Article ID: CBB145565896

The Ambivalent Aesthetics of Oil: Project Documerica and the Energy Crisis in 1970s America (October 2017)

unapi

Wellum, Caleb (Author)


Environmental History
Volume: 22
Issue: 4
Pages: 723-732


Publication Date: October 2017
Edition Details: Journal section: Gallery
Language: English

As energy joined the list of concerns driving the environmental movement in the 1970s, documentary photographers working for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produced a series of images that questioned their nation’s relationship to oil. This photograph, taken by Charles O’Rear in 1975, exemplifies the ways in which these EPA photographers broke with the “technological sublime” tradition in American culture by doubting the purported benefits of oil production technologies. It imagines an offshore oil platform as a threat to the future of the body politic rather than a manifestation of national progress.

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Associated with

Article Dunaway, Finis (October 2017) Gallery Editor's Note. Environmental History. unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB145565896/

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Authors & Contributors
Jenny Gregory
Marino, William
Mary E. Thomas
Betsy Fahlman
Aryana Soliz
Melissa Dabakis
Concepts
Petroleum drilling
Petroleum industry
Photographs
Oil; natural gas
Technology and art
Environmental sciences
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
Ploiești (Romania)
Gulf of Mexico
Western states (U.S.)
Nevada (U.S.)
Romania
Institutions
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
United States. Geological Survey
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