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More than Human: Exhibiting Water / Conversation between  Astrida Neimanis and Stefanie Hessler

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Acoustic Ocean Ursula Biemann

I found this film absulutly stunning. For me there is something about the sound of water, especially the sea, that is deep. It seems to resonate in the body. Could it be a genetic memory that is so ancient yet still close. We are watery bodies after all.

'Water is a fundamental substance in the body, indeed we are water-based life forms much more than carbon-based, so the qualities of water are paramount within us. Not surprisingly our bodies show strong properties of tensegrity throughout all the tissues. Tissues are merely copying the property of water. All structures mirror this; not just membranes and facis but also muscles and nerves and bone.' ( Sumner & Haines 2010, p.41)

Whe I consider what is quoted above, I can see why water resonates with me and humans in general. I'm thinking that when we come into contact with the natural rhythem of the sea it may be that the water content in us is regulated to it's rhythm. It's often said that women's menstrual cycles were regualted by the moon cycle, which inturn has an affect on tidal movement. Just a thought.

' When we watch a beautiful dancer, or a raven soaring in the Abram quote above, we reprodcuce the sensations in our own brain and our own body. This reinforces the essential nature of self-awarness; our bodies are constantly moddelling what is around us.' (Sumner & Haines 2010, p.125 )

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This I find interesting. It seems strange to consider using human hair as a material to make clothes. And I ask myself why do I find this strange? For me I think it's because of the sense of relationship associated with it. I am a human being with relationships with other humans which makes it seem weird to use a part of something human as a material that I would ware. Questions such as whose hair is it arise that don't arise form other animal, plant or synthetic materials.

And yet if I think about it, human hair is such a readily available material. So why not?

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Hair Matter(s)

Tamed, shaved, dyed or straightened, hair is a material that has been used by humans for centuries to construct a portrait of themselves. Human hair is coiffed and styled to be a social indicator between individuals to communicate their status and cultural affiliations. Although hair's original state is characterized by richly diverse textures and colors, our idea of hair has been steadily standardized over the years by the cosmetics industry, media, and social conventions, making it akin to a uniform.

Hair Matter(s) is a platform for understanding hair as a medium to talk about the diversity of individuals and how it is essential to address the subject of democracy and equality of all hair types in society. For this project, comprised of three jackets and head pieces made from human hair; I exaggerated the hairstyle of the models through the pieces, to shape it as a trophy and claim visibility in an increasingly standardized society.

Ingredients

Human hair.

Maker
Alix Bizet Studio
References

A Dutch Student Is Making Clothing Out of Human Hair (Article)

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Tamed, shaved, dyed or straightened, hair is a material that has been used by humans for centuries to construct a portrait of themselves. Human hair is coiffed and styled to be a social indicator between individuals to communicate their status and cultural affiliations.

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Design + Posthumanism Network

Although this is a research project on the rights of nature, where they have choosen to do a study on the rights of a lake, and not spacifically about design. It is about our extensive extractivist tendency and how it needs to change in order to protect our water and other more than human kin.

Design is an important part of this process. Finding ways of designing infrastructures that have less negative impact and hopefull a positive imapact on our enviornment has become crucial. I think that starting with changing how we relate with the inviornment is necessary so that we can imagine new possabilities.

Some good news for the river ouse uk. The campaigners for this river gave a talk and discussion via zoom at the "Staying with the trouble " event in Cork . They Lobbied for the river to have rights and it was passed

https://rapidtransition.org/stories/giving-rivers-rights-a-rapid-solution-to-pollution/

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We are in the midst of a planetary emergency, and the search for tools that enable a shift in humanities course are of existential matter. Our fossil fueled industrial modern societies are planned according to a world view where human beings have seen ourselves as above nature, with a limitless right to dominate, control and exploit it. What happens if we instead acknowledge that the survival of humans is intimately connected to the rights of nature to survive - what development for transition would then be released?

According to the two reports from IPCC (2022) and IPBES (2019), which summarize the climate and biodiversity research, it is necessary to use system innovations on a cultural- and legislative level to protect and restore life supporting ecosystems related to water circulation. Recognizing Rights of Nature (RoN) in legislation is a system innovation that has been tried around the world with unexpectedly good results in dealing with complex environmental issues. However, there is still much work to be done when it comes to how to understand RoN, how to justify it morally, and how to implement RoN locally, if it will have global impact.

The main purpose of the research project is to analyze how RoN may be understood and possibly integrated into Swedish law and what sustainable development it would make possible. We will specifically explore the process of making lake Vättern a legal subject - thereby analyzing what forms of societal transitions are possible if nature was acknowledged to have juridical and accompanied moral rights.

In six Transition Labs we will examine how the situation for Vättern would change if the lake had rights. Can this ensure its survival as a valuable ecosystem? This project focuses on in which way a democratic just transition can be supported by changed environmental culture and laws by expanding the democratic governance to include nature as a subject. It has emphasis on how Rights of Nature has been used and potentially could be used as mechanisms to address a complex set of environmental issues on the local, national as well as international level.

2023-2027

Research team: Martin Hultman, Åsa Nilsson Dahlström, Thomas Laurien, Marie Widengård & Mariam Kanyama Carlsson

Financier: Formas, Chalmers & Adlerbertska stiftelserna

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We are in the midst of a planetary emergency, and the search for tools that enable a shift in humanities course are of existential matter. Our fossil fueled industrial modern societies are planned according to a world view where human beings have seen ourselves as above nature, with a limitless right to dominate, control and exploit it.

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Eyes of Plants

Patrica Dominguez in the article Eyes Of Plants talks about alters as ' spaces where we can establish bridges between different kinds of knowledge' and how ' the alter works as an intermediate platform...a portal..a point of contact to talk about what is invisable.

This paragraph speaks to me of the shift that is happpening in various diciplines where once different academic dicplines would have kept working seperatly, now we are seeing a shift twoards the value in colaborating and working with each other to find ways of doing things, creating solutions to imporve the enviornment. Art, Sciance, Architecture. Hopefully an entanglment of creative minds.

Bio Responsive Garden

It still unsettles me, not becuase of any association with some horror movie, but bacause yet again we are still looking at plants as other, objects for our entertainment. I do not for one second consider that subjecting plants to behave like the organgrinder, puppet, to behave like us for our pleasure is going to bring us into relationship with plants as kin.

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I really enjoyed this Ursula Biemann film

that we watched in class. The stunning

sounds and visuals were extremely interesting

and calming. Being stressed with college deadlines

at the moment, this film, aswell as our discussions

throughout the whole semester, has opened my mind

to sounds and the healing powers they have.

Humming, singing and vibrations are things that I always

would've thought were powerful anyways, but seeing the

ocean being alive and chatting away, was really special to

experience.

I have always had a connection and relationship with the

ocean and nature, so to know that it's alive reaffirms the

personal relationship I have with it.

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This workshop was a first for me and learning about mushrooms and the sounds they create.

I really enjoyed Llewyn Marie visit and how they spoke about how alive the burren is.

Llewyn really opened my mind with the technology they brought in.

It amazed me how my Palo santo sticks created such healing sounds.

The healing properties of palo santo Are said to help inflammantion and stress and clear negative energy when lighting, but from the workshop I could clearly hear the sticks have alot of energy without needing to light them.

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After watching acoustic ocean today it reminded me how healing the ocean is.

The ocean can ground you so much and make you feel at peace.

as humans we are made up of so much water watching this film reminds me how closely connected we are to the ocean and how we need to protect it and not ruin it.

I think why humans are so drawn to the ocean is because its apart of us and that's why we feel so at peace there.

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"the ultimate source of all meaning and value is the lived experience of human beings"

I think we are all on this earth for different reasons and different purposes we all have lessons to learn and we all have lessons to teach and through these lessons are human experience can change.

so when I hear the word phenomenology it reminds me to live a true authentic human experience and learn a lesson in everyday.

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Its very interesting learning about the meaning of Ontology.

personally this is my first time hearing of the word and its meaning.

How do we determine if things exist or not ?

I think its very personal to each induvial what they think is alive and existing.

Some people believe spirts are still alive and existing while other people do not.

How deeply you want to experience life will determine what you believe is existing and alive.

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A shamanic rattle is a tool that has been used in pagan and shamanic practices for healing and journeying. It is believed that the sound and vibration of the rattle can help shift energy and create sacred space.

At a recent sound bath I attended in the Burren by Fiona Guiheen she very intuitively used this instrument creating a peacefully space leaving everyone that attended more free and aligned.

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Looking at Ursula Biemann film it reminded me of the visit of the Savage Craic. She used the same way of creating underwater sound. It made me think of how necessary water is to humans, animals and plants. In Gaza more than 96% of the water supply is unfit for human consumption. People are dying from thirst or contaminated water.

Water can be very toxic. It can also be very therapeutic i.e. swimming, drinking, observing the flow of water and tides & showering etc. Our bodies are made up of 60% of water.

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Teresa K00276169

this was a great lesson and thanks for running it Fiona. It identifies a system for Academic writing which is very helpful. It identifies ; the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it.

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https://youtu.be/8pkPec3S8w0?si=80ZhZPA6D7kuLpgy

This is a conversation between Astrida Neimanis and Stefanie Hessler about cross disciplinary collaborative work with artists,  with a focus on body of water. I'm finding it interesting, how they talk about their collaborative works and how thinking/sensing as water informes their work.

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You need to identify an area of interest, or a topic. Just a couple of words at most.

1. Write down a word associated with your chosen area of interest. For 3 minutes, free associate, and write down all of the words you can think of related to that central word.

2. Read over your list. On a new sheet, write for 5 minutes without stopping everything that comes to mind about your central idea. If you get stuck just write 'I am stuck' or 'what else?' etc. etc.

3. Make a diagram based on Who/What/When/Where/Why?How questions around central term. This should help you to form some questions.

4. Write out a set of questions based on your work so far.

5. Divide into groups of 4. Read out one of your questions. Everyone else should free associate to respond.

Following the class, write a very short paragraph about your research idea, arising from those exercises, and post on the padlet, in this column.

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This was so interesting, I really enjoyed the sound piece that they shared, the video captured the human, machiene and other beings interconnectivity very well. It was also intertesting to listen to the sonic sound of copper, iron, fungi. Maybe in the future we will actually understand what these sounds are communication and who knows we may be able to communicate with them.

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Ron Wakkary discusses with Oscar Tomico of Fab Lab, Barcelona, designing for the unknown. How design has to be inclusive of all animal and plant life. How design in the past, had little consideration of other live forms, has to change to encompass all other life forms.

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How Posthumanism plays a role in designing for the unknown?

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Ron Wakkary discusses with Oscar Tomico of Fab Lab Barcelon, designing for the unknown. How design has to be inclusive of all animal and plant life. How design in the past, with no consideration of other life forms has to change to encompass all other life forms on earth.

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds.

Jul 22, 2020 · ... design. Wakkary visited Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC to give the students from the Master in ...
Duration: 8:29
Posted: Jul 22, 2020

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designers working posthumanism - Google Search

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. Jul 22, 2020 · ... design. Wakkary visited Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC to give the students from the Master in ...Duration: 8:29 Posted: Jul 22, 2020

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thought this was interesting. A little bit about different ways of seeing. His book The cosmic serpent is an interesting read.

In this video he talks about the way the Ashaninak people of the Amazon see and relate to their sourroundings. How they don't have a that would corrospond to our word nature. He talks about how they don't see themselves as seprate form their enviornment and how plants have personalaties and relationship to each other, scuh some plants are seen a the moother or father of other plants.

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Jeremy Narby - Different Ways of Seeing Reality

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How wax worms could aid in the fight against plastic pollution.

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How wax worms could aid in the fight against plastic pollution.

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Today we focused our class on sustainability and fashion, more specifically the interesting and unique invention of faux leather grown in baths from stem cells.

While on the topic of sustainability, I felt the urge to talk about some fascinating creatures that can EAT plastic!.

The wax worm

They have a unique ability to eat and break down certain types of plastic, specifically polyethylene, which is commonly used in plastic bags. This discovery has raised hopes for finding sustainable solutions to plastic waste.

Researchers have found that wax worms have enzymes in their digestive system that can break down the chemical bonds in plastic. This process, known as biodegradation, allows the worms to consume and metabolize the plastic, turning it into organic waste.

This discovery has potential for sustainable plastic waste management. However, we still need to reduce plastic consumption and find alternative materials. Wax worms offer hope, but individual actions are crucial too.

In conclusion, the discovery of wax worms' ability to eat plastic is a step towards sustainability in plastic waste management. It offers hope for finding innovative solutions to tackle the plastic pollution crisis. But it's essential to remember that individual actions, such as reducing plastic use and recycling, are still crucial in creating a more sustainable future.

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My son studied botany and I remember having discussions on plants and their 'feelings'. He would try to persuade me that even grass can communicate to other plants when it's being mowed.

I'm still not sure!!!

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Abstract

When we think about plants, we do not normally imagine them "speaking" to each other. But they do communicate-in many different ways. More than a century ago, the eminent biologist Charles Darwin suggested that plants have a brain-like structure at their root tips! In this case, Darwin's root-brain hypothesis was wrong, but more modern research shows that plants can communicate. They speak with other plants as well as with animals and even people. They do this primarily using chemicals and sound.

Introduction

All communication between living things requires the exchange of information (signals) between partners. We know that animals constantly communicate with each other as they move around their habitats. Think of birds singing or lions roaring. In contrast, plants are often regarded as unmoving organisms that are incapable of such communication. One of the first scientists to challenge this notion was none other than Charles Darwin.

Darwin's Early Research on Plant Behavior

In the 1880's, Charles Darwin and his son Francis conducted a series of experiments on roots, which showed that the tip of the root is the most important part of the plant. sense and respond to stimuli such as light, gravity, chemicals, and sound. The root tip transmits messages that function as signals to activate processes such as growth, directional movement, and the production and release of special gases. Animal and human brains do similar things, so the two Darwins suggested that the root tip could function as the plant's "brain" ( Figure 1). Here are some of their own words:

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle [a young root]... having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain...; receiving impressions from the sense organs, and directing the several movements [].

Charles Darwin also showed the importance of chemicals as communication signals in plants. Some of the earliest reports of plant chemical signaling came from his experiments in the 1870's. Darwin showed that soluble substances produced at the tip of the growing shoot of barley seedlings were transported down through the stems, where they caused cell division and curvature of the stem. We now know that these chemical signals are hormones called , which move throughout the plant bodies and play many important roles in their growth pattern and overall shape.

Figure 1 - Darwin suggested that plant intelligence is kept in the "brain" of plants, found in the root tips, like upside-down people, or other animals.

He thought that maybe a plant's "brain" was kept underground to protect it. While this hypothesis was incorrect, other research has shown that plants can communicate.

Plants Communicate Using Chemicals and Sound

One of Darwin's key insights was that plants are highly active organisms. We now know that, although they are normally anchored in one place by their root systems, plants are still capable of movement. For example, by using sophisticated measuring devices, we can see that plant leaves, roots, and tendrils are in constant rhythmic motion as they respond to external factors such as daylight, gravity, temperature, water, nutrients, and threats. Plants do not just move randomly; they move in a purposeful manner. Plants move to detect key information about their environments, to respond appropriately, and to communicate this information to other plants, using easily understood signals.

Unlike animals, plants normally stay in one place during their lifetimes (except for the roots, which can move through the soil), but sometimes that location can turn out to be far from ideal. For example, there might be too little light or water, or too few nutrients for efficient growth. Other competing plants may already be present to crowd out the new plant, or pests and might attack it, not to mention grazing animals. In evolutionary terms, it makes sense that a plant facing these threats could signal its distress to other plants, so that they could avoid the dangers or better defend themselves against threats. Recent research shows that the two most important plant communication methods are chemicals and sound.

Chemical Signals-the Importance of VOCs

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are the most common type of chemical signals released by plants. VOCs are small molecules released as gases that readily diffuse through the air, away from the plant that produces them. Some of these plant VOCs are chemically similar to the pheromones that are used by many animals. For example, the world of ants is largely controlled by pheromones that allow them to find food and identify their nestmates. One of the most common plant VOCs is called methyl jasmonate (MeJA), which is produced and released by plants that are under attack ( Figure 2). MeJA is formed inside a wounded plant, for example when an animal tries to eat it. Once released by the attacked plant, MeJA moves through the air to the non-damaged parts of the same plant and to the neighboring plants, where it activates defense mechanisms in non-attacked neighbors. Another defense-related VOC made by plants is methyl salicylate, which is chemically similar to the human painkiller, aspirin.

Figure 2 - Plants can protect their neighbors by communicating with them.

For example, when an individual plant is attacked by a caterpillar, the plant sends warning messages to its plant neighbors, telling them to reinforce their defense systems. The warning messages could be in the form of odors or sounds.

Plants release VOCs into the air to alert their neighbors to threats, and the neighboring plants respond to these signals by preparing to defend themselves even before they are attacked. For example, within seconds, plants that detect VOCs will start making anti-fungal compounds or anti-insect toxins to protect themselves. In some cases, VOCs can also travel long distances underground, via the root system. This means that plants can stimulate root cells to mount defense responses against invading fungi or bacteria in the soil. Other VOCs are released from root cells to attract beneficial fungi or bacteria. Examples include fungi that help plant roots to absorb soil nutrients more efficiently, or bacteria that convert nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into nutrients that help the plants to grow faster. So, plants use certain VOCs to warn their neighbors about threats, while other VOCs allow them to attract more useful organisms.

Sound Signals

We humans use sound waves to communicate with each other, but not all sound waves are detectable by human ears. One of the main properties of sound waves is their , which is measured in Hertz (Hz). Humans can hear only sound frequencies ranging from 20 to 20,000 Hz. Sounds with frequencies below 20 Hz are commonly called , while those with frequencies more than 20,000 Hz are called ultrasonic.

The sound signals used by plants tend to be at a frequency that cannot be heard by the human ear, but they can be picked up by other plants and animals []. In the wild, plants might grow well with some neighbors but not with others []. For example, a 2013 study in Australia clearly showed the beneficial effects of basil plants on the growth of chili plants, which confirms what many gardeners had previously observed in their gardens. Chili seedlings grow less well in the presence of fennel plants, however. These authors speculate that tiny vibrations in the cells of each plant might produce "sounds" of frequencies that can be detected by other plants, telling them whether they are growing near a "bad" or a "good" neighbor [].

In other experiments, young maize roots were found to make tiny clicking sounds that are at the lower end of the human hearing range (about 220 Hz). When the roots were suspended in water so that they could move more easily, they leaned toward these sounds. Other sounds include what sounds like fizzy bubble bursts in the tissue of plants, but these are ultrasonic and are only detectable by insects and some other animals, so perhaps these plants are communicating with animals []. The technology to hear plant bubbles explode is actually quite simple. Acoustic sensors designed to detect cracks in bridges and buildings can catch the ultrasonic pops.

Researchers in China have shown they can increase plant yields by broadcasting sound waves of certain frequencies. So, maybe there is some truth in the old gardener's advice to talk to your plants! Other researchers have investigated how different frequencies and intensities of sounds change plant gene expression. Their results show that acoustic vibrations really do affect the basic chemical reactions happening within plant cells.

The Importance of Plant Communication

The bottom line is that plants are really great communicators. They are constantly releasing lots of useful information into the environment, especially using chemicals and sounds. We are only just beginning to understand how this information is produced and how it is then picked up by other plants and animals who can use it for their own benefit. So, the next time you tread on some grass or pick a flower, remember that the poor injured plant might be screaming out to its neighbors-but we humans just cannot hear it!

Glossary

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors address special thanks to Basel Alkanjo, a 1th place ranking student in the Syrian Biology Olympiad Competition in 2020, 2021 and bronze medalist in IBO challenge 2021, for the critical reading of the manuscript. We also kindly thank the Syrian Distinction and Creativity Agency ( https://dca-net.org/) for supporting the scientific activities of young biologists through the direction of the National Commission of Syrian Scientific Olympiad.

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When we think about plants, we do not normally imagine them "speaking" to each other. But they do communicate-in many different ways. More than a century ago, the eminent biologist Charles Darwin suggested that plants have a brain-like structure at their root tips!

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I took a walk in the rain a couple of weeks ago. This photo that was taken at the time shows fungi growing on a tree trunk. The sound of the rain falling was the only noise and because of the rain I was the only one walking in that area when I took the photo.

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I did go out last thursday to do the task, I was in college so I thought I'd go and sit by the row of trees and maybe listen to the wind. It rained, I sat and listened at first with focused attention to the task of listening to something that does not belong to the human world. I found that the more I tried to pay attenition to the sound of rain it seemed like all the other sound's clambered for attention. It took a while befoure I came to realise that that was ok and to allow the other sounds to be a part of the listening experience. Once I relaxed into this acceptance I could hear the rain in relationship to all the other sounds. the different size cars and trucks tyres on the wet road, the rain landing on leaves, falling to the ground and landing on my rain coat. The sound of the tyres on the wet road had a very resonating sound that was felt passing throug me. It reminded me of the sound of a brush on a drum. I didn't record missed that part of the instruction. but below is a little youtube of brush on snare drum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCHwRc_SUA8

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Please check out this work in particular

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Some will say that all we have are the pleasures of this moment, but we must never settle for that minimal transport; we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.
José Esteban Muñoz

sardonik grin is an a/v art project of Llewyn Máire, utilizing collaborative interfaces with fungi and flora, foraged sound and images, vocal tones and ocular textures, with experimental and traditional instrumentation - brewing sonic ecologies intended to ferment liberation.

Llewyn Máire (they/ she/ ki) is an audiovisual artist, chef, activist, microbial celebrant, trans mother and co-founder of Savage Craic; a queer, cooperatively operated, venture that supports creative ecology, environmental reciprocity, food justice, mutual aid, & educational exchange through workshops, events, various eco-cultural art projects, witchy brews and seasonal ferments.

Llewyn has been making work through performance art, street actions, and sound in the US, UK and EU since the early 90s, has organized events/ free festivals/ support spaces for over 30 years, and has been working in professional kitchens from the age of 13.

They are currently based in North Clare, trans*fermenting food and sound in the Burren.

⨳ Fermenting in the Burren since 2015 ⨳

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Some will say that all we have are the pleasures of this moment, but we must never settle for that minimal transport; we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.

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Ontology is concerned with what is true and real. The study of our existance and how we decide if things are real or not. It looks at things that are abstract to establish if in fact they are real.
Epistemology = Theory of knowledge or understanding
It has 4 pillars
1  Divine revelation
2  Experience
3  Logic/Reason
4  Intution
Simply put if Ontology asks what exists
Epistlemology asks how do we know what exists

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We are lucky to have a workshop with this fantastic practitioner. In prep please read about their work at their website (see below).

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https://www.futurematerialsbank.com/material/dog-fur/

I own a German Shepherd cross who shed's her fur like a beast twice a year. I personally have used her fur to distribute across my environment when birds are gathering materials to build their nests, but the majority goes into the waste bin. My partner is interested in spinning their own wool, and then I found this project which creates insulation with dog fur in a process called 'felting', the exact same process as is done with cotton or sheep's wool.

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Wool is an animal-based fiber obtained from sheep, goats, muskox, rabbits, or camelids. It's often used in the fashion industry to make warm, technical clothing, such as socks, gloves, coats, pullovers, jackets, sweaters, and more.

Wool is a textile fiber made of animal proteins and lipids. Many types of wool fabrics exist, including shearling, alpaca, cashmere, mohair, and angora.

However, wool production has a disastrous impact on the environment. The farming and processing of wool pollute the air, soil, and water, producing greenhouse gases and wastes.

More than 95% of all wool comes from mass production globally. And mass production isn't ethical or sustainable. Wool fiber is one of the five most environmentally damaging fibers worldwide.

Animals used for wool farming are enslaved, exploited, subjected to painful treatments, and exposed to dangerous substances with long-term disastrous effects on ecosystems and human health.

This is from an article by Alex Assoune.
I found this article quite interesting as wool has always been sold to me as a brilliant way to make clothes as its zero waste and very sustainable but no body ever mentions the effect it has on animals....

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What if the human role in shaping materials is not as
central as we believe? What if materials shape us as much
as we shape them? How might we experience materials
differently if we acknowledge them as joint participants in our interactions with them? What happens when we choose to see materials, not as lifeless objects, but as events? How
might a shift in perspective on materiality—including our
own—change how we interact with materials? These are questions that underpin approaches to childhood education and working with materials that inform the work available on this website. Engaging with the resources of this site I am finding new paths, working with materials and research processes in my practice that aligns with the posthuman philosophies outlined here.

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When we offer our students (and ourselves) the opportunity to engage in other modes of thinking with thinking materials, the materials can become active participants that help students to generate new insights about their thinking.

With these visual and symbolic languages available to them, learners can deepen and strengthen their thinking about complex questions and ideas. These thinking tools are particularly helpful in creating a culture of inquiry.
​
There many possibilities for the types of materials you can invite students to think with.

Gallery - Students in the Central Okanagan Thinking With Materials

Thinking Materials & How To Use Them

Use this thinking materials tool to expand student's thinking about a key concept or question.

A List Of Materials To

Use As Thinking Tools

This document was created to give you ideas about the types of materials that might encourage your students to learn new thinking 'languages' and think in different ways.

Use this tool to introduce children to new materials to help them to

learn the affordances of a material. What can this material do? Co-construct your own list with your students as YOU discover 'what can clay do?' and 'what can wire do?' etc.

When you have a strong image of students as being capable, competent and curious, you know they can think deeply about complex questions and ideas. Use this tool to normalize uncertainty by encouraging students to ask big questions.

​

After thinking with materials, It is important that students be given the opportunity to reflect through writing. Use this tool to build student's capacity for communicating complex ideas .

This document was co-created by Opal School and Harvard's Project Zero.

See examples from Gr. 4/5 and Gr. 12

VISUAL - How to set up your spaces

VISUAL - How are we using materials to think in the central okanagan?

HOW ARE WE USING MATERIALS TO THINK

IN THE CENTRAL OKANAGAN?

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When we offer our students (and ourselves) the opportunity to engage in other modes of thinking with thinking materials, the materials can become active participants that help students to generate new insights about their thinking. With these visual and symbolic languages available to them, learners can deepen and strengthen their thinking about complex questions and ideas.

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I really enjoyed learning about this weeks topic. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of showcasing our connection with plants in an interesting way.

I think my favourite piece was Hito Steyerl's piece " Power Plants". I thoughts their concept of future plants that have powers, cures and abilities was very eye opening and inspiring. Not only was it extremely thought provoking but it was also had an interactive element that I really loved the idea of.

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I had a couple ideas after seeing the "bio responsive garden" and "Entangled Habitation" videos.

The future appearance of our world as we know it is uncertain. The fact that technology is here to stay is one thing that is clear. The line separating naturally occurring things from man-made things is blurry. Everything that is deemed "man-made" ultimately comes from nature, don't you think? Despite the fact that the two videos seem incredibly out of the ordinary, they demonstrate how technology and nature will eventually coexist. Perhaps there is no need to choose between the two; rather, perhaps make room for both. Is forging a bond between nature and technology the best course of action?

This much is certain. Science, technology, and nature are already interacting. We don't need to look to the future to realise this. It goes without saying that agriculture's future is worrying and has to change. The population is expanding globally at a rate of 1% a year.  As time goes on, feeding this expanding population will undoubtedly become more difficult.

Current and previous agricultural practises are extremely detrimental to the environment, which only compounds the issue. Climate change, deforestation, and soil degradation have all been linked to agriculture.

To produce more food efficiently for future generations, we must find new methods. Vertical agriculture, for example, offers a fantastic technological  opportunities to overcome these obstacles and supply the food required for future generations.

There are many advantages to vertical farming, including maximum productivity with less negative environmental impact and much less acreage needed.

Vertical farming demonstrates the idea that, while being an unnatural process, technology is assisting nature in overcoming some of the insurmountable obstacles we humans have posed for it in the modern world.

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I am on the train to Dublin on the quiet coach. I can hear the train travelling along the tracks. Not only can I hear the train in contact with the tracks, I can feel the vibrations travelling through my feet, which are in contact with the ground of the train. The vibrations are travelling through my feet, up my legs and into my torso. Across from me I can hear somebody typing on their laptop. Both sounds are very intense and have a sense of urgency about them, however they are very different. Both sounds compliment each other and ellipse an emotional response of intensity within me. I feel I need to rush, but to what ?

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|I had been listening to this podcast,
When Mountains Are Gods the interviewer Anne Strainchamps, at the end of the interview asked  John Hausdoerffer, a mountain ecologist "Is there a particular kinship practice you might recommend for someone who might be heading into the mountains?". His response was to look for snow or the  source of water and sit with it and think about what it goes through, ecologocly, culturaly,economically, socially and what it serves as it moves. To let that trickel  allow you to feel present, feel the cold of the snow/water, listen to the sound of it.If your thoughts wander from it come back to it, to the sound and the cold of the snow and breath with it. Sitting with it and getting to know what it is asking form you. That the answer is in the land.

I thought this was a lovely meaningful expression of what it is to really listen. It's not just pricking up our ears, but also being physicay present, be it with plants, animals, humans.

Ths is the link, it's the first interview, about 12min ling
https://www.ttbook.org/show/when-mountains-are-gods

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Anne Strainchamps ( 00:05):

It's To the Best of Our Knowledge. I'm Anne Strainchamps. For centuries people have looked at mountains with awe and wonder. We've climbed them, skied them, gone on pilgrimage and retreat to them, but today from China to Ecuador, from the Alps to the Rockies, the people who know mountains best say something is changing.

John Hausdoerffer ( 00:35):

So I have two daughters, Atalaya and Sol, at 13 and 9, and we have a game that we call snow hunting.

Anne Strainchamps ( 00:45):

John Hausdoerffer is a mountain ecologist in Colorado.

John Hausdoerffer ( 00:52):

Every month we find the snow, which is easy in the Rockies in the winter, but come July, August, September, it's very hard to find the snow. One particular snow field I call Old Reliable. You'll pass above the town of Crested Butte, Colorado. It's kind of an icy little wind deposit that is so tucked away it just never quite melts. It's enough for 30 fun slushy turns in the afternoon. I have been skiing that patch of snow since I first moved here in 1992 from New Jersey with my mind blown that I could ski in the summer.

John Hausdoerffer ( 01:39):

About three years ago, we had a really bad snow year and I thought, well, let's go to Old Reliable. I was concerned about climate change and snowpack projections of 50% loss of snowpack, by end of century, 75 fewer ski days, but I thought Old Reliable would take care of us. When we got there, it was gone, and that to me really was more powerful than any of the data I have seen through the years as an environmental studies professor on climate change. This look in Sol's eyes when she couldn't participate in a family rite of passage just made it real.

John Hausdoerffer ( 02:38):

The part that was left of the snow field was a very steep little section through rocks ending in rock that my older daughter was skilled enough to ski and I wouldn't let my younger daughter go. The tears in her eyes were like a weird kind of crying that's for a new Anthropocene, like climate tears or something. It broke my heart.

Anne Strainchamps ( 03:10):

Crying over the fate of a mountain doesn't seem that unusual anymore, not when wildfires are destroying millions of acres in the West. Climate change is putting pressure on a lot of the places we love, especially mountains, and that's reminding us of how interwoven our lives are with the rest of this living planet.

Anne Strainchamps ( 03:33):

From his base in Gunnison, Colorado, John Hausdoerffer works with mountain communities all over the world learning to see mountains differently, not as natural resources, but as living kin, and that begins with a simple realization. Mountains and the snow on them are the source of life.

John Hausdoerffer ( 03:55):

When my kid was really young, she suggested snow was God. I said, "What are you talking about?" She said, "Well, it's the source of everything that lives and you feel like you're flying, you feel like you're in heaven when you're floating down it." She's like, "Isn't that God?" So it's powerful stuff.

John Hausdoerffer ( 04:23):

I will say that snow is my moral barometer. If my grandkid is taking their kid to ski Yule Pass and there's snow there, then the work my generation did meant something.

Anne Strainchamps ( 04:39):

How endangered is snow? I mean, not just where you are, but all over?

John Hausdoerffer ( 04:45):

Yeah. It's hard to generalize. Looking at the climate data, anything under 4,000 vertical in North America is in a lot of trouble. Europe is in a lot of trouble. The high mountains, it varies. We know that Gangotri Glacier, which is the first trickles of water of the Ganges, is receding by tens of meters per year.

John Hausdoerffer ( 05:11):

In fact, in the traditions of Hinduism and their creation story, snow has a role, and that Gangotri Glacier, it looks like a cow's snout, right? Out of it comes this milky colored water seen as like the mother's milk of the sacred cow of the Hindu people. When I finally trekked to Gangotri Glacier there was a very nice man who came up to me. He was from Shanghai, he was an accountant, he was on his pilgrimage, and he was tearing up. I asked him if he was okay and he said it's just very sad. I said, "Why?" He said, "It doesn't look like a cow's snout anymore."

John Hausdoerffer ( 05:50):

So you can quantify the necessary vital value of mountains. You can say, indeed, mountains make up 20% of the earth, 13% of human communities are in mountains, just over 60% of all water consumed by humans, whether that's food or energy or water, is sourced in mountains, 25% of biodiversity exists in mountains, and we can say, yes, you can quantify how important mountains are, but you can't quantify the loss of a man's saying his spirituality has been disrupted by climate change, not just how much water will be in the tap.

Anne Strainchamps ( 06:32):

So John, you do a lot of partnership work trying to build connections between mountain communities all over the world, kind of like the sister cities concept. What have you seen change? If folks in Telluride suddenly feel solidarity with a village in the Himalayas, what changes?

John Hausdoerffer ( 06:51):

I'm really glad you used the word solidarity. I've always had a lot of hope around snow as a basis of solidarity. Those of us in the Rockies living with a degree of affluence, we're not the experts. Those who live with the consequences of my comforts have far more expertise than me with my PhD and gang of grad students. It's incredibly difficult and vital to bring together not just different data, but different ways of knowing, different ways of knowing and understanding what makes mountains sacred, how do we quantify, qualify, and build solidarity around protecting the sacred as a global mountain community?

Anne Strainchamps ( 07:37):

You and your wife have a piece of land up at, I think you said, 10,000 feet. It's a place called Terrible Mountain in Colorado. So you bought it, legally you own it, but you've written that you're trying to think of it as almost like the mountain owns you, or at least that you belong to the mountain. So what does that look like in practice?

John Hausdoerffer ( 08:03):

Yeah, I've always wrestled with what is my position on this place called Terrible Mountain? I do my best to practice kinship there. For example, a tree disease was spreading across the aspen community. When you look at an aspen forest, it's all one organism, so each tree is like a finger on your hand, underneath is a tuber. When you don't have disturbance, when you don't have fire, the aspen tuber can die. So there was disease spreading and we wanted a place to put our shack and so we disturbed by cutting the trees that were diseased and now around the shack are young aspens from a regenerated tuber.

John Hausdoerffer ( 08:46):

There's a thinker named [Von Ranke Salmono 00:08:47] who has a term called concentric, that is to act in such a way that you're not just like doing less bad, like conservationism saying how do we not overuse the wood, your advancing good as a member of that place, you're co-creating wildness with that place.

Anne Strainchamps ( 09:06):

Wow. So instead of just picking the spot with the best view for your cabin, you picked the spot where if you built a cabin and took down some trees, it actually would be good for the forest and heal it.

John Hausdoerffer ( 09:20):

Yeah. So that cabin is heated by, part of it is built by or built from, and cleared from an aspen grove that was dying and being overcrowded by spruce. So the spruce went into building materials, the aspen grove went into heating, and the clearing regenerated the tuber.

Anne Strainchamps ( 09:44):

That's just kind of beautiful.

John Hausdoerffer ( 09:47):

It's an environmentalism that goes beyond doing less bad to ask how can I be a member of this family and what is my response? Not what are my rights on this land as a property owner, what are my responsibilities? We're owned by the responsibility, we don't own the right.

Anne Strainchamps ( 10:07):

You've given us so much to think about. Is there a particular kinship practice you might recommend for anyone who might be, say, heading into the mountains?

John Hausdoerffer ( 10:19):

Well, if you can find snow or a source of water, whether it's snow or a spring, find the source of water and I would simply recommend just sitting with it. If you're on the east of the Continental Divide, think about what that water goes through ecologically, culturally, economically, socially, who and what it serves before it gets to the delta and the Gulf of Mexico. If you're west of the Divide, think the same for the Colorado River all the way to the Gulf of California. Just let that trickle, both make you present, feel the cold of the snow, listen to the trickle of the water, and whenever a thought distracts you, return to the cold of the snow on your hand, return to the trickle of the water you hear, and just breathe with it.

John Hausdoerffer ( 11:14):

Start with that moment. Once you're present to the place and the moment, then let yourself go to 30,000 feet and imagine the system and what it's asking from you. You'll learn how to be a good ancestor. The answer is in the land, in the mountains, which are the source of life for all land.

Anne Strainchamps ( 11:46):

John Hausdoerffer teaches at Western Colorado University. He's a co-founder of the Mountain Resilience Coalition and he works with the UN's Mountain Partnership. He's an editor of the book What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? and of the Kinship Series Belonging in a World of Relations.

Anne Strainchamps ( 12:14):

For a lot of cultures around the world, being human means being part of an extended web of kinship that includes not just people, but plants, animals, rivers, and mountains. That knowledge has always been here despite repeated and continuing attempts to wipe it out. Steve Paulson brings us the story of one woman who's fighting back.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 12:46):

My name is Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk and I'm a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. I'm also a former co-chair for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition.

Steve Paulson ( 13:02):

Bears Ears is the stretch of land in Southeastern Utah that's filled with ancient cliff dwellings and sacred sites. Its name comes from a pair of 9,000-foot buttes that rise over the surrounding landscape.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 13:16):

It's a beautiful desert landscape made up of red rocks. To the north on the north side, you get a little bit of the feel from a forest mountainy type of landscape. You go south and you're coming off of a mesa. So it's almost like two worlds that have been meshed together and we're very blessed to have that area as some sacred space and many of us have family ties to those locations for a lot of reasons.

Steve Paulson ( 14:02):

Regina is one of those people. Her family's history in these mountains goes back almost beyond memory.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 14:11):

Probably so far back that I don't think that it actually is recorded. My people have always been in the area and have moved with the seasons, and so depending on what resource and what season it is, you'll find us in various locations.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 14:31):

The Utes roamed the entire state of Colorado, close to two-thirds of Utah, what is currently present-day Utah, and surrounding states that are neighboring to Colorado. As Europeans began to encroach upon these areas of where we hunted, where we gathered our herbs, and where we lived, many of us try to retreat to areas that would provide cover and safety for our families. Sometimes that worked and sometimes that didn't work. There just came a time when the outsiders kept coming and we began to feel like we were being backed into a small place and we began to experience some of the traumas in our history and our existence and numbers of our people began to decrease.

Steve Paulson ( 15:31):

That history of trauma for the Utes stretches back to the 19th century when White prospectors discovered gold and silver and other minerals in the San Juan Mountains. They came in droves. The U.S. government then reneged on its legal agreements that it ceded much of this land to the Ute people, and today history seems to be repeating itself. The Trump administration shrank the Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and that reopened the area to mining companies.

David Hinton ( 16:00):

We'll call up Ms. Lopez-Whiteskunk who is a former councilwoman.

Steve Paulson ( 16:05):

Tribal groups and environmentalists fought back, and Regina was one of the people who testified before Congress.

David Hinton ( 16:12):

You know the drill. You're recognized for five minutes.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 16:16):

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe adamantly opposes H.R. 4532.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 16:24):

We need to learn from the past. If we really are going to forge forward into the future, we cannot keep repeating the same mistakes.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 16:33):

Such legislations prevents the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and other Indian nations to self-determine their own destinies and amounts to the failed federal Indian policies of the 1800s.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 16:46):

We're not doing our next generations any justice by leaving them barren wastelands to try to forge their futures on.

Steve Paulson ( 16:55):

I would think that one thing that's so hard about this whole issue that we're talking about, especially as it regards to Bears Ears, is this whole question of ownership of land, which is just so ingrained in legal doctrine of the United States, but my sense is that that whole idea of owning land, that was an idea that really didn't make any sense for a lot of indigenous people.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 17:25):

That's correct. We don't believe in ownership of land, water, air, the wildlife, because we believe we belong to the land. My family has long been tied to our traditional healing. My great-grandfather was one of the last medicine men for the Ute Mountain people, the Weeminuche. So during time periods of when our families would gather, like during our social dance, which is the bear dance, which is a time of spring when people gather to honor the females of the tribes or the groups, conducted a dance, which is typically how we revere our new year.

Steve Paulson ( 18:13):

Why is it called the bear dance?

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 18:16):

Because it was said that a bear, back when our people existed and co-existed with the animals and the plant life, that the animals and the humans could speak a common language, they could communicate, and so it was said that a bear came into the people and shared her stories and what she believed was a time to honor the females and taught the people the songs that would be shared during this time period, and also spoke of the trees that would create the lodge and which direction that opening would be and how the dance would be conducted. So that is one of the reasons why it's a time when the females, the life-givers, are celebrated.

Steve Paulson ( 19:39):

You mentioned earlier that there is this tradition that your people could talk with animals, they could talk with plants, they communicated with the mountain. Are there still people who can do that?

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 19:53):

There is, but I don't think that you will find very many people openly admitting this because in the society we live in today, it would be quickly, you would be branded as being crazy or being able to do things. So it's a very private, sacred language and action that if that's something that we do do, we're not going to readily admit it.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk ( 20:24):

A lot of that leaves us when we lose our elders, when they pass on, the richness of that and the life. That's something that I want people to understand, these places are not dormant, they are not dead like some might perceive, especially in respect to the field of archeology. These are live active places. These are still a part of our culture. When we conduct pilgrimages, when we go to visit these places, we treat them as a active place that has spirit and still has life. It's very much alive.

Anne Strainchamps ( 21:26):

That's Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and former co-chair for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. She talked with Steve Paulson. For now, the Biden administration has pledged to expand the boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument.

David Hinton ( 21:50):

I think we've still got a ways to go.

Anne Strainchamps ( 21:54):

Coming up, mountain walking in Vermont, and in the footsteps of 8th century Chinese poets. I'm Anne Strainchamps. It's To the Best of Our Knowledge, from Wisconsin Public Radio.

David Hinton ( 22:10):

Okay. Right near the summit is really steep.

Anne Strainchamps ( 22:13):

And PRX.

Anne Strainchamps ( 22:25):

Is there a special mountain in your life?

David Hinton ( 22:29):

That'll be behind us. Yeah.

Anne Strainchamps ( 22:32):

David Hinton, who lives in Northern Vermont, told us about the one he knows best.

David Hinton ( 22:37):

Okay, so let me talk you through this. Okay.

Anne Strainchamps ( 22:41):

Hunger Mountain.

David Hinton ( 22:42):

So here we are starting here. Go down that to the bottom of the hill. That's like one mile or so. It's the nicest hike that I know of around here. So yeah, you'll go down this steep hill and you'll hit another road here.

David Hinton ( 22:59):

The hike is mostly through hardwoods. There's a sign on a tree that says trail. So it tends to be open and airy. There's usually a little cairn on your left. It has a few streams you cross, which are nice.

Anne Strainchamps ( 23:12):

There are three potential trails down.

David Hinton ( 23:14):

You just have to make sure that you.

David Hinton ( 23:15):

Then the last quarter of the hike is scrambling up bare rock. Well, once you get onto the rock up there, there are blue blazes. Then finally, the summit is bare, so then you have nice 360 views. So if you get a little bit lost, just stop and look for a blue blaze. If you can't find one, just keep looking.

Anne Strainchamps ( 23:35):

Great.

Steve Paulson ( 23:44):

How many times do you figure you have climbed Hunger Mountain?

David Hinton ( 23:49):

I think maybe 300. I've been here over 30 years and I probably have averaged once a month.

Steve Paulson ( 23:55):

That's a lot of times up the same mountain.

David Hinton ( 24:05):

Yeah.

Anne Strainchamps ( 24:05):

Why would anybody want to hike the same mountain 300 times? Well, David Hinton is a poet and one of the foremost translators of classical Chinese poetry, work that's steeped in mountain landscapes.

David Hinton ( 24:18):

Here's the cairn trail. Okay, up we go.

Anne Strainchamps ( 24:24):

Ancient China had a long and deep philosophical tradition based on centuries of investigating the very nature of consciousness. So when David hikes Hunger Mountain, he's following in the footsteps of the sages and masters for whom mountain walking was a core spiritual practice. Today, Steve and I are following in his footsteps.

David Hinton ( 24:48):

The sacred isn't really a concept in ancient China. For them, the closest thing to the sacred is something like reality itself, or the cosmos seen as a living constantly transforming tissue. Spiritual practice in ancient China was all about belonging to that tissue or integrating or weaving consciousness into that tissue. There were a lot of ways they did that, but one of the easy ways was by emptying their mind, which involves meditation or maybe just walking in the mountains.

Anne Strainchamps ( 25:30):

[inaudible 00:25:30].

David Hinton ( 25:33):

[inaudible 00:25:33].

David Hinton ( 25:33):

If your mind is empty, it says if you are a mirror, an empty mirror looking at things, the ancient Chinese spent lots of time in the mountains for that very simple reason because their mountains opened that empty mind mirror. That's why they thought of mountains as great teachers, so that the cosmos, the landscape, is self. There is no distinction.

David Hinton ( 26:00):

There's a poem for that. This is a poem written in the 8th century by Li Po. It's called the Reverence-Pavilion Mountain, Sitting Alone. "Birds have vanished into deep skies. A last cloud drifts away, all idleness. Inexhaustible, this mountain and I gaze at each other, it alone remaining."

Anne Strainchamps ( 26:34):

Oh, there's one of the [inaudible 00:26:36].

David Hinton ( 26:36):

[inaudible 00:26:36].

Anne Strainchamps ( 26:42):

Is any particular ancient poet you've come to know who you can imagine walking on Hunger Mountain with?

David Hinton ( 26:51):

Yeah, they're my best friends. Because I translated the poet, I basically live inside that poet's mind for a year or whatever.

David Hinton ( 27:01):

You can see where the rain collected from last night.

David Hinton ( 27:06):

The first book I did was Tu Fu, who's the greatest of all Chinese poets, who lived in devastating times. He got to middle age, it was the greatest age of Chinese culture, and suddenly there was this huge civil war that killed or displaced two-thirds of the population. He became a refugee and spent the last 10 years of his life wandering the landscapes around the edge of China. He somehow, even though he was desperately poor, one of his kids starved to death, he was constantly moving, he wrote like a thousand poems in those 10 years somehow weaving landscape and war and destruction, all of that, together.

David Hinton ( 27:49):

He wrote maybe the most famous line in Chinese poetry, the first line of a poem, it's, "The nation falls into ruins, rivers and mountains continue."

Anne Strainchamps ( 28:04):

I have to stop soon. Stop just for a little break. Okay, break.

Steve Paulson ( 28:24):

So just to back up just to talk about your personal story a little bit more, you're kind of in the middle of the mountains here in Vermont, what is it that attracts you to this landscape?

David Hinton ( 28:36):

I think it's just that you can live in the middle of it. I grew up in the West where you would live in the city and wilderness and empty land was all outside of the city. From when I was young, all I wanted to do is get out of the city and go up in the mountains.

David Hinton ( 28:59):

If you want a story, my favorite story about Hunger Mountain is probably the mountain story itself. It's an incredibly cosmopolitan mountain. It was formed originally by the collision of the European, the African, and the North American plates, and they pushed up a mountain range as high as the Himalayas here.

Steve Paulson ( 29:24):

Wait, you're saying that at one point these mountains were 30,000 feet tall?

David Hinton ( 29:27):

40,000.

Steve Paulson ( 29:28):

40,000 feet?

David Hinton ( 29:30):

It's amazing that you can sit there and you look at the rock and you can almost see how it's scoured by glaciers. There were once glaciers a mile deep here, but that rock tells you that there were 40,000 feet of mountain above the current summit of Hunger Mountain.

Anne Strainchamps ( 29:50):

Rain drops were already ancient when Jesus was born and when the Buddha was born. That's pretty cool [inaudible 00:30:10].

Steve Paulson ( 30:21):

When you hike up Hunger Mountain, do you kind of lose your sense of self?

David Hinton ( 30:25):

Oh, it comes and goes, I think, like anybody else.

Steve Paulson ( 30:28):

Because I'm just wondering sort of when that notion, that idea, that feeling kicks in for you.

David Hinton ( 30:36):

Oh, it's usually maybe something perceptual happens like a leaf falls, or I have those stream crossings that are moments where I just ground me a little bit, and the waterfall. Actually, it happens to us all the time. Anytime you see something new, striking, very often there's this moment of you're just seeing it and if you can stop and look at what happens in your mind, you see it. In that moment, I wasn't there.

Anne Strainchamps ( 31:08):

Is it cold?

Steve Paulson ( 31:13):

[inaudible 00:31:13]. Yep, pretty cold. [inaudible 00:31:22]. Okay. Time for a water break. Just starting to see above the tree line too.

Steve Paulson ( 31:41):

So it sounds like you're saying that for Zen practice the object is to get past the language to get to this point of empty mind. But can I point out there is a paradox here, what you're doing? You are a poet, you translate Chinese poetry, and you're talking about the ancient Chinese poets. This is all based in language.

David Hinton ( 32:02):

You are making me do it.

Steve Paulson ( 32:07):

So what is the problem with language? How does it get in our way?

David Hinton ( 32:10):

I mean, language is an incredibly powerful evolutionary tool. It's made us wildly successful as a species. We need language, we need ideas, to navigate the world to survive. However, it creates the sense that we're trapped in our little heads, and for a lot of people, for me, there's something very wrong with that.

David Hinton ( 32:36):

I'll just read one more. So this is Wang Wei, 8th century. Magnolia Park. "Autumn mountains gathering last light. One bird follows another in flight away. Shifting kingfisher greens flash radiant scatters. Evening mists, nowhere they are."

David Hinton ( 33:02):

Ancient Chinese poems are built on images. There's no hidden meaning, you just read the poem. Just take it in and let it do what it does to you.

Anne Strainchamps ( 33:13):

What do you think of the way a lot of us pause and kind of just [inaudible 00:33:29] air? [inaudible 00:33:32].

Steve Paulson ( 33:37):

I mean, I like the sense that [inaudible 00:33:37].

Anne Strainchamps ( 33:37):

Yeah.

Anne Strainchamps ( 33:50):

All we can hear now is wind in the trees. We're up near the tree line.

Steve Paulson ( 33:58):

David, I'm struck by this whole different worldview that you're describing. It was just so radically different, frankly, from the way I tend to see the world, and I'm wondering how you came to think this way. I mean, was there a moment maybe early in your life when you were learning Chinese or learning to translate when it's just like, wow, this is just totally different, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around it?

David Hinton ( 34:26):

I mean, for me, for it to really radically to start happening was when I started learning ancient Chinese, which is so radically different. My mind was being so twisted around that I had to drink three glasses of whiskey at night just to go to sleep. I actually tried, I said, this isn't me, I can't do this. I'm not really a drinker, it's not my way. I actually tried one night. At two in the morning, I got up and drank three glasses of whiskey.

Steve Paulson ( 34:57):

Did it help?

David Hinton ( 34:58):

Yeah, I went to sleep, but I had to get up at five and started studying again.

Steve Paulson ( 35:04):

So it sounds like your mind did get reorganized?

David Hinton ( 35:07):

Yeah. But I do want to say that on the one hand, it seems radically different, on the other hand, I really don't think it is. The ancient Chinese are radical empiricists, it's all about just looking.

Steve Paulson ( 35:24):

I think we've still got a ways to go.

Anne Strainchamps ( 35:25):

Really?

Steve Paulson ( 35:32):

When you describe it that way, it sounds less like a spiritual practice and more like scientific observation.

David Hinton ( 35:38):

Yeah, it is. The literal meaning of enlightenment in ancient China, that term, is seeing original nature. That's just like science, right? It's just like seeing what's there. What is there, what is the cosmos, what is consciousness, and how are they woven together?

David Hinton ( 35:56):

Everything in the cosmos is constantly moving and changing and transforming, and the West loves stability and permanence. That's why you want a soul. That's why you have God. That's why reality is more ideas than it is the stuff all around us because ideas are permanent and the West wasn't comfortable with all this change. But China is totally comfortable with it.

Steve Paulson ( 36:26):

Okay. Right near the summit is really steep. Just sheer rock. Just climbing. It's not exactly straight up, but it's tiring.

Steve Paulson ( 36:42):

So I want to come back to mountains here.

David Hinton ( 36:44):

Okay, good.

Steve Paulson ( 36:46):

I'm wondering if the notion of kinship with a mountain is meaningful to you?

David Hinton ( 36:52):

Absolutely. I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Weaving consciousness and the mountain together, that's kinship. When you're meditating, you watch thoughts coming and going, coming and going, and I mentioned how Hunger, this mountain range, has actually been built up to 40,000 feet and erased down to nothing and built up to 40,000 feet twice, and now it's back down to 3,500 feet. So even whole mountain ranges emerge, live their lives, wear away, and vanish, just like thoughts emerge in our mind, go through their evolutions, and vanish. That's kinship with the mountain right there. You watch thoughts operate just like the mountain operates, just on a different timescale. You're always thinking like a mountain.

Steve Paulson ( 37:41):

Okay, I'm going to talk. I have to say that it feels like a real accomplishment. That last bit just about killed me. But it's incredible. 360-degree views in every direction.

Anne Strainchamps ( 38:13):

We had a wonderful day on Hunger Mountain thanks to David Hanson, a renowned translator of ancient Chinese poetry and philosophical classics. He's also a poet and author of one of the best books about mountains ever written. It's called Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape. Check it out.

Anne Strainchamps ( 38:38):

Coming up, mountains that breathe fire and seduce men. I'm Anne Strainchamps and this is To the Best of Our Knowledge, from Wisconsin Public Radio and PRX.

Anne Strainchamps ( 39:06):

Lisa Maria Madera has known since she was a little girl that mountains are alive like real living, breathing beings.

Speaker 6 ( 39:31):

[foreign language 00:39:31].

Lisa Maria Madera ( 39:32):

I was 11 when I first saw Tungurahua. It was Thanksgiving, 1976. We were driving in our white Chevy van from Quito to Cuenca to see the Incan ruins of Ingapirca. We had spread a picnic. I remember the lemonade, the tuna fish sandwiches. I remember the fallow field rippling with wildflowers. Then out of nowhere, volcano, huge, massive, white, closer than my hand.

Speaker 6 ( 40:17):

[foreign language 00:40:17].

Lisa Maria Madera ( 40:17):

I was born to volcanoes. The youngest daughter of medical missionaries, I was born in Quito, the oldest city in the new world, and I grew up on the edge of the Amazon in a military town named for Shell Oil. In Quito, I would catch tadpoles on the slopes of Pichincha. In Shell, I would stay up way past my bedtime watching Sangay erupt, mesmerized by the blue and green gases hovering on the jungle horizon, the red lava running down the volcano's perfect cone.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 41:01):

I was born to volcanoes. I knew them all by name. Imbabura, Cayambe, Antisana, Cotopaxihe, Pichincha, Chimborazo, Sangay, El Altar. So the odd thing, within all those years I had never really seen Tungurahua. Or perhaps more to the point, Tungurahua had never seen me.

Anne Strainchamps ( 41:29):

Wow.

Steve Paulson ( 41:32):

Whoa.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 41:34):

In Ecuador, Isabel Tungurahua's seductive are legendary. She is known to have had at least two husbands, one lover, and a son of questionable paternity. She smokes and trembles from her many passions and every 80 years or so, she erupts with a hiss of white vapor, a spray of ash, and powers forth without censor the hot red lava that pulses through her stone veins. The seduction timing is everything.

Anne Strainchamps ( 42:33):

Lisa Madera herself has been seduced by mountains. She's a writer and educator who lives in the mountain city of Quito, Ecuador. People in the Andes have been telling stories about these mountains for centuries, stories in which the mountains are seductive lovers and jilted husbands, and Lisa says these stories tell us something essential about the nature of mountains as geologic marvels and sacred sites.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 43:01):

Yes. So this is sort of a really old story from the Andes. Pichincha, the mountain that it's right in front of me, is called Guagua Pichincha, and that is the son of Isabel Tungurahua and either Chimborazo, who's the most massive mountain, it's the tallest mountain if measured from the center of the earth. If you stood on Chimborazo, you could be the closest to the full moon ever. So Chimborazo is one of her husbands, Cotopaxi is another one of her husbands, and Sangay is her lover. So they have these stories, the relationships of the mountains.

Steve Paulson ( 43:38):

Do these mountains have personalities and they are gendered?

Lisa Maria Madera ( 43:42):

Yes. So it's interesting, isn't it, what kind of personalities do they have? When you live on a mountain you get to know their personalities. They have a really strong sort of feeling to them. I lived on the side of Isabel Tungurahua for many, many years. I thought I would live there the rest of my life except that she erupted and I had to leave.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 44:05):

The mountains come out in the dawn and at sunset. Some of them are out most of the day, but Tungurahua really comes out at dawn and at sunset and these clouds will come up from the Amazon and just sort of wrap her in these scarves of clouds. I don't know how else to explain it, but she kind of unveils herself and she kind of dances. She has lots of iron in her stones and so she's kind of rocky and red and she just has this really sultry and really magnetic personality. Of course, she has lots of healing springs. People come from far, far away to bathe in her springs and there's miracles, of course, of all the things that happen when you bathe in the springs of Tungurahua.

Steve Paulson ( 44:48):

Do you think of mountains as being alive?

Lisa Maria Madera ( 44:52):

I do. I do think about mountains being alive. I think of us like these little, you know how they have all those stories about the little creatures that live in our hair follicles and on the surface of our skin?

Steve Paulson ( 45:04):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lisa Maria Madera ( 45:05):

And I think about us on the surface of the mountain's skin. That's kind of how I think about us.

Steve Paulson ( 45:10):

Tell me, I mean, in what way are mountains alive? Scientifically, that seems to be a stretch.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 45:16):

Yes. Mountains, I think, are alive in lots of different ways. The stories here in the Andes of course tell that they are alive. There's this sense of the mountain producing water the way we produce water, the mountain produces food the way we produce food, the mountain breathes in and breathes out through their chambers, has this liquid flowing through its veins, and the mountain moves. We're told that those things that are alive move. The mountain moves. The mountain is moving all the time. I feel the mountain shake. We've seen the mountains erupt. They're moving. They're giving birth. The Galapagos Islands are volcanoes that give birth to land. We think we're alive because we give birth to humans, imagine giving birth to land.

Steve Paulson ( 45:59):

There are recordings that capture some of what you're talking about. I mean, you sent me a link of a recording of a volcano, not when it's erupting, but just in its resting state.

Steve Paulson ( 46:20):

It sounds like it's breathing.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 46:24):

Yeah. It's really interesting to hear, isn't it? You hear the rising and falling of the heat and the humidity and the steam. They said, well, it's like a pipe organ, but it sounds like someone breathing. They tape the mountains. They tape the mountains to know how they're moving and whether there's going to be volcanic eruptions, and of course the moving of the land for earthquakes. But they sound like they're breathing, yeah.

Steve Paulson ( 46:55):

Do you think of mountains as our kin, as part of the larger family that human beings are part of?

Lisa Maria Madera ( 47:04):

Yes, I do. But I think that they're so big and we're so little that we kind of lose perspective and don't really notice that these huge creatures are all around us. The mountains are so old, so, so, so, so very old, and we're new. I don't know how a mountain thinks or how a mountain perceives the world, but I find it kind of odd that we don't consider them to be to these large creatures that are just right in front of us.

Steve Paulson ( 47:35):

Right. It's so fascinated to hear you talk about this. It also makes me wonder what it must have been like for the Spanish, the conquistadors, who came to this area centuries ago and they must have heard these stories and I'm wondering what they made of them.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 47:52):

Yeah. It's interesting that the big story that really drew them is really a mountain story, the story of El Dorado. Inside the mountain is a whole parallel life like our life, and inside the mountain are these golden cities. The conquistadors heard about these golden cities and they came rushing to the Andes to find these golden cities and kept going through their terrible thirst for gold looking for this golden city. But this golden city was really a mythical city of love and reverence that lived inside the mountain and obviously one that they are not going to find if they're approaching the land in the way that they did.

Steve Paulson ( 48:30):

Do you have a favorite mountain?

Lisa Maria Madera ( 48:34):

That's difficult. So my favorite mountain today is this mountain that's in front of me, Pichincha. Pichincha has really saved my life, I think literally, because I faced a really difficult time. I think lots of us in our lives, we face moments of crisis and sorrow and loss and depression, and I come from a family that has depression in our veins.

Lisa Maria Madera ( 48:56):

We're Swedes, and they say in Stockholm even the fish are on antidepressants. So I came here when I was very broken-hearted and I was concerned because of the history of depression in our family's life. I've lost friends to depression. It was such a dark moment in my life and I didn't know how to move forward and it started with looking around me and being so moved by the beauty. I said this year on my birthday I will focus on an intention for the year, and that first intention was live with beauty, live with beauty. In the midst of that darkness and the sadness, that depression, watching the mountain, listening to the birds, seeing the flowers blooming, watching the sunset and the dawn, live with beauty, and just that focus for that year just brought me out of that darkness of the depression.

Anne Strainchamps ( 49:59):

Lisa Maria Madera is a writer and educator who lives in Quito, Ecuador.

Anne Strainchamps ( 50:10):

Today's show is part of our project on kinship with the more-than-human world, produced in collaboration with the Center for Humans and Nature, and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation. You'll find more information about the project at ttbook.org and at humansandnature.org.

Anne Strainchamps ( 50:29):

To the Best of Our Knowledge is produced at Wisconsin Public Radio by Shannon Henry Kleiber, Charles Monroe=Kane, Angela Bautista, and Mark Riechers. Steve Paulson is our executive producer. Sound design this week, as always, is by Joe Hardtke. I'm Ann Strainchamps, be well and join us again next time.

Announcer ( 50:49):

PRX.

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Science tells us mountains are giant piles of rock, formed millions of years ago. But that's not all they are - there was a time when mountains were gods.

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We have discussed the possibility of doing some kind of collective 'action' / presentation/ exhibition as part of our seminar course. [We would sacrifice one or two of the planned sessions to do that]. I suggested that we might take 'ecological entanglement with plants' as a starting point - it's broad enough for everyone's interests, but not too broad.
Anyway, this will be something that is driven by you as a group, if we decide to go this way. So, use this space to think out loud.

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Blue Oyster Mushrooms Talking by Lily McGuinness 

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Blue Oyster Mushrooms Talking by Lily McGuinness 

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I was just listening to a short, 5 minute YouTube video, “Five minutes of Blue Oyster Mushrooms talking”, by MycoLyco.

The creator of the video states “Through the use of bio data sonification and eurorack synthesizer we are able to listen in as two blocks of oyster mushrooms talk for perhaps the fist time”.

I am currently basing my project brief ‘connection’ on mycelium and how mushrooms and even other plant life communicate to each-other and work together to stay alive.
I’m fascinated by how they work and how their “natural internet”, as some people call it, is invisible to the human eye.

Towards the end of the video, the creator separates the two blocks of mushrooms from each other. This obviously affects the two as they go quiet. Even tho it’s hard to hear, they are still somewhat communicating and sending signals through the steel table!, even after the separation.

How the sounds made me feel,

I found it more difficult to meditate while listening to these chatters than I thought I would. The little sounds were unpredictable and more entertaining than relaxing.
They sound like something straight out of a science-fiction film, just like inside of an alien spaceship or lab.

These edible oyster mushrooms sound more energetic than the poisonous one previously posted. I was thinking what if their duller sounds had something to do with them being poisonous, but after trying to research it I found that it doesn’t matter if they’re edible or not, different mushrooms will have a different sound. I listened to pink oyster mushrooms and they sound similar to the blue oysters but much more subtle.

I found this task very entertaining, and I recommend listening to the blue oyster video.
Link pasted below ⬇️

https://youtu.be/J-nIBA0V_No?si=UFSdxsFKeIc_kR6U

:)

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I was very struck by this, the idea of altar as a metaphor for a point of contact between what is visible and what is not.

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Mycelium follows its own path it has decision making abilities to aid its own growth and re production. It has curative powers and used widely in medicine. Phallus fungi is known as stinkhorn and for its foul odour suppose to be a cure for gout and for use as a love potion.
Between the cells within every mycelium flows a stream of chemicals, nutrients, and electrical impulses.
Trying to become fungal would enable us to work better together, i.e. in teams. Looking at the roots of fungi it equates with our networking connection and having our own eco system.
Its nearly impossible to kill fungus in the body as it feeds off food such as sugar, yeast etc.
Candida is a form of sympotic in humans.
The magic mushrooms could help us all achieve wonderful art

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Patricia Domínguez Week 3      Teresa McMahon 

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Patricia Domínguez Week 3      Teresa McMahon 

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https://www.yesmagazine.org/tag/climate-crisis
Patricia Dominguez is really connected to the plant world, a bit like the horse whisperer. It must be a real gift to have. Plants are usually taken for granted and blend into our world outdoor or indoor. if we see people talking to plants we assume they have mental problems. For people connected to plants it can be a great comfort/friendship and stave of loneliness especially for people living alone.
After listening to the mushroom u tube I can imagine the plant spreading its wings underground to enhance growth.

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Sometimes the same ideas come at me like so many jets in an annoyingly fancy hotel shower. This week, those jets were all shooting this idea: price tags for nature. There are many things we don't put a price on. The things we do put a price on reflect what we prioritize as a society.

A few weeks ago, I was at a social commons conference where a panelist eloquently made the case for putting a price on the unwaged work in society-things like child care, things like...all the stuff that women tend to do.

Yesterday, my husband sent me an article about another group who don't get paid for their hard work: whales. Indeed, over a whale's life, it'll perform $2 million worth of important environmental work. The study of this value creation is called natural capital economics. Of course, the idea of price-is-righting the value of nature is by no means new, and by no means universally loved. Wrote George Monbiot, rather wonderfully, about the more than slightly fuzzy nature numbers put forth by a U.K. government panel appointed to study natural capital:

These figures, ladies and gentlemen, are marmalade. They are finely shredded, boiled to a pulp, heavily sweetened ... and still indigestible. In other words they are total gibberish.

But at the same time, if we show people the trillions of dollars of value we're destroying, might we not reevaluate said destruction as we spread the numbers on our toast? While it is a bit reductive to slap a price tag on whales, natural capital is evolving to neater and more resonant metrics. As Tim McDonnell and Amanda Shendruk write in Quartz:

Natural capital scientists are increasingly interested in moving beyond dollar figures toward other, more tangible metrics, like the number of lives saved by clean air and water, or projections of how crop yields might be affected by pollution and climate change.

The armchair behavior scientist in me says " duh." Quantifiable, emotive stats! Yes! Here in Ontario, closing the coal plants ended smog days and measurably prevented deaths. Using dollars or yen or zloty to share salient data points like numbers of lives saved, or lakes cleaned, or homes heated is a much more vivid way of illustrating value. Just as the reverse is true: putting amount of CO2 expended per plane trip or car fill-up is no different from displaying the calorie count of a Big Mac. If my husband had a zloty for every time I mentioned wishing food products would have carbon labels! So while it may be crass to think of nature in terms of numbers, the alternative asks us to ascribe value in a vacuum. It's easy to get behind pricing nature when you see the astronomical value of an ecosystem. 140 trillion is so mind-bogglingly huge a number it rather aptly illustrates that nature is priceless. I feel a Mastercard parody coming on.

Visualizing value can also make an issue come alive. Telling people income inequality is a huge issue doesn't seem to do much. They nod their heads and move on with their day. Using pie to illustrate the disparity = on-the-nose genius.

Almost no one says the wealth gap is their top political priority.

But maybe that's because almost no one realizes how crazy wide the wealth gap has grown. https://t.co/BDvu6Oa4h2
- Tony Dokoupil (@tonydokoupil) January 31, 2020

This week

Do you think about quantifying the value of nature? Let me know!

This and that

Welcome new readers, come by way of this interesting Huffington Post piece about what climate change will mean for Toronto. I had a really good chat with the reporter, but one of my key fears is that without much-needed explanation of what temperature rise will actually mean, climate change can be read favorably, as if there are winners and losers. A cursory read would lead you to believe that Toronto's winters will just get comfortably milder, but there's so much more to it than that. Our trees and natural ecosystem don't just magically adapt to this new warmth. Our increasingly impermeable concrete city doesn't just absorb the huge amounts of rainwater that will cause flash floods. I hope to devote a subsequent issue to the pitfalls of this winners and losers narrative.

If this is all too dire, take amusement in the form of fave climate writer Emily Atkin's recent revelation. I didn't believe that Barron Cashdollar could be a real name. Reader, it is!

I don't even know how to tell you guys what just happened to me.

My mom just told me that when she was my age she was in a relationship with an executive at Exxon ... and his name was BARRON CASHDOLLAR

WHICH MEANS

I WAS ALMOST EMILY CASHDOLLAR, OIL HEIRESS
- Emily Atkin (@emorwee) January 29, 2020

Emily's been doing ace work on exposing the ridonkulousness of Exxon PR. Like this:

Some will say this headline is clickbait but I actually asked my readers want they wanted to know about @guardian's fossil fuel ad ban and I asked the company's interim chief executive everything so BITE ME. anyway here's the interview https://t.co/UanS16S6g9
- Emily Atkin (@emorwee) January 31, 2020

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sarah

P.S. I'm always curious to know what you think. This is my newsletter for the week of January 31, 2020, published in partnership with YES! Media. You can sign up to get Minimum Viable Planet newsletter emailed directly to you at https://mvp.substack.com/.

Inspiration in Your Inbox

Sign up to receive email updates from YES!

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"Minimum Viable Planet" is a weeklyish commentary about climateish stuff, and how to keep it together in a world gone mad.

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I am in my car listening to a lady filling the recycle bins with cans and bottles. The smashing of bottles has a very strong noisy tone while the cans have a quiter lighter sound. The sound has high and low variations plus the rain is also been picked up. The rain is hitting off the wind screen and has a meditave sound. It is a contasting sound to the man made products the distraction is the human factor pulling me away from a meditave state. It is extremly wet so I havent videoed the sound. I will be able to record it some other time. I have failed to join teams meeting, despite my best efforts, apologies Fiona.

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I'm a third year ceramics student. I'm looking to inform myself better on sustainability and ethical practices.

I'm prone to nihilistic attitudes due to all the negativity and the sense of hopelessness I feel regarding global issues surrounding us and our impact on the planet. I want to engage in conversations like this without the feeling of dread, guilt, and despair. I want to critically analyse myself and work towards being better for both myself and those around me.

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Sit somewhere and listen to something that does not belong to the human world. Set a time - maybe 10 minutes. Try to perceive the sound as something physical that touches you as well as the emitting 'object'. At the end of the 10 minutes write a short reflection on the experience. Post to the padlet (with image or sound file maybe).

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Hiya, my name is Lily, I study 3rd year ceramics.

I’m trying to be more sustainable when it comes to the materials and processes I use when creating. I already recycle clay and reuse it, but I’d like to find other ways I can make less of an impact on our planet.

I’d like to find natural clay and process it myself in the future.

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Hi. I am a 4th year  print student.  At the moment my particular interest is exploring Donna Haraways concept of diffraction and how it can be applied to a creative process that incorporates research, social engagement and studio  practice. The framework for my research is Bruno Latours ecological philosophy regarding the Critical Zone. I am  looking forward to this seminar course and getting to know you. I am posting a screen print from last year of an iceberg. I   was thinking about things like Timothy Mortons Hyperobjects, about the hidden world we are beginning to get to know, about the deep dives we need to take in our lives and the U journey Otto Schramer describes as letting go of the old world and letting come the new world. The bitmap frequency is low in order to speak to the need for porous boundaries and a rejection of hard facts and totalizing truths.

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Hi just introducing myself. I'm in 3rd yr Sculpture. My studio practice so starting point is looking at way to create using natural materials and keeping a focus on minimal use of materials. restriction my selection. Currently I'm exploring creating pigment form rocks that I come accross when I'm out walking, or working in my garden.

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My name is Méabh Keogh. I am in my third year studying fashion and sustainability. I am interested in learning more about the ethics and sustainability of fashion. 

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My name is Méabh Keogh. I am in my third year studying fashion and sustainability. I am interested in learning more about the ethics and sustainability of fashion. 

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The sound of posionous mushroom  Teresa McMahon

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The sound of posionous mushroom  Teresa McMahon

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https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-magic-mushrooms-22085

It was so unexpected to hear sound from a mushroom. This is a beautiful piece of art a magic colour! Berger says we only see what we look at, the same applies to listening.

Reference
Berger ways of seeing things penguin book 1972
It all comes down to role modelling. The mushroom is used in medicine to treat infection also in the past in witchcraft. Used in the making of paper and compost and in the creation of art. It is also very good as a food source.

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I am a third year fashion and textiles student.
My course are educating us as much as they can on suitability but we all have so much more to learn.
I am a big believer of holistic healings I feel as humans we are capable of so much more then we think.
If we sit with ourselves we will understand who we are and that will make it easier for us to understand the world we live in.

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Unruly Edges Mushrooms as Companion Species

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A fabulous essay I came across last year. It is only about 5 pages long because there are lots of footnotes (valuable in themselves).

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A fabulous essay I came across last year. It is only about 5 pages long because there are lots of footnotes (valuable in themselves).

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Non-Human Animals: Crash Course Philosophy #42

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More than Human
Design’s ties to industrialization and progress has made possible increased material well-being for many humans while simultaneously contributing to waste, environmental degradation, and decreased biodiversity.
Design after Progress: Reimagining Design Histories and Futures – DESIGN+POSTHUMANISM NETWORK (designandposthumanism.org)
Are we going to become redundant as human beings. If we look at AI is it the future without us.
My interests are in a clean environment, unprocessed foods and a healthy happy lifestyle.

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Design after Progress: reimagining design histories and futures is a research environment that seeks to carefully untie design's entanglement with progress and to craft concrete imaginaries of a more socio-ecologically just design after progress. The research environment consists of researchers from four different Swedish design departments.

The aim of the research environment is to explore how to:

learn to become better haunted in design by attending to the ecologies of damage left behind by progress and industrialisation.

develop and articulate skills, competencies, capabilities, and concepts necessary for designing after progress.

Three experimental rehearsal studios

The research environment works in a participatory and democratic way in three different experimental rehearsal studios with the purpose of influencing future designers:

Present-ing Alternative Design Histories by historicising participation and design.

Prefiguring Design Practices after Progress with design experiments.

Unlearning Pedagogies for Design after Progress with opportunities for international designers and design researchers to learn to make the world differently.

The work is funded from 2023 to 2029 by The Swedish Research Council, grant number 2022-02319.

Staff

Thomas Laurien, HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University
Li Jönsson, School of Arts and Communicaiton, Malmö University
Kristina Lindström, School of Arts and Communicaiton, Malmö University
Maria Göransdotter, Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University
Åsa Ståhl, Department of Design, Linnaeus University

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Design after Progress: Reimagining Design Histories and Futures

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Design's ties to industrialization and progress has made possible increased material well-being for many humans while simultaneously contributing to waste, environmental degradation, and changed biodiversity. The aim is to craft concrete imaginaries of a more socio-ecological just design after progress and influence design educations.

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Welcome! Attached you will find information on the course and what it entails.

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Trailer

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IN THEATERS FROM JUNE 8 (ROMANDY)

In presence of the director:
· SUNDAY JUNE 5 2022, 6PM, CINÉMA ROYAL SAINTE-CROIX
· TUESDAY JUNE 7 2022, 8PM, CINÉMA BIO GENÈVE
· WEDNESDAY JUNE 8 2022, 7.30PM, CINÉMA REX NEUCHÂTEL
· THURSDAY JUNE 9 2022, 8PM, ZINÉMA LAUSANNE
· SUNDAY JUNE 12 2022, 10.30AM, SCALA CHAUX-DE-FONDS
· SUNDAY JUNE 12 2022, 5PM, CINEMONT DELÉMONT
· TUESDAY JUNE 14 2022, 6.30PM, CINÉMA REX VEVEY
· THURSDAY JUNE 16 2022, 10.30PM, OPEN AIR PETIT-SACONNEX GENÈVE
· THURSDAY JUNE 23 2022, 8PM, CINÉMA D'ORON

IN THEATERS FROM MAY 25 (GERMAN-SPEAKING SWITZERLAND)

In presence of the director:
· SUNDAY MAY 22 2022, 9PM, KINO RIFFRAFF (ZÜRICH)
· THURSDAY MAY 26 2022, 6PM, KINO BOURBAKI (LUZERN)
· MONDAY MAY 30 2022, 8PM, KINO REX (BERN)

OTHER SCREENINGS

· HUNGARIAN FUNGI AND ART RELATED COMMUNITY SPACE (HIFA), Hungarian Premiere, Saturday October 02, 2021 at 6pm, Budapest
· ALL ABOUT FUNGI, Sunday October 3rd at 6pm, Top Kino, Vienna
· LA LUMIÈRE, BEIJING : Saturday October 10, 2021 at 2pm (Swiss time), Sunday October 17, 2021 at 2pm (Swiss time), Wednesday October 19, 2021 at 7pm (Swiss time)
· AQUARIUM CINÉ CAFÉ, Sunday November 7 at 6pm, 2021, Lyon
· ETHNOKINO-REITSCHULE, Thursday November 25 2021 at 7pm, Bern
· CINÉMA ODEON BRUGG, Wednesday December 12th 2021 at 6pm, Campus Cinema, Brugg
· ROYAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS ANTWERP, Friday January 28th 2022
· MUSÉUM D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE DE PARIS, Saturday January 29th 2022 at 3pm, Auditorium de la Grande galerie de l'évolution
· FAR° NYON X VISIONS DU RÉEL ON TOUR, Saturday May 5th 2022 at 6.45pm, Salle communale Burtigny
· WHAT THE LAB? SYMBIOT SPACE BASEL, from June 14 to June 19 2022
· ANTRE PEAUX, Friday July 1st 2022 at 7pm, Muséum d'Histoire naturelle de Bourges
· FEINMECHANIK, Sunday August 20th 2022 at 5:30pm, Kassel (Overlapping Kassel Festival)
· LES TOILES FILANTES, Friday August 26th 2022 at 9:30pm, La Sarraz (Switzerland)
· THE LANGUAGE OF MUSHROOMS, from August to November 2022, Exhibition at the Contemporary Gallery Kunming
· LUMA LUCID INTERVALS, Friday October 28th and Saturday October 29th, 2022, La Grande Halle, Arles (France)
· LES TOILES FILANTES, November 6th at 6pm, La grande salle, Champvent (Switzerland)
· FRONTIERS IN PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCE, Monday November 7th, 2022, University of Zürich
· THEATER AM BANHOF, Friday November 7th, 2022, Reinach (Switzerland)
· IL CINEMA DEL CARBONE, Tuesday November 22nd, 2022, Mantova (Italy)
· NEUES KINO BASEL, Saturday November 26th, 2022, Basel (Switzerland)
· CINÉ CLUB INDIANA, Saturday December 10th, 2022, Vevey (Switzerland)
· SOIL ASSEMBLY, KOCHI MUZIRIS BIENNALE, February 5th 2023, Kochi (India)
· CINÉMA LE BOURGUET, March 4th 2023, Forcalquier (France)
· FOODCULTURE DAYS, June 2nd 2023, Vevey (Suisse)
· EDENWORLD, June 6th 2023, Pau (France)

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IN THEATERS FROM JUNE 8 (ROMANDY) In presence of the director: · SUNDAY JUNE 5 2022, 6PM, CINÉMA ROYAL SAINTE-CROIX · TUESDAY JUNE 7 2022, 8PM, CINÉMA BIO GENÈVE · WEDNESDAY JUNE 8 2022, 7.30PM, CINÉMA REX NEUCHÂTEL · THURSDAY JUNE 9 2022, 8PM, ZINÉMA LAUSANNE · SUNDAY JUNE 12

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Teaching Six: How can our imagination shape new worlds? De-zombifying and Re-training our senses, from Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez, 2023, Let's Become Fungal, Mycelium Teaching and the Arts, Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. 146 - 166

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Recent additions

The Future Materials Bank is an archive of materials that supports and promotes the transition towards ecologically conscious art and design practices. It is part of Future Materials, an initiative of the Nature Research department at the Jan van Eyck Academie.

Contact us at futurematerialsbank@janvaneyck.nl.

Follow @futurematerialsbank on Instagram.

Logo by Oliver Klimpel.

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Materials that support the transition towards a more sustainable artistic practice

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Modern Biology - Amanita mushroom music pt 4 🍄 The long version! #mushroom #plants #synth #amanita

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https://linktr.ee/modernbiologyThere's a full album of mushroom music up here 👆🏽For more information check out my tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@modernbiology

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Tosca Terán creates soundscapes using fungi. In this immersive piece, Tosca takes listeners on a soundwalk, pausing periodically to interview other sound artists who work with nature.

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This sound-rich episode comes from Tosca Terán. Tosca is an interdisciplinary artist who constructs soundscapes and immersive installations using biodata-sonification from fungi. Her work has been featured at institutions like MOCA Toronto, The Ontario Science Centre, and the Raindance Film Festival. Find out more on her website. In this episode, fellow sound artists Penelope Walcott, Leslie Garcia and Paloma Lopez of the Interspecifics Collective, Andrea Polli, and Hildegard Westkamp share their processes. The music used in this episode is from the artists. The producer, Tosca Terán, created the image for this episode.

Transcript

[EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS EPISODE IS PRODUCED FOR THE EAR AND DESIGNED TO BE LISTENED TO WHILE WEARING HEADPHONES. IF YOU CAN, WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO, WHICH INCLUDES SPOKEN WORD SOUND OVERLAYS, EMOTION, AND EMPHASIS THAT CANNOT BE TRANSFERRED ONTO THE PAGE.]

[MUSIC]

Tosca Terán: What you are currently listening to is the sound of living mycelium playing a synthesizer. [MYCELIUM MUSIC] Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus or fungus-like bacterial colony. Consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hypha. [MYCELIUM MUSIC] My name is Tosca Terán. I create music with fungi and work with mycelium. Today, I will take you on a soundwalk through subjects that interest me: bio-sonification, field recording, and sound ecology. A soundwalk sharing different sound worlds and sound as a medium to reflect on our shared, multi-species environment. [MYCELIUM MUSIC] Sound, when understood as an environment, is a soundscape, a powerful tool that helps humans relate to their surroundings.

[MYCELIUM MUSIC FADES INTO MACHINE SOUNDS]

Penelope Walcott: When I listen to machine sounds, what I hear is a type of music.

Tosca Terán: Penelope Walcott is a sound designer who works with sounds collected from industrial machinery.

[MACHINES MOVING, A PERSON HOWLING IN A CONSTRUCTION ZONE]

Tosca Terán: Penelope is collaborating with me to create the sonic ecology within the "Symbiosis/Dysbiosis" project.

Penelope Walcott: When we think of the natural environment, we think of nature. We think of the stuff that's not manmade. And so for me, my way into "Symbiosis/Dysbiosis" is machines are, were made, were created, invented by people, people are a part of nature; therefore, machines are also a part of nature as we are, as music is.

[MACHINE AND STREET SOUNDS]

Tosca Terán: "Symbiosis/Dysbiosis" is a fully immersive, mixed reality experience working with field recordings and living mycelium biodata-sonification. I presented "Symbiosis/Dysbiosis" during the Goethe-Institut Montreal's New Nature Climate Science Exchange in May 2020.

Penelope Walcott: Ecology is anything that we interact with in the environment. We live in a city, or rather if we talk about living in a remote environment, then it's about how we relate to the flora and fauna that surrounds us, how we manage it, how we engage with it. It's the same thing in the city; there are just slightly more levels. There's less flora and fauna, but there's the sound, there are the cars, there are the other people we have to deal with, there's transportation. There are all these things that build a particular type of ecology.

[MACHINE SOUNDS DISSOLVE INTO PERCUSSIVE BIODATA SOUNDS]

Tosca Terán: [SPEAKING OVER SOUNDS] Wikipedia describes 'sonification' as the use of non-speech audio to convey information or perceptualize data. And I'm thinking about Leslie Garcia and Paloma Lopez of the Interspecifics Collective and their term, 'bio-sonification' that I stumbled upon in 2016.

[MUSIC CREATED BY THE INTERSPECIFICS COLLECTIVE DERIVED FROM PHYSARUM POLYCEPHALUM, A UNICELLULAR SLIME MOLD]

Leslie Garcia: It is not only humans that are capable to generate bio-electrical energy. There are other organisms, and bio-electrical energy ends up being like some sort of like universal language, in a sense. So, the idea of bio-sonification was to use the same concepts of influence, control, and correlation to produce a system that performs on the bio-electrical activity of several organisms and enables them to have an interface. To express their materiality to sound.

Tosca Terán: [SPEAKING OVER PHYSARUM MUSIC] The Myxomycetes, or slime molds, are a group of ameboid protists considered for many years as a special group of fungi.

Paloma Lopez: It started with Physarum. Because before that, we were just looking at plants and bacteria, and it was kind of easy to follow the data. And once we started looking at Physarum, it was really complicated, and it was when we started needing some digital help.

Leslie Garcia: But more in the sense of their own materiality, and this is something we take from the Latin American cultures in general, the way our ancestors perceive nature. It's a way of interconnected intelligence and elevated perception, so we try to approach them from this particular point of view and consider them as important as their human contra-parts in the process of work.

Paloma Lopez: We chose sound as the communication bridge. Make us understand all these invisible phenomena that we are not able to grasp.

[PHYSARUM MUSIC]

Paloma Lopez: We share lots of characteristics with the environment. That gives you a lot, that has given me a lot of insight on my position in the universe, and I appreciate a lot more. Every detail of it.

Leslie Garcia: Maybe we could collect a symbiotic relation in that way. Like symbiotic processes describe this way of collaborating we are trying to approach from our work. They are embedded in the narrative of life. If we start knowing ... You know, at this time, it's a new paradigm, in a way.

[PHYSARUM MUSIC]

Leslie Garcia: It's like you gain the perspective of the other. [PHYSARUM MUSIC] We started, you know, with this signal analysis with bio-electrical organisms, and then, we realize that we have a lot of questions on the patterns emerging there. So, we sort of move into pattern-looking algorithms to analyze those signals. And then, that take us to machine learning to be able to explore further those emergences and events inside the phenomena we were observing, and we are there right now. We are sticking to, you know, working together with artificial intelligence, trying to understand artificial intelligence not as a utilitarian algorithm but also as an agency capable of creative processes and trying to find ways of influence the systems together with our information and perspectives.

[PHYSARUM MUSIC FADES INTO ML COLLABORATIVE MUSIC, WHICH FADES INTO FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING ON ICE]

Tosca Terán: In soundscape studies, 'keynote sounds' are those which are heard enough to form a background against which other sounds are perceived. Often, keynote sounds are not consciously perceived, but they act as conditioning agents in the perception of other sound signals. And I'm thinking of artist Andrea Polli who went in search of the keynote during an artist residency in Antarctica. There, she interviewed scientists and recorded her time at Taylor Glacier.

Andrea Polli: You know, it's really rare to be able to hear a keynote. I had always been really fascinated by it. And one day, I decided to go on a hike. And I got my PowerBars and got as far away from the camp as I could and started recording. And I heard, as I was recording, what sounded like kind of a high-pitched sound. I'm recording this, and I'm looking at these beautiful, incredible mountains and glaciers surrounding me. And just a completely silent place, and I thought, wow, how cool and how wild that these mountains are sounding like this high-pitched sound, and it's so weird. And I got really excited and recorded a lot actually [LAUGHS] and got back to camp, where I had my computer and my little setup, and I was gonna listen to it again. And I got it into my computer, and I didn't hear anything. I looked at the recording image too, and you know, there really wasn't ... you know, except for a few kind of wind noise at times, you know. That high pitch, it wasn't there. And I got back to New York, and I was, my friend said, hey, it's what John Cage talked about, it's the sound of your nervous system.

[WIND BLOWING FADES INTO ELECTRONIC DATA-SONIFICATION]

Tosca Terán: [SPEAKING OVER DATA-SONIFICATION] Andrea Polli sculpts data into sound while interspersing interviews she's conducted with climate scientists.

[DATA-SONIFICATION SOUNDS]

Scientist #1: There's definitely gonna be shifts. And you know, in those shifts, some places are going to be better places to live, but places are going to be worse to live. And it's going to be a re-organization of human civilization.

[DATA-SONIFICATION SOUNDS FADE INTO WATER RUSHING]

Scientist #2: I have to admit that I was shocked. I was shocked with, by finding how sensitive many ecosystems are and how much they could be impacted by climate change in the future. And so, I felt actually myself - again, as a citizen, as an individual, as a human being - an obligation to tell other people who are willing to listen and who are interested in this topic - and I believe everybody should be, by the way - it's their life!

[DATA-SONIFICATION FADES INTO GURGLING WATER SOUNDS]

Andrea Polli: I've been doing a lot of research into how nature experiences affect people, and specifically, affect people positively. And there's an aspect of nature experience that is defined as vibrancy, and I really like that. It's like light on the surface of water, kind of moving in a very beautiful way or light coming through leaves that are moving. That vibrancy that we get in nature that we don't really get in a built environment.

[DATA-SONIFICATION SOUNDS WITH GURGLING WATER SOUNDS, NOW LOWERING IN PITCH]

Tosca Terán: Soundscapes can be made to inform the listener, they can sonically share data, and they also, like all music, can elicit an emotional response.

[WATER FADES INTO PERCUSSIVE ECHOING SOUNDSCAPE AND AN EXCERPT FROM "THE SOUNDSCAPE SPEAKS"]

Hildegard Westkamp: [WATER DRIPPING, CHORAL SOUNDING VOICES, HILDEGARD'S VOICE WITH PIPE ECHOING PERCUSSIVE SOUNDS] It's Saturday, just around noon, February 15, 1992. The pipe captures all sounds and transforms them.

Tosca Terán: The definition of 'ecologist' is a person who studies the natural relationships between the air, land, water, animals, plants or a scientist who studies how animals and plants interact with their environment. And I'm thinking about Hildegard Westerkamp who refers to herself as a 'sound ecologist' and what sound ecology means to her.

[MUSIC FROM "THE SOUNDSCAPE SPEAKS"]

Hildegard Westerkamp: It really has to do with being one of many people to attend to the issues of soundscape. The issues of the sound environment. The quality of the sounds that we put out there and - as societies, as individuals - wanting to learn to become responsible as sound makers and listeners, equally in this world.

[MUSIC FROM "THE SOUNDSCAPE SPEAKS"]

Tosca Terán: Listening with someone else's ears. I think of non-human flora and fauna and funga and their perception of our shared environment.

Hildegard Westerkamp: There are different ears out there. When we do soundwalks, I mean, I've done so many soundwalks over the years, and in the discussions afterwards, you realize that every human being hears differently. Absolutely. Psychologically. Physically. And this may come out in a discussion, where that person has heard that whole entire soundwalk completely differently than anybody else. Or psychologically speaking, one person may have noticed a sound that the other person completely ignored. So, that's among humans. That's the social kind of difference in ears. So, I think we can extend that and say, of course, every being in this world - every animal, every plant, everything - perceives the world through its own organs. And I think it's a really important place to become aware of, especially nowadays. We absolutely need to stand back as human beings and imagine what the rest of living beings on this earth perceive and how they survive, how they fit into the entire system. And you know, I mean biologists, scientists, everybody has worked on this ecologically already for years and has warned us of what's happening.

[MUSIC FROM "THE SOUNDSCAPE SPEAKS," TRAIN HORN FADING IN DISTANCE, HUMAN VOICES, WATER WITH BIRD WINGS FLUTTERING]

Hildegard Westerkamp: [VOICE TRAVELING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT] Slow down for a moment. Imagine moving through a day of your life listening with someone else's ears. Very special to give yourself time to listen to the environment like that, and of course, soundwalks do exactly that. They invite you to listen for longer times and the point is that the longer you listen, the more you get immersed. Slow down for a moment, and make time for listening.

Tosca Terán: 'Clairaudience.' Hearing something that is not present to the ear but regarded as having objective reality. In pursuit of clairaudience.

Hildegard Westerkamp: Simply speaking, it actually just means, clear hearing. And if we just stick to that term, clear hearing involves more than just listening to sounds. It really refers to hearing everything that belongs to a sound. Its place, its body, its tone, its length of time, its message. Its entire context. So, clairaudience on that level is very much clear hearing the reality around you. The sounds emerge. It has gotten quite important to be conscious of disappearing sounds, just as we have to be conscious of disappearing species.

[MUSIC FROM "THE SOUNDSCAPE SPEAKS," WATER FLOWING, TWIGS SNAPPING, SEAGULLS, BIRDS TWITTERING]

Hildegard Westerkamp: I'm going to lead you through this part today, but in a rather different way this time. [SOUNDS OF WATER FLOWING] Emily Carr used to paint the B.C. [EDITOR'S NOTE: BRITISH COLUMBIA] forest. With her words, I will lead you through this forest today. [SOUNDS OF WATER FLOWING, BIRD SOUNDS] Nothing is still now, life is sweeping through the spaces. Everything is alive. The air is alive. The silence is full of sound.

[BIRDS SINGING, WATER FLOWING IN THE DISTANCE, WINGS FLUTTERING; FADES INTO BIO-SONIFICATION]

Tosca Terán: I would like to dedicate this episode to the memory of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. [BIO-SONIFICATION MUSIC] I would like to thank you for joining me on today's soundwalk. I would like to extend big thanks to the artists Penelope Walcott, Leslie Garcia and Paloma Lopez, Andrea Polli, and Hildegard Westerkamp for sharing their work and process with us. Please refer to the episode notes for links to the artists' works and to learn more about them. [BIO-SONIFICATION MUSIC] Today's soundwalk was created by myself, Tosca Terán, with production assistance from Nancy Pettinicchio and final mix-down by Antonin Wyss. [BIO-SONIFICATION MUSIC] What you are listening to is Agathis australis, commonly known by its Māori name 'Kauri.' I recorded Kauri biodata-sonification during a visit to the Arataki Visitor's Centre in Titirangi, New Zealand, 2019. During my recordings, I met Māori ranger Joc. Joc told me that the sounds she was hearing from the Kauri could be referred to as 'Rongoā.' Healing, feeling, cleansing. I leave you, dear listeners, with Rongoā.

[KAURI BIO-SONIFICATION MUSIC]

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Tosca Terán creates soundscapes using fungi. In this immersive piece, Tosca takes listeners on a soundwalk, pausing periodically to interview other sound artists who work with nature.

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Phenomenology: WTF? Time and Phenomenology explained!

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Preparatory work: What is Phenomenology (3 minutes)

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Preparatory work: What is Phenomenology (3 minutes)

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Preparatory Reading: Feral Atlas as a Verb: Beyond Hope and Terror

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Preparatory Reading: Feral Atlas as a Verb: Beyond Hope and Terror

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Preparatory Reading: Extract from - Nonhuman Games: Playing in the Post-Anthropocene by Paolo Ruffino

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Preparatory Reading: Extract from - Nonhuman Games: Playing in the Post-Anthropocene by Paolo Ruffino

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Queer strife amid the collapse. Collaboratively generate an apocalyptic setting. We banded together to form a queer enclave — a place to live, sleep, and hopefully heal. More than ever before, each of us is responsible for the survival and fate of our community. What lies in the rubble? For this close-knit group of queers, could it be utopia?

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Season: A Letter To The Future review: a melancholy travelogue of a gorgeous post-war world

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Season is a gorgeous cycling adventure about documenting your travels through a melancholy post-war world that’ll soon …

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Reviews

"Season is about every little thing we can value in a life as fleeting as the seasons, and it's one of my favorite games in years."
POLYGON

"When was the last time a game managed to pierce your heart with its third or fourth dialogue choice"
9/10 - EDGE

"SEASON is a game that makes you want to play it as if you were savoring it"
FAMITSU

About This Game

In SEASON: A letter to the future, you play as a young woman from a secluded village exploring the world by bike for the first time, collecting memories before a cataclysm washes everything away. SEASON is a quest to discover a new world; one unknown yet familiar. Document, photograph, and record life as you find it, while you still can.

The gameplay focuses on exploring, recording, meeting people, and unravelling the strange world around you. Each recording tool captures a different layer; sounds and music, art and architecture, the stories of characters living through pivotal moments. Your tools peel back these layers until you grasp the culture, history, and ecology underneath everything. This quest leads you to the big questions: what is this season? Why is it ending? And what will the next season bring?

A bicycle road trip: Wind your way through stunning landscapes on your bicycle and take in each moment.

A compelling narrative: Discover a new world; one unknown yet familiar. Contemplate and make difficult choices that could affect how the story ends. Select and capture the most important moments from the current season to preserve them for future generations.

Document, photograph, and record: Collect memories, make recordings, and piece together the secrets of the world of SEASON in a highly customizable journal.

Emotionally complex characters: Meet a diverse cast of characters, each of whom has two precious things to share with you: the stories of their lives and a moment together at the end of the season.

Immersive Soundtrack: Listen to the gorgeous score as you travel through the world; music is embedded in the landscapes, and evolves and drifts as you do.

Season © 2023 Scavengers Studio. All Rights Reserved.

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Leave home for the first time to collect memories before a mysterious cataclysm washes everything away. Ride, record, meet people, and unravel the strange world around you. Immerse yourself in the world of Season, a third-person meditative exploration game.

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Management sims have made me into a villain. If playing a simulator game is like playing god, then I'm certainly a wrathful one. In , I remind myself "the factory must grow" as I fight bug hordes that, understandably, attack my base as pollution saturates their settlements. In , I force workers to endure 18-hour shifts and sawdust-gruel meals, all while living in an impromptu shantytown.

is a balm for this kind of aggressive gameplay. In this "reverse city builder," as developer Free Lives has described it on the game's Steam page, you rewild desiccated and barren land across four major biomes in a series of four scenarios. It's a game for this era of climate anxiety, where we've gone past the climate "point of no return." Healing landscapes across Earth's biomes is the ultimate comfort fantasy - especially amid a sea of games premised on destruction and dominion - where reversing the toll of habitat destruction comes at the click of the mouse. But the game also has an identity crisis, where these meditative tile-placement mechanics chafe against the complexity of its late-game systems.

Healing landscapes across Earth's biomes is the ultimate comfort fantasy

Terra Nil's themes of rebirth and reconstruction are translated beautifully through its delightful visuals and an ASMR-like soundscape full of clicks, rain sounds, and wind riffling gently through the grass. It's viscerally satisfying, almost dreamlike work, slowly reviving dead, crisp-looking land with lush pine, bamboo, or mangrove forests. You revive oceans with coral reefs and thickets of kelp in which sea turtles can thrive. You rebuild ice caps, making a home for virtual penguins, even as they're threatened in real life.

Early gameplay is purely atmospheric, in the vein of tile placement games like Dorfromantik. You start by placing windmills - and later, more advanced forms of electricity generators - followed by a building that turns desiccated land into soil, and then a building that lays a grassy field over that arable land. This phase of restoration is like a game of Tetris, wherein you try to restore as much gridded surface area as you can. The isometric-style scenario maps are procedurally generated, and fairly modest in size. Rewilding the map earns you points, depicted as leaves in the UI, which you can spend on additional structures. The only real strategy is making sure you don't spend these points before you're able to lay down a building that earns you more points.

In the next phase of restoration, you start to diversify these ecosystems, placing structures that can spawn forests or meadows in the surrounding land - granted it meets ecosystem requirements on that particular tile. For example, have you put grassland down on a tile, is it adjacent to an ocean or river, or have you done a controlled burn for the sake of seeding a forest? In later scenarios, this might include global requirements like humidity level or altitude.

This is where it gets convoluted: After the first scenario, the game doesn't clearly explain the order of operations, or how these particular tools can layer atop one another, and only lets you undo the most recent building that you've placed. You might be waiting to place a meadow in the tundra after doing a controlled burn, for example, without realizing you should have done it in the opposite order. At this point, the scenario is lost, and you must restart. This is, in part, just how simulators are - you mess things up and you start over. But other sims tend to give earlier red flags when things are going haywire, and hint at options for digging yourself out. In Terra Nil, you discover that you've messed up, and that's basically it. Furthermore, there's also a pretty steep complexity jump between scenarios two and three, so these confusing mechanics add yet another layer of shock to the sudden failures.

The final phase of restoration - the cleanup phase - is also convoluted, though I do respect the political implications this step represents. It suggests that the work of human intervention in the environment should conclude by removing evidence of industrial presence. The animation and sound design in this section are also stellar: When a building is deconstructed, it explodes into the ether, emitting a nice crunchy sound. But the actual mechanic behind it is a huge pain, requiring you to make buildings either accessible by river or through air tram stops - which can only be built on rocks.

Suddenly, the increasingly deindustrialized landscape becomes replete with rails and artificial rivers, as you do scummy reverse engineering to attempt to remove the buildings you've placed, once again clogging up the landscape. You can't beat a scenario until all the buildings are gone. I would be happy to buy into the idea that rewilding - and removing your footprint - ostensibly requires complex machinery, but the jump from atmospheric to complicated once again is grating.

It's hard to tease out that line between satisfying complexity and convoluted complexity. Typically, weighty simulators tend to feel a little more open-ended - even if they have scenario objectives - because the buildings you place interact with one another in real time or chain to form automation. In Terra Nil, it feels stiffer, more set in stone, waiting for you to proceed with your plan. The emphasis is less on interlocking structures and more on building placement and order of operation. There are many ways you could rewild the landscape you're given, but you're always building on top of what you've already created. Where you might expect a city builder to open up and widen the amount of creative expression you're given as the game advances, Terra Nil offers a shrinking palette of possibility. What you can place, in the late-game, depends entirely on what you've already done to the map. You can run out of space to create certain biomes or to lay down the tramways you need. You can back yourself into corners without even realizing it.

Even if some of the gameplay feels unnecessarily rigid, I still have a lot of respect for the way this game emphasizes environmental stewardship, especially within a genre that tends to focus on the exact opposite

This isn't the end of the world. After beating a scenario, you're given the option to replay the biome as many times as you'd like - and thanks to procedural generation, these maps will always have some variance. Within these replays, you can be incredibly intentional, or you can put the game on "gardener" setting for a truly atmospheric experience. I've personally enjoyed playing it on this chiller mode, and just stuffing my biomes full of as many animals as possible.

I'm also open to the idea that the preconceived notions I have around the genre - and the way that restorative, or visually lush, games get labeled "cozy" - negatively influences my perception. To be clear, I love "cozy" games. But I also think that some people view these games pejoratively, with the assumption that joy and comfort can't be taken as seriously as heavier topics - or that the gameplay in these games is more straightforward. I try to resist the assumptions around this label by looking for games that have something interesting to say about healing, while taking risks with the game mechanics used to execute that vision. I just think that Terra Nil is trapped somewhere between being atmospheric and complex, without a strong on-ramp for its difficulty curve.

As I played, I kept thinking, Let me love you, as I built so many pylons and tramway poles just to complete a scenario. I played the demo over and over again when it was first released last year, excited for what would come. Even if some of the gameplay feels unnecessarily rigid, I still have a lot of respect for the way this game emphasizes environmental stewardship, especially within a genre that tends to focus on the exact opposite. Despite the roadblocks, that sense of wonder is enough to bring me back into the game's world.
Terra Nil will be released on March 28 on on Android, iOS, and Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by Devolver Digital. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon's ethics policy here

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Sim game Terra Nil accepts the apocalypse - then moves past it

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Terra Nil is a "reverse city builder," as developer Free Lives has described it on the game's Steam page, where you rewild desiccated and barren land across four major biomes in a series of four scenarios. Here's our review.

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About This Game

Terra Nil is a game about transforming a barren, lifeless landscape into a thriving, vibrant ecosystem. Turn dead soil into fertile grassland, clean polluted oceans, plant sprawling forests, and create the ideal habitat for animals to call home. Then recycle your buildings and leave no trace that you were there. Reclaim the wasteland.

A reverse city builder

Use advanced eco-technology to purify the soil, creating plains, wetlands, beaches, rainforests, wildflowers, and more-then efficiently recycle everything you've built, leaving the environment pristine for its new animal inhabitants.

Different maps every time

Procedurally generated landscapes mean no two playthroughs of Terra Nil will ever be the same. Plan your build around randomized, challenging, and unpredictable terrain, including snaking rivers, mountains, lowlands, and oceans.

A natural ebb and flow

Each region of Terra Nil progresses through phases, with the ultimate goal being leaving pristine wilderness behind. Levels are not about infinite growth, but rather balancing and nurturing the environment before leaving it in peace.

Experience tranquility

Lush hand-painted environments, relaxing music, and an atmospheric ambient soundscape make Terra Nil a peaceful, meditative experience. When you're done, use Appreciate mode to bask in the natural beauty of the ecosystem you have restored.

Copyright Free Lives. All Rights Reserved.

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Terra Nil is an intricate environmental strategy game about transforming a barren wasteland into a thriving, balanced ecosystem. Bring life back to a lifeless world by purifying soil, cleaning oceans, planting trees, and reintroducing wildlife, then leave without a trace.

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Preparatory Reading: Digital Animals by Bill Adams

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Preparatory Reading: Digital Animals by Bill Adams

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Preparatory Reading: Queer Phenomenology by Sara Ahmed

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Preparatory Reading: Queer Phenomenology by Sara Ahmed

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Read at least the first 7 pages, and the final two pages (before the References section). Those are marked with yellow highlight (end and beginning).

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Preparatory Reading: Eyes of Plants (Artist-text) Patricia Dominguez

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Preparatory Reading: Eyes of Plants (Artist-text) Patricia Dominguez

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The Bio-Responsive Garden: Plants Interact With Humans

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Preparatory Material: Into the Planthroposcene

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Preparatory Material: Into the Planthroposcene

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Into the Planthroposcene - together with the photosynthetic ones

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Animal Ontology and Philosophical ethology

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Animal Ontology and Philosophical ethology

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Animal ontology and philosophical ethology - after Roberto Marchesini

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Animal & Disability Liberation - with Sunaura Taylor

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Three Minute Theory: What is Intra-Action?

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Branches of Philosophy - Ontology (What is Ontology?)

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"GFP Bunny" is a transgenic artwork that comprises the creation of a green fluorescent rabbit ("Alba"), the public dialogue generated by the project, and the social integration of the rabbit. While every past civilization has conceived and celebrated numerous imaginary creatures, never before Alba has an artist imagined a living mammal and then proceeded to make it a reality. Employing molecular biology, Kac combined jellyfish and rabbit DNA to produce a bunny that glows green under blue light. Kac’s art is based on the literal creation of new biological life. Kac explains that transgenic art must be created "with great care and with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created." The global resonance of "GFP Bunny" has led Kac to develop a series of works in a variety of media, including drawing, photography, print, painting, sculpture, animation, and digital media.

© Eduardo Kac
http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor
http://www.ekac.org

Molecula Menssagem: A Conversation with Eduardo Kac
by Hoçâ Cové-Mbede
https://www.tecno-grafias.com/eduardo_kac_interview_mm.html

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What if art could truly create biological life? | Eduardo Kac | TEDxVienna

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Preparatory Reading: Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water, by Astrida Neimanis

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Preparatory Reading: Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water, by Astrida Neimanis

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Visit the Design + Posthumanism network and make a post about any event/publication/project/story and relate it to the ideas in this reading with a short piece of text.

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Ursula Biemann talks about Acoustic Ocean

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Ursula Biemann talks about Acoustic Ocean

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Acoustic Ocean Interview w/ Ursula Biemann

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EYES OF PLANTS, Patricia Domínguez, 2019

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EYES OF PLANTS, Patricia Domínguez, 2019

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Patricia Domínguez, "Eyes of Plants" (2019)

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Patricia Domínguez
"Eyes of Plants," 2019
Video, color, sound; 24:00 min
Courtesy the artist and Galería Patricia Ready, Santiago
Video commissioned by Gasworks, London, United Kingdom

"Eyes of Plants" (2019) is presented as part of the exhibition "Screens Series: Patricia Domínguez," on view at the New Museum February 17, 2022–June 5, 2022.

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In order to grow, plants absorb water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to create oxygen and energy in the form of sugar. But who's to say the process of photosynthesis should be bound to what grows in the soil beneath our feet?

MACHINE-A collaborates with positive knitwear designer Olivia Rubens on Photosynthesize, a collection that transforms garments into living organisms. Made with and to be sold exclusively at MACHINE-A, central to the Photosynthesize collection is a focus on morality and communal bonding in the aftermath of the global pandemic.

For Photosynthesize, Rubens expands on her playful, yet twistingly humorous, study on human nature, indebted to making clothing that will leave a positive impact on both the planet and the people that wear her designs.

With MACHINE-A, the designer expands on her ingenious developments in bio design. Taking her cues from 18th century garments and Rococo excess, Rubens examines unforeseen consequences stemmed from the greed and ignorance of bygone generations, using waste and found objects to piece together a collection that finds beauty in the mundane. Inspired by Kintsugi, Rubens fashions her collection through ethical alpaca, Tencel, organic wool and linen and GOTS organic cotton - married with vintage crochet lace tablecloths, old ceramic kitchenware, empty shampoo and household cleaner bottles. Upon closer inspection, you can see remnants of the past lives of these upcycled materials, from barcodes to instruction stickers, each melted into hand-moulded trims.

The focal point to the collection is a series of green garments that are photosynthesis coated with Post Carbon Lab, giving each the qualities to live and breathe like plants. All of these pieces give off oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide, and require indirect sunlight and regular misting to maintain their climate positivity.

Knitted in Italy and sewn in the UK - with some pieces sculpted in Canada - Rubens worked with Manusa, a company in Pistoia, Italy which employs refugees and women from unfortunate circumstances, as well as Making For Change, an organisation which employs women both in and rehabilitating from prison.

"Our overall goal for this project is to redefine the meaning of our relationships with our garments, and to empower people with individual agency in climate change solutions. By caring for these photosynthesizing pieces like plants, and displaying them in homes like objects, we hope the nurturing nature of this relationship will strengthen bonds between people and their pieces, watching them transform and thrive over time, while sequestering carbon from the atmosphere" - Olivia Rubens, designer.

"At MACHINE-A we always aim to support and showcase emerging designers that apart from their creative talent, their proposition to the future of our industry is such, that creates new ways for everyone to think, to be inspired and to bring positive change. Photosynthesize, a project by Olivia with the support of the Post Carbon Lab, is the scientific result of transforming garments to living organisms and how do we keep them alive in the environment we are in with our care. Is a project that elongates the life duration of a garment and offers us a better understanding of the fundamental circular relationship between the environment, us and our clothes" - Stavros Karelis, founder & buying director of MACHINE-A.

photography & videography: keir laird

assist: aurelie laugoutte

beauty: martha inoue

set design: olivia rubens

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In order to grow, plants absorb water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to create oxygen and energy in the form of sugar. But who's to say the process of photosynthesis should be bound to what grows in the soil beneath our feet?

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Poetic response to More-than-human Design Methodology

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Poetic response to More-than-human Design Methodology

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The Umwelt-sketch as More-than-human Design Methodology

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Preparatory work: visit Savage Craic website

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Preparatory work: visit Savage Craic website