The gendered landscape

The Gendered Landscape Affiliation: due: Part Father Time Father time is an established symbol that personifies time. It is habitually depicted as an elderly man, dressed in a white rob usually having white beard. He is seen carrying a scythe and a time keeping device, hourglass, that represents time’s constant one way movement. Father Time and Mother Nature are viewed as a married couple because of their parental characteristics. Father Time characterizes death while Mother Nature represents life. Just like the grim reaper, time symbolizes death as it is the route of our chronology.
In some cultures, Father Time is seen during the New Year and is thought to hand over duties to a baby new year. He is also believed to be frequently watching over us, the sand in his hourglass slowly decreasing as it slips through the hand of time. No wonder the saying “ time wasted will not be recovered”. Him being elderly and having white beard symbolizes flow of time and its effect. His scythe show that time cuts down all things; it is a symbol of harvest, death or end of existence. For example, the end of the year (Petre, 2005).

Pictures showing father time
Part 2: Green man and the “ Cyborg”
The green man is normally related to natural vegetative divine beings and is often interpreted as a figure of rebirth. Green man is a symbol of nature spirit of man dependence on and in union with nature. It may interpret to embrace negative and positive attributes of colour green as green colour may signify a young man with natural vitality and love. On the other hand, the green man can signify hostility and death. Some people say that the green man appears whenever there is a requirement to protect the environment. It is a blend that compromise between a pagan and Christian doctrine. It is seen in churches as a decorative feature and it is also a pagan spirit associates with nature (Anderson & Hicks, 1998). The Cyborg is a machine that characterizes the human being. Science fiction has included the Cyborg into human culture. The Cyborg is as a result of merging of technology and human form.
It is evident that those archetypes of green man and the Cyborg signify the wish for human transformation. In my view, there is a need to embrace the Cyborg because technology will soon outshine normal human capability. Gender fits perfectly into this discussion in that the facets of green man and the Cyborg clearly are male and female respectively. This is because green man poses the characters of strength and love while the Cyborg poses the nature of nurturing.
Patricia Piccinini
Piccinini is an artist who gets her inspiration from real life genetically modified organisms and advancing technology. Her work takes me aback and brings about emotions that might alter my behavior and way of thinking. Three terms will be discussed in relation to her artwork. These terms are cautionary tales, transhuman and ethics. Piccinini uses her work to flash out the reality of genetically modified life. Her pictures are realistic and adorable and at the same time hair-raising, for example, the picture of three babies lying down. It makes one question do the babies have a reason for being? Are they pets? Are they modified wolves? They make us feel uncomfortable because of the mutations imposed on them though they are adorable. The concept of transhumanism is demonstrated by the animation brood that machines will be intelligent and alive. What we are not definite of is if they will gladly serve as designed or they will strive to dominate. Ethically, the works shown are not correct. I feel as though the scientists who are behind such works are competing with God and the results are evident rising mutilated life (Morton, 2010).
References
Anderson, W., & Hicks, C. (1998). Green man: The archetype of our oneness with the Earth.
Fakenham: Compass.
Morton, J. (2010, October 10). Patricia Piccinini at Haunch of Venison Gallery. YouTube. Retrieved May 22, 2014, from http://www. youtube. com/watch? v= 5tl9oJUOCog
Petre, D. (2005). Father time (Rev. ed.). Paddington, N. S. W.: Jane Curry Publishing.