As part of the apocalyptic tradition, Emmett’s video confronts us with the human impact on the natural landscape to reveal the continued toll humans leave on the planet. The work encompasses oil fields, deforestation, genocide in the Amazon rainforest, toxic waste sites, forests ravaged with fire and flooding. Emmett’s protest video presents a series of terminal landscapes as an incitement toward a more critical view of power relations that influence our notions of the natural terrain as valuable natural resource. At the same time an unnerving soundscape drives the viewer from one environmental degradation to the next. Gradually, the video falls into a tableau of surreal black water images, depicting a state of melancholy. It becomes clear that we cannot escape a prognosis of dwindling resources and the rise in catastrophic global warming.
SHAME was premiered with a live performance at Oxo Tower Wharf, London, ‘Mars & Beyond’ 2020.
