NATURE SEE YOU

In November 2015, at the eve of the UN climate change conference in Paris, a video was uploaded on the internet, in which Koko, a gorilla trained in the use of American Sign Language, addresses world leaders directly. She chastises humanity and calls for immediate action to save herself and the nature she is part of. In his video essay Nature See You, Erik Bünger invites a sign language avatar to comment on Koko's use of words. The avatar tries again and again to reformulate the impossible position which Koko finds herself in, as a spokesperson for nature: to communicate her message to us she has to use words. But in order for this message to remain true to nature she has to remain wordless.