Alpine Topographies of Loss: On the Media Temporality of Glaciers
by Dominik Schrey
Abstract:
Arguing that the materiality of Alpine glaciers was linked to notions of emergency and greed long before discussions of anthropogenic climate change, this article focuses, on the one hand, on complex tempor(e)alities of glaciers, and, on the other hand, on the question of how they and the fact of their disappearance become aesthetic. Of particular interest are thus not only the historical bodies of knowledge trying to make sense of glaciers in various ways but also artistic projects that reflect upon their vanishing during what has come to be known as the Anthropocene. To that end, the article first looks at the local knowledge about Alpine glaciers at the time around 1850, now considered the tipping point of global glacier mass balance. Based on three case studies, the article then discusses the different ways and dimensions in which glaciers of the European Alps are becoming media and how techniques of surveying and mapping transformed them into rationalized objects of scientific interest, increasingly devoid of agency. Countering the hegemonic view of glaciers as pervasive yet remote icons of climate change and symbolic thermometers of a planet in crisis, a more complex perspective is presented, building on recent discussions in media studies.
Keywords: glaciers, Alps, climate change, deep time, geology of media, topography, Anthropocene
How to cite:
MLA (9th edition):
Schrey, Dominik. “Alpine Topographies of Loss: On the Media Temporality of Glaciers.” MAST, vol. 1, no. 2, Nov. 2020, pp. 148–172.
APA (7th edition):
Schrey, D. (2020). Alpine topographies of loss: On the media temporality of glaciers. MAST, 1(2), 148–172.
Chicago (17th edition):
Schrey, Dominik. “Alpine Topographies of Loss: On the Media Temporality of Glaciers.” MAST 1, no. 2 (November 2020): 148–172.
Licensing:
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Copyright:
Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions and may reuse/republish their article as part of a book or other materials, providing acknowledgment is given to MAST as the original source and place of publication. Authors can also post a copy of their accepted/published article on their websites and on their Institutional repository, citing that the article was originally published in MAST.
© 2020 Dominik Schrey
Issue: vol. 1 no. 2 (2020): Special Issue: Media, Materiality, and Emergency
Section: Article
Guest Editor: Timothy Barker
Submitted: July 31, 2020
Accepted: Sep 18, 2020
Published: Nov 13, 2020
