Thoughts on 'Crittercam'

Our main source for consumption was once just the natural world but this has developed to man-made goods as well. This has altered the consumer world even more as products can be made in order stimulate repetitive consumption resulting in a discrepancy with what we really need and what we consume. Designed obsolescence was first developed in the 1920s and 1930s with the surge of mass production. The term is used to describe products that are made and designed to become out of date in every sense of the term. They usually cease to function within a givin period of time and are meant to be replaced by a newer and therefore more fashionable version that the manufacturer has released by this time. This benefits the manufacturer as there is an element of demand for the consumer to purchase the latest product. This planned deterioration and limited durability of a products maintains the flow of consumption. That is, if we were to buy a product that lasted forever we would buy less, this way, manufacturers can rely on the fact that they will continue to sell.
However it seems that our drive for consumption is still not satisfied as a new area is being explored, an amalgamation of what we have already consumed, the Artificial Natural. This describes the various ways in which we impose technology upon the ‘natural world’ in order for us to satisfy our desire to control and own.An example of this new-age consumption is National Geographic’s Crittercam. The project set out by attaching cameras onto sea animals to ‘eliminate human presence and allow us entry into otherwise virtually inaccessible habitats’. An intention that seems slightly commercialised as “the human presence” is ever apparent with the advanced technology of the cameras being our gateway into this unknown world. National Geographic’s Crittercam promises that you can ‘become self by seeing self through the eyes of self…that self becomes others’ self’, this rather long winded analogy put alongside with their ‘Enter the deep sea’ slogan seems fantastical and presents the project as a means to satisfy our own curiosity without the interest of the sea life as a considered factor. Our drive for consumption is highlighted by this project as we, as humans, place ourselves outside, above and beyond nature and therefore feel the need, as much as is possible, to infiltrate into parts of the natural world which we would not usually have access to.