Adverse Possession
$ 750.00
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(2014) In mid-August while on a business flight back to Chicago from New York I saw a cloud that looked like a giant scorpion tail atop a head. I recognized the potential to expand this idea and had a great time creating Adverse Possession.
Adverse Possession is the legal term for when a trespasser can essentially come onto one's property, occupy it, and eventually gain legal ownership of it. Though circumstances differ, one such way is via hostile claim. I keep returning to the theme that humanity, while a part of nature, is ultimately not in charge. To drive this theme I'll refer to this bit of dialogue from the 1993 movie Jurassic Park:
Dr. Ian Malcolm : Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun.
Donald Gennaro: It's hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations...
Dr. Ian Malcolm: If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now [bangs on the table] you're selling it, you wanna sell it. Well...
John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
John Hammond: Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction...
Dr. Ian Malcolm: [shaking his head] No...
John Hammond: If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, hold on. This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction.
John Hammond: I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act?
Dr. Ian Malcolm: What's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.