A Language Pattern

A Language Pattern, or: How to Look at Architecture Obliquely, or: composting is so hot. For now.

Amy Young

Calum Montgomery

Camille Cervania Trinidad

Emily Bennett

Imogen Clarke

Indigo Leveson-Gower

Ines Liborio

Joseph Kohlmaier, ed.

Jules Regis

Oliver Coulton

Theo Ploutarhou

Vasil Stefanov

Poetry and Architecture

2023

A Language Pattern, or: How to Look at Architecture Obliquely, or: composting is so hot. For now.

A Manual for 21st Century Architects

Poetry and Architecture

2023

The texts in this draft publication were written by students of the Poetry and Architecture Module at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University, in 2023. In this teaching module, poetry represents a way of thinking which, in Éduart Glissant’s words, sets out to ‘invent a knowledge that would not serve to guarantee its norms in advance, but would follow excessively along to keep up with the measurable quantity of its vertiginous variances.’

The module introduces architecture students to a set of radical readings in contemporary philosophy and theory, particularly feminist, ecological and postcolonial theory, as well as forays into present thinking on language, objects, the post-human, or commoning. It then asks: how do you map these ideas back onto architecture? What are the consequences? Can architecture be rethought?

Students constructed an answer to this question through a joint writing project that resulted in a book of 30 ‘language patterns,’ a toolkit on how to look at architecture obliquely, against the grain, in the present age. But above all, Poetry and Architecture is a social space in which traditional approaches to pedagogy and teaching architecture are exploded. We have been cooking, eating, reading and thinking together. The book the students collaborated on is an example of generosity and collaboration, and a testament to what education can do if you let it. It is also brilliant in many ways. This is the last year Poetry and Architecture runs in its current form. All students receive the same grade: a First. The students made their tutor a cake with icing that read ‘Composting is so hot,’ (Haraway) but that is not why.

Joseph Kohlmaier

June 2023

1 Catkin Carpet

Abandoning progress rhythms to watch polyphonic assemblages is not a matter of virtuous desire. Progress felt great; there was always something better ahead. Progress gave us the ‘progressive’ political causes with which I grew up. I hardly know how to think about justice without progress. The problem is that progress stopped making sense. More and more of us looked up one day and realized that the emperor had no clothes. It is in this dilemma that new tools for noticing seem so important. Indeed, life on earth seems at stake.

— Anna Tsing (2014, p. 24)

Each year in early March the wintery frost begins to disappear; the days instead slowly warming, bringing with them the promise of spring. Daffodils bloom and the flamingo willow turns a buttery pink, as tufts of green peak amongst the paving slabs. A great emergence happens in our garden in March; the symphony of colours marking the end of a long voyage of dismal days, offering a relief with a magnitude comparable to Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic adventures.

The indulgence of petals, blossoms and the chatter of sunlight continues for a few weeks, washings finally hung outside, and coffees drank on the doorstep.

But every year, without fail, the joy of spring in the garden is bought to a grinding halt. Sitting snuggly along the fence line, our neighbours Aspen looms tall with its dangling branches and silvery trunk. In the third week of March, give or take a few days, it begins to develop these greyish fury entities, that hang precariously from

above. They are long and thin, with a feather like texture; wriggling in the wind, my brothers and I used to call them the ‘slugs of the sky.’ These curious things are catkins; ‘a branch with leaves and flowers, that have been condensed down into a small flexible dangling branch, a perfectly adapted way of getting pollen into the wind. Without the need to attract insects or other animals, they are devoid of bright petals, nectar and scent, insignificant and plain (Thomas, 2014, p. 168).

As the catkins form, numbers build on the branches and the tree becomes enveloped in a fury skin. My mother used to stand at the back of the house, scowling at the tree, remarking on their hideous character, threatening to chop the Aspen down, for the sight is so ghastly each year. With a few gusts of wind, the catkins made their way onto the ground, falling gracefully as they twirled with their grey wings. Landing on the lawn, a catkin carpet forms.

In my mother’s eyes, the catkins sit low in the garden hierarchy… even perhaps on the same level as the pests of nature; the pigeons, squirrels, ravens, and foxes. Unlike a rose or a tulip, the catkin can’t offer beauty or a sweet scent; they have no sensory pleasure and litter the garden grey. Yet, the catkins are really no different to any other flower, they follow the same structure, just condensed into a small flexible dangling branch. The Aspen catkin is ‘made up of s series of scales or bracts below which nestle tree flowers, each with two deeply divided stamens. The remains of the perianth are there but very small and insignificant’ (Thomas, 2014, p. 168). As wind pollinators, Aspen’s are much more efficient than insect pollinating plants, the pollen able to travel wider without the restriction of relying on another species for transit. The pollen is smaller than insect pollinated plants, helping it to travel through the air – ‘the pollen grains start with a negative charge on the anther but acquire a strong positive charge as they fly though the air, and the female flowers have a negative charge, which helps pluck pollen electrostatically from the streamlining air.’ (Thomas, 2014, p. 178).

The complexities of the catkin and their essential role in the

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growth of new trees, which ultimately produces the oxygen we need to breathe, are undermined, and diminished to the level of a nuisance, as we see them so singularly as an unattractive weed-like plant. In a world constructed under capitalism, to the human, the catkin has no value (Tsing, 2015, p. 23). They do not offer an opportunity for progress, they cannot make the economy grow or make us more productive, they won’t advance technology or enable faster communication – the catkin cannot be sold or traded, for they are not beautiful enough to sit in a garden centre nor permanent enough to be handed out like seeds.

In her book ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’ Anna Tsing (2015) attempts to position the reader to imagine a world outside the structures of capitalism, in which the ‘driving beat of progress’ is taken away. If we were to really look, listen, smell, and touch the catkin, we might notice its intricacies and intrinsic importance to the world it sits within; beyond the need of it having ‘economic value.’ Tsing (2015, p. 21) says:

Progress is a forward march, drawing other kinds of time into its rhythms. Without that driving beat, we might notice other temporal patterns. Each living thing remakes the world through seasonal pulses of growth, lifetime reproductive patterns and geographies of expansion. Within a given species too, there are multiple time-making projects as organism enlist each other and coordinate time-making landscapes.

As the Aspen catkins fall to the ground each spring, it is a silent reminder of the yearly cycle of regrowth, pollination, and seasonal shifts, marking a cyclical rhythm outside of the standard acceleration forwards; the work of the tree and all the actors involved are unveiled; the sun, the rain, the soil, the fertilising plants, the insects and animals. Anna Tsing (2015, p. 75) tells us that rather than seeing these non-human things as isolated elements, we must instead understand them as assemblages; since everything, human and non-human, is

wholly interconnected forming the complex and fragile ‘web of life.’ These assemblages could be conceived as polyphonic assemblages, comparable to the dense and complex music of the baroque.

Polyphony is music in which autonomous melodies intertwine…. when I first learned polyphony, it was a revelation in listening; I was forced to pick out separate, simultaneous melodies and to listen for the moments of harmony and dissonance they created together. This kind of noticing is just what is needed to appreciate the multiple temporal rhythms and trajectories of the assemblage.

(Tsing, 2015, p. 23)

The catkin is a part of a large polyphonic assemblage of all the things that let it grow, and all the things it pollinates as it drifts in the wind, away from our garden. Despite my mother labelling the catkins as ugly nuisances and capitalism telling us they have no monetary value; the role the catkin plays in the balance of the ecological system is as important as the flute in a baroque polyphony. The catkin is perhaps a lesson in engaging in the ‘art of noticing’ (Tsing, 2015, p. 18) as a way to counter and reconstruct the constant drive for progress that is thrust upon us; a way to re-situate ourselves as a part of nature, opposed to separate from it. The catkin tells us that nature does not need to be beautiful or productive because nature is simply not here to serve us; it is a part of us and we are a part of it.

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Buildings and Permanence

The mound builds up precisely because the material of which it is made is continually falling down.

— Tim Ingold (2013, p75)

past decisions in today’s world

Hill House, Helensburgh was designed and built by Charles and Margaret Mackintosh in 1902. It now stands superseded by another building, a waterproof box which allows the perishing external finish to dry out gradually.

A potter’s gardening shed on the Isles of Scilly comprises the layering of material and forms designed over decades of alteration. It stands now as a glass box resting on a stone plinth, repaired in places with damaged concrete.

Buildings loom over and persist beyond us. They have the perfect memory of materiality. When we deal with buildings we deal with decisions taken long ago for remote reasons. We argue with anonymous predecessors and lose. The best we can hope for is compromise with the fait accompli of the building. The whole idea of architecture is permanence (Brand, 1994, p. 2).

maquina do mundo

In Laura Vinci’s artwork, ‘Maquina do Mundo’ (‘The Machine of the World,’ Vinci, L., 2005) a conveyor belt moves ground white marble

between two heaps. Two representative monuments are created, on the one hand typical of the lavish material she chooses, but also similar to those we consider far more ephemeral. The movement of grains on the surface of each mound is seen at a close scale, but invisible a few steps back. Observing steadiness at a distance, closer inspection reveals the reality - constant alteration.

Buildings do nothing but change. Yet, we have developed a perception towards these monuments which embodies permanence and an attitude to building which demands a corresponding approach. In 1994, Stewart Brand documented our losing battle with the temporality of our own architectures and two years later, Pallasmaa (1996) refuted further the ‘ageless perfection’ (p. 34) that he saw manifest in modernism.

The relative insignificance of our built environment has also been observed by numerous authors (Koolhaas, 1995; Krier, 2009), who ask questions around the relation to its dwarfing environmental context. Do these monuments of which it comprises really change? These layered artefacts developing at a rate intangible to us have been rendered our most protective invention. Immediately ineffected by the weathering of our time, they surely endure a far greater permanence than the shifting mounds in Laura Vinci’s ‘Maquina do Mundo’ . We are aware of ongoing alteration in the design of our buildings, but a comparison to these ephemeral artefacts appears incompatible. Might examining their existence in the world of an alternative ‘us’ reveal a condition which could alter this perception?

the artificial and perception: learning from ants

In ‘Making’ (2013), Tim Ingold refers to a nest made by forest ants, using it to illustrate that ‘the earth is not the solid and pre-existing substrate that the edifice builder takes it to be.’ (p. 77)

Confining us firmly to our own biosemiotic realm, Ingold appropriates the ant’s nest as an extension of the earth, and it is

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our temporal perception of stability and endurance that is the cause of this appropriation. To us, built up of only weakly bound soil compressed only by its own weight, the small mound could be kicked down in one movement. For an ant, months, even years, of work culminate to produce a nest that houses hundreds of thousands.

To an ant, irrespective of the duration of their ‘moment’ (Uexkull, 1957), their perception of the nest is fundamentally different. Whilst no investigation has determined the comparative motor processes of ants, the ability of ants to conduct their domestic activities within an area equal to the size of a laptop track pad, accurately adjusting their speed between the limits of 0.0001 mms-1 and 5mms-1 (Gallotti, R., Chialvo, D. R., 2018), is evidence enough that their visual receptor (and therefore other sense modalities (Uexkull, 1957, p. 29)) reach far beyond the resolution of ours.

Where we see an ants nest as an extension of the earth, ants percieve their artificial. But, to refute their status as natural, and establish them ‘artificial’ (as Ingold does not) is a rewarding provocation. Is our perception of the artificial limited to the products of our own species’ input? If we approach this problem from an etymological perspective, an investigation into our own term ‘artificial’ provides an interesting result.

The earliest recorded use of the word refers to our appropriation of half the diurnal cycle into a whole human ‘day,’ the ‘artificial day.’ Important in this case is our perceptual imposition of the ‘day’ onto a phenomena that already exists as ‘the diurnal cycle.’ To render this artifical, therefore, is not to change the substance of the thing, but to alter the perception it. If, however, we accept our biosemiotic fate and designate the products of all other living beings ‘artificial’ (the ants nest becomes ‘the pile of earth’ for example, appropriating their nest into an insignificant function of our being), the result is not what we might imagine.

If we can percieve/confuse so readily the products of other species’ as a function of our world, how might our labours appear in the worlds of others?

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Fig. 1: Repair Works to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House, Helensburgh (BBC, 2019)

In the explanation of his biosemiotic theory, Jakob von Uexküll utilises numerous case studies of creatures which, due to the time intervals of their motor processes, experience a different ‘Umwelt’ to the one that we as humans do. ‘In the snail’s world [for example,] a rod that oscillates four times per second has become stationary’ (Uexkull, 1957, p. 31). To enter an Umwelt that renders our monuments closer to piles of shifting marble we only have to imagine the world of the snail, a creature for which the speed of its motor processes is more than four times slower than our own. What creature would it take, then, amongst the steady mass of our built environment, to perceive our most permanent architectures the way we might see a potters shed? Certainly one that is present in our world.

To experience other Umwelts is made difficult by the constraints of our own motor processes, and imagining the full connotations of their differences is impossible. Exploring the implications of an alternative perceptual realm, however, is a grounding exercise. Do our most monumental buildings really stand more firmly than the potter’s shed? How much does the changing mass of our urban environment really differ from the shifting surfaces of Laura Vinci’s ‘Maquina do Mundo?’

Deliberately striking the heart of our most sentimental architectures, the mounds of white marble ask questions around the condition of these ‘permanent’ monuments. Some buildings outlive us as human individuals, but it is these very facts, consolidated by our anthropocentric guise that render this perception our reality.

But what else do we have? Should we look to supposed other worlds to base our worldly activities? Which Umwelt should we imagine to assume best practice for the activities of our being? Our world contains many other Umwelts after all.

re-situating our built environment

We cannot hope to exist in total sympathy with the motor processes of other species. But, exploring alternative perceptions within a world that we artificially perceive, is rewarding in individual cases. In situations of crisis, we might hope that the anecdotal application of these scientifically proven (important) perceptual differences provides basis for a reconsideration of our present bounded worldly activities.

The mound builds up precisely because the material of which it is made is continually falling down. (Ingold, 2013, p. 75)

Whether building subsidence or falling sand, the effects of gravity are not infinitely resisted. What we build is purely for our thought, conceived with reference only to the scale of our time. Are there ways we can more sensitively facilitate the shifting surface of our built environment? To enable an (inevitable) changing condition, must we reposition our architectural perception closer (than our sensory apparatus leads us to believe) to that of Laura Vinci’s ‘Máquina do Mundo?’

Whilst our current systems are (naturally) geared towards the unique function of our own species’ motor processes, our very ability to establish this uniqueness demands a re-situation of the processes which currently destroy the environment we perceive.

Fig. 2: Ongoing Repair works to a Potter’s Shed, The Isles of Scilly.

Image: Calum Montgomery

Collective Cognition

A pedagogy built on authentic dialogue, conscientisation and revolutionary praxis can never serve the interests of oppressors; on the contrary, it is openly supportive of the struggle against oppression. Problem-posing education reaffirms human beings as subjects, furnishes hope that the world can change and, by its very nature, is necessarily directed toward the goal of humanisation.

— Roberts (1996, p297)

Inside a square room, four rows of five seats sit in silence. The beige walls house displays of History, or English – never both – with the aim to inspire the cohort through carefully formatted, illustrated prose. To the right of the room, two large windows connect the inside to the outside, where learning ends and children play and run and talk, before returning indoors. Play ceases here.

At the front of the room, a teacher stands behind a desk and in front of a board, facing the rows of empty seats. The pupils file in, noisily. Each return to their assigned chair, sits down, but not before the teacher gives their first instruction – the lesson has begun in which they are to be taught.

Foolish to think they may learn from each other; a curriculum must be followed. Pupils must ‘learn’ to be graded, to be tested, to achieve. Knowledge to be bestowed upon vessels by the one who knows all. In a place made to educate, the classroom confines and silences and stifles, withholding the knowledge and experience existing outside of

Essentialism is a philosophical theory which emphasises the teaching of traditional skills taught by a teacher to a student. Essentialism has come to influence modern day education over other forms of philosophical theory due to increased standardisation and importance placed on outcomes rather than the experience of learning. Within modern day education, from primary schools up until university level, the distinct hierarchal structure prohibits creativity, free-thought and perpetuates oppression within an educational setting. This pattern seeks to propose that a more dialogical approach to education may create more rewarding learning opportunities and increasingly humane practices within a modern society.

Although in more recent centuries active learning techniques have become a more developed practice within education, the issue of heirarchy perpetuated by ‘banking‘ educational practices still prevails in modern day educational institutions. The term ‘banking’ was first coined by Paulo Freire in his 1968 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed; it refers to a system in education whereby teachers ‘deposit’ knowledge into students. Freire (2018, p. 72) states;

In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.

This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, banking assumes that students know nothing, and can only learn from the teacher who knows everything. This therefore limits the students’ capacity to engage in critical and creative discussion (Freire, 2018, p. 296), failing to acknowledge each other’s points of view and the socio-political context of said teaching. Secondly, this perpetuates the hierarchical

relationship between student and teacher, as the teacher acts as the oppressor and the students, the oppressed.

breaking the cycle of oppression

In order to create more humane educational systems, oppression must be abolished from educational practices. Oppression through educational ‘banking’ stifles creative thinking which students must recognise to consequently breakdown the oppressive structures they are in (Freire, 2018, p. 296). Often, those as a collective fail to recognise the power they have to liberate themselves, and instead strive to obtain the role of the oppressor. This, however, is a false depiction of liberation. As Freire (2018, p. 46) states;

It is a rare peasant who, once ‘promoted’ to overseer, does not become more of a tyrant towards his former comrades than the owner himself.

This illustrates how the cycle of oppression is never broken when the oppressed wish to become the oppressors as this is their perceived freedom, instead of having the ability to recognise their collective power in pursuit of true liberation.

An example of the cycle of oppression within modern-day educational systems is exhibited in the 2022 Environmental investigation which looked into the teaching practices at the Bartlett School of Architecture. The report details how power dynamics were a key issue which led to multiple accounts of misconduct, bullying and contributed towards the toxic working environment of the school (Howlett Brown, 2022, p. 39). Students stated they were gaslit and bullied by tutors and furthermore, it was extremely difficult for students to present their issues to anyone that would listen as comments such as ‘it’s always been this way’ (Howlett Brown, 2022, p. 39) were used to normalise the poor behaviours of the tutors in

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power. This was compounded by the employment of former alumni as tutors who would perpetuate this teaching style. In this sense, the tutors as the oppressors use the imbalance of power to take advantage of those below them, allowing them to have leverage over their access to opportunities, resources and bargaining powers over the student (Howlett Brown, 2022, p. 41), and worse, the power to speak out against them due to years of cyclical oppression before.

problem posing education and de-schooling society

In order to combat this dehumanising approach to education, one must consider other means of education where a hierarchy between the student and teacher is dismantled, and learning is prioritised. The dialogical approach of ‘problem-posing’ education serves as way to achieve this. Teachers assume the role of both teacher and student and vice versa for the students (Freire, 2018, p. 296); this allows everyone in the education process to have the ability to teach and be taught, thus disassembling the hierarchy on both sides. The role of the teacher fundamentally changes so that he/she may offer structure, direction and a goal for the educative process as well as offering critical feedback for both verbal and written work, however in doing so does not impede on the ‘horizontal’ structure opposing traditional hierarchy within education (Freire, 2018, p. 172). This approach to teaching benefits students, allowing them to situate their own thoughts amongst those of other students and within a socio-political context. Furthermore, it encourages interrogation, critical thinking and connection between different topics and subjects to facilitate an integrated learning experience beyond the parameters of a traditional curriculum, consequently leading to a more humane approach to education.

To further enhance the learning experience, one must also learn to prioritise the experience of learning over learning outcomes and results. Too often, emphasis is placed on getting the best grade, a

good examination result or on one’s productivity, achieved through an already pre-determined curriculum. The process of learning is something which is a means to achieving these goals, not an action which is prioritised in its own right (Illich, 1974, p. 3). In his book ‘Deschooling Society,’ Illich argues that often traditional teaching does not, in fact, enable us to learn effectively. Frequently, things like learning a new language, can be learnt more effectively when fully immersed in a native-speaking country rather than through dictatorial approaches as used in schools (Illich, 1974, p. 7). Problemposing education begins to dismantle this ‘banking’ approach to education, however this can be taken one step further by allowing education to manifest itself outside of the traditional school walls in a de-centralised version of ‘school.’ This is further explored in the pattern ‘Network of Learning,’ which illustrates how education may be re-invented to allow it to take place within the city or town, outside of the traditional school walls (Alexander et al., 1977, p. 100). The pattern further explains how this would allow anyone to become a teacher of their skill and allow anyone to be a student, allowing them to pursue their own educational interests and embrace the expertise of those around them.

In order to create a more humane educational practice, one must first recognise the oppression acting within current educational systems in order to change it. Once oppression has been perceived, steps can be taken to ensure the pursuit of liberation is sought through dismantling hierarchical practices and working towards equality within educational practices. Furthermore, one must interrogate teaching methods and ensure that the process of learning is prioritised over perceived measurements of achievement such as tests and examinations. Finally, de-centralising school systems should be considered in order to allow wider access to education, broaden the curriculum and allow people to easily pursue personal interests through a network of people who support them.

On Ecofeminism 1: A Manicured Garden

… there can be no question of the forest as a consecrated place of oracular disclosures; as a place of strange or monstrous or enchanting epiph- anies; as the imaginary site of lyric nostalgias and erotic errancy; as a natural sanctuary where wild animals may dwell in security far from the havoc of humanity going about the business of looking after its ‘interests.’ There can be only the claims of human mastery and possession of nature – the reduction of forests to utility.

— Robert Pogue Harrison (1992, p121)

Nature has been subjugated to the market as a mere supplier of commodities. Women have been subjugated to patriarchy as mere suppliers of labour. And both nature and women are now seen as mere instruments of economic growth.

— Val Plumwood (1993, p169)

In a sense of both majesty and melancholy, the striking figure of a tree floats along the water’s serene current. The visual spectacle is the opening scene to Salom ... Jashi’s, Taming the Garden (2021), an otherworldly tale of the venture of Georgia’s former prime minister and bil- lionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. His presence is felt only through murmurs and folkloric tales, along his surreal quest to collect centuries-old trees across the country of Georgia, transporting them at colossal expense and upheaval into his private garden - a curated garden of flamboy- ance and excess. (Taming the Garden, 2021)

Jashi’s film is a very literal portrait of one man’s pervading power over the natural world, highlighting the absurdities of this

is so hot

Backpacking Cooking gear

Clive Catton

quest to conquer and own. The natural world has for centuries been subjugated to oppressive systems that prioritise economic growth and human domi- nance. This view of the world, or even the universe, as a mere utility for us to master, perhaps began most critically during the Scientific Revolution. It marked a significant turning point in human history which ‘posited the universe as an assemblage of parts functioning according to regular laws that men could, in principle, know in their entirety’ (Garrard, 2012, p. 69). Led by Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Isaac Newton among others, this view replaced the previous view of the Earth that our ancestors followed. What before was a nurturing ‘Mother Earth’ or ‘Magna Mater’ was now something that could be read, measured, extracted and used. This led to the belief that the uni- verse was a great machine that could be controlled and manipulated by humans, according to regular laws that humans could know in their entirety. This worldview, which places humans at the centre of the universe, is known as anthropocentrism. It refers to the point of view that ‘humans are the only, or primary, holders of moral standing. Anthropocentric value systems thus see nature in terms of its value to humans’ (Oxford Bibliographies, 2021).

Whilst this view of the world places the human at the centre, other schools of thought suggest there is also a gendered argument. Ecofem- inism is a philosophical and social movement that links feminism with ecology, arguing that the domination and exploitation of nature is intrinsically connected with the subjugation of women. Ecofeminist Val Plumwood argues that, ‘The inferiorisation of human qualities and aspects of life associated with necessity, nature and women—of nature-as-body, of nature-as passion or emotion, of nature as the pre-sym- bolic, of nature-as primitive, of natureas-animal and of nature as the feminine— continues to operate to the disadvantage of women, nature and the quality of human life. The connection between women and nature and their mutual inferiorisation is by no means a thing of the past, and continues to drive, for example, the denial of women’s activity and indeed of the

whole sphere of reproduction’ (Plumwood, 2003, p. 21). With Caroline Merchant also presenting a view of the Scientific Revolution that saw the feminine Magna Mater disenchanted and rational- ised by masculine reason. She also notes that Mother Earth’s last followers, Europe’s ‘witches,’ were brutally rooted out (Merchant, 1990, p. 172). This relationship between feminism and ecology is explored in the works of many prominent writers who state even the story of the Garden of Eden has ecofeminist readings, suggesting the story represents the historical and ongoing exclusion of women from nature, as well as the exploitation of nature for the benefit of men. Vera Norwood speaks about this stemming into the early male domination in nature study, stating that, ‘From the earliest work in natural history- the general investigation of plants, animals, and the physical environment - to its nineteenth and twentiethcentury growth and the division into specialised disciplines like botany, ornithology, and geology, men have defined the subjects and methods of study’ (Norwood, 1993, p. XIV). In more recent history, ecofeminists have suggested that environmental deg- radation as a symptom of anthropocentrism has disproportionately affected the lives of women, especially those in the Global South, where women are more often responsible for collecting water, fuelwood and other resources that are more scarce due to climate change (Shiva, 2002, p. 75). The chauvinistic attitudes present here, can be considered in relation to the anecdote opening the pattern, the film Taming the Garden (2021). It can be read not only as a critique of anthropocentrism but also as an ecofeminist critique of the patriarchal dominating system that prioritises power, status and greed over the well-being of the environment and the citizens who inhabit it.

Whilst ecofeminism as an ideology suggests that women have continually been disregarded from conversations regarding nature, Mary Austin provides an enjoyably different standpoint. She confronts the myth that ‘nature is no place for a woman’ by noting the traditional roles that are necessary to survive in the wilderness,

observing that the ‘self-reliance’ of the unafraid male figure battling the wilderness relies heavily on the ‘feminine’ domestic tasks such as mending clothes, cooking and foraging. An interesting restructure of the masculine harnessing of nature. (Garrard, 2012, pp. 84-85)

The human quest to conquer and dominate the natural world has been perpetuated for centuries, with the Scientific Revolution playing a significant role in the establishment of the view of the world as a mere utility to be mastered. A view that has given hegemony to humans and led to a disconnect between the human and the nonhuman systems that we are part of, causing extreme environmental destruction and social injustice. This viewpoint is also intrinsically linked to the patriarchal systems that have given rise to it, succeeding to exclude women from discussions around the natural world as well as to segregate them entirely. Vadana Shiva suggests that, ‘The industrial revolu- tion converted economics from the prudent management of resources for sustenance and basic needs satisfaction into a process of com- modity production for profit maximalisation... This new relationship of man’s domination and mastery over nature was thus also associated with new patterns of domination and mastery over women and their exclusion from participation as partners in both science and develop- ment’ (Shiva, 2002, p. xvii).

Therefore, the domination of nature and women is linked, and cannot be addressed separately.

Therefore, the domination of nature and women is linked, and cannot be addressed separately.

We must recognise that the domination of nature and women stem from the same social and political structures that value some beings over others. By recognising the intrinsic value of all human and non human beings, we can challenge the systems of oppression that are systemic in our societies, and can move from a culture of domination to one of respect, compassion and interconnectedness with the natu- ral world.

EcoPhenomic Pulsations

The earth is an ode and we are but one breath. Each word grown carefully, the letters fitting a precise pattern It is a complicated text of course. A language uncommon to most and interpreted variably. The rhythm must be kept,but as we have melded into this poem, the rhythm has fallen away. We come as full stops. We break and twist the words, breeding sentences we desire. What meaning it had has been blurred through the pages. I’m afraid these lines cannot go on, but hope that we can breathe again.

— Indigo Leveson-Gower

(2023)

‘Sound is language’s flesh, its opacity as meaning marks its material embeddedness in the world of things . . .In sounding language we ground ourselves as sentient, material beings, obtruding into the world with the same obdurate thingness as rocks or soil or flesh. We sing the body of language, relishing the vowels and consonants in every possible sequence. We stutter tunes with no melodies, only words’

—

Charles Bernstein

(1998)

It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties.

—

Donna Haraway

(2016)

Nature by any other name might smell sweeter. I am sitting in my room; I have positioned my chair before my window with my feet propped up on the sill. My laptop sits between my eyes and the exterior environment, ready to catch my thoughts. I feel safe in this space, the temperature is optimal, and my chair is cushioned. From here I can see a snippet of the world you and I inhabit. To categorise: I see several trees, two five-storey blocks of flats, a crosssection of a road and a lawn fenced into a garden. A thought crosses my mind; the only thing not placed by man in this space is the sky, the thought stops mid tracks as a plane comes into view, breaking up the clouds. This is a city. The vast majority of humans live within one of these. We surround ourselves with reminders of ourselves. The city is constructed from elements of nature, into something separate to, but within the natural world. The trees and lawn serve as a small reminder of the natural world; however, they are placed within boundaries, a concrete pathway, a metal fence. Boundaries not to be broken lest they become an inconvenience. Within such a world how can the dichotomy between ‘nature’ and ‘humans’ not be reinforced?

Language as a Tool

How we define and compartmentalise the world is not only a tool to perceive, but a tool that defines how we perceive. We ‘weave the world to word’; the language we create defines the non-human world and how we act within it. (Knickerbocker, S., 2012.) In ‘The Trouble with Wilderness’ William Cronan argues that the idea of wilderness as a pristine and untouched place is a myth that has had a profound impact on American culture (Cronan, 1996). European settlers’ view of North America as a ‘wilderness,’ vast and untamed, led to their desire to conquer and transform. The term in contemporary society is now imbued with a sense of otherness – something to view from afar. Cronan argues for a more nuanced view of the ‘wilderness’

leading to a less binarized interpretation of the environment. This in turn could create a sensitive and holistic approach to ecological thought.

If the goal of environmentalism is to facilitate a significant connection with the natural world and promote behaviours that are more attuned to ecological concerns, then what role does language play? Just as we shape language, can language shape us? John Austin examines this in ‘How To Do Things With Words,’ coining ‘locutionary force’: the core meaning of a word and the ‘illocutionary force’ which is what is achieved by saying a word (Austin, 1962). The ‘illocutionary force’ of ‘wilderness’ led to destruction. Could we transfer this to how we speak on matters of the environment: the perceived meaning of these terms, and what is actually achieved?

New Pulsations

At this moment in time, the age we are living in is often referred to as the Anthropocene. This term ‘Anthropocene’ is mired with meaning that transcends its definition. It is a shifting point in the Earth’s history, where human activity has become the dominant force that shapes the planet and has had an irreversible impact on the Earth’s systems. Coined by Paul J Crutzen, it stems from the Greek ‘anthropo’ (Human) and ‘cene’ (new) (Crutzen, 2006). Donna Haraway argues that by using this term we limit our perception of the world and the way in which we can live in it. It reinforces the importance of humans and of our actions, failing to acknowledge the agency and relevance of non-humans. The ‘illocutionary force’ stops us from acknowledging this and taking action. Haraway instead suggests the term ‘Chthulucene’; this term calls for the hierarchy between species to be abolished and focuses on the interwoven and interconnected nature of the world, including humans, non-human entities, and geological forces; a new ‘illocutionary force’ (Haraway, 2016). ‘Chthulu’ derived from ‘Cthonic’ meaning ‘of earth’ in Ancient Greek;

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this calls for a shift in perception to valuing the earth in its entirety and decentring the human experience. She goes on further speaking of ‘Humusities,’ the integration of the study of humans with the study of the earth and its ecological systems. The term is aplay on the word ‘humanities’ and the word ‘humus’ which refers to the organic matter in soil that is essential to plant growth. These terms are grounded in an ecological perspective, unable to be untied.

Words over time have lost meaning. A tree means just that, a tree. With a new approach to language, could we ground them in further meaning? If I look out my window I see ‘a tree,’ if I think and feel harder, perhaps I see ‘a life giver’ cut off from its fellow ‘life givers.’ When I look and see a ‘a lawn,’ perhaps I see a ‘confined monoculture.’ When I look and see an apartment, perhaps I see an ‘isolated world.’ When I look and see a road, perhaps I see a ‘colonising path.’ This view now, is not just a city, it is a battle ground.

Designing through Commonism

In commonism, all of social life manifests itself, in all its complexity. Perhaps this is why it has the potential of a meta-ideology. Just like the message of liberty of neoliberalism appeals to both left and right across party lines, so commonism’s call for the working class but also to an endangered middle-class, the proletariat and the precariat, people with and without jobs, students and pensioners, women and men, heterosexuals and holes, legal and illegal aliens. Also, both progressive and conservative forces now regard social deprivation as problematic.

— Nick Dockx and Paul Gielen (2018. p85)

Walking down Fenchurch Street in the city of London, can’t help but reminiscing about the city’s Roman past due to the many listed buildings on the surroundings that carry a lot of history. This particular building stands out, it is unavoidable. It is colossal. Its height and shape seem somehow misplaced. It is impressive, incandescent with the sun. Over 30 stories covered in shiny glass. You enter the building and the large lobby is unwelcoming, the space is cold, the double height spaces filled with bright lights and white walls. The curve at the top of the building increases the reflection of sunlight and it has been known to melt cars.

In our society, appearance often holds more value than substance. This mentality is deeply embedded in the construction industry. Too often, design decisions are driven by financial gain or aesthetic appeal, rather than to the community needs. Projects are designed for the ‘books,’ with a focus on profit over purpose. As a result, buildings may not function efficiently or effectively for the people who use

them. Design should prioritise the needs for the people, not just the financial goals of individuals or practices.

The concept of commonism is introduced by Nick Dockx and Paul Gielen in their book, Commonism: A New Aesthetic of the Real, where they describe this term as an ideology that could be compared to neoliberalism, fascism, or even religion, in the sense that all these ‘belief’ systems claim to be the only truth of the real. They defend that commonism it is in much more close proximity to how social relationships work and to what humanity is about, considering it places the human figure - in her/his/they - total context at the centre of everything. This ideology promotes values of sharing and the community. In addition to this, they see it as a way to challenge the powerful capitalism system and create a more impartial society.

(Dockx ans Gielen, 2018)

A prime example of commonism is the project of Lina Bo Bardi in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The SESC Pompeia cultural centre might be seen by some as ugly, colossal, bizarre, but certainly remarkable. Built in the 90’s at the very end of the military dictatorship when the society was still sceptical about modernist buildings, this brutalist building, which was inspired by British factories, was shocking for most of the population. The sesc complex is characterised by reusing as many materials it was possible, and composes of raw brickwork, steel beams and reinforced concrete. The former drum factory was stripped off back to its original reinforced concrete and the materials were intentionally left exposed. Bo Bardi added two huge concrete towers connected by footbridges and a third seventy meter tall tower that could be seen from a great distance.

What used to be an old metal factory soon had become a vibrant space that provided the local community with education, leisure and culture. At the heart of the design was the people from Pompeia and what they wanted and needed as well as using existing resources to create something meaningful for the community regardless of their economical or social position. Citing Zeuler R.M. de A. Lima on his biography of Lina Bo Bardi ‘architecture is not a matter of stylish, it’s

a matter of solving problems that emerge from a specific situation, which can only be solved by producing something that is in harmony with the cultural, social, and economic situation of a given time and place’ (2013, p17).

But is the aesthetic and beauty of a building more important than its uses and spaces? The director of SESC, Danilo Santos de Miranda said ‘the exhibition is an educational journey through the artist’s work, which exercises the sensitivity of visitors who pass through the free and welcoming environment of Sesc Pompeia (…) the institution fulfils its mission by spreading the Visual Arts to a wider audience, confirming that culture is intrinsic to human development and a driving force of transformations aimed at expanding the quality of life of society as a whole’ (de Santos Miranda, 2019) - his statement illustrated the importance of a cultural centre as it is the case of sesc pompeia, a place that promotes arts and culture to anyone that needs or wants regardless if they could or not afford it.

Dockx and Gielen delve into the concept of commonism as a new way of thinking. Their book explores three main areas: the commons, commonalities and common sense. The first reflects resources that are to be used by the community such as land, water, air… and that are not property of a single person or group but that belong to everyone. Commonalities reflect on the values of sharing (beliefs, culture, knowledge) with others from different backgrounds in order to bring people together and create and enhance the bond within the community. The last emphasises collective intelligence - each person has their own talents and skills that increases the dynamic once shared - and it is the very beginning for social change.

Citing Dockx and Gielen ‘culture as the bases and not as superstructure because culture stands for the whole process of giving meaning to ourselves and to the societal environment we are living’ (2018) meaning culture and the way it is shared it is crucial and shapes our own selves and the world we live in.

The concept of commonism, focusing on the three areas previously mentioned, can be found at the SESC Pompeia that

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Marcelo Ferraz

Pescaria no Rio (Fishing in the river)

focus on community, collaboration and participation rather than on individualism and financial gain. This is a powerful example of how following these principles lead to a successful scheme that not only is more inclusive but also criticises the current pattern of profit-driven design.

Would addressing this problem help tackle other wide problems such as social inequality? Bo Bardi’s creation used both existing resources and affordable materials to transform this old factory into a spirited and dynamic space that is still being used by the community of Sao Paulo in the present day. It counts with performances and community events that not only brings the community together but also people from other backgrounds that come to share values and experience cultural exchange which brings people together and contributes to a more inclusive and equitable society.

Architecture ought to be a tool for social transformation, designed to encourage community engagement and to benefit the society as a whole. In order to shift from financially gain design to community centred design, designers should welcome the principles of commons, commonalities and common sense.

The ideology behind a community-centred approach means that people and the community work together, sharing values and knowledge, that can increase the potential of the design to project spaces and create contexts that will suit the human needs in a more social and sustainable way, whilst reflecting the values of sharing and community. Designing for the ‘books’ has no such impact on society as a whole as the projects that have embodied these principles, such as SESC Pompeia Cultural Centre, which has become a metaphor of social transformation through design.

the poetics of water

In the Western world, the four fundamental elements are earth, air, fire and water. Gaston Bachelard has devoted several works to their symbolism. One of them, which concerns water (water and the dreams), suggests that it is a cultural asset.

By letting himself be guided by the images of the poets and by listening to water and its mysteries, he leads the reader into a meditation on the imaginary of water. He distinguishes between two main types of water that evoke myths and fantasies: clear, shining water, which gives rise to vivid and fleeting images, and still, heavy water, residing in the dark depths, which is linked to the image of death. He also discusses what he calls ‘compound waters’: water that burns, water penetrated by night and water-soaked earth. Finally, according to the philosopher, when water becomes a nourishing liquid, its character is maternal, feminine. But he also believes that there is a morality of water, since it is used as a means of purification, a supremacy of fresh water, a ‘violent water’ and a whispering water that speaks …

Thierry Paquot extended Bachelard’s reflections on the symbolism of water by examining more specifically its place in the life of societies. While taking up the themes of stagnant water, living water, fresh water, sea water, rain water and stream water, he relies on more rational data, whether chemical, economic, geographical or ecological. For this author, there is a geopolitics of water that guarantees an imaginary that ensures that every human being has a share in humanity.

The teaching of Babylon

For ancient civilizations, water was a revered good. Drought, or on the contrary floods, were considered as punishments sent by a God who was displeased with mankind. In the Mesopotamian empire of Babylon (which reached its peak in the 6th century BC), it played a central role in culture and daily life. The Babylonians regarded water as a symbol of life. Their priests claimed that the gods controlled the waters of the earth and that they were a source of fertility and abundance. They built temples and shrines specifically dedicated to the water deities and devoted many religious ceremonies to them. There was Enki, the god of water and wisdom, and Tiamat, the goddess of primordial waters. According to their mythology, the universe was originally a chaos of tumultuous waters. The gods had to separate them to create the order of the world.

Living between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Babylonians developed a civilization based on the domestication of water. Irrigation systems watered their crops and fed reserves from which they drew water during periods of drought. They built dams and canals to control the flow of water, while they used water wheels to power mills and other machinery privatization of water in nature

‘Water is the engine of nature’ said Leonardo da Vinci. Yet at the beginning of the 21st century there is a global crisis in access to water. This is evidenced by photographs of arid, cracked, dry fields, strewn with decomposing cattle carcasses... Meanwhile, multinationals are getting rich by exploiting and distributing water. Overconsumption comes mainly from productivism in agriculture, which waters corn fields with water cannons, while the slurry from thousands of pigs pollutes the ground waters. Each good produced requires an extraordinary amount of water: a kilo of hamburger requires

an average of 16,000 liters of water, a kilo of chicken 5,700, a kilo of cheese 5,000 and it takes 400 to 2,000 liters of water depending on the region to produce a kilo of wheat. Textile, electronics and metalworking companies also overuse water. In everyday life, an American spends an average of 500 liters of water (including washing cars, filling swimming pools and watering lawns), it takes about 300 liters for a European. While 20 liters per person per day is considered a minimum, some people have only one or two liters. The inequality in access to drinking water is extreme. Every year, international organizations publish worrying estimates of the number of people without water (more than 800 million in 2015). A majority of them live in Africa where they are victims of water-linked diseases such as cholera, diarrhea and legionellosis.

In recent years, the major droughts that have occurred during the summer months in Europe have alerted the public authorities. In France, the state has provided 70% of the funding for a ‘megabasin’ project in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region (in Sainte-Soline). This is a retention basin that draws water in winter from the ground and stores it in basins that can hold up to 650,000 cubic meters of water, the equivalent of 260 Olympic-sized swimming pools, so that it can be redistributed in summer during droughts in the lands of multinational food companies.

This misuse of water that affects smallholders is an ultimate drift of capitalism which seeks to privatize water. In France, resistance movements have organized themselves and given rise to huge demonstrations. They suffered violent repression by the armed forces sent by the state. With many injuries and one death, these movements were banned for disturbing public order …

Globally, the problem of water supply will only get worse. If the quantity of water available on the whole of the terrestrial globe hardly varies from one year to the next, safe and drinkable water will be more and more unequally distributed while the demand will be growing. As a result of global warming, some territories must now carry out desalination, which is costly in terms of energy (solar, wind, etc.), while

others are forced to ration their water reserves. It is to be expected that water resources will be the cause of geopolitical tensions.

For ancient civilizations, water was a revered good. Drought, or on the contrary floods, were considered as punishments sent by a God who was displeased with mankind. In the Mesopotamian empire of Babylon (which reached its peak in the 6th century BC), it played a central role in culture and daily life. The Babylonians regarded water as a symbol of life. Their priests claimed that the gods controlled the waters of the earth and that they were a source of fertility and abundance. They built temples and shrines specifically dedicated to the water deities and devoted many religious ceremonies to them. There was Enki, the god of water and wisdom, and Tiamat, the goddess of primordial waters. According to their mythology, the universe was originally a chaos of tumultuous waters. The gods had to separate them to create the order of the world.

Living between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Babylonians developed a civilization based on the domestication of water. Irrigation systems watered their crops and fed reserves from which they drew water during periods of drought. They built dams and canals to control the flow of water, while they used water wheels to power mills and other machinery the water flowing under the cities

Water scarcity is also the source of a new concern: the way its natural sources have been treated in cities. In the 20th century, most of the rivers were totally covered by huge concrete structures in order to eliminate new sources of urban pollution conveyed in running water, to contain floods and above all to be able to flatten new surfaces available to clear roads and construct new buildings. Once the water sources were buried, they were radically invisible. Modern ideology then seemed to impose that the well-being of man depended on an environment made up solely of artificial soils. This is how most cities

buried their waterways. Residents have become utterly unaware of the location of their underground aquifers and the rivers and streams that once flowed above ground.

At a time when the urban population lives in atmospheres saturated with pollution and worries about the ecological disasters to come, it is a concern to find a link with the tangible signs of water from natural resources. It has therefore become important to rediscover the invisible rivers that flow under our cities, to value them and to protect them. Thus a few initiatives are emerging to explore the means by which it is possible to reintegrate these water sources into the fabric of urban life. The objective is to create resilient and sustainable systems that benefit both the environment and the development of a new urban imaginary reconciled with nature.

The solutions to be implemented are of several orders. Cities can reclaim covered rivers and streams to restore them as natural waterways. Cities can create new green spaces and improve plant and animal biodiversity in their surroundings. They can also integrate water into the built environment in several ways: through planted roofs including rain gardens; diverting rainwater to fountains and water features.

On a larger scale, cities can create beautiful and functional spaces that will help manage stormwater runoff while reducing urban heat island effects.

In addition to rainwater harvesting, cities can also consider harnessing alternative water sources such as ‘grey water’ (polluted) and salt water. By diversifying their water sources, they can reduce their dependency while ensuring a more reliable and resilient water supply.

With regard to the quality of the emotional life of the inhabitants, these projects aim to re-enchant cities by rediscovering the sounds of water in neighborhoods that have become silent again, forgotten daytime or nighttime aquatic reflections and a whole poetic imagination linked to the life of a fauna and flora that we thought had disappeared forever.

Perception In Time d Subtitle if it has one and runs on to two lines

We are easily deluded into assuming that the relationship between a foreign subject and the objects in his world exists on the same spatial and temporal plane as our own relations with the objects in our human world. This fallacy is fed by a belief in the existence of a single world, into which all living creatures are pigeonholed. This gives rise to the widespread conviction that there is only one space and one time for all living things.’

— Jakob von Uexküll (1957, p14)

‘Imagine you’re walking through a flower strewn meadow humming with insects and fluttering with butterflies. Here we may glimpse the worlds of the lowly dwellers of the meadow. To do so, we must first blow a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world filled with the perceptions which it alone knows.’ ... He states, ‘through the bubble we see the world of the burrowing worm, of the butterfly, or of the field mouse, the world as it appears to the animals themselves, not as it appears to us. This we may call the phenomenal world or the self-world of the animal.’

(Uexküll, 1957, p5)

‘… this eyeless animal finds its way to her watchpoint [at the top of a tall blade of grass] with the help of only its skin’s general sensitivity to light. The approach of her prey becomes apparent to this blind and deaf bandit only through her sense of smell. The odour of butyric acid, which emanates from the sebaceous follicles of all mammals, works on the tick as a signal that causes

her to abandon her post (on top of the blade of grass/bush) and fall blindly downward toward her prey. If she is fortunate enough to fall on something warm (which she perceives by means of an organ sensible to a precise temperature) then she has attained her prey, the warm-blooded animal, and thereafter needs only the help of her sense of touch to find the least hairy spot possible and embed herself up to her head in the cutaneous tissue of her prey. She can now slowly suck up a stream of warm blood.’ (Agamben, 2012, p46).

Let us imagine the life of a tick.

Patiently waiting on a blade of grass, ‘a tick can wait eighteen years’ (Uexküll, 1957, p17) before acting on its innate instincts to jump onto its prey, pump itself full of blood, fall to the floor, lay its eggs and die. In contrast, human beings operate on a completely different temporal timeframe, with a completely different array of senses. For humans, a single moment ‘lasts an eighteenth of a second.’ (Uexküll, 1957, p12). It is this difference in time and space that we are looking to explore within this pattern - how can we separate ourselves from our singular experience and move away from the fallacy that is the single unidimensional world?

The above quote shows Uexküll taking us on a journey through a meadow. Here, Uexküll encourages us to consider the world experiences by other living beings. Uexküll goes on to explain that when we ourselves enter a bubble of another, an insect in a meadow, our own familiar perspective of the meadow is challenged and transformed. Uexküll further demonstrates the phenomenal world through the story of the tick.

Here we see that the reality of the world is wrapped by the subject, dismantling the widely held assumption that the world we perceive is the only world that exists. Each living being is confined to their bubble of experiences which is formed from their individual perceptual sensory cues. This notion can be extended to the seemingly concrete nature of time itself. The idea being that the

Tick

Schiller, C.H., Kuenen, D.J

1957

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‘widespread conviction that there is only one space and one time for all living things.’ (Uexküll, 1957, p5) is not the case.

Umwelt theory inspired many important thinkers of the 20th century and the branch of social theory: phenomenology . Merleau-Ponty and Heiddiger inspired important ontological and epistemological thinking which led to phenomenology becoming a methodology in itself, where qualitative, subjective data, is deliberately sought after and held as valid.

Phenomenologist James Gibson believed: ‘the world which the perceiver moves around in and explores is relatively fixed and permanent, somehow pre-prepared with all its affordances ready and waiting to be taken up by whatever creatures arrive to inhabit it.’ (Gibson, 1983). For Uexküll by contrast, ‘the world emerges with its properties alongside the emergence of the perceiver in person, against the background of involved activity. (Ingold, 2011, p208). The subject is fundamental in the construction of the world, shown clearly when looking at the life of a tick. This phenological framing completely shifts the singular, athropectric view of the world which permeates western thought.

Moreover, Uexküll appears to posit humans and a tick on the same level metaphysically, meaning he does not seem to hold humans’ consciousness as superior to other insects and animals, as has long been the case within dominant branches of scientific thought and practice since the enlightenment.

The very concept of the umwelt theory is however anthropocentric, in that we are bound by our mode of communication and experience of the world. Literature, our current source of communication, tends to simplify reality by reducing the richness and complexity of objects and their relations to mere representations. Similar to Uexküll, Graham Harman in ‘Object Oriented Ontology’ asks us to flatten everything (objects and living beings) onto the same ontological plane. Here ‘everything that exists must be physical..’ Where his ideas differ is that he believes objects exist independently of human perception and possess their own inherent properties

and relations. Norton challenges the notion that literature can fully capture the intricate essence of objects, their withdrawn reality, and their non-human agency. Highlighting the need to move beyond anthropocentric interpretations and recognize the independent existence and significance of objects in themselves, unmediated by human perception or literary depictions. The intangible ontological nature of our consciousness is eluded by any of our attempts to objectively conceptualise it. The same is true when conceptualizing the phenomenological experiences of a tick. We can only attempt to think beyond our own sensory world through art & poetry. It’s through these forms that we are able to ‘concretize those totalities which elude science, and may therefore suggest how we might proceed to obtain the needed understanding.’ (Norberg-Schulz, C, 1996)

Uexküll raised important ontological and epistemological questions which inspired critical thinking (beyond Darwinism) in biology, philosophy and beyond. Although there are still large parts of scientific logic which hold there is one objective reality, which can be measured and studied independently of subjective thought.

It is important to understand that we occupy a particular place in time and space, which comes with our own singular experience, and this experience cannot lead us to knowledge of everything, objectively. Remembering to consider the phenomenological experience of non-humans, as Uexküll does with the story of the tick, helps to prevent us from being so ‘easily deluded’ as to believe ‘the widespread conviction that there is only one space and one time for all living things’ (Uexküll, 1957, p11).

Anthropocentric Suicide Subtitle if it has one and runs on to two lines

Human-centered design perpetuates a culture of anthropocentrism that places human needs and desires above the needs and desires of other beings, leading to ecological and social imbalance. (Plumwood, 1995)

— Val Plumwood (1995) sustainability

In 2022 more than 33million people were affected by the unprecedented flooding in Pakistan, 20 million people still require humanitarian assistance, 10 million of which are ‘deprived of safe drinking water’ (Unicef, 2023). Here, in England, 2022 was the ‘warmest year on record in 364-years’ (Metoffice, 2022) and ‘15 of the UK’s top 20 warmest years on record have all occurred this century –with the entire top 10 within the past decade’ (BBC, 2023).

The climate crisis threatens human existence, and yet it has been increasingly fuelled by the existence of humans. Anthropocentrism has neglected the planet’s health and has permeated our every practice, especially in the construction industry which contributes to ‘36% of global final energy consumption’ (UN Environment Programme, 2021). From laying bricks to heating our homes the residential sector in the UK is directly responsible for ‘22% of total emissions,’ of which, 45% is attributed to space heating alone (BEIS, 2020).

How Ecocentrism and Anthropocentrism Influence Human-Environment Relationships. (Rulke et al. 2020)

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Anthropocentrism is a fundamental distortion of the relationships among entities in the universe, a distortion that has led to the ecological crisis we face today. (Morton, 2017)

Specifically, Timothy Morton refers to the failure of humanity to recognise the balanced ontology of all objects; the interdependence of all things in the universe. Failure to recognise this interconnectedness, is failure to acknowledge and address what Morton describes as Hyperobjects; objects so massive in spatial and temporal scale they are difficult to comprehend but have very real impacts on humanity. Climate change is a hyperobject woven throughout our politics, social systems and economies; it’s a sum of billions of minute actions that have culminated into a planeteffecting object. The embracing of anthropocentrism is the neglect of the agency of the objects that fill our universe and occupy our planet. In tangible terms, the embracing of anthropocentrism is the neglect of our planets health. It is now thoroughly accepted human activity is directly responsible for the climate crisis, contributing to the unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide that is unforgivingly shaping our planet’s atmosphere and all the ecosystems within it. Now, more than ever, humanity is being devastated by global warming; Concern Worldwide notes, ‘compared to the period between 1960 and 2010, the average number of floods over the last decade have increased by more than 75%. The prevalence of wildfires has doubled, and the average number of droughts each year since 2010 has increased by 57%. In 2019, the number of climate-related disasters was 237. The annual average between 1960 and 2010 was 146.’ (concern worldwide, 2022).Human behaviour can be explicitly attributed to the exponential damage of our climate, and in turn is responsible for the human suffering at the hands of global warming. If we are to tackle the climate crisis we must first address our anthropocentrism.

The construction industry is a pertinent example of anthropocentric design fuelling the looming urgency of climate change. The cement industry alone is responsible for 8% of global

CO2 emissions (BBC, 2018), and is found in almost every construction project across the world. Cement is an ingredient of concrete, a vital building material responsible for the quick construction of our cities; 15.2 million metric tons of cement was consumed in the UK in 2020 (Statista, 2022), amounting to 12.6 billion tonnes of embodied carbon. This sum is dwarfed, however, by China’s cement consumption of 2.5 billion metric tonnes in 2021, over half of the United States’ total cement consumption throughout the 20th century (4.9 billion tonnes) (Ritchie, 2023). While cement is a versatile building material often credited for its strength and durability, its overconsumption is mainly a result of its relative low cost when compared to more sustainable alternatives. Anthropocentrism prioritises cost over the ecological damage of cement, and despite a plethora of examples that showcase the successes of alternate methods, it continues to be a favoured building material. CLT is a vastly more sustainable alternative to its concrete counterpart, offering a reduction of up to 60% in embodied carbon (Dr Morwenn Spear, et al, 2021) and faster on-site installation due to prefabricated panelling. In East London, Dalston Works is a 10 storey residential development with 121 apartments and balconies alongside courtyards and restaurants. With of 3,852 cubic metres in volume (dezeen, 2023), its entire structure is manufactured from cross-laminated timber and currently stands as the largest CLT construction in the world. Dalston Work serves as an example of the mass scale CLT can achieve, and demonstrates the overreliance on cement and concrete throughout the rest of the industry. If we are to reduce our reliance on cement, we must expand our use of renewable materials and focus on producing more ecocentric construction methods.

Following a building’s completion, space heating demand is the next largest contributor to the construction industry’s overall energy consumption, and further highlights the anthropocentrism of architecture. Only recently has the idea of Passivhaus become a popular and rising form of architecture that respects the ontological relationship a building has with its environment. Passivhaus provides

a series of measures that work towards a carbon neutral entity which often give back to its habitat rather than exploit it. The average space heating demand for a residential scheme in the UK is 145 kWh/ m2, over 9.5x the Passivhaus target of just 15 kWh/m2. Passivhaus achieves this significant improvement through meticulous attention to air tightness and a focus on insulation throughout the home. The use of heat pumps regulate internal temperatures in response to external weather patterns, ensuring optimal thermal comfort levels throughout the year, without requiring intense energy to quickly rise or drop temperatures. There is a harmony between the human habitat and the surrounding natural world, emphasising an ontologically equality between the human and the environment. There is also a keen attention to the agency of materials, with a particular focus on renewable resources such as timber – creating welcoming homes that draw on our innate connection with nature. Materials are not reduced to just their structural qualities, instead they are interrogated on their effects on the ecosystem, their lifespans and even locality to the scheme within which they will be a part of. Passivhaus demonstrates there are reasonable alternatives to traditional means of construction that respects the interconnectedness of architecture and the environment. In more urban landscapes, like dense cities, retrofit architecture can be used to alter previously anthropocentric buildings into ecocentric spaces moving forward. As the ecological damage of the construction of these buildings has already been established, they should be used as a foundation for further development, rather than be demolished for newbuild projects. Retrofit architecture can be built to the standards of Passivhaus and therefore can exercise an ontological approach to future architecture. Passivhaus and retrofit approaches to design can address the needs of anthropocentrism while considering the ontological importance of the objects that create our world.

In order to address the daunting inevitability of our climate crisis, humanity must first confront its anthropocentrism. The construction industry must reduce its 36% annual contribution to global carbon

dioxide emissions and be used as a beacon of an ecocentric approach to the balance between humanity and its environment. Sustainable design methods like Passivhaus and Retrofit architecture, should lay the foundations for a more ontologically considered built landscape, reinstating a harmony between the human and the environment. It is in the anthropocentric interest of humanity to revaluate its position amongst natural world.

Luxury Value: And Subtitle if it has one and runs on to two lines

In a world where everything is shopping… and shopping is everything… what is luxury? Luxury is not shopping.

— Rem Koolhaas (2001, p4)

Luxury is: Attention, ‘Rough,’ Intelligence, ‘Waste,’ Stability.’

— Koolhaas (2001, p. 57)

that bag

Luxury has always been something that nobody needs. One’s survival in the world has never been dependant on it. Luxury therefore liberates it self from any formal grid work, becoming a form of loose entertainment. Its psyche is easily influenced in that it can be reversed, edited and re-shuffled at any given moment. It prefers context over object - the generated representation of a certain lifestyle that creates a strong desire of ownership. How did we end up buying into something physical based purely on its non-physical counterpart?

In the beginning of the new millennium, luxury fashion met architecture in one of the most potent forms of collaboration the world has seen. OMA/AMO and Prada begun their creative endeavour in simultaneously trying to translate the then present condition of luxury and commerce into a series epicentre stores in America. The project evolved into a series of innovative brick and mortar stores and a book documenting the process behind certain decisions and definitions.

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Content, 2004, Rem Koolhaas

Indefinite expansion represents a crisis: in the typical case it spells the end of the brand as a creative enterprise and the beginning of the brand as a purely financial enterprise. (Koolhaas, 2001, p. 4)

The owner of the Prada brand is Miuccia Prada. Her earliest example of innovation was in the reversal of luxury through a black nylon bag. Nylon which at the time was a cheap material, combined with dimpled lather - a symbol of luxury - became Prada’s earliest disturbance in the fashion world. All objects have layers of history and symbolism and what Prada realised is that the idea of luxury has nothing to do with utility or the ‘use-value’ as Marx defines it. The juxtaposition of materials fundamentally destabilised the meaning of the object, re-contextualising the material’s layers by injecting an aesthetic directed towards a classless society. This re-definition of the projects use-value and exploring its symbolic value was made clear in Baudrillard’s definition of ’sign-value.’

The work of OMA/AMO was heavily inspired by this collaboration they had with Miuccia Prada. A lot of their built projects contained references to this reversal of luxury through the material observations and use. It was all fundamentally related to the idea of material value. A prime example of a reversal was the gold leafed building in the Fondazione Prada complex designed by OMA. It screams luxury because of its symbolism related to richness, however the thing it doesn’t communicate is that it is in fact cheaper than most paints in terms of cost per square meter. This reversal of value is what’s significant here. (Laparelli, 2017, p. 1)

To return to the idea of value, we also have to return to the Marxist ideologies of use-value and exchange-value. All material objects or products contain these two values, it is what makes them be apart of the system of consumption in contemporary society. Marx defines the use-value to ‘being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity.’ (1887, p. 27)

Take for example a commodity such as steel, rice or coffee beans, they are all material things with a determined goal of use. It is important

to note that the relationship between the products’ use-value and labour required to realise them are not dependant on each other.

Exchange-value on the other hand, is defined as the ‘values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort, a relation constantly changing with time and place.’ (1887, p. 27) In more concrete terms, it is defined as the rate of exchange a product has when compared to other products. This boils down to exchange-value having much a higher monetary value when compared to use-value. Of course, we are aware of this as the cost to produce a t-shirt is significantly less than what it would sell for in a store. This exchangevalue is the main driver of capital generation in contemporary society.

Baudrillard used Marxist thought to build up on the ideas on the use and exchange-value of commodities. He later critiques Marx by defining these two values as a ‘rational construction that postulates the possibility of balancing out value, of finding a general equivalent for it which is capable of exhausting meanings and accounting for exchange.’ (Baudrillard, 2011, p. 9) His argument is rooted in the study of anthropology. Anthropology undermined this dialectic between the use and exchange value of products and thus ‘shattering the ideology of the market.’ (Baudrillard, 2011, p. 9)

His response to the rise in consumer culture was that it produced a third type of value a product embodies, one which subsumes the other types of value. Sign-value is the counterpart of the physical; It opens up the world of a universe which the product belongs to or tries to portray through visual signification. The lifestyle which encompasses the product. Up till now the market value of an object was stable. Sign-value disrupts this stability causing it to mutate to one which is ‘fleeting and fluid.’ (2011, p. 11) Sign-value uses our desires against us, to seduce us into purchasing a universe created by a product. Seduction contrasts the idea of production. It strips the product of its material identity, revealing an empty canvas in which symbolism can be injected into and thus altering its behaviour altogether.

Referring to the theme of seduction, Baudrillard claims ‘it was no longer a question of bringing things forward, of manufacturing

them, of producing them for a world of value, but of seducing themthat is to say, of diverting them from that value, and hence from their identity, their reality, to destine them for the play of appearances, for their symbolic exchange.’ (2011, p. 21)

Seduction plays on the idea that identities and realities are always in flux, they can mutate and replace themselves. It sets desires in motion and advertising is the prime example.

A TV commercial for example never tries to persuade its viewers of the products’ use or exchange-value. That would be a highly desperate way to sell. It works on the representation of the universe the product represents, playing on the idea of desire for a different mode of lifestyle. Use-value is completely erased.

It is hard to imagine buying into a product for its use as we have fallen in love with the image of the product is trying to sell. We have thus fetishised the sign and desire more and more - the mantra of contemporary society. Is this terminal?

Lily of the Valleyn to two lines

‘Indigenous people regard all products of the human mind and heart as interrelated and as flowing from the same source; the relationships between people and their land, the kindship with the other living creatures that share the land, and with the spirit world. Since the ultimate source of knowledge and creativity is in the land itself, all of the art and science of a specific people are manifestations of the dame underlying relationships, and can be considered as manifestations of people as a whole’

— Erica-Irene Daes (1997, p. 3)

Nestled into the centre of the western flower bed of the garden, in early April a small plant, only thirty centimetres tall, can be found growing close to the fence line beside the hyacinths. It has broad green leaves that fan outwards from the stem and eight snow white flowers that droop downwards, the petals curling outwards at the ends, like the frilly sock’s schoolgirls wear in the summertime.

Wandering around the garden with my grandfather, he pointed out the sweet little plant to me; ruffling the leaves and bending down for a closer look, he said ‘Ah yes, Lily of the Valley.’

The name, Lily of the Valley, carries such a grandeur for something so small, its name professing a presence much larger and significant than its reality. Its botanical name is ‘Convalloria Majolis,’ derived from the Latin for ‘valley’ and ‘belonging to May’ (Kirby, 2011, p. 85) – etymologically marking a time when the sun shines for longer, spirits are high and days are lead with merriment.

The flower gained its popularity in the UK during the reign of Queen Victoria when it was used as a celebratory bouquet on

Whitsunday; a day in the pagan calendar that marked the return of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles (Kirby, 2011, p. 85). Its cultural significance was then maintained through its repeated description in Christianity. In the Old Testament of the Bible it is used to describe beauty and purity of the beloved in the ‘Song of Solomon’ and in early depictions of the crucifixion, lily of the valley was often used to symbolise the sadness of the Virgin Mary, leading to the flowers nickname ‘Mary’s Tears’ (1979).

My grandfather and I picked a small bunch of the lily of the valley, placing them in a rounded glass vase on the garden table. Cutting the stalks, a fragrant aroma was released; the spring-like, slightly sweet, slightly floral scent filled the air. A ripple of nostalgia swept over, the smell instantly transporting my mind back to the spring days of my youth; flowers on dining tables, laughing, eating, drinking in sweet spring smells.

I was not alone in experiencing the lily of the valley’s time altering qualities; in Virginia Woolf’s book, ‘To the lighthouse,’ the fragility and ephemeral beauty of the flower is used to convey the fleeting child-like joy in Mrs Ramsay – the lily of the valley a physical representation of her emotion.

Mrs.Ramsay, who had been arranging the knot of flowers, which she had plucked from the plants on the terrace, for Lily Briscoe, was suddenly taken herself by the beauty of the moment, and felt she had never been so happy in her life, and must do something to express her gratitude, and stood there, the picture of health, prosperity, and worldly pleasure, contemplating the entire satisfaction of her desires. (Woolf, 1927, p. 45)

Easter Sunday lunch arrived at the table; my parents, brothers, uncle, grandfather and I devouring a banquet of potatoes, meats and vegetables, chatter filling the air as we sat in the early April sun. I interjected one of the boisterous conversations to ask a little more about the ‘Lily of the Valley’ we’d discovered earlier in the day.

My mother chimed into the conversation, with a slightly puzzled expression: ‘Didn’t you know? Your great-grandmother used to grow Lily of the Valley in her allotment and then she would sell them once a year to the flower sellers on Soane Square.’

My great-grandmothers allotment was a mystical place, always mentioned, but my memory slightly cloudy, as I was only six or seven when she had to pass it onto someone new.

The entrance to allotment was behind a wooden gate, painted blue, on Queen’s Town Road – just before the Power Station. My great-grandmother’s family had lived in Battersea for generations, firmly working-class people made up of milkmen, cooks, and furriers. My family acquired the allotment four generations ago: my greatgreat-great-grandfather using it as place of storage for the horses that he was trading. They were a part of the post-World War One allotment boom, in which every third household in London has access to an allotment (Ward, 1988, p. 23). The allotment was a slice of London they got to call their own; the expansive 4m by 15m plot of land sandwiched between Victorian terraces provided not just an abundance of fruits and vegetables, but a sense of belonging to the city too (Ward, 1988, p. 27).

The ’lotty,’ which is what the allotment was called amongst our family, was mostly used to productivity grow food, especially during the war years. But one summer chancing her luck, when my greatgrandmother got off the 137 bus on the Kings Road, she asked if the Soane Square flower sellers would buy her lotty lily of the valley, and to her surprise - they said yes!

So, for the fifteen years to follow when May would come around and the allotment was blooming with the white droplets of the Lily of the Valley, my great-grandmother, great-grandfather and grandfather would collect the flowers, bunch them together at the kitchen table and form bouquets ready to deliver to Soane Square.

The lily of the valley, for such an inconspicuous little flower, held stories from generations, it’s smell unlocking histories I was unaware. Perhaps the lily of the valley is a mnemonic object, adding

to the body of acquired information available for transmission, storing it for when we might be in need (Ingold, 2000, p. 134 ). Despite having never been a part of the lily of the valley cultivation in the lotty, the stories and information have slowly filtered and descended the ancestral lines, so each time I see the delicate white flower, it places a whole bank of knowledge about the lily of the valley firmly in my consciousness. Tim Ingold in his book ‘Perceptions of the Environment’ captures this exact sentiment, he says:

‘Critically, this implies that objects of memory pre-exist, and are imported into, the contexts of remembering. They are already present, in some representational form, within the native mind. Thus, far from bringing memories into being, remembering serves to bring out, or to disclose, knowledge that has been there from the start. In short, from the perspective of the genealogical model, remembering is no more generative of the contents of memory than is life activity generative of the person. And this, in turn, means that people share memories, it is not because of their mutual involvement in joint activity within a certain environment, but because their knowledge has come from the same ancestral source, along the lines of common decent. They are bound by identity not only of bodily substance and of cultural tradition, by both inheritance and heritage.’ (Ingold, 2000, p. 138)

Rewilding Language and Syntax

Rewilding language, rewilding the human, is also paradoxically a grounding of the human.

— Eduardo Kohn (American Library Paris,

2022) tsupu

Tsupu, or tsupuuuh, as it is sometimes pronounced, with the final vowel dragged out and aspirated, refers to an entity as it makes contact with and then penetrates a body of water; think of a big stone heaved into a pond or the compact mass of a wounded peccary plunging into a river’s pool.

Once I tell people what tsupu means, they often experience a sudden feel for its meaning: Oh, of course, tsupu!’ ... Tsupu doesn’t really interact with other words and therefore can’t be modified to reflect any such possible relations. ...What kind of thing, then, is tsupu? Is it even a word? (Kohn, 2013, p. 28–29)

on semiosis

Any language, in order to function, must contain words that relate well to other words, both grammatically and phonetically. That all common words have sounds and spellings which must relate to other words (that have in many western cases strayed far from tangible relation to their target), is crippling. This fabricated web of semiosis,

self-referencial by its very construction, creates separations between us and the world we inhabit (Kohn, 2013). Situated in their respective wildernesses, languages have been responsible for the amplification, to varying extent, of this separation. But even in Quichua, an Amazonian dialect of the Runa people of Ecuador, most words are still ‘firmly in language’ (Kohn, 2013, p. 28).

A word like causanguichu, for example, which bears strong grammatical relation to other words in the language (but no onomatopoeic resemblance to the phenomena it describes), speeds up from the murky depths of its dense, linguistic context, ignorant of those worldly influences which might have shaped its being had it not risen so quickly. Firmly in support of its bounded allies (who speak only from tongues), it emerges out of the water to stand against a dwindling opposition (for whom ‘Tsupu’ leads the charge). It might just as well be spelt backwards!

We need not repeat this exercise with an array of other dangerously relational cases. All languages comprise their majority.

wherein lies the method of change?

How do we talk about nature? That phenomena so readily fetishised in the name of so many already fetishised niches within disciplines. How do we situate ourselves within a world we know so little about?

How do we maintain alarm within the confines of these steady, a(lter) priori analytics which we rely on to measure others than us. How can we encourage change across disciplines in which the (imminent) final solution is already decided? How, possibly, can we tackle problems from inside this well oiled, incomprehensibly inert system, for which the problems are its basis?

Soon, when we have reached the end of the extent of the sciences and solved our nature, and the temperatures still rise, and the storms still become more severe, and the droughts still increase, and the oceans still become warmer, and the oceans still rise, and the number

of species still decreases, and the famines still increase, and the health risks still increase, and the poverty still increases (United Nations, 2023), in which direction do we turn?

The slipway is the last course of action, a fast route straight back to the bottom. For where we were unable to find cracks deep enough to push through, the structure remains firmly intact. Residing a few metres below the surface, some are close enough to see the light, but for most others below it is still dark. The only option to pass through is by that route built, and designed, into the very infrastructure of the dam itself. Language.

In this statement lies the issue at hand. The author of our ultimate fate and the leader of the opposition. The chief struggle of cyborg politics (Haraway, 1991). The opposition to finding a communication with zero bias, with ultimate clarity and perfect translation.

Radical methods of revolt, of languaging-with, are endorsed in writings on these subjects. Donna Haraway escapes the clutches of tightly bound dictionaries, which engross the masses, to confront the more-than-analytical paradox constructed at the hand of human exceptionalism. Stringing together a web of species-fluid metaphor, she finds stead in a vocabulary situated amongst those very topics with which we struggle. But I want to ask questions on the whereabouts of her Terrapolis, questions of its opposition against other aspects for which all individuals have developed a more consistent understanding. Aspects closer to perfect translation.

Should a ‘wilding’ of language really be situated in those disciplines which have decided our fate within systems of otherworldly understanding? Is this our fundamental mistake, to attempt to break through using those cracks so deliberately designed in, to try and mobilise those topics which we are so

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‘Language speaks.’ (Heidegger, 1971, p. 188)

clearly at the mercy of in the hands of our very oppressor.

To return to our (leaky) dam is to suggest, then, that the way past this impenetrable mass is up over the top, up over those concrete abutments, against the chemical surface of those topics which we really know, which we have come to exist far more naturally with. If, as Eduardo Kohn says (and I agree), ‘rewilding is paradoxically a grounding of the human’ (American Library Paris, 2022), let us remain entangled in our wilderness and comprehend our demise through a more familiar lens (for we are not grounded!). That is, a lens not able to accurately focus on those dead end cracks, but one better suited to the wide angle splendour of the impenetrable dam itself. One that captures the concrete and its distinctly monolithic composition, one interested in the unconscious familiarity of its form, common across the boundaries of intellect, age, and discipline.

We do not try to understand anything with syntax except the relations of its subjects (for whom morphology is the umbrella term). Might this ladder, avoiding cracks in the process, offer a step up the algae-clad abutment which so firmly stands between us and our cyborg idols? Through its deeper situated-ness within our semiotic system, could syntax provide a platform for fuss with a greater removal from semiotic bias? If even those languages developed in the most unbounded, interlaced of wildernesses are still ‘firmly in language’ (Kohn, 2013, p. 28), we surely cannot hope to escape our oppressor through the contextually dependent nature of their composition?

Through the organisation and re-appropriation of morphologies, syntax can profoundly influence the meaning of a sentence, whilst avoiding an emphasis on other meanings. Interventions of this nature can be particularly effective on words with significant associated exceptionalism. Altering punctuation, sentence organisation, or a word’s grammatical category (although this one is dangerously close to provoking a bias) for example, can have the desired effect. To replace these words,

however, is to impose a bias closer to those moving parts in the machine of translation (that turbine shaft offers a direct route through, but with high risk of failure), falling into the very trap we intend to avoid.

re-wilding language

The further we stray from topics which define us, the more likely we are to exceptionalise our species. The more we try to convey worldly ideas with which we are less familiar, the greater we separate ourselves from our environment. The further we divert from streams of embedded, assumed communication, the more thoroughly bias manifests through slippages in meaning and understanding. How, then, might we ‘wild’ within a syntactical wilderness? Whilst this essay cannot afford an answer the attention it deserves, it can offer a starting point for certain adjustments within a vocabulary. What might be the effect of assigning an article to words which we might typically use without? Would this designation, for example, provoke a treatment of our science more sympathetic to an ‘open whole’ (Kohn, 2013, p. 15)? The Nature. The use of the possessive in a sentence can be surprising to those unfamiliar with these topics, but this essay advocates for exactly that. To mobilise alarm from outside the bounds of an intrinsically exceptional method of staying with the trouble. To re-wild a language irrespective of the bias manifest in those delicately important issues which we hope to address through our writing.

Land as Archive: The Sanctification of Space

Life is more than separate events; it incorporates the quality of duration, of passage through time. Buffeted by change we retain traces of our past to be sure of our enduring identity. — Lowenthal (1975, p9)

on memory, in space

On writing about memory I was thwarted by the depth and difference in experience of empty places, of places full, of facts and mental recollections. Differing from one person to another; of trauma lived and unlived, and, perhaps almost forgotten. But saved by walls, that sanctify and stand resolute through time.

The presence of archives in our society is integral to understanding our past and recording the present for generations to come. Historical fact and personal memory must be assimilated in order to create a true collective memory of a period of time passed. Throughout history, traumatic events take place which one would rather forget. However, it is important to remember these moments of tragedy to honour and pay respect to those who were affected, and to ensure we do not repeat these mistakes in the future. Through the process of sanctification, ‘sites of memory’ (Winter, 2010, p. 312) are created which exist as physical archival reminders as well as vessels for

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Foote, K. (1978) Site of the former home of serial murderer John Gacy in Des Plaines [photograph]. N.D

collective memory to take place. This pattern seeks to explain the importance of sanctifying space as a form of archive, through the investigation of case-studies in post-war Europe, arguing that physical sites are integral to maintaining and enhancing the collective memory of moments of trauma.

sanctifying space

The process of sanctification of a site denotes a specific space where people can come to remember and grieve a traumatic event and further acknowledge an event’s significance in our history (Winter, 2010, p. 312). This may occur on the specific site where tragedy took place, or it may occur on a site which is unrelated to the specific event and it memorialises the event in some way; both, however, create sites of memory. As Winter argues, sites of memory allow new groups of people of different points of view to appropriate the sites and lend new meanings to them (Winter, 2010, p. 312). For example, some come to war memorials to consider the lives lost and the necessary role the military has played, while others may attend the same space with a view that the military itself is wrong. The sites of memory allow both groups and viewpoints to co-exist and connect to the event in a historical setting.

Furthermore, Foote argues, the process of site sanctification can be lengthy as people must come to terms with the weight of the event before the site can be realised as something people would want to sanctify (Foote, 1990, p. 388). Often, this may leave long periods of time where the site lacks preservation and changes may occur to the site outside of the event’s occurrence. This period of time post the event but prior to sanctification, requires the site is treated with respect so as to not rush the grieving process of those involved nor physically damage the site.

The concentration camp of Auschwitz is an example of sitespecific sanctification whereby a location of monumental historical significance has largely been preserved for present day and future visiting through its reinvention as a memorial/museum. Although the site suffered decay during the 15 months following its liberation, parts of the camp were restored to give an accurate representation of the site as it existed during the war (Huener, 2003, p. 63). This has allowed the site to remain as visually unchanged as possible since its use, preserving history. Visitors are able to take an almost literal step back in time when inside the memorial, viewing through one’s own eyes the same buildings which would have been seen by those imprisoned in this camp during the Holocaust; a harrowing but essential experience connecting the present with the past through site-specific immersion on the grounds of the event. In this way, Auschwitz serves to preserve a collective memory of those who lost their lives on the grounds, those who were liberated and those who sanctified the site itself.

The preservation of this site becomes more poignant as time passes and generations who lived through the event begin to die out, unable to tell their lived experiences as a form of oral archiving. The site then becomes an important space for second-order memory (Winter, 2010, p. 313) to take place. As Winter argues;

The word memory becomes a metaphor for the fashioning of narratives about the past when those with direct experience of events die off. (Winter, 2010, p. 313).

This shows how the physical manifestation of Auschwitz is integral to conserving the lived memories of those who have passed away and allows us to remember their memories through immersion in the site’s physical history.

non-specific site sanctification: the jewish musem, berlin

The sanctification of an event may also occur through the erection of an off-site monument or a museum. One such example is the Jewish Museum located in Berlin, Germany by Daniel Libeskind. Although one must acknowledge the history associated with berlin in the context of such a museum, the museum itself is situated at the back of the existing baroque entrance of the Berlin Museum as a new extension (Jewish Museum Berlin, 2001). This is not on a site of specific trauma, nor is it acting to preserve an existing site. The authors that provided the building brief acknowledged that ‘nothing (not even this museum) could redeem the expulsion and murder of Berlin’s Jews’ (Young, 2016, p. 84), however it does seek to serve as a place for memory, history and education of the Jewish community in Germany. This was achieved in the building in three ways; the architectural style, the architectural experience and the educational content of the material inside the museum, used together to create a space to reinscribe Jewish memory into the city of Berlin (Young, 2016, p. 84).

Firstly, according to Rosenfeld, the President of the Centre for Jewish History in New York, , it is said that the deconstructivist style of architecture in which the Jewish Museum was built, came directly from the

… massive rupture in Western civilisation caused by the Holocaust’ and the subsequent crisis of faith that led to a ‘rethinking’ and ‘deconstructing’ [of] the entire discipline of Western Architecture … (Young, 2016, p. 81).

This therefore gives the museum a visual and literal link to the subjects of the museum’s content. Secondly, the architectural devices employed in the interior of the building create multiple moments of reflection. This can be seen in Libeskind’s employment of voids in

the museum which symbolise the void left by the Jewish population in Germany who did not survive the war, into which Jewish memory would now assemble (Young, 2016, p. 88). This is particularly evident in The Memory Void which houses the exhibition ‘Shalechet,’ meaning ‘fallen leaves.’ The void is created and encased by thick concrete walls rising 3 stories up with two slits in the ceiling allowing light to permeate the space. On the floor, 10,000 screaming faces made of iron represent the lives of the Jewish people lost in the Holocaust. To experience the space fully, one must walk across these faces which create cacophonous cries, which is both a visually and audibly uncomfortable thing to do. This does however, force the visitor to become fully immersed in the physical discomfort of the space and reflect on what this represents, thus creating their own memory contributing to a collective memory.

the importance of preserving collective memory through archiving

In order to continue to preserve and experience collective memory, sites of sanctification must be prioritised within our built environments. As Foote argues

Archives can be seen as a valuable means of extending the temporal and spatial range of human communication. (Foote, 1990, p. 379)

In this way, sites of sanctification act as a physical reminder of the past and vessels of collective memory. Their immersive nature allows people of the present day and future to be part of a collective memory through experiential involvement of a space. These sites are intrinsic to ensuring harrowing events of the past are nsot forgotten and are instead learned from, whilst also creating designated spaces for memory and reflection to be prioritised.

Daily cartographer: say Title: And On Anthropocentrism

Human beings do not, in their movements, inscribe their life histories upon the surface of nature as do writers upon a page; rather the histories are woven, along with the life cycles of plants and animals, into the texture of the surface itself.

— Tim Ingold (2002, p198)

As long as we could believe that nature undisturbed was constant, we were provided with a simple standard against which to judge our actions, a reflection from a windless pond in which our place was both apparent and fixed, providing us with a sense of continuity and permanence that was comforting. Abandoning these beliefs leaves us on an extreme existential position: we are like small boats without anchors in a sea of time; how we long for a safe harbor on a shore.’

— Daniel Botkin (1992, p188–189)

The orchestra of the landscape is: A buffalo herd rolling the Timpani, A mitochondria tapping a familiar high-hat, A brook prattling a xylophone, A volcano erupting its trumpet, A starling murmuration skimming the strings, A humpback sounding the tuba, A stamen projecting a baritone sax, A green bottle fly tooting a kazoo, A mist resounding the cello, And a human, who’s role in the symphony is no more,

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Sacred Theory of the Earth, Thomas Burnet

and yet no less than the rest.

Laurence Buell notes that the environment isn’t a place that’s just out there, fixed and stable. It’s something that’s always in process and changing, always a result of ongoing interaction between human beings and their surroundings. He suggests ‘The nonhuman environment is present not merely as a framing device but as a presence that begins to suggest that human history is implicated in natural history.’ (Buell, 1995, p. 7–8) Whether intentionally or unintentionally, we mark our lives upon the surface of the earth.

The act of archeology is an example. The archaeologist may seek to understand the world of the past by studying material remains left behind by previous generations, however, in doing so, they are actively shaping the landscape via excavation and analysis, inscribing their history within the marks upon the surface of the earth. We write our histories in the landscape in our very existence upon the earth’s crust and in this sense the act of archaeology itself is a form of dwelling within the natural world (Ingold, 2002 , p. 189) Whilst this form of dwelling is a seemingly harmless shaping of the landscape, humankind has dramatically altered the planet in many more destructive ways, global warming, habitat loss and animal extinctions to name a selection. Bill McKibben’s stance on this suggests that pollution and devastation were localised phenomena and even widespread contamination by DDT would eventually disappear, but the advent of anthropogenic climate change, or ‘global warming,’ has changed the situation, fundamentally contaminating the whole planet. ‘We have changed the at- mosphere, and thus we are changing the weather. By changing the weather, we make every spot on earth man made and artificial. We have deprived nature of its independence, and that is fatal to its meaning. Nature’s independence is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us’(McKibben, 1990, quoted in Garrard, 2012, p. 78).

The Scientific delineation of this period of time during which

human activities have shaped the environment significantly enough to constitute a geological change in the strata is defined as the Anthropocene, a new present day epoch of entirely human occurrence. The 1980s film, Koyaanisqatsi (1982), literally meaning ‘chaotic life’ or ‘life out of balance,’ is a beautiful yet disturbing photographic portrayal of this destructive ownership of nature. A portrait of the everlasting mark we have left in occupation upon the planet. Whilst the scope of the effects is much greater reaching since the advent of the Anthropocene, the idea of human activity leaving marks on the landscape is noted much earlier in historical and religious texts. Thomas Burnet’s Sacred Theory of the Earth describes mountain ranges as the physical out- come of God’s displeasure with mankind, scars left on the previously Edenic and unwrinkled earth. Whether the inhabitation is intentional or not, humankind cannot simply be passive observers of the world, we are implicit in the shaping of the landscape around us (Burnet, 1684, referenced in Garrard, 2012, p. 71).

Whilst the Anthropocene displays the human-centric effects on the planet, it is imperative to note that it is not solely the human world that inscribes their histories in the landscape. Leopold describes the south facing slopes of a mountain that ‘wrinkle with the maze of new deer trails’’ or ‘rivers washing the future into the sea’ (Leopold, 1987, p. 130), his narratives are evocative tales of how the natural environment is engraved into the landscape, painting their histories across the canvas of the earth. The life cycles of these organisms and environmental systems are woven alongside the histories of human beings, a non-hierarchical story of the past in which the human inscriptions bear no hierarchy above the nonhuman histories that are interwoven within ours. Cronon suggests that the landscape allows us to remember a past that existed before us, one that we are a part of and that includes us but is not just about us. He follows up by stating that ‘We need to hon- our the Other within and the Other next door as much as we do the exotic Other that lives far away- a lesson that applies as much to people as it does to (other)

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natural things. In particular, we need to discover a common middle ground in which all of these things, from the city to the wilderness, can somehow be encompassed in the word ‘home.’ Home, after all, is the place where finally we make our living.’ (Cronon, 1996, p. 24) Whilst we cannot undo the irreparable damage of the Anthropocene and we cannot prevent our shaping of the landscape, we can dramat- ically change our outlook in order to slow humancentric exploitation and domination. We need to recognise that our actions have a real impact on the environment, and that we have a responsibility to reduce that being in a vastly harmful manner. The common human view is that we need to learn to live more lightly on the earth, to make sure that the earth remains habitable for future generations, however, we do not go far enough with this statement. It is not just our future generations that inhabit the earth, but it is all of the interwoven elements, entities, creatures and beings that we are intertwined with. It is all things that shape the environment and we as humans are not able to step away from that and cannot prevent it.

Synder states that ‘We can enjoy our humanity with its flashy brains and sexual buzz, its social crav- ings and stubborn tantrums, and take ourselves as no more and no less than another being in the Big Watershed. We can accept each other all as barefoot equals sleeping on the same ground. We can give up hoping to be eternal and quit fighting dirt. We can chase off mosquitoes and fence out varmints without hating them. ... The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get home.’ (Synder, 1999, p. 182 )

Generosity is Free

If one looks upon it from an international point of view, the broader phenomenon is really about food, meeting people meeting each other. And an opportunity for increased communication. These are all very basic and fundamental needs in human life. perhaps the fact that projects like these are emerging indicates a recognition of the importance of these basic needs in our society and current time. If this is the case, these kind if projects carry an important message by both identifying these needs and, sometimes, even fulfilling them.

— Jörgen Svensson (2018, p59)

In a small town, what used to be an empty shop it is now a new art exhibition centre. The flyers and advertisements are spread around, the habitants are ecstatic to visit. However, after a close look, they realised the exhibitions is exclusive. There is an entrance fee and most probably a quite formal dress code. The exclusivity means those who can not afford the entrance will not have access to it, besides those who may feel out of place in that environment. Contrarily, in the same town, an experienced curator decides to open a shop that does open events and allows locals to put their art up on the walls. This allowed the whole community to engage with each other, regardless of their background, it is a welcoming place that strengthens the bond of the community. Acts of service, which can take various forms, are an important tool towards a pragmatic change in the society and are necessary to help promoting creativity and increase the sense of community. Artists that practice generosity for instance contribute to a more inclusive, bonded and equitable society. In a world where

everything often seems to be driven by self-interest, it is easy to forget that generosity is free.

How to use or practice generosity to create new connections and relationships within the community and one another? Artists that have used this approach to challenge the art world have most likely succeeded at creating something that could reach anyone. Whether they make use of crowdfunding or hand out their work for free they challenge the conventional idea that art is an object that is supposed to be exhibited in a beautiful place and to be bought or sold. And without the community, or the audience, the work does not exist. The community acts as the co-artist rather than a passive viewer as Ted Purves states on what we want is free: generosity and exchange in recent art ‘the audience that is engaged in a service exchange or that receives a gift becomes crucial to the manifestation of the piece; without them, it might be possible to say, the work cannot exist. When the position of the artist is shifted from sole creator to collaborator, changes occur in the practice of artwork that not only impact the reception of these specific works, but also have implications about the status and nature of all aesthetic practice.’

(2005, p11)

Jörgen Svensson is a swedish artist known for his work on a project called Bus 993, that happened in 1993 in Stockholm, Sweden. The project comprised of a free bus line from Stockholm, the capital, and Skoghall, a small town in Sweden. The aim of this project was to give people who had never been to the capital to have the opportunity to explore it for a total of six hours, whilst people from the capital would visit Skoghall and stay for a whole week. This project involved over 400 people travelling on the bus, with different ages and social status, and for almost eight hours they sat on that bus together. During the project, discussions arose about whether the project could be considered art. Svensson later wrote that ‘I had never before, in any of the exhibitions I had participated in at museums or galleries, experienced so many interesting levels, touched so many people in so many different ways, and got officials to act upon the same idea’

Bus 993, Jörgen Svensson

(2005, p50). This illustrates how much the community benefited from this particular project and how grateful they were to be able to experience it.

Svensson continued his exploration of practising generosity with his second project, F.ART, which unlike his firsr projects, was not highly advertised. The theme of this secretive installation was the government dinner. It was held shortly after national elections and the artist somehow managed to achieve his goal and got the prime minister and his cabinet to participate. No reservations were made so anyone that would want to go to the restaurant that day could do it and have dinner with the government. The ministers would rotate table every other hour to engage with everyone present at the space. The most commonly discussed themes were celebrity issues, rather than fascinating questions about the project and the connection between politicians and artists, which, according to Svensson, should not be mixed. Most ministers held the opinion that an artist should not be close or involved with big power figures or even the establishment, as would be seen as a corrupt to others. To this, Svensson counter argued ‘it is the view of art that is it outdated. The risk of being corrupt is present in all contexts/situations, and its therefore up to every individual artist to be aware of what situations/ relations/contexts can influence his our her artisanship. ’ (2005, pg53)

This last mentioned project challenged the traditional detachment of politics and art and inspired and encouraged the community to engage with government officials in a more accessible and casual way. The final question is, how can we implement values of generosity in the society in order to promote it and encourage more individuals to practice it?

Through the projects of Svensson, it is possible to see how practising generosity can be implemented into the society as an artistic practice and how it can alter the relationships between the community and the artist. The concept of generosity and practising generosity has been implemented into society in numerous ways such as sharing values, knowledge, time and even attention. Artists,

by sharing and giving, end up creating a sense of community and collaboration that give rise to meaningful relationships and works towards a more equitable society. Generosity should not be something that is reserved for some occasions but embraced by the society and mostly influent people that have the power and the means to create something that contributes to a stronger society and a more compassionate world. Therefore the challenge is to expand this practice and make it part of the quotidian.Walking down Fenchurch Street in the city of London, can’t help but reminiscing about the city’s Roman past due to the many listed buildings on the surroundings that carry a lot of history. This particular building stands out, it is unavoidable. It is colossal. Its height and shape seem somehow misplaced. It is impressive, incandescent with the sun. Over 30 stories covered in shiny glass. You enter the building and the large lobby is unwelcoming, the space is cold, the double height spaces filled with bright lights and white walls. The curve at the top of the building increases the reflection of sunlight and it has been known to melt cars. In our society, appearance often holds more value than substance. This mentality is deeply embedded in the construction industry. Too often, design decisions are driven by financial gain or aesthetic appeal, rather than to the community needs. Projects are designed for the ‘books,’ with a focus on profit over purpose. As a result, buildings may not function efficiently or effectively for the people who use them. Design should prioritise the needs for the people, not just the

Architecture and power

ancient egypt

The pyramids of ancient Egypt are among the first monumental architectures known to mankind. Their monumental construction required immense resources and manpower. They were not, however, aimed at achieving any rational goal. Above all, they fulfilled a religious role. The pharaohs embodied deities responsible for maintaining Ma’at, the cosmic balance and order of the universe. The pyramids being their burial places, they guaranteed their ability to maintain Maat. The shape of the pyramid was itself significant in that it symbolized the rays of the sun carrying the pharaoh’s spirit to the heavens, thus facilitating his journey to the afterlife. But from a social point of view, these buildings were overwhelming. Filled with treasures such as jewelry, valuable furniture, and other prestigious items surrounding the sarcophagus, they symbolized the pharaoh’s wealth and dominance. The political power symbolized by the pyramids was the guarantee of dominating the people.

metropolis, the city from above

This role of monumental architecture at the service of power was masterfully shown in Metropolis, a science fiction film directed by Fritz Lang. While it was released in 1927, it anticipated a century in advance the futuristic setting of the year 2026. The most expensive production of its time, the film was a critic and commercial failure when it was released, while it is now recognized as one of the major

masterpieces in the history of cinema, as evidenced by its multiple influences. Restored several times, in 2001 it became the first inscribed on UNESCO’s international Memory of the World register. Metropolis is a megalopolis made up of a high density of towers of dizzying height. It is divided between an upper town where a ruling class lives in wealth, luxury and entertainment, and a lower town where the working class is oppressed. Maria, a woman from the lower town, tries to promote understanding between the classes and manage to bring workers’ children to visit the upper town illegally. The group is pushed back by the police, but after seeing her, the Metropolis ruler’s son falls in love with her. He follows her down into the lower town and discovers an exhausted worker at his workplace. The rhythm imposed by the machines is infernal and a violent explosion occurs killing dozens of workers.

He then goes to his father to tell him about the extremely difficult conditions in which the workers work and asks him to improve their lives. Seeing that he cannot convince his son of the benefits of this segregative society, he has him followed by a spy. The son returns to the lower town where he takes the place of a worker on the verge of exhaustion, the worker is disguised and goes up to the upper town where he will taste the pleasures of wealth. Meanwhile, revolt is brewing in the lower town …

The film clearly connects an oversized architecture in height dominating without sharing and crushing a population living at its feet. In a way, it is the arrogance of the towers that is directly accused.

the tower of babel

This arrogance of heights recalls the legendary story of the Babylonians recorded in the Bible. The ambition of men was then to build a tower so high that it could reach the sky. But God did not like the claim of his creatures to build the Tower of Babel. To stop them he made them speak different languages in such a way as to make

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communication between them impossible and to sow confusion. Thus, before they could complete their gigantic tower, the workers have scattered to the four corners of earth.

Bob Marley used this legendary claim of men to build the Tower of Babel as a metaphor for the functioning of a Western society based on a corrupt and oppressive organization. In his song ‘Babylon System,’ he makes it the symbol of a dominant and hated social order that exploits and oppresses the marginalized and the poor. In the lyrics of several of his songs dealing with this theme (Babylon System, Zimbabwe and Survival), he repeats: ‘The system of Babylon is the vampire, sucking the blood of the victims,’ while he encourages the people to resist by fighting for their rights and freedom.

contemporary towers

Powerful people of our contemporary world, whether they are businessmen or politicians, have not escaped the temptation to celebrate their power with very high buildings. A study, however, found out that the peak of skyscraper construction often coincided with a period of economic crisis. Indeed the completion of the construction of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in 1930/1931 coincides with the great economic crisis of the 1930s. The completion of the towers of the World Trade Center and the Willis Tower in the United States coincides with the onset of the economic crisis of the 1970s. In 1997, in Malaysia and Thailand, the completion of construction of the Petronas Towers and Baiyoke Tower II, the tallest towers in the region, coincided with the onset of the Asian economic crisis . In 2010, the construction of the tallest tower in the world rises to 828 meters in Dubai, coincides within a month with a serious economic crisis in the city-state. These phenomena are explained by the fact that the construction of the tallest towers corresponds to the excess of periods of economic boom which follow periods of crisis.

Rem Koolhaas puts on the cover of his famous manifesto, Delirious New York, a work by Madelon Vriesendorp showing a night scene where two soft skyscrapers (like Dali’s soft watches) are surprised lying in a bed, humorous reference to the fact that in New York, the city of the Ego, increasingly high towers have been reinforced. However Koolhaas relativizes this madness of gigantism, by asserting that: ‘The density of Manhattan is not only a physical density, but also a social and cultural density...its buildings are not only bodies in space, but agents over time.’ This quote expresses Koolhaas’ vision that the city is a complex and dynamic organism comprising not only physical but cultural characteristics. Even if the towers that shape New York embody the omnipotence of bureaucracy, according to the author most of them would not be uninteresting from a social and cultural point of view.

A radically different point of view is developed by Mari Hvattum in her book The Skyscraper Culture. The author asserts that ‘The skyscraper is a spatial manifestation of the logic of capital, an expression of the triumph of economic rationality over social and cultural values.’ This quote highlights a critique of the skyscraper as a symbol of capital’s dominance over humanist values.

anti-social constructs

Do skyscrapers symbolize the power of technology, capitalism and bureaucracy? In any case, the dependence on elevators and multiple security systems is economically costly and bad from an ecological point of view, what is a symbol of success and power does not seem a good thing for social life. While they offer amazing views of the environment that gives a sense of power, they fail to create supportive and sustainable communities. The very height of the towers disconnects from the human scale and from the life developed at street level. The long shadows they cast deprive the surrounding constructions of light and disrupt the character of the place,

contributing to a feeling of alienation and urban disconnection. However, we must be realistic, these towers exist and most of them cannot be demolished. But how to solve their nuisances? In contrast to their tendency to symbolize places of power and human oppression, the towers should be repurposed to become public spaces open to their surroundings. Their role could be changed by opening part of the facades and by planting gardens on the upper floors. In these new places creating more informal human gatherings, the tallest towers could be the source of new positive urban sensations.

The Embodied Artifact Subtitle if it has one and runs on to two lines

The human species was unique in evolving organically through its technological extensions: The body itself is only human by virtue of technology: the human hand is human because of what it makes, not of what it is.

— André Leroi-Gourhan (2018)

The digital age has given rise to cognitive assemblages that not only include humans and machines, but also include the infrastructures that support their interactions.

— Katherine Hayles (2012, p9)

What we must now do is to trace the stages that have led to a liberation so great in present-day societies that both tool and gesture are now embodied in the machine, operational memory in automatic devices, and programing itself in electronic equipment.

— André Leroi-Gourhan (1993)

The Acheulean stone axe is one of the earliest known tools created. As far as we are currently aware, the tool can be dated back over 1.8 million years to the extinct species of humans known as Hominis. These prehistoric species were the first of their kind to show advancements in tool-making and the use of fire, their spines were adapted for upright walking, and their brain size was considerably larger than their predecessors.

As humans have evolved over the years, consciousness and technology have followed suit. The Agricultural Revolution that took

Stone Axe diagram. André Leroi-Gourhan, In The Hunters of Prehistory, (1991)

place around 10,000 BCE transitioned us from our hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled farming and agriculture. The Scientific Revolution in the 16th century then fostered logic and objectivity through the sciences. The Digital Revolution in the mid-20th century altered the way in which we interact with the world through the internet and telecommunications. And finally, we have landed on the Information Revolution with the digitization of information and the beginnings of Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence and the Acheulean stone axe are seemingly both products of human interactions with the world but from opposite ends of the material timeline. Both are human technology which changed the way their uses interact with the world. Where is the line between machine and human? And to what extent are our minds embodied by material affordances?

Despite no known formal language, symbolism or stable culture, Hominis were able to ‘produce a stable production of tools for thousands of years.(Tomlinson, 2018, p68) The Acheulean stone axe was a testament to their resourcefulness and evolving cognitive abilities. This simple yet powerful artifact is believed by anthropologists such as Leoir Gourhan to represent the physical embodiment of the knowledge network of our prehistoric ancestors. The physical ‘meeting of body and material world’ in Leroi Gourhan’s proposition of ‘chaine operatore’ described the succession of gestures involved in the creation of Acheulean technologies. The blueprint that allowed the stone stool to be reproduced for thousands of years was embodied in the meeting of social behavoir and material conditions. The stone tool is thought to physically embody the cognition of these early hominins ‘Analysis of Acheulean tools allow us to answer questions inwards towards the brains of the tool makers and out wards towards the sociophysical environments in which the tools were created’ (Tomlinson, 2018, p60).

Katherine Hayles’ work raises parallel issues around embodied cognition, and discusses these issues in relation to the technology dominating an increasing amount of our lives today. Hayles’

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illustrates the complex interrelation of the human mind, technology and the environment through her concept of ‘cognitive assemblages.’

Adopting a post-humanist perspective Hayles (2012) illustrates how technology is not something separate from the human, but instead, human consciousness and technology have co-evolved.

Hayles (2012:9) writes that ‘The digital age has given rise to cognitive assemblages that not only include humans and machines, but also include the infrastructures that support their interactions,’’ in other words, through the concept of assemblages, Hayles (2012) argues the environment, the human and machine are ontologically intertwined. Similarly to how Uexküll argued that the subject and object can not be separated, because our subjective perception directly influences what can be known at any one given time, Hayles argues human consciousness (the subject) can also not be separated from technology (the object). Moreover, as Ingold (2022) argued that humans are embedded in the environment, with the two evolving together, Hayles similarly sees the environment, technology and human consciousness also evolving together through ‘cognitive assemblages.’

One opposing view that Hayles is challenging is technological determinism, this is where technology is naturalised in the sense that it is seen as determining an outcome separate to human consciousness. But as comparison of Axe and AI show- tools evolve with human mind, intent, purpose.

It is not that stone tools are proximities of the mind but something closer to the reverse: mind as an outgrowth of the body-stone relationship. (Tomlinson, 2018, p68).

‘All technology is communication and an extension of ourselves’ (Marshall McLuhan, 1969) that mirrors the human body: vehicles extend our feet, machines extend our hands, podcasts extend our voices etc. Electricity began a new age, wherein humanity stopped simulating the ‘external’ and began replicating the ‘internal’ - the central nervous system. AI, much like our brains, takes basic inputs

in parallel structuring, and creates complex patterns of understanding and interaction:

The human doens’t simply invent tools. The tools invent the human. More precisely, tool and human produce each other. The artifacts that prosthetically expand thought and reach are what make the human human. (Colomina and Wigley, 2022, p52).

There are, however, some obvious material differences between the axe and Artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is an explicit embodiment of cognition today. There has been a shift in the way we interact with the tools through the technological and information revolution. It’s no longer exclusively a ‘physical’ interaction with the material world but a ‘metaphysical’ interaction through nodes of digital networks. AI embodies the pinnacle of these networks of information and cognitive assemblages. The networks are not tangible entities, yet they surround us in unimaginable ways, mediating our actions and interactions. To this extent the machine embodied cognition. It’s important to acknowledge the fact that these technical systems are processing and selecting information for us, as well as acting on that information. In contrast to the axe, which in comparison can be understood as a physical tool, AI is performing and having an effect (Callon et al, 2007). It is this performativity that causes some to worry that the human is out of the loop (Murgia, 2023).

During the first summer of the coronavirus pandemic, a diary entry by K Allado-McDowell initiated an experimental conversation with the AI language model GPT-3. She compiled the conversations and published the first book to be co-created with the emergent AI. The book is called ‘Pharmako AI.’

Phenomenology of Architecture has one and runs on to two lines

The building is not a thing, but a happening.

— Martin Heideggar (2008)

phenomenology

Walking through London’s West End the immense presence of the British Museum unavoidably comes into view. The imposing mass of the building boldly stands its ground, aware of its history and fame, and immediately demands the attention of all those who pass by. Its entrance courtyard is framed by soaring columns as it hosts a multicultural exchange of the many thousands of visitors within. Greek Revivalism carved into the tympanum juxtapose the modernity of Foster’s parametric roof. 44m tall ceilings vitalise the atrium with a flooding of natural light as a bustling atmosphere of social interactions is echoed between the containing walls. A spatial hierarchy invites visitors around the exhibitions, reflecting and reinforcing the narration of the histories on display. Through the manipulation of light and shadows, intimate spaces to heighten concentration or open rooms to inspire awe, are employed to exploit the human senses and influence the user’s phenomenology.

Phenomenology is the ‘study of the structures of experience’ (Heidegger, 1977), the awareness of the subjective reality of our everyday existence and in the built environment, how architecture can ‘shape human perception and behaviour’ (Casey, 1997).

Architecture is an interactive and malleable device that can influence the human on a societal and individual scale. It can

influence spirituality, inspire creativity, produce spaces of comfort and reassure security. It is the foundation of democracy and the catalyst for revolution. Architecture is a powerful tool that can be used to exploit the human sensory experience to produce meaningful spaces. Throughout history, the phenomenology of architecture’s influence can be seen through the introduction of cathedrals – that inspired spirituality across Europe - or the towering presence of palaces – which stood as a country’s beacon of power and authority. In the 21st century, architecture is becoming increasingly influential in the battle against climate change as a focus on sustainability in construction reflects a focus on sustainable living as a collective. Understanding the phenomenology is crucial to producing a built environment that can satisfy our ontological relationship with our surroundings. Utilising the agency of materials promotes our ontological relationship with our planet helping to connect the human with our natural habitat and is rapidly transforming the way in which humans treat resources and sympathise with the ecological landscape. The use of sustainable construction methods is being employed to both tackle the impeding climate crisis and reassure the human with its innate interdependence with nature. The human is also affected on the personal scale as seen through the wider understanding of the physiological and psychological relationships with architecture:

Designing buildings with health in mind can lead to spaces that promote well-being, reduce stress, and improve quality of life.

(Sternberg, 2009)

Architecture has a profound impact on peoples’ lives, thus phenomenology should be intentionally woven throughout the inception of design. Without it, architecture risks producing spaces that feel alienating, and ultimately, create unwelcoming environments that limit the potential of the human. It is in the

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The order in which attention is captured by the human senses, as believed by cinematographer.

Morton

Leonard Heilig

(1992, p. 279-294)

anthropocentric interest of humanity to produce architecture that is aware of its phenomenology.

Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles is a pertinent example of a building that engages and influences the human phenomenology in architecture. The use of stainless steel to produce wave-like facades bend and refract sunlight throughout the day, producing a dynamic and charismatic environment that invites human interaction. Observed from a distance, the building appears to dance in the landscape as its complex geometry shimmers in the sunlight. Up close, the undulations produce pockets of space that interchange in size, inviting adventure around its perimeter and eventually guiding the human into its concert halls as though the building itself is contributing to the performances within. The architecture successfully represents the creativity that it was designed to host, producing an atmosphere that amplifies the phenomenology of freedom and expression found in the world of art. In contrast to the modern deconstructivism of Gehry’s designs, the Roman Pantheon inspires a sense of awe through its mass and intricate interplay of internal light. The Pantheon’s oculus allows the sun to pierce into the central hall and glide around the curved walls, embracing the interconnectedness of nature and architecture to create a sense of transcendence for the human. Finnish architect, Juhani Pallasmaa explains light is ‘not purely a visual phenomenon, but also has an emotional impact on human beings’ (2012, p. 30). The negotiation of human emotion and architectural design is key to producing engaging and soulful environments that transcend generations to inspire cultural change and growth. It is also important to note phenomenology is not only a facet to the grandeur of public buildings but is integral at the individual scale such as the comfort and security of our homes and workplaces. A study by Kathleen Connellan and her associates found light in spaces to be imperative to the ‘biochemical and hormonal body rhythms’ that when optimised, ‘reduce depression, lessen agitation, ease pain and improve sleep’ (2013, p. 136). The phenomenology of architecture has a tangible

influence on the way we exist in our built environment, and it is therefore crucial to be introduced at every design stage of every scale of architecture.

Phenomenology can also be addressed by employing sound and scale, a combination often exercised in places of worship to influence to a spiritual experience. The scale of architecture can be used to elicit a sense of reverence, frequently found in cathedrals to emphasise the magnitude of its religious significance. A Cathedral’s towering internal heights appear to reach for the heavens as though the building has a direct connection to the divine. The sheer scale of these structures can intentionally evoke emotions of humility and unease, reducing the human’s pride to succumb to the importance of spirituality. In this sense, places of worship are a rare example of non-anthropocentric architecture that focuses on the insignificance of the human and the importance of religion. Large internal volumes also produce opportunity for sound to reverberate around the halls, creating a sense of spaciousness and grandeur while heightening the significance of the speaker. Sound is key to our sensory experience of a space as it works as an invisible measurement of scale while also serving as an ontological interaction between the human the surrounding objects. The relationship between architecture and the human sensory experience of a space is crucial to the human phenomenology of the built environment, as Pallasmaa explains, ‘I confront the city with my body ... I experience myself in the city, and the city exists through my embodied experience. The city and my body supplement and define each other. I dwell in the city and the city dwells in me’ (2012, p5). Thus, it is crucial for sound and scale to be thoroughly integrated in the design of architecture in order to inform the human phenomenology of the built environment and produce satisfying spaces that encourage the engagement of the human and its ontological reality.

The phenomenology of architecture should be considered from the inception of design. The human sensory experience is continuously active and should be exploited to fuel inspiration and create

meaningful spaces that can further improve our built environment. Employing the agency of materials, the influence of sound, the impression of scale and the fluidity of light, should be integral to the progress of architecture and woven throughout future developments.

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Semiotourisme and runs on to two

Amidst the proliferation of fast media, interpretation no longer unfolds along sequential lines; instead, it follows associative spirals and asignifying connections.

— Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi (2009, p112)

the background world

Hollowness is in style; everything has become a representation of an unattainable reality. Without any directions, or any specific destination, we have become full-time tourists forced into navigating around landscapes saturated with signifying representations. This is Semiotoursim.

Picture a spiderweb with no clear centre, axis or sense of scale. Now on this model, superimpose the subject - a spider - that is aggressively weaving and re-weaving , editing and cutting, destroying and re-building upon pre-existing structures. It is a perpetual mode of intense collaboration with the spiderweb and its material qualities. In this example, structures are constantly edited much like meaning and signification mutates, evolves and displaces itself today in the semiotic world we currently find ourselves inhabiting.

Welcome to the precarious postmodern condition, but let’s talk about how we arrived here in the first place. With the rise of industrial capitalism in the early 19th century, factories and production assembly lines were the main source of generating capital through the means of manufacturing material goods. This model was dependant on workers dedicating a certain amount of time in order to complete tasks in exchange for a monetary wage.

Cents, Andreas Gursky, 1999

There was clarity in what needed to be achieved in order to produce something of material. This clarity slowly turned cloudy.

At a later point when technological transformations occurred, something interesting happened. Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi describes a changeover from what was once industrial capitalism into ‘semiocapitalism’; a mutation which re-shuffled its focus of production towards ‘the sphere of semiotic goods: the info-sphere.’ (2009, p. 44) The info-sphere became the landscape in which signs, media and information resided, having a direct relationship with humans who absorb and hold ability to comprehend their meaning. As digital infrastructures accelerated, so did the info-sphere together with the speed of producing signs, symbols and information creating a potent form of tension not only in the economy, but in humans trying to interpret signification.

Berardi coins two terms which relate to this tension: cyberspace relating to the ‘infinite productivity of collective intelligence in a networked dimension’ (2009, p. 44) and cybertime as the ‘mental time that is necessary to elaborate info-stimuli coming from cyberspace.’ (2009, p. 143) This contradiction between the infinite nature of cyberspace and finite of cybertime, is what he defines as the root of contemporary chaos. The age of semiocapitalism has taught us that more information does not necessarily mean more meaning in fact, the opposite, meaning becomes unreachable and unprocessable to the average human being. They are in a mutually destructive relationship.

This destructive relationship manifests itself in a particular song by Nine Inch Nails titled The Background World (2017). It contains an idea of time and its finite nature being stretched to its limits. Roughly around the fourth minute, the repetitive lyrics: ‘are you sure, this is what you want’ (2017) together with the steady instrumental rhythm suddenly come to a violent stop at which the song self destructs.

Vocals disappear altogether, and the instrumental continues to loop itself 52 times perhaps suggesting a reference to the limited amount of weeks in a year. Each loop becomes a progressively more distorted version of its predecessor, ending in an unrecognisable

stream of noise bearing no relation to the original. It is possible this song is a sonic translation of what Jean Baudrillard would refer to as the mutation images or representations evolve to: the stages of the sign. (1981, p. 6) The image begins with reflecting reality through a faithful copy. It then distorts it by masking reality. At the third stage, it unravels an absence of reality, and finally at the fourth stage, announces that it bears no relation to reality whatsoever.

The simulacrum is never that which hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true.

(Baudrillard 1981, p. 1)

Through this constant process of imitating, the image becomes a vessel containing minimal traces of meaning, detaching itself from the original and creating something which one is unable to distinguish wether it is real or imagined. The song exists in a purely constructed hyperreality, like most of the objects, products and artefacts we see in front of us on a daily basis.

So let’s ask the question we are all sensing is present, when did reality lose meaning? In the chapter ‘The Implosion of Meaning in the Media’ (Baudrillard, 1981 p. 79) we learn that the relationship between meaning and information is sortable into the following three hypothesis:

Either information produces meaning, but cannot make up for the brutal loss of signification in every domain. Or information has nothing to do with signification. It is something else, an operational model of another order, outside meaning and of the circulation of meaning strictly speaking. Or, very much on the contrary, there is a rigorous and necessary correlation between the two, to the extent that information is directly destructive of meaning and signification, or that it neutralises them.

(Baudrillard, 1981 p. 79)

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From the trio, the latter statement confirms the most frightening condition: with the rise of information exchange, we are not getting nearer to meaning - it is not a proportional relationship. Rather, information becomes an overly simplified means of constructing a false reality rather than exchanging any meaning. This marks the death of modernity.

Baudrillard presents traditional outdoor markets belonging to a time before modernity decayed. (1981, p. 75) With their highly centralised nature - located in the core of towns and villages around the world - outdoor markets were places where merchants would exchange highly specialised products for capital. Life revolved around them, however, at a certain point arrived a new type of markets.

Ones containing fluorescent lights, conditioned air and right angled shelving units holding vividly coloured products with long life spans printed on their front and sides. Hypermarkets - Tescos, LIDL and Asda’s - truly marked the death of modernity according to Baudrillard. They dislodge themselves from the city centres, bleeding out into metro areas - ‘a completely delimited functional urban zoning,’ (Baudrillard, 1981, p. 77) shopping malls and airports like a parasite. At a certain point - although blurry - the hypermarkets admiration of simulating the perfected version of the traditional market ends in a catastrophe - all life which at once was present in their eyes, has vanished. They exist in a reality, but one at the furthest point away from ours. They become a part of a hyperreality, a collection of entities containing no past and no future.

The photograph titled 99 cent by Andreas Gursky (1999) depicts the seriality of arrangement inside the typical hypermarket.

Ryegrass Lawn

Lawns, it seems to me, are against nature, barren and often threadbare - the enemy of a good garden. For the same trouble as mowing, you could have a year’s vegetables: runner beans, cauliflowers and cabbages, mixed with pinks and peonies, shirley poppies and delphiniums; wouldn’t that beautify the land and save us from the garden terrorism that prevails?

— Derek Jarman (1995, p50)

A rich green all year round, aside from months of drought, the ryegrass lawn dominated the garden landscape, occupying at least half of the ground. When we were younger, the grass hosted paddling pools, trampolines, and swings; it was the field we camped on and the land we cartwheeled along. Now, the lawn mostly lays empty, aside from the occasional washing line draped around its perimeter. Looking east to west from the top floor window, the lawn was not just confined to our garden but duplicated, in various forms, along the length of the street, forming a patchwork of green between the houses of London’s suburbia.

The lawn is not a recent phenomenon, it has been a part of human-made landscapes since the neolithic revolution. In the age of hunter gatherers, life on earth existed symbiotically; ‘the landscape was formed, once and for all time, through activities of theriomorphic beings, ancestral to humans as well as to all other living things, who roamed the earth’s surface.’ (Ingold, 2000, p. 52) – but with the arrival of agricultural communities, nature was there to be claimed, tamed and owned, as land was packaged and segregated for animal grazing and planting, which lead to the birth of the lawn (Macinnis, 2009, p. 37).

During the renaissance period, the lawn began to evolve into two different types: the utility lawn and the luxury lawn. The lower classes occupied ‘utility lawns,’ which were an asset for their own survival, the grasses simply serving the purpose of production, with no aesthetic consideration (Macinnis, 2009, p. 45). Whereas, for the upper classes the lawn was the backdrop for fine dining, music and games; the evenly cut grass and immaculately trimmed edges a reminder of the capital needed for its maintenance. With the ability to spare such swathes of land for frivolous activities like lounging on a lawn, the upper classes had shaped the lawn into a symbol for their wealth, power and control (Macinnis, 2009, p. 50).

The lawn as I know it, an element in a middle-class garden, evolved following the emergence of suburbia during the industrial revolution. The rapid boom in population and improved transport connections, enabled new communities of middle and lower-middle class citizens to live on the outskirts of the city, whilst still working in the city centre. This created a clear separation between ‘work’ and ‘life’ according to socialist theorist Raymond Williams (1987, p. 213) , in which the ‘suburban home created a cosy refuge from the hectic, cutthroat economic activity of the city, not reacting against industrial capitalism but creating a spatially separate zone of familial love and comfort that was exempt from capitalism’s influence.’

The ’Suburban’s’ who occupied suburbia, according to C.F.G Masterman in ‘The condition of England’ formed an inward-looking section of society, conservative in their views and apathetic to the class conflict happening around them. Masterman described them as:

They are easily forgotten for they do not strive or cry; and for the most part only ask to be left alone. They have none of those channels of communication in their possession by which the rich and the poor can express their hostility to any political or social change. … No one fears the Middle Classes, the suburban’s and perhaps for that reason, no one respects them, … they lack organisation, energy, and ideas. They

form a homogeneous civilisation – detached, self-centred, unostentatious … It is a life of Security; a life of Sedentary occupation; a life of Respectability. (Masterman,1909, p. 6–65)

For the suburbans, the ownership of a suburban home was presented as the reward for their hard work, and for Walter Benjamin, an escape from the conditions of life in a capitalist system, setting up the logic that ‘you work so you afford a place where you can forget how horrible work is.’ (Johnston-Schlee, 2022, p. 12). The suburban home became the stage set for a dream world beyond the conditions of everyday life, a fantasy concealing reality, made up of the ownership of commodity. Embodying the aesthetic of the bourgeoise in their homes, the suburban’s got to indulge in the idea of a society where the ruling class ceased to exist, and property ownership did not imply a lifetime of work (Johnston-Schlee, 2022, p. 15).

Gardens were seen as an extension of the home in suburbia and the main feature of the middle-class garden was the lawn, ‘bordered by shrubberies, flower beds, [and] fruit trees...the garden provided a strong visual confirmation of the middle-class ideal.’ (Macinnis, 2009, p. 41). The neatly mowed grasses were an ode to the renaissance gardens of the English upper class; allowing the suburban’s to create an illusion of wealth and prosperity on their small patch of land. With it’s careful framing, the lawn provided a ‘suitably grand stage to display one’s own house’ (Pollan, 1989) and capture the admiration of the street; its uniformity and consistency a part of the silent convention amongst suburban’s, that garden should be neat and tidy with the homeowner never establishing a relationship of any substance with the land. (Pollan, 1989).

By keeping the lawn, a mere two inches tall, through winter and summer, fertilising to keep it green and re-seeding the moment a patch begins to fade, the suburban garden submits fully and uncompromisingly to human control. In Michael Pollan’s 1989 essay ‘Why Mow? The case against lawns’ he divulges this controlling

relationship between middle class suburbia and the lawn; he says:

Mowing the lawn, I felt like I was battling the earth rather than working it; each week it sent forth a green army and each week I beat it back with my infernal machine. Unlike every other plant in my garden, the grasses were anonymous, massified, deprived of any change or development whatsoever, not to mention any semblance of selfdetermination. I ruled a totalitarian landscape. (Pollan, 1989)

But perhaps, in our garden the lawn is controlling us as much as we are controlling the lawn. Culturally, the lawn is a device which semiotically conveys values of submission and homogeneity among the middle classes; the lawn directing us to continue the cycle of uniformity and suppression to the ideas set out by the governing elite. Using Foucault theories from ‘Discipline and Punish’ (1979) the lawn in all its visibility, could be perceived as a form of disciplinary power since Foucault states that power is not just held by individuals or institutions but present across society through cultural practices:

Their visibility assures the hold of the power that is exercised over them. It is this fact of being constantly seen, of being able always to be seen, that maintains the disciplined individual in his subjection. And the examination is the technique by which power, instead of emitting the signs of its potency, instead of imposing its mark on its subjects, holds them in a mechanism of objectification. In this space of domination, disciplinary power manifests its potency, essentially by arranging objects. The examination is, as it were, the ceremony of this objectification. (Foucault, 1979, p. 30)

Roots and Simulacra

The enslavement of a natural form by human thought says more about political and social structures and hierarchies of human knowledge than it does about the mind itself.

— Matteo Pasquinelli (2020, p208)

the symbol of roots

Symbolic appropriation of the arborescent image is not limited to the more accessible trunk-branch section of a tree. Root networks, or abstracted equivalents, have been as widely adopted in the terminology of economic and psychological theory as they have in the depictions of religious and political agenda.

Tree roots are borrowed to represent a depth in knowledge (Fig. 1) steadiness, strength, and our connection to the earth as the human species, in most cases abridging a profound reality in favour of representative simplification.

By nature of our above-ground existence, we are far less familiar with the organisation of these buried roots than we are with the visible branches of a tree. The true arrangement of these complex networks would remain beyond our comprehension without the work of individuals such as Dr. John Weaver, who would carve out tonnes of earth to accurately map the complex root networks of hundreds of plant species, presenting us with a representation of their reality. Is the widespread acceptance of these accurate representations productive? How might we avoid the pitfalls of those representations which might appear real?

Fig. 3: Diagram from ‘Understanding Roots’ (Kourik, 2015)

Jean Baudrillard’s idea of the ‘simulacra’ (1981) believes that in modern society, we are inundated with a multitude of signs and symbols so far removed from their original essence, that they represent a completely new version of a subject in their own right. Their uptake so widely accepted, and representation so tangible as its own entity, that a hyper-reality is created, in which a skewed representation replaces the original profound reality.

Navigating the irony of our subject, roots, we must exhume the simulacra present in even the most unabstracted of its representations. What tactics might this subject deploy to manifest its denatured reality among society?

simulacrum 2:

disneyland as a case study

Referring to Disneyland, Baudrillard illustrates the culmination of many simulacra (and their respective orders of disguise) (1981, p. 12), which he believes reflects one of the most powerful hyper-realities of the time. He sets out the tactics of the simulation, stating that Disneyland ‘rejuvenate(s) the fiction of the real in the opposite camp’ (p. 13).

Countless similar examples exist in our world, forty years on, and whilst Disneyland marks itself the force to be reckoned with, we must be wary of its allies.

Reinforcing those other simulacra which act undercover (including our subject, roots), Disneyland threads together its simulation, declaring it a simulation. What it cannot anticipate, however, is the effect its tactics has on those in attendance. Whilst Baudrillard claims that guests do not come in ignorance of the simulation, its popularity is so great, denatured reality so strong, it has the effect to quell those who might otherwise revolt. So, aware of

their presence in a simulation, those in attendance endorse its cause. Might we uncover a similar tactic in that of our lesser known subject?

In roots, then, we face the regiments behind the sacrificial Disneyland, or specifically, those compact highly skilled regiments containing only a select few with the most sophisticated tactics - in this case, obscurity and accuracy. These regiments are followed only by the sciences. Where this unabstracted representational simulacra strikes our ignorant defence, the result is an undetectable agent exposed only through an awareness of their presence, but protected by our inability to place it.

the subject’s disguise

It is our ignorance of a profound reality that renders us an easy target. For where we previously knew nothing, a comprehensive denatured version is presented to us with an accuracy equivalent to representations typical of scientific disciplines - those that we trust without thought. The resolution of these representations convey a far greater certainty than any of their simplified symbolic counterparts. Grid lines and scale bars strike our critical weakness, evoking those aspects which we rely on for the very foundation of society. A flicker of doubt is provoked only by small stylistic interventions and errors in line weight, features not often present in the accurate representations of scientific information. If we are in search of a simulacra, it is these small mistakes only, which come close to giving away the opponent’s game. But there lies another layer to our subject’s disguise.

The critical power of the moderns lies in [their ability to] mobilize Nature at the heart of social relationships, even as they leave Nature infinitely remote from human beings’ (Latour, 1993, p. 37)

Where does this place, then, a subject like ours?

Tangled between an obscurity in our tangible world (Kourik, R. 2015) and the readily deployed ammunition of the Constitution (Latour, 1993), we are confronted with a unique case. We have acknowledged the sophistication in its disguise (our nescience paired with its accuracy), but we must also recognise its more reliable methods of manifestation.

If Nature is as agile within the Constitution as Latour (1993) gives it credit - simultaneously transcendent and distant - we are in the presence of a dangerous simulacra. Its position within Nature and in turn, the construction of Society, renders it a highly skilled ally of the simulation. The attractiveness in its previously obscured knowledge targets a most foundational aspect of human relations, to such an extent that the product is similar to the denial manifest in those attending Disneyland.

An urge to take this simulacra as reality strikes deep within our pursuit of knowledge/apparent ‘[t]otal knowledge’ (Latour, 1993, p. 36) and we want nothing other than to share this new-found reality - we have been turned by the very double agent we discovered!

simplification for intellectual gain?

What succeeds, then, despite knowledge of its falsification, is our willing dissemination of its reality. Similar to Disneyland in its ability to turn the opposition, we are recruited (albeit on a less revolutionary scale) to further strengthen its case, now complicit in the masking of a profound reality. To share this knowledge of the widely unknown is to strengthen one’s own intellectual position, whether within horticulture, architecture, or those disciplines which continue to appropriate simplified forms of root networks (unlikely!). Emerging as (often fetishised) kernels of obscure information, we knowingly promote a denatured hyperreality for our own gain. It is our own pursuit of total knowledge, then, which becomes the most powerful weapon of our opposition. Are we in control of our own simulation?

Endorsing and promoting these realities which, whether known to us or not, are far removed from a phenomena once real, is commonplace among technical disciplines. Where the opportunity arises, accurate representation of that which is beyond us strengthens our position, bringing us ever closer to total knowledge and a completion of the sciences. How best, then, to avoid this trap?

remaining in the unknown

Let us return to those simplified symbolic representations across other disciplines. Do they succeed in masking a profound reality?

They certainly do not try to convey their subjects’ essence accurately. Their deliberate ignorance is our best chance of success in these cases. Showing us that they hold no resemblance to what is real, by simplifying their form into something not natural, is their proof of allegiance. What can we learn then, from these symbolic representations, in the realm of the more technical disciplines?

A pursuit of knowledge through representation is prevalent within the sciences and other subjects which demand a visible accuracy. Drawings, photographs, and other forms of imagery strive for a profound reality, but never achieve it. Authors endorse denatured realities, falling victim to false accuracy in their representation, strengthening the case of the opposition and in turn, a hyper-reality. We cannot ever hope to side solely with our own cause. Caught unaware, we make mistakes, and where a simulacra targets our most vulnerable aspects - for example, those identified as transcendent or in the realm of a pursuit of total knowledge - we act as a double agent. So resolutely manifest among the society of this age, the simulation has infiltrated all aspects of our culture. Forty years after Baudrillard wrote his ‘Simulacra and Simulation’ (1981), our productivity continues to increases, exponentially. Forms of representation, both digital and analogue, are what we now live by and through (Haraway, 1991). Whilst the temptation is to suggest that

the simulation has become our new profound reality, surrendering too soon has consequences.

Learning from those forms of representation which present themselves more clearly as denatured is productive. We can adopt similar tactics to avoid the traps set by those accurate, skilled agents of the simulation which have the ability to mask an (often obscure) profound reality. But, perhaps crucially, we should be wary of an urge to pursue total knowledge, accepting our position within a realm that should sometimes remain unknown. We should be wary of an urge represent everything.

Saving Tongues

The language represents the way of thinking of a people. — United Nations (nd)

the importance of language

Sounds of one, heard, but not understood by another. These sounds encase tradition and communication, stories and wisdom and knowledge. But what will it mean when they are gone? Tongues tied and steeped in history cease to speak, stopped by those that did not care to use them, save them. And with it a history is lost and silence falls on deaf ears and mouths unable to utter a single word of that language.

Situated off the eastern coast of Greece, lies a small island called Evia. The island’s mountainous landscape is enrobed with lush greenery and surrounded by the bluest of seas. While distinct valleys and ravines separate one mountain from the next, allowing a distinct geographical landscape to emerge, settlements line the steep slopes of the mountains. On Mount Ochi, a tiny village remains with only 37 inhabitants and within it, one of the rarest languages at risk of extinction in the world (Stein, 2017).

The language, known as sfyria, is a unique language made up of whistles. Informed by the landscape, the language has been in existence for the last two thousand years, used by shepherds to allow

the whistling language of sfyria

Stein, E. (2017) photograph of Zografio Kalogirou, the best whistler in town [photograph]. N.D: BBC Travel

them to communicate over the long distances of the valleys due to the whistles being louder and allowing sound to travel further than ordinary speech. The whistles themselves are made from the enunciation of the Greek language, with certain letters and syllables corresponding to certain whistled frequencies (Stein, 2017). In this manner, those who understand and speak sfyria can create complex sentences to travel long distances, up to 4km, across the hillsides (Stein, 2017).

Sadly, now only 6 people remain who can speak the language. Many of the older generation of speakers have passed away or remain unable to whistle due to losing their teeth. This leaves the weight of the burden to keep the language alive on the younger generations. However, many of the younger generations born in Antia have moved away from the village to seek work elsewhere, leaving a depleted number of younger or able people there to continue the language’s legacy. The necessity for this unique language has changed over time; while in the past it was used as a means of survival for those in the hills, now there is an urgency to save and revive the language for cultural preservation purposes.

why do languages become extinct?

In addition to the spread of younger generations leaving a place where a language is spoken, other factors can also lead to the increased rarity or extinction of a language. Usually, the dominance of a more universally used language can mean that indigenous languages are less widely used. This problem has been exacerbated by increased globalisation which has meant that universal languages have infiltrated even the most remote locations on the planet (Kramer, 2000, p. 10). For indigenous people, they may prefer to use the universal language due to its modern appeal, or push their children to use it to ensure that they have better job prospects in the future (Fernando, Valijärvi and Goldstein, 2010, p. 48). In more unsafe

territories, indigenous speakers may be victimised for speaking their native tongue making it unsafe to do so. This therefore means that if the universal language is prioritised, minority languages become increasingly under-used leading to their potential extinction.

I Not only is the preservation of a language arguably a human right, language acts to preserve the culture, identity and knowledge of those who speak them. As the oral language pre-dates the written language, with only one third of languages existing with a written system, there is information such as songs, poems and stories which can only be conserved through oral language itself (Nuwer, 2014). One may argue, why not translate said stories and poems into a language which is more better-known so that it can be preserved more easily? Although translation is one way in which information from a language can be archived, inevitably, this process could neglect the subtleties and nuances specific to that language, losing key information contributing to its meaning. Often there are words in one language which do not exist in another. For example the word ‘hygge’ in Danish means ‘a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).’ (Hygge definitionGoogle Search, 2023). However, in English we do not posess the same word, only our equivalent definition for it. By allowing endangered languages to disappear, we risk losing ways of interpreting human behaviour and emotion (Nuwer, 2014).

Archiving languages is a means to preserving a language and ensuring that information is stored once a language’s oral existence becomes extinct, however, a more active approach can be employed prior to this to reduce the risk of extinction. Language maintenance and language revitalisation should be employed together in order to ensure the prosperity of a minority language. Language revitalisation

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seeks to increase the number of speakers and the domains in which the language is spoken, while language maintenance ensures that adequate support is given to ensure the language is still being spoken.

Language revitalisation and maintenance can be employed through the use of mother-tongue teachings, immersive education and intergenerational transmission. With these techniques in place, it is possible for an endangered language to be utilised used and cherished as part of traditional culture once more. In employing methods to keep endangered languages alive, we are showing a respect towards the language itself and the speakers of it, thus preserving cultural tradition, knowledge and stories with it for generations to come.

The perception of a ‘Pollutant’: On Ecocriticism and Environmental Racism

‘Weed’ is not a botanical classification, it merely denotes the wrong kind of plant in the wrong place. Eliminating weeds is obviously a ‘problem in gardening,’ but defining weeds in the first place requires a cultural, not horticultural, analysis. Likewise ‘pollution’ is an ecological problem because it does not name a substance or class of substances, but rather represents an implicit normative claim that too much of something is present in the environment, usually in the wrong place.

— Greg Garrard (2012, p. 6)

When reading about the lives of the small Paraguayan tribe, the Guayaki Indians, in Pierre Clastre’s The Chronicles of the Guayaki Indians (1998), it is not totally unimaginable to consider the rituals they undertake to be insensitive and sometimes brutal. When a mother gives birth in the tribe she sits on a bed of ferns and palm leaves, with a stake in the ground in between her legs, and a dramatically stationed group of Atchei surrounding her. She pulls on this stake to work with muscular movements to deliver the ‘fall’ of the child, an entire birthing process which is done in complete silence, without the uttering of the slightest moan. The surrounding Atchei do not say a word, ‘Nothing could be read on their attentive faces, and not even a smile came to their lips’ (Clastre, 1934, p. 17). For our society this could easily be in- terpreted as a cold-hearted lack of compassion for an event that would most commonly be associated

with joy, powerful emotion and family gathering around. In reality, the Indian’s reaction to the birth of the child is an equal act of love and protection, for if they were to make a sin- gle noise or alarm, this would alert the deadly forest dwellers who would locate, and hunt down the young prey to kill him. What may seem an insensitive lack of emotion to our society, is in fact an act of love. Even the social norms we obey around something seemingly obvious as a woman giving birth, is not set in scientific fact. (Clastre, 1998, pp. 15-59)

Ecocriticism is the ‘study of the shifting perception of the environment in its relationship between literature, culture and the natural world’ (Glotfelty, 1996, p. xix) including how social inequalities and power structures affect the way we interact with nature. The ecocritic accepts that ecology is a moving target. It’s not a static thing, and is in fact dynamic and shifting as the result of ongoing interaction between human beings and their surroundings, as well as between nonhuman beings and their surroundings. Australian philosopher John Passmore argues that ecological problems are not solely scientific issues, and that they in fact require broader social and political discussions, stating, ‘Prob- lems in ecology, then, are properly scientific issues, to be resolved by the formulation and testing of hypotheses in ecological experiments. Ecological problems, on the other hand, are features of our society, arising out of our dealings with nature, from which we should like to free ourselves, and which we do not regard as inevitable consequences of what is good in that society.’ (Passmore, 1974, p. 44). Describing something as an ‘ecological problem’ makes a normative claim about how we would wish things to be, and ‘while this arises out of the claims of ecological scientists, it is not defined by them’ (Garrard, 2012, p. 6).

One such example of an ecological problem affected by our shifting perception of the natural world is our understanding of pollution. The term ‘pollution’ has been expanded and utilised in many forms, to the extent of the inclusion of light and noise as pollutants. Likewise, car- bon dioxide is considered a pollutant,

Broken Spectre Still

Richard Mosse

despite being naturally occurring in vast quantities (Garrard, 2012, p. 13) Suggesting that pollution is not an objective fact of nature, but rather a moral and cultural category that reflects our values and beliefs about the environment.

Being affected by cultural, social and historical factors, pollution is perceived in different ways across the world, and can in turn be viewed as a social justice issue. The term ‘environmental racism’ describes a form of systemic racism whereby marginalised communities are dispro-portionately burdened with the impact of environmental hazards due to systemic inequalities and their lack of political and economic power, which force them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste and pollution (Beech, 2023, para. 2). Professor Edward O. Wilson states that, ‘Environmental pollution is the toxic by-product of civilisation’s headlong pursuit of progress, a blight that falls disproportionately on the poor and the powerless.’ (Wilson, 2002, p. 133). This is laid bare in the distressing capture of Delhi’s extreme pollution and its consequences on its inhabitants in the film Invisible Demons (2021), in which disturbing images of thick clouds of smog engulf the city and patients gasp for breath into oxygen masks. As put by the reporter in the film ‘10% of all deaths that year are due to air pollution... and the ones most af- fected are the homeless who are outside day in, day out, they breathe this toxic, poisonous air’ (Invisible Demons, 2021). For many people, pollution is perceived as an unavoidable consequence of economic development, something that affects all people regardless of class or race. However, this highlights a failure to acknowledge the disproportionate negative consequences that affect poorer countries, exacerbat- ing existing social inequalities and highlighting the differing consequences of the pursuit of development.

Similarly, despite the adverse impacts of extractive and polluting industries on local communities, these communities may be forced to rely on them for economic sustenance.

Richard Mosse’s exhibition Broken Spectre (2023), is an immersive video installation depicting the devastating ecological narratives in the Brazilian Amazon

rainforest, emerging most prominently in the three years since Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency in 2019. Particularly poignant narratives in the film include the industrial agriculture of beef and leather industries along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, where millions of cattle are farmed to meet global demand for leather seats in our cars, or cheap beef in places like Burger King (Milner, 2022). Or the cinematic depiction of environmental crimes of illegal mining, logging and burning of the rainforest biome. Local people engaging in these industries are sustaining a livelihood that for ‘viewers in the West can feel very far away’ (Mosse, 2022, quoted in Milner, 2022, para. 22). It is ironic that these very same Western nations have benefited from development that relied on these heavily polluting and extractive forces in the past. Timothy Luke (1997) states that, ‘If we correlate wilderness consciousness with social classes we can see that the antimodern, future primitive condemnation of industrial human civilisation by many deep ecologists is contradictory, in the social forms of life that generate this consciousness’ (Luke, 1997, p. 21). In other words, the values and perspectives that lead people to reject modern society and embrace a more primitive or natural way of life against extractive and polluting practices, are themselves shaped by modern society. And are indeed more likely to reap the rewards of a modernised world.

Perceptions of pollution can also be shaped by cultural and historical factors. In many indigenous communities, pollution is seen as a vio- lation of the sacred relationship between humans and the environment. In Hinduism, the river Ganges is considered a sacred and purifying body of water, and the act of bathing in the river is believed to wash away sins and confer spiritual benefits.

Despite high levels of pollution in the river, many Hindus continue to view it as a sacred and life-giving force. From an ecocritical perspective, this highlights the importance of understanding the cultural and spiritual dimensions of environmental issues and recognising the diversity of perspectives on pollution and its impacts.

By examining the ways in which pollution is perceived and

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experienced differently in alternative communities and regions, we can gain an understanding of the factors that contribute to our individual perception of the natural environment. Ecology itself is shifting and what may seem like a ‘purely scientific problem’ (Passmore, 1974, p. 44) of pollution, is in fact an object for cultural analysis. We cannot restore the environment without first restoring justice to our economic and social systems, and to restore justice to our social systems we must begin to acknowledge and seek to change the systems that allow for the most marginalised populations to be the ones who bear the heaviest brunt of environmental degradation. The larger social and cultural narrative must be more compassionate to the great variety of human and non-human beings that inhabit the world together, because ecological justice is deeply entwined with social justice. We must not only tackle the technical aspects of emissions reductions and adaptation, but also the social aspects that perpetuate poverty, inequality, and injustice.

Katherine Yousof speaks to poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands in her book A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Jet- nil-Kijiner states ‘these two issues- theyre so much bigger than us, nuclear issues and climate change and yet we [the Marshall Islands] are at that crossroad.’ (Laubscher, 2017, quoted in Yusoff, 2018, [no pagination]).

Ecofeminism 2: On Agriculture

Who nourishes and who is nourished? I take a seed, lay it calmly in its bed, cover it with a blanket of earth. In its silence, it promises me I will see it again, when its flesh is soft and its skin ripe. I have nourished, will be nourished.

— Indigo Leveson-Gower (2023)

The apple trees were coming into bloom, but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit. The roadsides were lined with brown and withered vegetation, and were silent, too, deserted by all living things.

— Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (1962).

I yawn in my chair and decide I need some sustenance to continue writing. In my kitchen I open my cupboard, reaching inside and rooting around for something to eat. Plastic wrapped crisps, tinned beans, little sweets in coloured paper; all seem so pristine and unknowing. It is hard to imagine they were ever plants in a field. Here on this shelf is a landing point, a final stop on their long journey. I imagine all the packets of food speaking of their travels, swapping stories of cargo containers and sorting machines. As I rip open the crisp packet a puff of air is released, I bite down and apologise for not having listened.

Perception of Agriculture

The countryside, it conjures up such beauty and honesty, the likes of William Blake and Wordsworth colouring our perception. The rolling fields of Britain; of ‘green and pleasant lands,’ nourished and propped up by honest work and honest hands. Without much critique, we visit, we frolic, and we romanticise this place, for it has been like this as long as we remember. My question is: what if this view was distorted? What lies beneath our perception of this ‘nature?’ The landscape of Britain has been profoundly shaped by agricultural practices: there is so little that we have not touched, not changed and bent to our will. Despite our romanticisation, we have a skewed relationship with nature, one that sees ourselves as separate and above. We wish to love but we merely control, and this, I argue, has led to environmental destruction. What influences our relationship, and how can rethink or reframe this? If the goal of environmentalism is to facilitate a significant connection with the natural world and promote behaviours that are more attuned to ecological concerns, then what role does language play? Just as we shape language, can language shape us? John Austin examines this is How To

Do Things

With Words, coining ‘locutionary force’: the core meaning of a word and the ‘illocutionary force’ which is what is achieved by saying a word (Austin, 1962). The ‘illocutionary force’ of ‘wilderness’ led to destruction. Could we transfer this to how we speak on matters of the environment: the perceived meaning of these terms, and what is actually achieved?

Ecofeminist Theory

Ecofeminist theory argues that sciences and technology are inherently linked with gender and our perception of nature has been heavily altered by ‘capitalist patriarchy or ‘modern’ civilization.’ An example of this can be seen with the Darwinian scientific theory of the competitive nature of evolution, with the ultimate goal of reproduction(Richards, 2005). This fits within and influences the capitalist patriarchal world system by excluding queer narratives and

subjecting women to being defined by their natural reproductivity. The ‘sex-gender system’ and the naturalisation of women creates a dynamic where ‘women are mere breeding stock subordinated to protective male figures.’ (Carroll, 2019).This hinges on the concept of Nature versus culture, with culture associated as a purely human trait and therefore having hierarchy over nature. Historically, men are seen as ‘fully human and enfranchised’ whereas women are closer to the earth; natural, and therefore below. Ecofeminist theory essentially proposes that by rethinking the subordination of women to men, you must therefore rethink the subordination of culture to nature, thus disavowing human exceptionalism (Shiva and Mies, 2014). When applied fully and without bias, this feminist theory redefines the hierarchy of non-humans and humans and creates a horizontal world view. This theory of horizontality, and equality with the non-human could lead to a more loving and mutually beneficial relationship with ‘nature’ (Morgan, 1972).

Farming represents man’s first battle over ‘nature’: the bending and stilling of the environment led to the settling of humanity on land, away from its hunter gatherer origins. This led to two main benefits: a buffering against the environment due to stable food resources and less time foraging. (Schultz et al, 2022). However, It has also led to environmental degradation. Agriculture is not inherently an unnatural or bad thing. In fact, the practice of ‘farming’ can be seen in humans and non-humans alike: nature includes mushroom farming termites (Mueller and Gerardo, 2002). Nevertheless, the rise in large scale industrial agriculture has seen humanity push through the perceived ‘limitations’ of nature in the name of ‘progress.’ (Tsing, 2025). Heidegger writes of how modern technology sees the world as ‘Standing Reserve’ with everything potential for our exploitation (Heidegger, 1954). Today, overwhelmingly agriculture is rooted in practices of toxic chemicals, monoculture, and genetic modification to maximize yields at the expense of biodiversity, soil health, and human health. (Shiva and Mies 2014). This is not only unsustainable but deeply rooted in the ‘capitalist patriarchy’s’ need to conquer and

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extract from land. It is essential to rethink this methodology in order to maintain human and nonhuman life.

We must look to the future, and reshape this narrative of control and extraction in our agriculture practices. But before we look to the future, we should examine the past. The new women’s movement, of the late 19th and early 20th century was a radical rethinking of women’s role in agriculture and can be taken as an interesting and influential example of ‘woman ecologies’ in farming practices. We must bear in mind that this was a movement of middleclass women only, and was not applied equally and fairly to society. However, the lessons in the empowerment of women’s freedom through farming practices, alongside new perspectives in how we interact with nature still ring true in contemporary society and when applied without bias could meaningfully benefit our ecological relationships.

Olive J. Cockerell and Helen Nussey were two members of the new women’s movement who in 1909 published ‘A French garden in England: a record of the successes and failures of a first year of intensive culture’ that documents their foray into alternative and gendered agriculture (Nussey and Cockerell, 1909). Cockerell and Nussey created a smallholding that played with and ‘erode(d) distances between culture and nature, fantasy and reality, the present and the future, the city and the country’ creating a new ecology that questions the hierarchy between species and values ‘new ways of dwelling with non-humans,’ or their ‘creature Comrades.’ The practical ways that this philosophy played out was through ‘intensive culture,’ a way of growing that juxtaposed the accepted rule of monoculture by planting companion species, growing in small spaces, seasonal planting and growing plants of shapes and sizes ‘not what we are usually accustomed to.’ (Carroll, 2019). This focused on ‘mutual aid’ within ecology and farming, opposing the

accepted Darwinian theory of competition of species, as well as working with the rhythms of nature without pushing its limits. This narrative within feminist theory of a new relationship between ‘nature and culture’ persist today; Donna Haraway a feminist and ecological philosopher, some 100 years later, wrote the story of Camille, hypothesising on a new movement of humanity in which we become integrated into nature unlike ever before. (Haraway, 2016). Creating new ‘kinships’ with species and ‘cyborgs’ of human and non-human. Cockerell and Nussey developed a new ‘kinship’ within growing practices and used this to create a new way of living in a male dominant society.

Our perception of nature has been heavily influenced by capitalist patriarchy, resulting in a skewed relationship with the environment that sees humans as separate and above nature. Ultimately, a more balanced and sustainable relationship with nature can be achieved by challenging the dominant paradigm of human exceptionalism and embracing a philosophy of mutual aid and cooperation.

Holobiant Living

‘A knife gripped by one hand, slips and cuts the finger of the other hand. Metal and skin, move with air, join with skin, then leave skin. Patterns of cells and molecules move towards cells, splitting cells. Knife-hand moves air, makes bloodhand. Blood cells reach across the split. Holding on, tissue forms. Pulling the divide closer it heals itself. Is this body mine? is this body yours?’ – Indigo Leveson-Gower (2023)

With all the unfaithful offspring of the sky gods, with my littermates who find a rich wallow in multispecies muddles, I want to make a critical and joyful fuss about these matters. I want to stay with the trouble, and the only way I know to do that is in generative joy, terror, and collective thinking’ –Donna Haraway (2016)

the muddle of life

I grew tired of inhabiting my own small world. Eagar for some companionship, however slight, I travelled to work in the public library. It is here that I find myself. I am now sat in a chair that most likely has seen a thousand others sit upon it, working on a desk that many busy arms have typed at. On a rainy day like this to exist within a space with no monetary contribution to the establishment is a rarity. I examine the library goers surrounding me, each here conducting their own investigations and pursuits. I ponder what knowledge is consumed and what thoughts have passed through, our

worlds exist together in this space. Individualism is at the forefront idea of capitalist western ideology (Siedentop, 2014). A pillar of the American Dream and the nuclear family. Economic principles are wholly centred on the rational individual, with only its own goals in mind. The landscape of western cities reflects this: the apartment blocks, the terraced house, the semi-detached house. The goal in this landscape, seemingly, is the detached house; the dream of removing oneself completely from the surroundings. We are living together in cities yet isolated from one another into our own units.

This entire ideological landscape hinges on us as individuals, independent from others. There is an inherent tension between the individual and the collective. The focus on the individual away from the common good, through the privatisation of space and ideological change, has contributed to environmental destruction. As Vandana Shiva argues in her book Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (Shiva, 2015), this mindset has led to overconsumption and competition between individuals, which in turn has led to the depletion of natural resources. Of course, the idea of the individual has key importance in contemporary human rights ethics but can have we gone too far with individualism? And how can we be more sensitive to the ‘other’ and the collective good of the earth?

collective porosity

I argue, Scott Gilbert tells us, ‘we have never been individuals’ but should view ourselves as Human ‘Holobionts’; an assemblage of humans and nonhumans living together and forming an ecosystem (Gilbert et al, 2012). The first pitfall of individualism is that we are over 50 percent ‘other.’ Each human body is made of 30 trillion human cells as well as 39 trillion microbial cells. These govern our mood, digestion and immune system. (Greshko, 2016) This begs the question, who are we? If our very existence hinges on their existence, how do we separate ourselves? To extrapolate this idea is to

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understand our existence in a world system and to shatter the illusion of the individual.

In his book The Ethics of Authenticity (1991), Charles Taylor proposes that modern individualism has led to a kind of ‘malaise’ in which individuals are cut off from larger social and cultural contexts, leading to a sense of disconnection and alienation. He speaks on the ‘porous self,’ open to the world and able to be shaped by experiences and interactions with others, and the ‘buffered self,’ self-sufficient and less susceptible to external influence. Taylor argues that in contemporary society we have become ‘buffered’ selves. The ‘porous’ individual is grounded in matter, it does not separate itself from the physical that the ‘buffered self’ would see as external to themselves Could collective living practices and a revaluation of the capitalist ‘nuclear family’ lead to a more ecological and understanding mode of living? Could new ‘kinships’ and chosen families arise?

Alternative Histories

We have not always lived so separately. William Morris discussed the faults of this individualistic ideology in his works such as News from Nowhere (1890) (Waithe, 2006). Writing during the Victorian era in the industrial evolution, he proposed that society could learn from medieval society’s ideas of collectivism and care. This era saw a rise in enclosing and privatizing land, concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, which still effective in our society today. Morris discussed the medieval concept of the ‘commons,’ communal grazing lands and forests ensured that members of the community had access to essential resources. Hospitality and kindness to strangers was also common practice, travellers and strangers were welcomed into homes and given food and shelter, regardless of their social status. This was seen as a as a duty and a way to demonstrate one’s Christian charity. Monastic living practices common in the medieval period are interesting examples of collective living that transcended the self, prioritising collective good. The ‘Beguines’ were people who

lived in communities of religious women in Europe during the 12th to the 16th centuries. They lived in ‘Beguinage’s’ which allowed them to step out of traditional and controlled societal roles of wives and the subjugation of women. Through mutual care and common resources, wealth and status was transcended. The Beguines had a fraught relationship to the Catholic church, due to their nonhierarchical structure they lay outside of the church’s organizations. This eventually led to the dissolution of the Beguines, however other forms of monastic living still exist today, and the non-hierarchical, collective living methodology with a common goal could be an influential narrative (Bowie, 1992.)

Common Practice

‘Commoning’ may be an essential component to a new form of living that encourages collective living practices. To ‘common’ is to foster shared ownership of spaces, pool resources and responsibilities, and encourage collective living patterns. Commoning transcends individual identity, collectively governed and inclusive (Stavrides, 2016). To be effective in addressing ecological concerns it must have specific intentions. An ecological ‘commoning’ process would not only transcend human identity but also non-human identity. Common spaces created would value and make room for all. The intentional sharing of resources and space amongst humans and non-humans alike would counteract the depletion of these resources, bringing to the forefront the impact actions have and guarding against them.

The concept of the ‘human holobiont’ challenges the idea of the individual and reminds us that we are made up of both human and non-human, making us interdependent with the environment around us. Ecological ideas must understand this wholly and take it into account.

Gift Giving

Now I give this thing to a third person who after a time decides to give me something in repayment for it (utu), and he makes me a present of something (taonga). Now this taonga I received from him is the spirit (hau) of the taonga I received from you and which I passed on to him. The taonga which I receive on account of the taonga that came from you, I must return to you. It would not be right on my part to keep these taonga whether they were desirable or not. I must give them to you since they are the hau of the taonga which you gave me. If I were to keep this second taonga for myself I might become ill or even die. Such is hau, the hau of personal property, the hau of the taonga, the hau of the forest. Enough on that subject.

— Marcel Mauss (1990. p9)

Staring at an individual that is isolated from the world, the struggle is noticeable, whether for not identifying themselves with other people that surrounds them or feeling alone. Afraid of creating connections due the fear of rejection impregnated in the society we live in. People try to fit in to please others, or to be what the society sees as ‘normal’ rather than being their own selves. At last, a stranger noticed their struggle and offered assistance, this showed they care. This unforeseen act of kindness helped them to re-evaluate the negative perceptions and inspired them to reach out more often. There is a lack of meaningful social connections and the feeling of loneliness and disconnection needs to be addressed. A deeper exploration of social fabric and the idea of community and skills exchange and how the act of giving can build the ties between one

another and create a sense of connection. The concept of gift-giving as a way to establish and strengthen social relationships by embracing the ethos of giving without expecting anything in return builds a sense of belonging and community that goes beyond the beliefs of society.

The different types of acts of service or gestures - physical, emotional - have a big impact on creating connections and is fundamental in many cultures as it maintains and reinforces social relationships. Marcel Mauss, a French sociologist and anthropologist, defends that gift-giving is not purely an act of interchange, as it initiates social ties and obligations.

For Mauss, gift-giving puts people under obligations as the giver not only give an object but also part of himself, he states ‘the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them’ (1990). In the other hand, Lewis Hyde, takes this concept on to a greater extent, defending it is an inherent political act that provocates the capitalist attitude of egocentricity and eccentricity. However, emphasises what Mauss has said on the relationship of giver and receiver, when gifting something to someone that means offering a piece of ourselves and creating a connection to the receiver. And only when there is an understanding about the meaning of gift-giving we can then use it as tool to build relationships besides creating a more bonded community.

Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America practice gift-giving feasts known as potlatch. It is a system of gift-giving with social, religious and political implications, moreover, it conveys the the obligation of repaying gifts received, the obligation to give gifts and the obligation to receive gifts.

On potlatch Mauss states ‘It follows clearly from what we have seen that in this system of ideas one gives away what is in reality a part of one’s nature and substance, while to receive something is to receive a part of someone’s spiritual essence. To keep this thing is dangerous, not only because it is illicit to do so, but also because it comes morally, physically and spiritually from a person. Whatever it

Distributing potlatch, James G. Swan

is, food, possessions, women, children or ritual, it retains a magical and religious hold over the recipient. The thing given is not inert.’ (1990, pg10). This feast, it is a community even, where not only they exchange material gifts but culture, knowledge and stories.

In the other hand, kula exchange happens among the Trobriand Islanders in Papua New Guinea, where each island have their own patterns and materials. Unlike potlatch, this exchange it is based on giving something without expecting to receive something back. This goes beyond purely exchanging gifts but it is a way to have a social exchange between different communities. ‘Even in the largest, most solemn and highly competitive form of kula (…) the rule is set out with nothing to exchange or even to give in return for food (…) On these visits one is recipient only, and it is when the visiting tribes the following year become the hosts that gifts are repaid with interest.’ (1990, p20). Kula and potlatch exchange’s illustrate how gift-giving can be a powerful tool in the matter of sharing values and creating a sense of belonging in community.

The disconnection and isolation many individuals experience must be addressed by encouraging gift-giving regardless if it is material, physical or emotional. Hydes wrote ‘The gift moves toward the empty place. As it turns in its circle it turns toward him who has been empty-handed the longest, and if someone appears elsewhere whose need is greater it leaves its old channel and moves toward him. Our generosity may leave us empty, but our emptiness then pulls gently at the whole until the thing in motion returns to replenish us. Social nature abhors a vacuum’ (1979, p53) - on gift-giving being a recurrent cycle and that it should spread to those in need. Although the giver might have a feeling of emptiness once they give something away as it is a cycle it will eventual come back to them and this maintains the social fabric. It is a mutual act that benefits the receiver as well as the giver.

These acts of kindness help cultivated a more generous and equitable society, and by embracing the ethos of giving without expecting anything in return it is possible to create a society that

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currently lacks the practice of generosity. It is fundamental to keep the cycle running - the more we give, the more we receive - the stronger our social relationships become. ‘The gift is a servant to forces which pull things together and lift them up’ (1979, p54).

Birdsong

Today, more and more small birds such as tits or goldfinches are stunned by hitting the bay windows of our buildings. As for the heaviest birds such as blackbirds, the glazing leaves them no chance, the violence of the impact causing their immediate death. The current craze for building facades made of iron and glass has greatly increased this type of incident.

Generally speaking, as cities continue to densify and expand, birds become rarer. A sign that the disconnection is getting worst between urban environments and the natural world, in addition to their collisions with glass walls, birds are exposed to air pollution, they have it increasing difficulties to find their food, places where they feel safe and suitable sites for nesting.

But how important are birds in our urbanized lives? Everyone has had the following experience. As we walk down a noisy street crowded with cars and producing a deafening sound volume, we suddenly perceive a slight bird song. Looking up, we see a bird perched on a nearby tree. At this precise moment, this vision makes us rediscover a lost connection with nature. It is a reminder that wildlife exists beyond the artificial world of cities... From a symbolic point of view, the presence of birds is more important than it seems. The American botanist and essayist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, who explores the complex links between humans and the wild world, recalls that ‘For humans, birds are the ultimate symbols of freedom, transcending the constraints of the earth and the human condition.’

walter benjamin

Birds also recall our first origins. Their songs were considered by the philosopher Walter Benjamin as pre-linguistic sounds. In a preparatory note to his ‘Theses on the concept of history,’ he takes up the myth of the Tower of Babel where men are condemned by God to express themselves through a multitude of different languages. Benjamin supposes that originally they only spoke of one, resembling the one of the birds. In this regard, he evokes a rare Christian evocation of the first manifestation of the language of men: ‘The messianic world is a world of total and integral actuality. Universal history exists only in him. What is designated today by this term can only be a kind of Esperanto. Nothing can match it until the confusion that goes back to the Tower of Babel has been resolved. It presupposes a language into which any text, from living or dead languages, will be translated. Or, better said, the latter is language as such. It is not understood as written but as what is celebrated. This festival is devoid of any ceremony and knows no festive songs. His language is the one of prose itself and it will be understood by every man, as Sunday children understand the language of birds.’ The legend of children who, on Sundays, miraculously understand the song of birds was once common.

olivier messiaen

This reference to the language of birds as the primary universal language has also guided the contemporary compositions of musician Olivier Messiaen. He turns it into an energy that transports him: ‘As soon as I hear a bird chirp, I recover my strength and forget my worries. I can be dying, if I hear a bird chirp, I’m cured!’ Messiaen is perhaps the author who makes us best understand the immense loss represented by the disappearance of birds in the city, but also in the countryside. In France, according to the National Center for Scientific

Research and the National Museum of Natural History, about a third of birds have disappeared in the past 15 years in the countryside. Insecticides are not the only cause of that. There is also the reduction of grasslands, the artificialization of agricultural soils and the increase in predators.

As a great observer of nature, Messiaen calls himself as much a composer as an ornithologist. He frequented the greatest ornithologists and traveled the world to discover new species of birds, spending hours listening to and transcribing their songs in order to use them as material for his compositions. This natural music inspired his work ‘Le Réveil des Oiseaux’ in which he uses various instrumental possibilities taking up the intonations of birdsong: trills, accents, glissando... On the scores, he indicates that it is necessary to play for example according to a ‘pinched sonority,’ in ‘pleading,’ with a ‘ferocious meow,’ in a ‘little irritated’ way.

The composer even notes the songs of birds in the form of onomatopoeia for information purposes, and recommends that performers take walks in the forest in the spring, especially early in the morning, to familiarize themselves with the models that inspired his compositions.

It also takes into account the landscape, region and climate in which the birds live. In ‘Catalog d’oiseaus,’ made up of thirteen pieces, Olivier Messiaen tries to accurately render the typical bird songs of a region. He specifies that: ‘Each play is written in honor of a French province. (...) the hours of day and night that change this landscape are also present, with their colors, their temperatures, the magic of their scents. As with certain artists, architects and landscape architects, the landscape dimension is constantly present in his compositions. He says: ‘I like all natures, and I like all landscapes, but I have a predilection for the mountains because I spent my childhood in Grenoble and I saw, from a young age, (…) especially wild places which are the most beautiful in France.’

Messiaen is also sensitive to time, noting the times of day and night when songbirds congregate. Here is an example of one of his

works called Awakening of the birds. It all starts with a nightingale solo sung at midnight performed on the piano. Then two other nightingales come to join him in a lively exchange (still performed on the piano). After a brief silence, other songs of the night emerge in the darkness: little owl on the solo violin, bush owl on the little clarinet, lark lulu on the little flute... Nature is gently stirring. At dawn, around 4am, other birds wake up: hoopoe, woodpecker, robin, sparrow… more than fifteen different species successively appear. As various instruments gradually come into play, the songs of the birds mingle with each other in a joyful cacophony. Suddenly, silence is made to welcome the sunrise. Then, during the morning, the babbling of the birds resumes its course. Sometimes one after the other, sometimes together, the songs of the warbler, the song thrush, or even the blackbird dialogue through a colorful and original orchestration. A long piano cadenza takes up fragments of songs, calls and cries of many birds (greenfinch, blue tit, oriole, etc.) to end with a duet between robin and blackbird. At noon, after a new period of silence, we hear the chaffinch, the blackbird and the drumming of the great spotted woodpecker. The work ends with the call of the cuckoo interpreted by the Chinese blocks. Olivier Messiaen recalls the poetic words of some great creators in search of a global sensitivity relating to the world as it is perceived by children at birth: ‘Music is a perpetual dialogue between space and time, between sound and color, a dialogue which results in a unification: time is a space, sound is a color, space is a complex of superimposed times, sound complexes exist simultaneously as color complexes. A dimension that is very personal to him, he pushes this detachment from the materialism and productivism of our contemporary world by getting closer to his Christian roots, because for him the songs of birds have a spiritual value identifiable with the words of the messengers of God. More generally, he suggests that ‘The musician who thinks, sees, hears, speaks by means of these fundamental notions, can to a certain extent approach the beyond.’

The artificialization of water sources, the multiplication of monumental buildings and the extinction of birds are all consequences, at the time of the Anthropocene, of the overexploitation of nature and the domination of man over the land. Babylon served here as a starting point for reflection. The Babylonian civilization has been used by authors to refer to an originally better world, while others have used, on the contrary, the myth of the Tower of Babel to evoke the disproportionate ambition of men putting the world on the edge of chaos. That our contemporaries deprive themselves of the sound of running water, of fraternal sociality, or of the songs of nocturnal birds, for example, may appear futile. After all, this does not prevent humanity from continuing to exist and even to develop. But one day we will have to ask ourselves this question: is it to live or to survive? By depriving himself of primary pleasures, by depriving himself of poetry, man risks condemning himself to an existence devoid of meaning.

The

Entangled Being Subtitle if it has one and runs on to two lines

We are not disembodied subjects contemplating an external world, but rather are fully embodied beings who participate in the ongoing unfolding of the world.

—

Tim Ingold (2022, p135)

The fact is worth remembering because it is often neglected that the words animal and environment make an inseparable pair. Each term implies the other. No animal could exist without an environment surrounding it. Equally, although not so obvious, an environment implies an animal (or at least an organism) to be surrounded.

— James Gibson (2015, p35)

A spider spends its life drawing out a silk-like liquid from its spinnerets, creating a sticky web between leaves, branches and objects in which it hopes to catch its prey. Following the creation of the web, it will pause until vibrations are felt, alerting it that it has been successful in catching its prey. It will then proceed to travel into the web and wrap its prey in swathing bands of silk before either consuming the prey or leaving it for later. As the web is formed, the actions of the spider are registered in the lived space and the material world is altered.

Let us consider this web that is created by the spider to be a metaphor for the activities engaged in by all living beings throughout their lives. It’s important to note that the web is never-ending, it is never the same for any two beings, and even upon death, the matter of the being continues to interact with the environment.

The lines of the spider’s web, for example, unlike those of the communications network, do not connect points or join things up. They are rather spun from materials exuded from the spider’s body and are laid down as it moves about. In that sense, they are extensions of the spider’s very being as it trails into the environment. (Ingold, 2010, p12).

All living beings are constantly spinning their ‘web of life’ as they go about their daily activities and interact with the material world. As you zoom out and focus on the infinite number of living beings that operate within our environment, you can begin to understand just how complex this interconnected web of lives becomes. It’s this entanglement that we are looking to explore - how all living beings are entangled and embedded in the material world.

Let us begin by posing a question - is it possible to separate living beings and objects from the material world in which they exist? In the previous section, we created a metaphor for the spider’s web, with the web representing the lived experience of each being. Think of the web as a story that becomes more and more complex over time, describing the movements and interactions that the being has taken throughout its life. Now imagine combining the webs of all other living beings within the environment - this is where things start to get very interesting.

Ingold refers to this complex combination of intersecting webs as a ‘meshwork of entangled lines of life, growth, and movement’ (Ingold, 2010, p63). If you closely examined a small patch of grass in a meadow, you would discover thousands of living beings going about their daily activities, all interacting with each other and the environment in different ways. It is these interactions and how they shape everything around them that Ingold was interested in. This idea of a ‘network’ was utilised within Bruno Latour’s ActorNetwork Theory and stands to counter Ingold’s idea of a ‘meshwork.’

As highlighted by Ingold, ‘The distinction between the lines of flow of the meshwork and the lines of connection of the network is

critical. Yet it has been persistently obscured, above all in the recent elaboration of what has come to be known, rather unfortunately, as ‘actor-network theory.’’ (Ingold, 2010 p11). Alongside this, Uexküll’s Umwelt theory can also be seen to be questioning the concept by assuming that ‘meaning is bestowed by the organism on its environment’ (Ingold, 2011, p64).

Moving our focus to perception, Merleau-Ponty’s understanding was not simply a matter of receiving information from the external world, but rather involved a dynamic process of engagement with that world, in which the perceiver actively explores and manipulates their environment: ‘To this extent, every perception is a communication or a communion.’ (Merleau-Ponty & Smith, 2018).

If we are embedded in the material world, then we exist in everything we make, from a primitive stone axe to a house. We need an approach to our environment and making that situates practitioners in the context of active engagement with their surroundings.

Gibson believed that perception is a process of active exploration, in which organisms use their senses to gather information about their environment. He argued that ‘Perception is exploratory...it is a way of moving about and getting into contact with the environment’ (Gibson, 1979).

His understanding of perception differs from Merleau-Ponty’s in that he viewed objects as static stimuli, forgetting the embedded nature of subjects within their constituents.

Embodied perception refers to the idea that perception is not simply a matter of passive sensing or receiving information, but is actively shaped by the physical and behavioral characteristics of the organism doing the perceiving. Being in the world is fundamentally driven by these perceptions, and the unfolding relations of stimuli within the constituents of our environment.

The environment or objective material world is in a dynamic flow of current in constant relational flux, with living beings embedded

into this flow. We must reframe the assumption of the practitioner as a passive agent, separate from the material world, to one that acknowledges the entangled situated nature of the mind, body & material world.

Souls on to two lines

Materials are not passive objects waiting to be shaped by human beings, they are active agents in their own right, with their own unique properties and powers.

— Graham Harman (2018)

Materials are not passive objects waiting to be shaped by human beings, they are active agents in their own right, with their own unique properties and powers.

— Juhani Pallasmaa (2005)

materials

As one walks the streets of Islington, Amin Taha’s 168 Upper Street emerges amongst its local Georgian context. The skeuomorphic townhouse, cast from in-situ terracotta, recreates the late 19th century vernacular that once stood before. Sculpted neoclassical ornaments are reintroduced through the agency of terracotta and juxtapose the site’s heritage with its contemporary use of modern construction. Internally, CLT wall panels draw on our innate familiarity with organic materials to create welcoming and comforting living environments. Exposed materials are used to communicate with the human, producing a palpable atmosphere and sense of soul throughout the building. Leaving Islington and arriving in Canary Wharf, the soul in architecture is altogether forgotten. A metropolis landscape overwhelms the senses as glass towers overshadow walkways and concrete floors dull the sound of one’s footsteps. Materials are reduced to mere resources and their agency entirely

Approaches to theory and research. [Left] ‘Closed’ arboreal system; [Right] ‘Open’ rhizomatic system. (Sellers et al. 2016)

abandoned. What remains is a soulless habitat devoid of architectural engagement, preserved only for commercialism.

Canary Wharf represents the growing disparity between architecture and the sense of soul in the current built environment. The theory of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) lays the foundation for a new perspective of materials and the soul of the reality we experience. Materials are identified as objects with an ‘equal right to exist,’ and with ‘the same ontological privilege as the human’ (Harman, 2011). With that privilege comes a set of ‘internal dynamics and relations’ (Harman, 2018) that make materials independent agents impacting the world in unique ways.

The challenge for architects is to work with materials in a way that recognises their inherent agency, and that creates spaces that are in harmony with the surrounding world (Ahmed, 2017)

The sterile atmosphere of Canary Wharf is an example of neglected agency as its materials are viewed solely as a means to an end.

Compare Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia to Canary Wharf’s One Canada Square; while the former carefully sculpts granite and sandstone into organic forms to create a grandeur synonymous with the spiritual preaching within, the latter is criticised for being a ‘monolithic structure that dominates the skyline and overwhelms the senses’ (Self, 2015). Despite towering over 200m and surrounded by homogenous steel structures, One Canada Square remains uninspiring and alienated. The building sees materiality as a functional tool to achieve a human-centred architecture and fails to unlock the internal properties they have to offer. In stark contrast, Gaudi’s tree-like columns and floral carvings exhibit the potential of stone as an active agent capable of interacting with the world around it. Stainglass windows manipulate light throughout the day as the building cycles through its daily circadian rhythm, glowing from the flood of morning light and calming as the sun begins to set.

The Sagrada Familia uses materials not just as static, decorative

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elements, but rather as living characteristics that welcome the human interaction and contribute to the ethereal soul of the cathedral, a quality Canary Wharf and many metropolis landscapes are devoid of. Perhaps the mundanity of One Canada Square is not the fault of architect Cesar Pelli, but is instead testament to a cultural movement toward modernism and its focus on functionality. Graham Harman argues ‘the modernist’s focus on functionality and efficiency has led to a neglect of the aesthetic and sensory qualities of materials, resulting in a lack of attention to their unique capacities and potentials’

(Harman, 2018). Post-modernist, Robert Venturi, also noted ‘Less is a bore ... because it is simply a posture and not a method. It is a lazy posture because it avoids the necessity of choice. And it is a boring posture because it denies complexity and denies the architect the possibility of creating architecture as a rich and profound experience.’ (Venturi, 1966). The use of materials as purely structural entities, rather than interactive tools of the architecture, is a common fault of the contemporary built environment and is a significant causality of its lack of soul. Grand monuments like the Palace of Versailles demonstrate the power of material agency; incredibly intricate detailing and infused use of opulent materials, like gold and marble, produce an awe-inspiring atmosphere reminiscent of the power the Palace once resembled. The capacity to reflect the monarchy’s jurisdiction through the building’s mass, adornment and materiality, is a combination Harman argues modernist architecture would struggle to compete with. Understandably, it would be a very different atmosphere if the palace were designed by Walter Gropius. Timothy Morton offers a subtle variation on material agency, suggesting ‘materials are always already in relationship with their environment. They cannot be understood as discrete entities, but are instead constantly in the process of becoming in relation to their surroundings.’ (Morton, 2007). Using this sentiment, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House challenges Harman and Venturi’s criticisms by demonstrating a balance between the functional capacity of materials and a clearly defined relationship

with their environment. For example, enormous glass panes blur the lines between external and internal spaces, rendering the building almost weightless in appearance floating amongst the surrounding vegetation. Elevated 1.6m above the ground, the carefully assembled steel structure produces an unintrusive mass that embraces its environment, allowing the landscape to run through the building, absorbing it from all sides. Wooden floors and veneered cabinetry draw direct links to the encircling trees and in similar fashion to Taha’s 168 Upper Street, align with the human’s inherent connection with nature. Whilst it is reasonable to suggest each material has a reduced ontological impact on the human experience when compared to those found in Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, it is the combination of the selected materials that produce a powerful relationship with the landscape. The human sensory experience is therefore fully exploited, evoking a profound sense of soul and demonstrating a fine balance between material agency and modernist architecture.

One Canada Square illuminates broader issues that face much of present-day architecture; the pursuit for commercialism. Like most contemporary developments, design drivers frequently revolve around optimising space for maximised profits, as a result, much of modern architecture is concerned only with materials that can create large internal openings or endure towering heights. Material agency is therefore entirely abandoned at the benefit of commercialism, and with it so too is a building’s soul. Commercialism is just part of humanity’s wider issues of anthropocentrism and while it will serve to rapidly grow the human’s wealth and dominance of the planet, it will equally deprive the human of a soulful environment that can coexist with its ontological reality.

Architecture must not abandon the soul of the spaces it produces. It should consolidate material agency at the inception of a design project, consider user and environmental needs and focus on the sensory experience of the human. The soul of a building is what drives architecture forward and creates spaces that encourage engagement and intrigue, not serving as an addition to the landscape, but as an extension of it.

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Vanishing Point itle: And Subtitle if it has one and runs on to two lines

The idea that the future has disappeared is of course rather whimsical, as while I write these lines the future is not stopping to unfold. But when I say ‘future’ I am not referring to the direction of time.

— Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi (2011, p13) past follows future

Vanishing Point. The first word implies a sense of speed, the latter an end. Reading them together, suggests an erosion of something that eventually disappears completely. The future as we know it has succeeded this two-word phrase - it has escaped or rather disappeared as we desperately tried to pursue it and its counterpart - the origin. But it is important to note that the future here is not described with any reference to time, rather it is the idea of generating new possibilities, new ideas, new modes of output.

Before we imagine the vanishing point of the future, let us consider the moment when it was a state which was something held in high regard. The 1909 Manifesto Futurista (futurist manifesto) by Filippo Tommaso was the ‘avant-garde’s first conscious declaration’ (2009, p. 123) that placed trust in the future writes Berardi. It was a declaration of ‘the aesthetic value of speed.’ (2009, p. 14) With speed arrived an increases of capital through the acceleration of production assembly lines.

The idea of the future painted by the Futurists - and even the communists and fascists in the earlier part of the 20th century - was

Lost Highway, 1997

David Lynch

always portrayed as a bright utopian state where life was full of possibility, progress and innovation. In the same century that the future was thought to result in utopia, saw a reversal into dystopia where the ‘result was Fascism in Italy and totalitarian communism in Russia.’ (2009, p. 18)

Where modernists in the past like Mies van der Rohe were chanting ‘less is more’ the Semiotourists of todays current contemporary society are transforming it to ‘more is more.’ This acceleration of information has increased rapidly over the past two decades. Now, more and more pressure is added on the ‘cognitariat’ (the hybrid between cognitive and proletariat as Berardi states, (2009, p. 142) as we reside in the semiocapitalism system of production.

This has become possible due to the technological advancements of the 21st century and the overproduction of visual output, devoid of any boundaries set by the traditional forms of supply and demand. When one describes that something is coming to ‘an end,’ there is an instantaneous implication of its counterpart: ‘a beginning.’ Both words have the idea of time in their roots and therefore, their relationship is assumed to have a strong linear quality of progression. One provides its meaning in relation to its counterpart and vice versa - much like the relationship between subject and object; one exists on the basis of the other. But what happens when the end does not actually take place? And when I state the end I am referring to future possibilities. Baudrillard argues that the relationship becomes destabilised to the point of exhaustion. He describes it as going through a ‘process of limitlessness in which the end can no longer be located.’ (2011, p. 59)

A point of no return is reached when things lose their end becoming perpetually lasting. One could describe this state as the inhabitation of the vanishing point of the future. Process perpetually unfold, contributing to a paradoxical condition.

Baudrillard further states: ‘either we shall never reach the end, or we are already beyond it.’ (2011, p. 60) As a side effect from this inability to locate the end, we aim to thrust the pendulum to the other

side and thus double down on locating the origin point. But it is not as easy as that, as the origin point also becomes out of reach. This simple yet complex relationship struggle results in everything in our world to develop infinitely in an irregular and exponential growth with no given destination.

Baudrillard ends the chapter with the hypotheses that if there is no longer an end, then ‘he no longer knows who he is. And it is this immortality that is the ultimate phantasm of our technologies.’ (2011, p. 62)

Mark Fisher writes of a similar condition where the future - or the end - becomes something of the past, unattainable and impossible to imagine with its presence only really felt through its absence. Retrospection becomes the driving force of culture, forcing its time frame to be folded back on itself. (Fisher, 2014 p. 19) We find that cultural production becomes that of a perpetually flowing stream of repetitions, recycled, re-edited fragments of history structured in a way to hide their original influences, or as Jack Self calls this, ‘The Big Flat Now.’ (2018)

There is no perspective, no yesterday, and no tomorrow. Flatness has neither a limit, nor a horizon. It has permanently changed our relationship with time and space. As a contemporary metaphor, flatness describes how the invention of the internet has restructured global society. (Self, 2018)

What Self is saying is that any pre-existing separation between the past and the future has been reduced to an unrecognisable boundary all because of our current ability to access to large amounts of archived material as well as being able to make calculated predictions on the future. This is how the idea of flatness appeared in contemporary society.

To return to Fisher and the idea of lost futures, he uncovers the term ‘Hauntology’ (2014, p. 25) which was originally coined by Jacques Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx. For something to exist, it relies

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on the absences that surround it. This concept is weirdly similar to the Japanese concept of Ma space, which prescribes the negative space becoming as important as what is there already. The presence of both counterparts - the positive and negative - in something thus creates a depth and intelligence of the thing in question.

This is the state we are living in now, one which gains strength from things that are not present ultimately becoming pure versions of simulacrum through repetition and suggestions of other universes. Much like Semiotourism we have become full time tourists that have taken on the responsibility of trying to comprehend an overly saturated world of visual content.

Having said this, comes our hopeless inability to even think of shifting the paradigm. Does a possibility exist in which the duality between the origin and the end is destroyed? This would require the demolition of the binary system altogether creating a single entity devoid of duality. How would it be possible if the negative is as important as the positive?