A newly launched project looks into how various devices and apps are shaping our relationship with nature.
- Text Nina Venhe | Photos Niko Jouhkimainen
In today’s world, navigation in nature relies on map apps. Before embarking on their adventure, the hiker will have used a variety of apps to check what attractions lie in or en route to their destination, what kind of experiences nature offers, and what the best photo opportunities are. While hiking, they look at their smart watch for step count and heart rate. Every now and then, the hiker opens an app to identify some plants they encounter, and another app, recording bird song, to identify some birds flying by. Once reaching their destination, the hiker will share the experience on social media – accompanied by a photo showing something typical of their culture, such as their dog, or a Karelian pastry to be washed down with a cup of coffee.
Sound familiar?
“Today, people’s relationship with nature is shaped by various devices and apps. In the olden days, of course, some of us used to go hiking with binoculars and cameras hanging around our neck, but technological development has been so fast that everything described above is now a normal part of everyone’s life,” says Juhana Venäläinen, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies.
Technology is shaping and adding dimensions to the way we experience nature and our surroundings.
“We are living in historic times also in the sense that people cannot escape being aware of climate change and biodiversity loss, and this is also mediated and conveyed in the digital format.”
This transformation of our environmental perception is now being studied across Europe in the multidisciplinary and international DigiFREN project, which explores how digital media and technology shape our environmental perceptions, affections, conceptions, and practices. In the project, Juhana Venäläinen leads the group of researchers from cultural studies at the University of Eastern Finland.
Juhana Venäläinen says that it’s sometimes difficult to stay in the role of a researcher. “I, for example, get childishly excited about different nature apps, but as a researcher I must be open to more critical interpretations as well.”
Nature experiences from Finnish mires
DigiFREN is the first ethnographic project to conduct an extensive and comparative study into the digital aestheticization of natural environments in Europe. In addition to Finland, research is conducted in Slovenia, Croatia, Norway and Poland.
“The project’s findings will be important not only for anthropology, history, cultural studies and sensory research, but also for human geography, environmental aesthetics, and media studies,” Venäläinen says.
In Finland, the project looks at two mire sites that are rather different from one another. The Viiankiaapa Mire Reserve is an example of an area where interests relating to recreation in nature and its fundamental ecological value, and industrial exploitation associated with a mining project, collide.
“We examine how visual or other digitally conveyed presentations of nature are linked to these conflicting interests. At the same time, we will also examine how digital photography actually continues the long tradition of nature photography as a way of highlighting ecologically unique environments.”
The other Finnish research site is the Patvinsuo National Park in Lieksa, which is mainly used for recreational purposes. Venäläinen says that he recently visited the Patvinsuo National Park with an international team of researchers.
“Just as our bus was arriving there, one of us looked out and noticed something moving. A mother bear and four cubs were looking at us from the edge of the woods. It was such a unique and unexpected experience of nature that we barely managed to capture it digitally.
Although forests are the go-to-place for Finns when it comes to experiencing nature, the project wanted to focus on mires instead.
“The use of mires for recreation, for example, is much less studied than the use of forests, so there is more to look into in that topic.”
A mother bear and four cubs were looking at us from the edge of the woods. It was such a unique and unexpected experience of nature that we barely managed to capture it digitally.
National parks, nature reserves and urban environments
The full name of the DigiFREN project is Digital Aestheticization of Fragile Environments, and, as the name suggests, the project also looks at natural environments that are somehow fragile and susceptible to change.
“This is why the project addresses not only national parks and nature reserves, but also more urban nature. In Wrocław, Poland, for example, a local team of researchers is examining new forms of environmental activism stemming from the recent pollution of the Oder River – the origin of which remains a mystery –, and what role social media is playing in the activities of these movements.”
The project consortium is led by Associate Professor Blaž Bajič at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology in the University of Ljubljana. In addition to scholars of cultural studies at the University of Eastern Finland, the consortium includes groups from Poland (Jagellonian University, Cultural Anthropology), Croatia (Zagreb Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research) and Norway (University of Stavanger, Environmental History).
“The consortium has a shared research mission and some of the research methodology is shared as well, but each group is working on its own, local field sites.”
Documentation of historical moments
In the early stages of the project, the collection of material in Finland has focused on digital newspapers and social media. The material is used to examine, e.g., how the sites are visually presented and what themes in these presentations are highlighted.
“Next, we will be conducting walking interviews with various experts, such as biologists, artists, amateur photographers and nature activists. We are also interested in the views of ordinary people who like to spend time in nature, and it is still possible for those who are interested and would like to share their views to sign up for a walking interview.”
The interviews will consider, in practical terms and at the research sites, the role of digital technologies in conveying and shaping people’s experiences of nature.
“We refer to this method as ‘senso-digital walking’. It focuses both on the sensory and the digital experience. Often, an authentic experience of nature is seen as one without any technological devices. However, authentic nature experiences, too, are always tied to time, place and cultural context – and are constantly changing. With this research, we want to document and understand this change in a time in history that is characterised by extremely rapid technological development.”
Venäläinen doesn’t want to speculate about the project's results at this point. Based on the material collected, however, it does seem like the same camera angles and themes are recurring on social media.
“Of course, it is interesting why people always want to take the same photo of the same object. However, I hope that the material we’ve collected will also contain diversity and surprises.”
This will likely be known in three years’ time, as the international team of researchers analyses the data and explores the transformation we are going through, and how it affects our way of being in nature and all the implications it has for our society and culture.
Digital Aestheticization of Fragile Environments, DigiFREN, is one of the projects to secure funding from the highly competitive CHANSE Programme of European research funding organisations. The project was launched in October 2022, and it will run until September 2025.
