Casper David
F. C. - Prophecy of The Birds - Wandervögel (1938 - 1954)
Casper David Fischer Carlsen:
Casper David Fischer Carlsen (1914 - 1993) was a Danish / German environmentalist, political activist, visual artist, composer, writer and poet famous for his intense hatred and scathing critique of industrialization, urbanization, technology, anthropocentrism, speciesism, modern civilization and way of life.
He is particularly well known for his idiosyncratic art theory which postulates the moral obligation of all artists to incorporate “a reimagining of the eschatological landscape in art” as a to tool “reestablish the eternal bond between the land and its people, our interconnectedness with nature, our moral obligation to stop any further exploitation and instead assert the moral superiority of a primitivist lifestyle”.
To achieve "the eschatological dimension" he believed that an artwork must simultaneously;
a) reinvigorate our sense of awe in the face of the sublime and transcendent beauty and mystery present in the chaos and complexity of nature and the natural world.
b) incorporate an aesthetic of ruin, disintegration or decay. This aesthetic can be achieved through the choice of subject matter, through techniques that obfuscates, smears, blurs or abstracts the boundaries between compositional elements and through the use of historic tools or technologies that introduce organic imperfections, noise and/or a sense of artistic practices of the past.
c) allude to or actively use narratives associated with historic, mythological and/or religious beliefs of pre-industrial and pre-christian society (especially Norse mythology & paganism).
Casper David
F. C. - Sacrificial Fire #2 (1991-1992)
Casper David
F. C. - Sacrificial Fire #1 (1968-1970)
He had a strong conviction that art was not separate from society, from social life or from politics.
He believed that all true art help us understand, shape and create a shared collective reality which is a prerequisite for any cohesive society or meaningful community;
“Without it we are nothing.
Pure fragmentation and confusion. Unable to act.
We need it to become one.
Inaction is inexcusable.
Our land demands it.
A body of the people.
Acting as one. Demanding change.”
“Any worthwhile art must confront its audience with The Fundamental Issues of its time. It is exactly for this reason that all art must carry meaning and must engage explicitly with politics. Any art that does not do so is just hedonistic pleasure (entertainment, distraction and escape), empty aesthetics (manipulation of emotion through the deceptive attraction of beauty) and/or detached intellectualism (structural manipulations of abstract phenomena that have no bearing on real life i.e. intellectual masturbation”)”.
“It is exactly for this reason that all contemporary art must contain an eschatological dimension. It must demonstrate our utter moronic and completely unethical obsession with progress (particularly technological), pleasure & comfort (particularly excessive wealth accumulation), individuality (e.g. fixations on the freedom of choice in relation to gratification of trivial and temporary individual desires rather than living a meaningful life in accordance with our ethical responsibility) and complexity (e.g. cultural and moralistic relativism).
We cling to these values and this way of life in spite of the unfathomable amount of destruction and suffering it is causing. Human suffering in the form of existential dread, lack of societal cohesion, alienation, depression, anxiety disorders, psychological stress, spiritual emptiness, the cult of work and productivity, domestication of the human spirit, abandonment of true freedom as well as the continual reinforcement of the extreme exploitation and brutality which characterizes the working conditions related to the production and distribution of goods in a globalized capitalist economy. Even more fatal however is the suffering we are inflicting upon other species, the environment and ultimately the entire biosphere.
To alleviate this suffering, to abandon our compulsory ideology of self destruction and avoid anthropogenic extinction we must relinquish the comforts of contemporary civilization. We must fight for the destabilization of the technological, economic and ideological basis of contemporary society and instead turn towards a life lived in small self-sufficient local communities. A life in accordance with nature.
This is the reason we need the eschatological dimension in art.
We need it as a tool to resacralize our relationship with nature.
To confront, aestheticize, criticize and politicize the consequences of our unrelenting exploitation.
We must conform to the eternal wisdom of nature.
Discipline our desires in accordance with the natural world.
Create a symbiotic relationship.
The people and the forest are grown from the same fertile soil.
An integrated organic unity, deeply rooted, sedentary, rising to greatness.“
Casper David
F. C. - The Green Web (1988-1990)
We must understand that nature does not exist simply to be used or consumed by us.
We are just one species amongst the many. It is an ecological, moral and even spiritual necessity that we radically reject, criticize and alter our current human-centric, speciesist ethical framework. We must deny the distinction between "high and low" or "valuable and less valuable" lifeforms. Such categorization is arbitrary and subjective. Every organism is a teleological centre of life. Each organism has a purpose and a reason for being, a reason that contributes to the overall well-being of our biosphere. The survival of any part is dependent upon the well-being of the whole and vice versa. Our current secularized worldview reduces nature to a purely material domain cut off from the world of the Spirit. A resource to be plundered at will for what is usually called human welfare, but which really means the illusory satisfaction of a never-ending greed without which consumer society would not exist. We must reject this notion and instead enlarge the boundaries of our ethical responsibilities to include both sentient and non-sentient organisms alike. A collective community of animals, humans, trees, soils and waters (etc.) that all contribute to the well being of the biosphere. It is our ethical responsibility to rediscover, promote and reestablish this profound ancient wisdom that nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is due to reverent care. It is matter of avoiding complete environmental collapse, reducing suffering and securing the viability for the continued existence and well-being of a whole host of species (animals, plants and humans alike).”
Casper David
F. C. -
Animal Liberation // Ixtoc-1 - Birds by the sea (1979)
Casper David
F. C. -
Disintegration Flight - Leaves and Birds as One (1982):