Tag Archives: natural world

Essay 2

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Emilija Škarnulytė’s short film Sirenomelia, captures a mermaid in an area that was once a NATO base. The film captures different angles of not only the area but also of the water, satellite and the mermaid herself. The audio is listed as “white noise”, that’s it. No additives. Just white noise. Implying that that is the sound for the whole film. Interestingly enough there is a moment in which the mermaid is in frame that the audio sounds like sirens— just like a siren/mermaid sound would sound like. The inclusion of the siren sound into the natural noises that make up white noise is an example of the inclusion for non-human beings, thus resembling the disruption of non-human beings into the world of humans and vice versa. 

For definition, white noise is defined as audible frequencies played at equal intensity and is made up of natural sounds. Sounds are often used as a form of communication, words from a human voice and non verbal sounds like that of a different being communicating to other beings of the same kind. In Sirenomelia, there is a change in audio as soon as the camera is underwater  (TIME 3:10), there is an audible siren coming from underwater coming from a different being, a non human. This moment is the introduction to what viewers later realize in a mermaid or siren. 

Once the mermaid is present (TIME 3:54), the siren sound is more audible. From the moments of sounds from the air, the emptiness is audible, up until the camera is underwater and the mermaid comes into camera. The audio does not change to just sounds of water but it allows the audio of the mermaid to go through. It is an inclusive moment that does not conceal the unknown from life in water. It invites questions and interest beyond what humans know already about the water. Had it been covered up by just the noise of water, it would lack authenticity. The natural world is authentic and when it is unaltered by humans, there comes sounds and creation beyond humans knowledge and understanding. 

Moving onto another disruption in audio (TIME 4:10), there is a sound of static and radio—quite out of the normality that would be classified as “natural sounds.” At this moment the mermaid has her head above water and is directly at the camera. This moment is symbolic as a mesh between two distinct lives on the same land. Humans and non human beings are in the moment looking right at each other, the mermaid is looking right at the viewer. Almost haunting when the unimaginable is right in front of view, just as mermaids are beings that humans don’t understand and know much about. Humans are the strange beings in the mind of a mermaid, humans are the beings that are out of the ordinary, which is amplified through the static. 

Even though this world is a shared space with human beings and the non-human beings, Sirenomelia shows the reality where both species mesh together and what it would sound like through the frequency of white noise. 

Human Identity and it’s Connection to the Natural World in ‘The Great Old Hunter’

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In this week’s reading in Chapter 1, “The Great Old Hunter,” the author showed readers from the start of the story that this was a natural world being depicted as both menacing and awe-inspiring. Wolves, foxes, and wildcats stalk on the borders of human life, threatening children and livestock: “God help any child left playing on the doorstep, forgotten of an evening. On winter nights, in times of famine, packs ran through the streets, howling under the cold moon,” (11). Here, nature is not romanticized but is read as a force of hunger and violence that is used for conflict in fragile, weak towns. The “howling” wolves and the “diabolic” rustling of packs are described with words that border almost the supernatural, especially with the mention of the smell of sulphur, evoking literal Hell itself. The type of language that is used shows how the imagination of medieval people is often combined with the physical dangers of the environment, with moral and spiritual threats.

Yet, the forest and its creatures are not merely destructive. These animals also become the proving ground for, I suppose we can call it, “human greatness.” The narrator states that “evil reigned only if heroes failed to confront its dangers. It seemed that the one existed to give rise to the other, for humans do not show their mettle if left to themselves,” (12). In other words, the danger of nature is necessary because it brings out the courage, heroism, and even piety in humans. Aimery’s hunts are not seen as a simple sport but also as acts that extend human power into the world and reaffirm that divine order. When Aimery slays a boar, that isn’t a victory over an animal, but it’s a symbolic triumph over the Antichrist. Hunting becomes this sacred labor, an almost ritualized confrontation with the wild that we can see both disciplines nature and sanctifies humanity.

Overall, this passage suggests to us that in Aimery’s world, human identity comes from its relationship with the natural world–a world that constantly threatens, tempts, and tests humans, but also gives us opportunities for glory and grace. To live near the forest is to live near both the Devil and God, to be reminded that danger and sanctity often come from the same dark woods.