alien abundance
While reading Stefan Helmreich’s Alien Ocean this week I kept thinking about the ambivalent way in which jellyfish are depicted both as alien invaders and gentle creatures of the sea. The picture I chose as a rendering questions who in this image, the human diver or the masses of Nomura’s jellyfish, should be considered the alien. Positioned amidst a silent congregation of jellyfish off the coast of Japan, who’s really the foreign intruder? To what degree are aliens unnatural?
Lacking central nervous systems or any familiar sensory capacities jellyfish come off as the macroscopic embodiment of Helmreich’s microbial subjects floating calmly in their oceanic milieu. Curiously absent from Alien Ocean, I’ve noticed that in the past few years jellyfish have increasingly been portrayed as malevolent, highly invasive and capable of manifesting ambitions no less grandiose than complete ocean domination. An article in the Telegraph even suggested that “tracking devices on the jellyfish in the Pacific proved that they were not drifting on the ocean currents but heading determinedly – and at the speed of an Olympic swimmer – towards the coast.” Jellyfish are not the innocent brainless blobs we believed they were, they’re coming for us. I am reminded of a scene from the 1998 sci-fi film Sphere in which a diver’s delight in being surrounded by jellyfish quickly turns to horror. Take this 2007 National Geographic video,
Trying to ground the difference between alien and native for these jellyfish is difficult. There is a strange sense in which jellyfish, as invasive species, are simultaneously given agency (and responsibility) and also portrayed as the inevitable material consequence of “a biotic world of illegitimate, inundating flows called forth by the shifting contradictory dynamics of globalizing social forces” (p.17). As opposed to species that have been introduced into an ecosystem by the direct (intentional or accidental) actions of humans, invasive species are marked as ‘unnatural’ by their formal characteristics as defined in respect to biological concepts (of robustness, fecundity). The alien invasion depicted in this video is not in opposition to concepts of ‘native’ (such as in the context of the algae in chapter four), but by the overabundance and ‘unnatural’ success of these organisms. It is specifically their ability to disrupt, both forms of life (such as recreational swimming and fishing practices) and life forms that jellyfish gain their alien invader status. To this point, Helmreich demonstrates that the uncertainties evoked by binary metataxonomies such as alien/native and nature/culture create profound confusion about whether invasion biology is a natural or a social science, or both (p.148). Indeed,
“invasive species undo our concepts of the natural itself” p.159
Despite threatening stings and overwhelming numbers there is still an aspect of deep fascination with these creatures. Something about the alien-nature of jellyfish has worked itself into the popular imagination and created a universal sense of awe at the other-worldliness that jellyfish evoke. Take the Sea Jelly Spectacular at the Hong Kong Ocean Park or the Newport Aquarium’s Jellyfish Gallery in which you will be “mesmerized and amazed,” as examples. Utilizing the “latest technology in lighting, music and multimedia special effects,” these exhibits capitalize on the unique fluorescent beauty of these creatures to extract surplus value in bringing them to life in new, wholly ‘unnatural,’ ways (which actually reminds me of a 2002 Chemical Brothers music video). It is not only their curious luminosity but their hypnotic locomotion that piques our interest. For example, the AquaJelly and AirJelly (shown below) are designed by Festo, a German industrial control and automation company, as part of a university consortium initiative. Although lacking practical purpose (proof of concept?), it is difficult to look upon these constructions without a sense of biomimetic wonder.
March 19, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Very attentive reading of jellyfish, I think it’s a particularly appropriate topic given how Helmreich turns to symbols as powerful interpretive tools.
I also thought about the movie Seven Pounds starring Will Smith–it’s a terrible movie, I don’t encourage anyone to watch it, so I don’t mind spoiling the ending for you–where Smith’s main character commits suicide near the end of the movie by submerging himself in a bathtub full of jellyfish (!). He’s committing suicide with the intention of donating his organs to various people (to redeem himself for past sins). We’re led to assume that this method of death is a way to kill him without damaging his organs. Throughout the film we see Smith has an aquarium full of jelly-fish in his home, we assume he just likes them because they are beautiful and mysterious. But in the end their real purpose is revealed! Death by jellyfish seems to be a “natural death,” making Smith’s punishment one carried out by natural phenomena as opposed to human inventions like guns or pills. The funny thing is that jellyfish toxins actually cause tissue damage so the filmmakers obviously took some artistic license here. Apparently the spectacular nature of jellyfish (as you’ve pointed out) was just too much to pass up.
March 20, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Beautiful images, and a wonderfully thought provoking rendering, thank you.
I too, was attracted to jellyfish as a potent symbol; a life form that ungulates between categories, slipping across neat distinctions between native and alien. I found it odd that in the footage presented here we can’t get at the sound these bodies make as they move through the water. Instead in these images and throughout much of the footage I encountered of jelly fish on internet, their bodies are animated by songs and sounds that reach out and touch the viewer, encouraging them to sway in tandem with these bodies. I wonder now as I gently sway with these bodies, how they work to abduct my senses.