Emily Anstett 11/22 Class Relection: Koyaanisqatsi

The film “Koyaanisqatsi” depicts the collision between the environment and technology.  Specifically, the technology that has come to dominant man’s interaction with nature.  “Koyaanisqatsi” is Native American for “life out of balance” and could be descriptive of the alienation that has occurred between man and nature.  As man has increasingly viewed itself as distinct from nature this has created an abstracted relationship.  Man and nature are not viewed as parts working in the same system.  This is problematic for a number of reasons.  One of these reasons is that man’s understanding of nature is skewed to only view nature as means to man’s ends.  In reality, man is a part of the same system that nature is and in order to operate in a beneficial way, man and nature must collaborate.  However, in our current state we are not collaborating with nature, in this way we have become out of balance of the natural equilibrium of the world.  The Koyaanisqatsi film illustrated the destruction that has occurred because of the lack of collaboration.  Specifically, technology has disenfranchised man from nature and been a tool for the destruction of this equilibrium.  I think it is interesting to consider the contrast the film showed of the destruction of man that has created: fields of rubble, polluted bodies of water, and factories pumping the air with pollution compared to the highly manicured fields and gardens.  These are two sides of the same coin of alienation and destruction.  While a manicured garden looks different from a polluted pond they both illustrate how man has manipulated nature. Specifically, technology has been the force behind this manipulation.  The film made it appear as if technology had come to replace nature.  Vast parking lots filled with cars and highways cover miles and swirl around, technology and man’s influence has replaced the natural landscape. However this technology is self-defeating.  The film showed all of the weapons that technology has produced.  These weapons seek to destroy the area itself, illustrating the self-destructive trajectory of many technologies.  


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