Look! In the Window! A Cultural Construct

It is fascinating to read about the history of the automobile, and to realize that for many urban populations it once represented a major means by which they realized "nature." Thus, for example, the 1925 Bronx River Parkway from New York City into Westchester County was originally conceived by Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park, as a "scenic utopia" reflecting an "authentic" American landscape (see Gandy’s Concrete and Clay, 2002). It was planted with over 30,000 trees, each selected to represent those that were, or might have been, indigenous to the area. In this, it was similar to Olmstea’s Fens and Riverway project in Boston, which replaced acres of polluted mud flats with carefully engineered and designed "natural" patterns and plantings -- or, for that matter, Central Park itself, a supremely engineered statement of what "nature" was for a city determined to ascend into the elite league of world cities.

Many interesting threads lead from these seemingly simple examples. One could, for example, examine how the Parkway, and other roads like it, helped break down the physical boundaries of the city. One could contemplate "nature" as thus constructed from many angles: conservation of species, reconstruction of (highly idealized) landscapes, statements of power and class in a rapidly developing, immigrant-rich America. Thus, for example, Robert Moses designed low bridges over his parkway to Jones Beach on Long Island to prevent buses, and thus the lower classes, from accessing it -- although there was plenty of parking for the cars of the middle class. One could contemplate how each project explicitly redefined "nature" as a designed and built environment at the time, yet came to be seen by future generations as "natural" in a foundational sense.

But another aspect caught my eye. Referring to the Parkway and other contemporaneous efforts, Gandy (at 122) comments that "Nature became simultaneously more distant (framed by the window of a moving car), more accessible (through greater public contact with remote areas), and at the same time more individualized as an aesthetic experience." In other words, the automobile as a technology system created a new, and unique, experience of "nature" -- not alone, of course, for the automobile, the Parkway, and other infrastructure were in turn representative of a certain moment in history and culture.

But consider "nature" through the window of the automobile -- and then as it appears through the window of the television, still more distant, yet, thanks to the power of "nature" photography, even closer, more emotionally evocative, and more accessible. Nothing is more artificial and contrived, more designed and planned, than the "nature" program on TV -- and more culturally potent, for that matter. And, finally, there is "nature" as it appears on the Net in at least three guises. The first is virtual reality: as bandwidth and processing power grow, "nature" will become largely a human creation, whether in video games or created experiential landscapes of the future. The second is in complex models interpreting massive data sets: a "nature" that because it is "scientific" will appear more real than the former, but will be just as constructed and ideological. And, of course, consumers will increasingly buy their "nature," from geode to cactus garden, not just from the museum or nature store at the mall, but over the Internet: "nature" as e-commerce.

This progression marks the increasing mediation of technological systems between whatever is "out there" and human perception and cognition; the evolution of a "nature" derived from human information structures rather than direct experience. It also marks the increasing commoditi-zation of "nature." The question of whether this evolution is desirable is an open one; what is amazing, however, is that it is largely unseen.

For many, including if not especially environmental professionals and activists, "nature" remains a foundational reality, its character as a constantly changing cultural construct not even recognized. Unfortunately, in the progression from perception, to analysis, to understanding, to wisdom, we have not yet really even begun. And thus the profound intellectual challenge still posed to us by the Bronx River Parkway of 1925.

-- Brad Allenby

Allenby is Environment, Health and Safety Vice President for AT&T, an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia’s Engineering School and Princeton Theological Seminary, and Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School. The views expressed herein are those of the author, and not any institution with which he is associated.