Felix Reyes
LOOK OUT!
Home, Climate Nihlism, Post Nature, Climate Fiction
This thesis is a film that transcends the planetary scale of climate change models by delving into the intimate realm of 'home' amidst our climactic crisis. Through this exploration, the film presents an alternative mode of engagement that aims to contextualize the life of the climate nihilist. Through visual storytelling, the film seeks to evoke an introspective and empathetic reaction to its characters and their eerily close proximity to us.
Although advanced climate simulations and surveillance technology provide objective means of understanding and analyzing the state of the environment, the abstract nature and scale of these models can lead to a nihilistic response to the climate crisis. By reframing these models to the human scale, the film carries the challenges of the seemingly insurmountable macro effects of climate change and documents their impact within our deceivingly benign domestic environments.
The notion of 'home' and our relationship with the environment has been shaped by a binary view that separates humans and culture from the natural world. Through the significant evolution of the modern home, an excess of technologies of comfort embedded within them continue to foster an illusion of distance that strengthens the disconnect between humans and their surroundings. However, this has resulted in homes that aid and embed our objectification of the environment and enable our overall nihilism toward climate change.
In the film, a family living within a state-of-the-art smart house is provided unparalleled comfort and protection from the elements within the remote mountainous forest in California. However, when a forest fire threatens their safety they bunker down, leading to an unexpected turn where their family structure and behaviors become as fragile as the shelter that had once safeguarded them. The home and its occupants embody the principles of climate nihilism, wherein acts of defiance and resistance take precedence over adaptable resilience to the escalating dangers of climate change.
Through harnessing the intimacy of our 'home', a novel mode of architectural engagement emerges in service of a stronger sensibility and empathy towards the state of our planet. This tale challenges whether the walls of the 'home' are enough to inspire the fortitude and hopefulness necessary to confront the daunting challenges we face beyond.
Film Still 1: Smith Residence built by Praesidium, a security company that builds bespoke homes with defense and protection systems for high-net-worth individuals.
Film Still 2: Fire tower sirens blare as a wildfire breaks out in the distance, warning dwellers within the remote region to bunker down into the protective homes.
Film Still 3: Phoenix, the young protagonist of the film, documents her adventures in the woods as A.N.D.Y., her trusted nanny drone and companion, watches over her.
Film Still 4: Inattentive to the crisis outside the house and the family within it, Adam spends his days locked in his den obsessively searching for inspiration for his next science fiction novel.
Film Still 5: In the face of the crisis, Phoenix seeks moments of hope by adorning the home with here fantastical depictions of the forest that is burning outside.