Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
since been hijacked by the elites of the world of art). Chemical land-
scapes are therefore doubly endowed with the mechanized qualities of
kitsch. They imitate the art of the sublime tradition and they have a reit-
erative impulse - so that each image mirrors the content and structure of
the others - yielding a mass-produced quality. Through sheer repetition
images of chemical plants become commonplace inuring the viewer to
their potential hazards and ultimately rendering them as culturally neu-
tral, even inert, objects. Thus, although kitsch might be viewed as the
poor, uneducated cousin of the sublime, it, like the sublime, has the
power to subdue the dangerous power of chemical plants for the viewer
of such images.
Whether viewed through a sociocultural, art historical, or aesthetic
lens, chemical plant landscapes at once revere and deflate the actualities
of chemical industry. When viewed in the context of architectural pho-
tography chemical plants literally and metaphorically stand in for the
castles and cathedrals of earlier photographs, replacing these iconic sym-
bols of power (monarchy and church) with a later day equivalent - indus-
try. Like architectural images of castles and cathedrals, and unlike early
depictions of industry, current images of chemical industry decontextual-
ize and sanitize their presence in the larger landscape, visually minimiz-
ing their potential for hazards. This dichotomy is recast by a reading of
these images within the framework of the sublime and kitsch. In this aes-
thetic context, chemical plants become symbolic of the sublime power of
the human mind to both create and control chemical industry and its
products, while kitsch, when viewed as an overwrought visual extension
of the romantic sublime, diminishes their cultural power through cliché
and reiteration.
4. Abstraction
4.1 Chemical plants: close-up view
An alternative but also common image of the chemical plant provides a
close-up perspective of the tubes and towers discussed as primary ele-
ments in the previous section. Even more than those of the panoramic
chemical plant, however, these cropped images decontexualize the plants
