The Environmental Screenscape

This subject explores the ecological implications of media technologies and the ways they mediate the world around us. We will investigate the materials and energy used in screen media today, and the ecological consequences of work practices and design choices. Far from dematerialising culture, the rapid evolution of personal computing, internet, mobile media and games intensify the involvement of production, distribution and viewing media in the physical world. At the same time, film, TV and other screen media makers respond to environmental crises and their own involvement in them. Applying diverse and interdisciplinary interpretative tools to global fiction, news, documentary, online and public screen media, we will explore how ecocritical aesthetics can address pollution, waste and the Anthropocene, and develop ways of bridging the gulf between human and non-human worlds.