Who is Gaia?
Gaia Theory is developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Gaia is a metaphor for the living Earth. The Greek goddess from whom the name comes.
From the inert or physical point of view (what is it?):
It is the thin spherical layer of earth and water that exists between the incandescent interior of the planet and the upper atmosphere that surrounds it.
From the biological point of view (who is it?):
It is the interactive fabric of living organisms that have inhabited it for more than four billion years.
The combination of that What and that Who and the way one continuously affects the another, is what has been baptized with the appropriate name of Gaia.
James Lovelock J.
The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity. London; 2006
Man must rise above the earth to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
- Socrates
Gaia, analog collage, 17 x 10.5cm, 2020
Gaia III, analog collage, 37 x 58 cm, 2020
Gaia's Revenge - Covid Girl - COVID-19 Pandemic
The Revenge of Gaia - Covid Girl - COVID-19 Pandemic
The angel of death knocking on a door during the plague of Rome.
Levasseur engraving after J. Delaunay. (Detail)
The angel of death knocking on a door during the plague of Rome.
Engraving of Levasseur after J. Delaunay. (detail)
RESUME
This project constitutes an artistic interpretation of the moment we are living, and the reaction that the planet has to human actions due to the inappropriate use of its own resources.
It is a composition of 3 collages made during the 2020 quarantine. Covid Girl, Gaia's Revenge, COVID-19 Pandemic.
The Earth will get rid of us if we don't change our priorities and resolve the damage we are doing to her.
PANDEMIC
Man throughout his history has been a witness, perpetrator and victim of progressive degradation of the environment and depletion of natural resources. His anti-environmental conduct is due to the desire for profit, both individual and social, and to the ignorance of their relations with nature.
In its favor is the awareness and the effort of recent years to stop the deterioration of ecosystems. But rampant consumerism, some degradation of social norms, on the exploitation of human resources, and of the environment environment continue to play against.
The Earth, and its components mutate, adapt. There are enough signs that show that humans, and all living beings, are one more element that makes up this living organism.
What if the current pandemic was "Gaia's Revenge"?
Gaia's Revenge
Work data: Technique: Analogue collage composed of two maps, red ink
Measures: 23 x 33 cm
Date: Pandemic 2020
Without resorting to conspiracy theories, the coronavirus could be understood as the result of the conduct of a technocratic world, which has generated environmental problems for a long time as the Effect Greenhouse, Global Climate Warming, Deterioration of the Ozone Layer, by name a few.
In his article Leonardo Boff writes Caring for the Earth-protecting life: how to avoid end of the world refers: “I estimate that current diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, zica virus, sars, ebola, measles, the current coronavirus and the generalized degradation in human relationships, marked by deep social inequality/injustice and the lack of a minimum solidarity, they are a retaliation of Gaia for the offenses that we continually inflict.” (Boff, Leonardo - 03/17/2020)
Gaia is defending herself, self-regulating exhausted. According to the scientific community we are in a new geological era Anthropocene, characterized by human behavior on earth. These totally aggressive and violent actions, in which more than a thousand species per year is somewhat worse than the Anthropocene, the Necrocene: the era in which Human beings cause massive death.
Gaia is an organism, and humanity is part of it, the mass deaths from the Covid-19 could be the form of self-defense. This is a global catastrophe that has not come from outside like a war or a explosion, but from within. Viruses are within us and we are the ones who We spread them. This is why we had to learn to live with social distancing and isolation. Human activity has generated these pandemics because we have altered the water cycle and the ecosystem that maintains the balance on the planet.
COVID-19 is detected when 4 workers at the wholesale seafood market of the South China, located in the city of Wuhan entered a local hospital with a kind of pneumonia. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. Hundreds of them circulate among animals such as pigs, camels, bats and cats. The variant causing the pandemic COVID-19 is only the seventh coronavirus believed to have passed from an animal to a human.
As of October 12, 2020, COVID-19 has been infecting 37,955,113 human beings in the world and to date there are 1,082,928 dead according to Johns University Hopkins.
covid-girl
Work data: Technique: Digital Collage printed on ultra matte paper 250grs
Measures: twenty x30 cms
Date: Pandemic 2020
In Wuhan on January 22, with a population of 9 million people, after a outbreak of 500 people and 17 dead, the Chinese authorities closed the city to prevent spread. This is how the isolation began, first in Wuhan and then by the rest of the world. Today is the COVID-19 pandemic of the year 2020.
In Buenos Aires we comply with a severe quarantine until October 12, the date on which The WHO asked governments to avoid quarantines as the main method to control the spread of the coronavirus. (Infobae - 10/12/20)
The confinement is a mandatory spiritual retreat that leads us to introspection and analysis of what is happening and which in turn leads to a gigantic roller coaster emotional.
NASA has verified the decrease in pollution levels at the world. The first values were seen in China. Since February, drops of between 20% and 30% have been detected in emissions of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in some regions of countries hit hard by the coronavirus, such as Italy, China and the United States. Madrid, Milan and Rome registered a decrease of 45% and Paris 54% of concentration of nitrogen dioxide compared to the previous year, in a single month, in Sydney under 38%, Los Angeles 29%, Rio de Janeiro 26%, Durban 9%. Buenos Aires during March reduced air pollution by 50% due to decrease of transit a week after starting isolation.
"No war, no recession, no other pandemic, has had such an impact dramatic in CO2 emissions over the last century such as the one achieved by the covid-19 in a few months," wrote Matt McGrath, environment correspondent for the BBC.
While the human beings lock themselves up, the animals take over the cities. Deer have been seen in Nara, Japan. Javalies running through different cities of Italy, Spain, Israel. Dolphins near the port of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy. ducks in the Trevi Fountain. Mountain Goats in Wales. Newly hatched turtles have been seen on beaches in Thailand. In Venice the water is crystal clear.
The virus is us, Mother Nature recovers hers...
COVID-19 pandemic
Work data: Technique: Analog Collage on Map of 1929
Measures: 30 x41 cms
Date: Pandemic 2020
REFERENCES AND ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PROJECT
Thinking The Pandemic Antonio - Campillo Meseguer 31 March 2020
COVID-19: last chance to re-evaluate our values? - Opendemocracy 18 March 2020
Lovelock: A key to think about the current World - Victoria Rizzo 9 April 2020
Coronavirus: reaction and retaliation from Gaia? - Leonardo Boff 17 March 2020
The unexpected beneficiary of the coronavirus: the planet Rebecca Wright March 17, 2020
This project was published in
Uruguayan Journal Anthropology Ethnography ISSN 2393-6886 Year 2020 Dec.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Open Space Page 149
Special thanks to:
Dr. Sonnia Romero,
Mag. in Anthropological Sciences
Gregorio Tabakian.
This tinted microscope image shows a dying cell (green) infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus (blue) // Photo by: NIAID IRF
SARS-CoV-2 Infection of Airways Cells. In laboratory setting, SAR-CoV-2 was inoculated into human brochial epithelial cells.
These cells were then examined 96 hours after infection with the use of scanning electron microscopy.
SARS-CoV-2
by ヒガンバナ アーミー
