Natural Bridge: Environmental Art in New Media Documentary

Abstract

The Natural Bridge Project is a pilot study into design form as it applies to the Digital Media Documentation of Environmental Art. This component of the project aims to develop a new form of New Media Art Documentary that will help urban people reconnect with the natural environment. The project throws doubt on existing assumptions surrounding “connectivity” via the Internet and the positive attributes of social media. It argues that social media actually disconnects people from each other and from the natural environment. In an attempt to offer a solution to this problem, the Natural Bridge Project seeks ways to use digital media not as a marketing tool but rather as a way to promote wellbeing through an appreciation of the natural environment through art. It begins by studying the design of documentary films on art and identifies two dominant design formulas. It finds that one formula is primarily concerned with commerce and the other with ideology. The research then identifies “content-driven” design, as espoused by the Program for Art on Film (a joint venture between the New York Metropolitan Museum and the J.P. Getty Trust), as a viable alternative but discovers that the Program has not conducted studies into the practical application of content- driven design.