like that slice of bacon in the morning?
But, you know, again, I mean, okay, fine, you want that slice of bacon,
I bet there's a farmer near here who's got nice, happily raised pigs that would--
and so what if you pay twice the price, right?
I want to pay twice the price, really, please give me expensive food, I want, really,
I want to make a farmer happy, and yeah.
But yes, I've made a number of vegetarians with that pig fetish shot.
It's a very effective picture, I was there.
And it's really, you know, there's a-- if you want to read the whole story about hog farming,
there's a great article in Rolling Stone and there's--
these giant lagoons of waste, they're very toxic.
There's-- the guy who-- I love good writing.
The guy who wrote the story is really, it's Jeff Biggers, I think, if I remember correctly.
And his recitation of this incident is so funny but he recites--
and I'm from the South so I can use the word redneck, okay?
Let's just make that clear.
These rednecks were down there and one of them slipped and fell into this waste lagoon and died
and his brother were to get him and he slips and falls in and dies and it goes on, like, I mean,
and the way he wrote it, you know, the progression, the build up was perfect and,
of course, that's what I-- as I'm sitting-- as I'm like leaning out over the edge of the bank
to take this picture, I'm thinking of that.
You know, I'm thinking of the people who slipped into these things and, yes,
and there was no one else around because the guy who was leading me wouldn't stay.
The guy who was driving me, he was a local activist, a colored man, a black man,
and of course, this is the deep south so, you know, he-- and it's a real racial issue also,
this, because the hog farming, of course, is done next to these--
the houses of these people of color.
So-- but he wouldn't stay so he dropped me off and say that he would come back.
And so there I was, all by myself, leaning out over this hog waste lagoon thinking, "You know,
it's going to be a great shot but if I fall in, it's all-- " yeah, yes ma'am?
>> So I was wondering, how may people saw this project
and what kid of audience did you have so far?
>> How many people have seen it, it's hard to say, it's been in a lot of places.
But, you know, it goes to I have exhibits, I have it in magazines,
and it's always a little different, whether it's an article, the hog story ran in--
it'll comeback to me which magazine it ran and, you know, so it's always--
each configuration is a little different so it's impossible to say how many people have--
and, you know, I did this opera in [inaudible], a thousand people saw--
we're subjected to Gustav Mahler and my pictures.
So a lot-- yes, a lot of people but never enough and, of course, part of the problem is often,
the people that see it are pre-- are already predisposed to thinking this way.
>> That's-- exactly.
So 'cause I was wondering you talked about changing,
why you said that a lot of things are changing.
And I kind of agree but, you know, how-- since you said also that America is, you know,
so difficult to really live and your daily life is changing, right, to be part of the change.
So I was wondering if kids saw this exhibition.
[Inaudible Remark] If you went to schools because, I mean, you know, they are the future.
They should be, you know, sensitive about these issues.
>> Yeah.
>> In order to be really effective, because he has a lot
of art, you know, despite what I think.
But, you know, I think kids needs to be exposed to this as well.
>> Yeah.
>> Because adults, as you said, they are ready for this post--
>> We are dinosaurs.
>> So, you know, so--
>> Yeah. I get into schools as much as I love going into schools.
And I love-- as an artist, I need to be in galleries but as an educator,
I really want to be in community centers and schools and yeah.
Where are you from?
Brazil?
>> I'm from Italy.
>> From Italy, sorry.
I was curious about where in Italy?
>> I'm from Sicily but--
>> I'm going to go this winter and shoot, in Carbonia, in Sardinia,
there's a giant aluminum refinery that I'm going to go shoot this--
>> Have you published your work in all of the book or maybe--
>> Yeah, I've got a book.
There's a copy of it upstairs.
We should-- I should send you a couple of copies to sell actually.
Yeah, there's a nice book by-- and I'm really honored and lazy, did I say that?
I'm very lazy.
And so I had this brilliant idea-- get someone else to write the book for you.
So I've got some really great writers to write essays in the book.
And it was real honor to people that contributed to the book.
I'm very proud of it.
It's the first book, it's not a bad effort.
>> Are there any available online or--
>> Oh, yeah, you can get it on Amazon, cheaper than you can--
cheaper than I actually bought it from the publisher.
Oh God. I shipped a bunch of books to Germany.
And by the time they got there, I paid about double what it would have cost me
to just order them on Amazon than Germany.
Well, lesson learned, huh?
Any more questions?
Comments? Time to go?
>> Yes.
>> Just-- I was wondering out of curiosity, how did you end up going
on the plane to get these pictures?
>> 'Cause I'm crazy.
>> Well, thanks for that [laughs].
>> I paid for it.
But many of my pilots volunteer their plane and themselves.
So I just-- a lot of them would not even let me pay for the gas.
Usually, I insist to pay for the gas.
But I have-- I'm very lucky I have a number of pilots that like what I do
and fly me all over the country, so yeah.
And even in Germany and hopefully, in Italy, we'll see, I will report back.
I'm also going to go shoot Mestre.
>> Where?
>> Mestre.
>> Oh yeah, Mestre.
Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
[ Inaudible Remarks & Laughter ]
Yeah. I have an environmental group in Bremen that wanted me to shoot
from [inaudible] but it wouldn't work.
Even the kite I was talking about was a nuisance because it was so blown around by the wind.
You have to be able to really get in a position and be there
and then circle around and get there again.
And the balloon just wouldn't-- I'd love to go up in a balloon
but it wouldn't do what I need to do.
All right, thank you very much.
[Applause]