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Stalker and Annihilation: The Zone as an Object of Film Ecocriticism
Šidlák, Jáchym ; Svatoňová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Sirůček, Jiří (referee)
This bachelor's thesis tries to encourage a dialogue between Timothy Morton's ecological theory and the possibilities of film ecocriticism. Morton's focus lies in the basic premise of ecological thinking - the interconnectedness of all beings and objects in a decentralized, unstable net of relationships - and the ways in which this principle can be reflected in the very form of critical analysis. This form tries to accommodate for the "radical intimacy" of ecological existence by anticipating the encounter of non-identicial phenomena, undermining any fixed framework through which to describe our material enmeshment in the environment. The ecological thought, as Morton describes it, is therefore not defined by what we think, but by how we think - in the same way, this thesis tries to search for a way to conceptualize ecocriticism not through its thematical focus on the representation of nature or environmental issues, but through its effort to think ecologically about the medium. The films Stalker and Annihilation, and mainly their shared motive of an area of land, stricken by an extraterrestrial entity, serve as paradigmatic images of place that emphasize the instability, creativity and unpredictability of matter itself. I also claim that the experience of characters inside this area can be...
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Posthuman Art Praxis: Restless Boundaries of Planetary Subjects
Sirůček, Jiří ; Svatoňová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Likavčan, Lukáš (referee)
Our impact on the planet's functioning has allegedly become so profound that during the last years the scientific community has been considering assuming a shift from the Holocene - our current geological epoch - to the Anthropocene, the Age of Man. According to philosopher Bernard Stiegler, this "era of Humans" is not only visible in the devastation of natural ecosystems, but also through the destruction of human skills and methods of transmitting knowledge. The Anthropocene, which was initiated by the industrial revolution, thus passed through the industrialization of culture, and has disrupted our understanding of the world. Philosopher Rosi Braidotti proposes that with the advent of this new era, we ought to be aware of not only the ever-present environmental catastrophes, but that we also ought to use it as a tool for reappraising what it means to be Human. According to her, the Western subject was created as a product of the Humanist cultural hegemony which defined it within a logic of binary opposition. In light of these ideas, this Master's thesis attempts to show that art can provide us methods for redefining our relationship to each other, as well as to the wider world, and help us navigate the contours of the ongoing crisis. The work uses Posthumanist thought and its affiliated...
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Deep Time of the Earth: Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Sirůček, Jiří ; Svatoňová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Heczková, Libuše (referee)
The shock caused by the discovery that the existence of Earth transcends mankind by billions of years was, after the Copernican heliocentrism, yet another radical disruption of the idea of the human as the centre of the world and the universe. Even thought the concept of deep time was, along with the questioning of the uniqueness of the subject, accepted relatively soon in the field of exact sciences, the dualistic, teleological and anthropocentric thinking partially persists in number of areas of the humanities up to the present day. This bachelor's thesis uses the conception of deep temporality of Earth as a motive through which it follows currents of philosophical thinking that "betray" the post-Kantian tradition and seek to reflect the outer world lying beyond the limits of subjectivity, to turn the attention to the non-human and to imagine its qualities, although with the necessary awareness that it always will be a speculation. The text at first introduces some of the contemporary tendencies in continental philosophy, particularly speculative realism, object oriented ontology and new materialism, and connects them with works from the area of geology that consider options for cognitive comprehension of the vast temporality of the Earth. The bachelor's thesis consequently applies the findings...
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