L’ecosophie d’Avatar. Science-fiction, nature et vie quotidienne

Abstract

Ecosophy of Avatar. Science-fiction, nature and everyday life. More than a century after its dawn, with Avatar (2009) cinema has returned to emanate the amazement of its origins, wrapping the viewer in a plot of synaesthesia that evokes the overwhelming effect provoked in the room by L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat by the Lumière brothers (1895) and recalls the wonder sown in the audience by Le voyage dans la lune di Méliès (1902). James Cameron's film, awarded by the box office but neglected by critics, was the first to propose a reading that is as transversal as it is innovative of the relationship between the media audience, the system of objects and the environment, tracing a scenario that can correspond with the contemporary imaginary and with the practices of everyday life. The film crystallizes the ecosophical sensitivity emerging in contemporary scenarios in the intertwining between the extension of the system of objects, the mediatization of existence and the overbearing return of nature in the speeches, aesthetics and practices of our culture.