Only connect: ecology between 'late' Latour and Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams

In recent articles and lectures, Latour’s ecological thinking has given a central role to the Gaia theory, in which he develops his own model, often shortened to ‘Gaia’. This recent work on ecology is dependent on An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Here, the concept of ‘networks’ from earlier work moves into a richer domain of multi-disciplines; these ‘diplomatically’ bring many different networks to the conference table. ‘Gaia’ as Latour continues its ‘composition’ invites investigation from many ‘modes of inquiry’. Gaia as a conceptual model is caught between affirming certain anthropomorphizing significations while requiring to be released from any singular, metaphorical grip. As an appropriate interlocutor to tease open the problematic of Gaia’s networks, I bring to the table Werner Herzog’s poetic and ecological documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Anthropologically and artistically, the film explores the Chauvet Cave of the Ardèche Gorge, with its cave paintings dating back 35,000 years. While Herzog does not (nor need not) mention a concept like ‘Gaia’, the film as an artistic and scientific adventure into different temporalities, geologies and ecologies sheds light on the role of ‘imagination’ in art and science. Latour is also concerned with artistic work as another ‘mode of inquiry’. However, Latour’s scholarship requires Herzog’s searchlight to more fully realize how imagination takes a role in composing and recomposing Gaia-as-networks.