0:03

hi everyone um so i’m going to open up this talk uh today uh just with um a land

0:11

acknowledgement and then i’ll pass the um metaphorical mic over to jessie mckee to do some

0:18

introductions for the lovely guests we have with us today so my name is nicole kelly wessman

0:24

and i’m the education and learning programmer with um 221a and i’ve been here for um just

0:32

over a year um so i’ll get started um so 2218 is based on the unseated

0:39

territories of the musqueam squamish

0:45

the organization is made of individuals that are sorry there’s an ambulance outside my

0:51

door um the organization is made of individuals that are respectful but uninvited guests some of us were

0:58

born here some of us come from lands of tall prairie grasses some of us come from opposing shorelines

1:05

and some of us from far off distances as a collective of individuals we work

1:11

collaboratively to forge new paths and look back to ensure those carrying along with us

1:16

have the same means to navigate or have the means to navigate at their own pace constantly we look with deep

1:24

inspiration to the rhizomatic work of houshui new gross to slow ourselves to a pacing resemblance of trust

1:30

building as we continue to realize the potentials within interconnectedness

1:36

this is the place where salty waves meet the shore where the red cedars and douglas firs

1:41

are so thick you need many arms to embrace them where the boulders and pebbles remind us of the

1:47

mountains they broke away from where the rivers have currents that oscillate in both directions

1:53

where the buds turn to blossoms and saturated gradients where the clouds hang low and make the

1:58

softest light where the snow only kisses the highest peaks where the sunsets have exquisite seasons

2:06

where the leaves intertwine as canopies we commit ourselves as individuals within an organization

2:13

to reconceive definitions of labor to remind ourselves of the ones who came

2:18

before us and to be diligent in the ways we tenderly hold space for those to come

2:24

for those to rise up for those fatigued and for those determined by the rigor of resistance and the softness of

2:31

resilience we welcome with us today some folks from further away christina battle is joining us from

2:37

treaty six territory a land occupied traveled and cared for by indigenous peoples since time

2:44

immemorial this place is called a masque

2:53

which has been the traditional meeting ground uh gathering place and traveling route

2:58

of the nahiowak and ashnabe natissippi

3:06

people this is the place colonel referred to as edmonton but this is also a place known for the

3:12

might of its river for its tall prairie grasses adorned with backdrops of aspens

3:18

for its dramatic shift of seasons and spontaneous weather for its tamarax a coniferous that fades

3:24

to orange and autumn for its surrounding muskegs and the ways these stagnant waters

3:30

are purifiers for its large mammals that continue to occupy the corridors running in congruence with

3:37

the river we are also pleased to be in the company of stephanie wakefield who is joining us

3:43

from the traditional lands of the muskogee creek people the muskogee live in a lived in

3:50

autonomous villages in river valleys throughout present-day tennessee georgia and alabama speaking several

3:57

related muskogen languages

4:03

was the most widely spoken language in what is colonially referred to as georgia muskogee people were forcibly relocated

4:11

under the indian removal act of night of 1830 to what is currently known as oklahoma

4:17

the place stephanie is joining nests from is known for i’ve never been there so i hope this is

4:22

right stephanie it’s hot and humid summers that follow with

4:28

gently mild winters with high mountain ridges outlying on the horizons and it’s flat

4:35

woods filled with scrawny pines and meadowy grasses dotted with very

4:41

pretty picturesque flowers and mini swamps so i will uh with that hand it over to

4:49

jessie thank you nicole for that lovely lovely

4:54

landing territorial acknowledgement welcoming our guests from afar as well we look forward to you joining us later on for the discussion

5:01

and q a period um welcome everyone thanks for joining us on your friday afternoons and evenings

5:06

to hear from two stellar speakers christina battle and stephanie wakefield some of you may already know christina

5:11

as a 221a fellow this year who’s developing a line of research titled imagining new systems of exchange

5:17

my name is jesse mckee i’m the head of strategy at 221a i lead the organization’s research programming

5:22

communications and advancement christina battle is an artist whose research and work consider the

5:28

parameters of disaster looking to it as action as more than mere event and instead as a framework

5:34

operating within larger citizens of power her fellowship with 221a seeks to imagine beyond capitalist cycles of

5:41

economic breakdown and towards new systems of exchange drawing from strategies of spread

5:46

observed in plants and fungi as well as online spaces christina holds a bachelor’s of science

5:51

with specialization in environmental biology from the university of alberta a certificate in film studies from

5:57

ryerson university in toronto an mfa from the san francisco art institute and a phd in art and visual

6:03

culture from the university of western ontario through this research she imagines how disaster could be utilized as a tactic

6:09

for social change and as a tool for reimagining how dominant systems might radically shift she collaborates with serena lee as

6:16

shattered moon alliance and is exhibited internationally in festivals and galleries as both an artist and a curator

6:22

most recently at the art gallery of southwestern manitoba and brandon the boulder museum of contemporary art

6:27

in colorado latitude 53 in edmonton the john and maggie mitchell gallery in edmonton harbourfront center

6:34

toronto capture photography festival festival here in vancouver and the forum

6:39

expanded at the berlin alley as well as many other galleries and museums and institutions across turtle island

6:46

stephanie wakefield is an educator and researcher specializing in human environment relations and urban resilience and sustainability

6:52

and social ecological systems thinking wakefield is currently director and assistant professor of the

6:58

human ecology program at life university in marietta georgia and holds a phd in human geography from

7:04

the department of earth and environmental science at the city university of new york graduate center wakefield’s books include anthropocene

7:11

back loop experimentation and unsafe operating space published by the open humanities press as well as resilience in the

7:17

anthropocene governance and politics at the end of the world published by rootleg co-edited with david chandler and kevin

7:23

grove they frequently publish articles in academic and cultural journals including political geography

7:28

geography compass geoforum environment and planning e-nature in place

7:34

and e-flux architecture along with scholarly publications of teaching wakefield frequently works with

7:39

government organizations community groups art institutions and non-profits to explore experimental sustainability

7:44

planning and community resilience design we’re welcoming stephanie today with a live voice but at 221a we’ve been

7:50

reading your writing since 2019 we’re so grateful to new models.io who introduced us to your work and your

7:57

earlier writing about the back loop in a series of texts you did for the brooklyn rail through a series titled field notes on

8:02

the anthropocene we partnered we partnered with new models to develop a workshop entitled

8:07

imagining collabs which looked at online communities and writers imagining ways we can better frame our planning for community design

8:14

and collective actions in response to a collapsing climate this was part of our digital strategy research the blockchains and cultural

8:20

padlocks initiative which we’ll be publishing about next month and also hosting a series of

8:26

events which will re-welcome new models to our program for another event in june more on that soon but if this is your

8:32

first time at a 2-2-1 a event please sign up for our newsletter to receive periodic updates on our programs and services i’ll post a

8:38

link in the chat for you to sign up um on the idea of the back loop for me it’s crucial to lead us to think about

8:45

how we design for communities in the phase of the ecosystem when it’s breaking down and when stability is no longer an

8:50

assured or promised state much in the way we’ve all been living with the implications of the kovic 19

8:55

pandemic i think most of us now deeply have an embodied idea of what the back loop experience is

9:01

this is what happens when different elements and species meet across meet each other in new ways across

9:06

contexts that usually might never cross when the system was more stable

9:12

in the case of the pandemic as we’ve seen this thermonuclear level butterfly effect can have huge impacts

9:18

now it’s up to us to understand that the more we try to keep things the same and stable as we knew them the worse it’s likely to get in terms of

9:25

our ability to understand the world find satisfaction and design systems which are connected to the fundamentals of our ecosystem

9:31

so i’m left with the question how do we harness this energy that’s unleashed in the back loop to better influence the systems we need to change

9:37

the back loop became quite central to our collective research for digital strategy and how we’re going to plan for emerging

9:43

digital tech within our collapsing climate it gave the entire research project a kind of urgent and centralized planetary

9:49

acknowledgement so thank you stephanie and the new models crew caroline busta daniel keller and the internet for

9:54

sharing with us the idea of designing within and for the back loop it was a much welcomed

10:00

transformation of the ways we think it’d work at 221a i’m so looking forward to hearing christina’s take on stephanie’s

10:05

work and how you incorporate this into your research and project at 221a um in closing i’d like to thank our

10:11

supporters for christina battle’s fellowship including the vancouver foundation and the city of vancouver as well as two q

10:17

a’s core supporters which also include the canada council for the arts the british columbia arts council and the department of canadian heritage

10:24

i’ll pass the zoom window over to christina battle now and look forward to joining you stephanie and nicole later for some discussion

10:32

great thank you thanks jesse and nicole um for the great land acknowledgement and sort of reminder that even though we’re

10:38

meeting uh at a distance in this sort of virtual space uh we’re all coming from different

10:44

territories and lands um i was at an event earlier this morning where uh

10:50

dion brand recognized as a part of her land acknowledgement recognized the violence and erasure

10:57

that has shaped and continues to shape and impact this land that we’re on and so i was thinking about that

11:03

throughout the day um there are so many examples that i could point toward but i thought i would share

11:09

in the chat um a recent statement

11:15

uh from the 11 first nation of metis nations of the regional municipality of wood buffalo uh in

11:21

treaty eight here in alberta i’m in uh treaty six as nicole mentioned um and partly i’m sharing it uh because

11:28

i really feel like there’s a lack of spread when it comes to information about what’s going on

11:34

locally and regionally especially in this particular region across the country uh so please take a

11:39

look um

11:45

yeah those of you that are um from alberta are in alberta now

11:51

uh i see you in the participant list thanks for being here it’s like pretty tough times here right now and so i think um

11:58

i’m really excited that we can all come together and sort of imagine our ways out of all of this together

12:04

um so i’m so thrilled uh to be able to introduce stephanie wakefield um whose research i’ve really leaned a

12:10

lot on during my fellowship with 221a where i’ve been

12:15

thinking more about exchange and strategies for imagining exchange and new

12:21

as part of this research i’m developing an online publication and my strategy for the publication is

12:26

to hold conversations with a number of others to think through uh these strategies of exchange and how

12:31

we might imagine them differently and imagine better futures the first conversation as a part of this

12:37

research nine individuals were invited to think through models for alternative systems from those that we

12:44

live within now um and an attempt to sort of trace and shape these models and imagine how we

12:49

might learn from them project them onto the future and as part of the speculating the group considered

12:54

some of stephanie’s ideas especially our concept of the back loop as a way to think deeper about how it is

13:00

that we inhabit the world one that is in continual crisis and how we might imagine ways forward

13:06

and some of those individuals are uh here now so welcome it’s great to see your names on the on the list of the zoom participants um

13:14

i’m really thrilled to have stephanie join us and to have all of you here as well um to have this opportunity to listen uh

13:21

to more of her research along with you all um there’ll be time for a conversation at the end so um

13:28

we’re sort of parceling the time off there’s a good 30 40 minutes at the end we’re hoping for open dialogue and conversation so please

13:36

share your questions through the chat or the q a or by raising your hand

13:41

ask your questions throughout and we’ll keep track of them if they’re pressing

13:47

questions that are sort of uh relevant as stephanie’s speaking we can bring them up in the moment

13:52

um otherwise we’ll hold on to them to keep track of and uh lead our discussion at the end um and then also just to say

13:59

that this talk will become a part of the online publication so you’ll have a chance to listen again

14:05

and to sit more with uh some of stephanie’s ideas alongside a number of conversations with others

14:10

um and i’m also going to put in the chat um a link to stephanie’s website and a

14:16

number of readings um that i know i’ve gotten so much out of as i’ve been working through this research for you to

14:22

cut and paste and open up uh in your tabs so thanks so much for being a lot here

14:27

along with us and i’ll leave it to stephanie

14:33

okay hey thank you so much uh christina and and thank you jesse and everybody at

14:39

221a um likewise everything you said it’s i’m i’ve been very happy to get to know

14:44

the work that you are all doing and um i i likewise heard about 221a uh through new models and um caroline

14:52

busta and uh dan keller through that project and it’s been really cool to to learn about the the projects that

14:58

you’re working on and the scenarios that you did with them and christina

15:03

and i have met before we had a talk and a conversation before in a previous event and i really enjoyed

15:10

it and i really enjoyed hearing what you’re thinking and what you’re working on christina um so it’s it’s very nice to have a chance

15:16

to talk again and you know you you both kind of

15:22

explain this idea of the back loop better than i probably would have so i won’t do it again but

15:28

the you know the whole point for me of using that idea of this anthropocene

15:34

back loop this this this moment of sort of disarray and confusion and and opening and closing that we’re in

15:40

for for me the whole point of that um has been to try to put something out there that might be useful to other people because it was useful for me as one lens

15:47

of of seeing this moment that we’re in right now um and and a lens that helped me see

15:52

maybe you know in a different way than some of the the existing heuristics afforded you know political

16:00

heuristics you know and so on and so forth and so i i i really love to hear that it’s been

16:05

useful for you and i’m really i’m really glad um and i would like to just throw out some ideas today

16:11

um so that then we can talk more um and and share some of what we’re all thinking and working on and you know

16:17

that that would be the most interesting outcome of anything to actually get somewhere you know

16:22

and and uh and make some exchange and and see some new ideas um coming out of this

16:28

time this strange time that we’re in um so yeah so so in general just to kind of

16:35

set things up um my work really broadly speaking over the last many many years

16:40

has been circling around sort of a single same theme which is this idea that we’re living in

16:46

this moment of transition of disarray not exactly crisis that doesn’t quite get at the depth of

16:53

it the expanse of it or even the the pace of it all right um this this moment where

16:58

uh aspects of this sort of neoliberal liberal uh way of life are coming undone

17:04

uh and at the same time where other aspects of this this this society and the system are not coming undone when

17:09

they should be right um where everything clearly needs to change um at the very least because it’s clear

17:16

to people in so many different domains and different disciplines the arts the academics engineering design

17:27

old models aren’t working but also it’s very unclear to to most of us what the new models should

17:33

be or what they could be um so for me this this is one way of describing this time that we’re in

17:39

um where the systems are coming undone and we have to figure out what we want to do with that um coming

17:46

apart process so um christina asked me to talk about infrastructure

17:51

in this talk um and i think that’s a really cool um way in to understanding the the moment

17:59

that we’re in this time that we’re in it we can read i think the the sort of um confusion of the present through this

18:06

this way in which infrastructure has become suddenly this this huge keyword that has been like this infrastructural turn

18:12

not just in academia although in academia you hear that phrase that there’s been an infrastructural

18:17

turn right in in anthropology in geography and in urban studies and so on um

18:23

but i think there’s been actually um a coming to the fore of infrastructure as a key problematic and concept and and and um

18:31

tool in in many different domains you know we’ve been hearing a lot about infrastructure even in the united states because joe biden

18:38

the president just put out this new infrastructure plan and you know the new york times just a couple days ago had an op-ed um

18:45

of course quite late as usual uh the new york times is usually somewhat behind um in in terms of

18:52

catching new new trends and all that but they had an op-ed about you know what is infrastructure we’re redefining

18:57

infrastructure you know joe biden is rethinking what does it mean it’s not just roadways and bridges

19:02

it’s also you know these less tangible systems and so on and so forth um

19:07

but i think you know we can we can and what i’d like to do in the next you know 25 or so minutes is pick out a couple of

19:15

different distinct but related ways in which infrastructure has become a key problematic

19:21

of the back loop and of the anthropocene um so both as a way of understanding the

19:26

moment but also a way in which people are trying to engage the moment uh whether by limiting

19:31

possibilities of transformation and exit or by opening those doors you know um so i’ll just kind of walk through

19:39

some of those to open up some ideas and then let’s let’s uh let’s discuss together so if

19:44

you have questions or thoughts feel free like like everyone already said to throw them out in the chat as i’m speaking um yeah so

19:52

so one of the ways i think that we’re seeing you know infrastructure become this this key problematic

19:58

is in the way that you know scholars and people in the in the more political uh

20:03

realms are trying to rethink the meaning of governance and government right so there’s been this turn to

20:09

understanding infrastructure as biopolitical infrastructure as a key aspect of how

20:14

populations and environments are governed right so there’s been a great deal of work uh on that

20:20

and um of course it’s not all um brand new but there’s been a lot of recent work on this idea um this idea

20:27

that you know it’s not just politicians in the white house or wherever um and and laws that are what

20:35

order the world right but these very structures these very seemingly innocuous background

20:41

structures that are actually what shape and order a particular form of life

20:46

bring it into being reproduce it as such and prevent other ways of living from from

20:51

coming into existence um and this has been you know there’s been tons of work looking at you know

20:57

everything from electrical grids to power plants and logistical networks and communications networks surveillance and

21:03

so on and so forth how these how these are stitched together in this project of ordering and this is a

21:09

this is um a biopolitical project because it is about um maintaining life the very very

21:16

survival of populations you know uh maintaining the the water the food you know

21:21

all the the transportation all the key elements of of life um in in particular ways right um

21:28

so i think that a lot of the reason why people have started to to think about government in this way is

21:35

they’re trying to understand you know perhaps political you know thought and political strategy had been

21:42

operating with somewhat of an outdated uh framework for understanding how power works how we are

21:49

governed you know and and that kind of thing and trying to understand um you know some of the the makeup of

21:55

the world at the you know in the second the first and second decades of the 21st century um but also this has been

22:03

an attempt to understand how might real change be brought about right why is it that

22:09

previous political movements uh have failed to actually revolutionize

22:14

the way people live uh and how why why have they come consistently come up against this sort

22:20

of impasse you know and i think infrastructure in some ways is is sort of operating at the corner of of

22:27

our vision or maybe now at the very center of our vision uh as this key impasse of the anthropocene

22:33

and of bringing about actual very very deep transformation uh in this moment right so if

22:40

we can’t find other ways of living the the very basic

22:45

infrastructures of other ways of living how can we imagine you know that the things that we say we need

22:50

this real transformation creating a better world um getting out of this this very catastrophic uh

22:57

neoliberal system if these things that we say and that we know we need uh we don’t have the physical means to make

23:03

them real how can we how can we move forward you know and how can we bring about some of this kind of change um that that is clear uh that

23:10

we need um so it’s it’s become clear in a lot of ways that it’s not just that infrastructure

23:16

is key to how to people how people are governed and how they have been governed for a really long time

23:21

um in capitalist neo-liberal uh regimes but also that it’s it’s forming this sort of like roadblock

23:26

for people who are trying to get out of those regimes and and transform things right so it has come to the fore as something

23:32

that’s very very needed in terms of uh you know people actually getting their hands

23:38

on the means of existence again um trying to reconnect with those basic structures of

23:44

of life you know i think we can think about infrastructure not just as you know critical infrastructure or as this

23:50

governmental project but we can think about it as a term for you know the basic systems that make

23:55

any way of life possible you know and we we call it infrastructure now but we might call it

24:00

the means of life you know to use a more marxist type phrase also um and people i think at many different

24:08

levels not just in an academic or theoretical or artistic context but um

24:13

ordinary lay people working class people poor people middle class families are i think also becoming very

24:19

interested in infrastructure right now because they see one

24:25

that there is something very very satisfying about reconnecting with those means of existence in some ways you know

24:32

so you’re seeing this real rise um all across the united states in people

24:39

experimenting with other technologies um skills tools whether we’re thinking survival skills

24:45

um you know more digital technologies you know blockchain type things solar energy you know homesteading

24:53

prepping all these things that used to be kind of like freak out liar activities are now becoming like a lot more

24:58

mainstream and a lot of people are getting involved in them learning about them online taking

25:03

classes getting gear figuring out in the yard or on their balcony of their you know apartment whatever um and i

25:11

think that this is also part of the back loop moment and of the anthropocene you know where

25:17

we are in the anti-scene there is this this real urgency uh that people feel not only because

25:23

it’s satisfying to kind of get some of these tools of our existence and try to you know have some handle on the means of life but also it’s very

25:30

obvious with the increasing frequency of disasters and power outages and infrastructural breakdowns

25:35

and then everything we’ve seen during covid where in the early days there were like empty grocery stores

25:41

no food you know in some places for a moment people are saying this this this way of this global

25:47

organization of everything where um things are produced in china sent over here in these

25:53

massive you know distribution centers none of this makes any sense it’s unsustainable and so they’re trying

25:58

to relocalize in many ways so that’s a more pragmatic response to a problem but it is also leading people to take up some

26:05

of these you know questions of infrastruct infrastructure and community infrastructures and what would that look like um you know and i think also

26:13

though there are other reasons why people are kind of um getting getting interested in

26:18

infrastructures in this way and in part it is because it provides a means of uh autonomy a degree of control over one’s

26:25

own life um and some kind of power over the ability to shape what not only the present looks

26:32

like but also what the future might be and what those possibilities in the future might be all this stuff though is so small scale and so embryonic and i

26:39

think we want to like mark that um because it’s it’s it’s it’s very it’s very nice and and

26:46

beautiful to have like thousands of small gardens or what have you community gardens

26:51

but the scale and the depth of what is needed is so much larger and complex and perhaps

26:59

high-tech actually that’s something i i notice a lot um but i’ll just kind of set that

27:05

aside for right now i think that’s just one among several ways in which there’s been this turn to infrastructure so the

27:10

turn to infrastructure one to understand how government is working at this moment in history in neoliberal

27:17

societies also this attempt to understand infrastructure as an impasse to

27:22

political transformation and a tool for political transformation um

27:28

and i think there are a lot of limits to that and and those are worth exploring uh but i think that we’re also seeing

27:35

this is a different kind of area that is related uh we’re seeing a different infrastructural

27:40

turn in the way that infrastructure itself is being redefined uh right now as designers and planners

27:47

and governments are trying to respond to um the you know unfolding crises of the

27:53

anthropocene the instability of the age of climate change the increasing frequency of natural disasters the

28:00

looming and sometimes already present threats of um sea rise and flooding and things like

28:05

this so this turn to uh infrastructures of adaptation and particular resiliency infrastructures

28:12

has brought about um what i think is a pretty profound uh

28:18

change a transformation in the definition of infrastructure itself and this

28:23

transformation in the way infrastructure is defined i think also says something quite

28:29

important about the way in which um human life is expected to look

28:34

in the anthropocene is being molded and shaped to to look in the anthropocene and the way

28:41

in which the horizon of what human being can be is being increasingly

28:46

truncated and and and delimited so so for me um watching and understanding this this

28:53

change in thinking about infrastructure in in actual infrastructure is being built on the ground in the name of

28:58

resilience uh has like pretty um powerful philosophical uh and political

29:03

dimensions as well so we i think what we’re seeing is a shift from you know modern infrastructure and modern sort of

29:09

engineer uh planning uh towards this complex systems

29:16

based uh eco-cybernetic form of resilience infrastructure so um you know there has been uh

29:23

and this is something i have done a lot of research on um in the realm of sort of urban geography and urban resilience

29:30

um there has been a real re-problematization to to use a

29:36

term of michel foucaults and other geographers right now who are really

29:42

thinking a lot about a problem-based urban studies there’s been a re-problematization of what infrastructure and planning

29:49

should mean in cities in the anthropocene so whereas modern planning was this top-down engineer led

29:54

big works you know uh bulldozed slums to build highways through them um clear out nature to you know put in a

30:01

big you know uh dam a grid or what have you um the the turn now is towards saying

30:09

all that approach that hubristic robert moses style of planning that thought it could bring

30:16

in this big uh you know one-size-fits-all project and put it down on any landscaper

30:21

regardless of the context or consequences that was wrong that was hubristic that was um modern

30:28

thinking which is now absolutely just off the table you know um and instead there has been a shift on

30:35

the part of planners and governments and resilience ecologists to say instead

30:40

we need to have the kinds of plans and infrastructures that uh you know work with nature rather than

30:46

bulldozing it or pretending it’s not there or using it as a dump we need uh

30:51

designs and plans that consider cities as ecosystems complex socio ecological technological

30:58

ecosystems that are composed of these uh systems that feed back into one another

31:05

uh and that bring in nature and people and technologies all into this single sort of self-adapting self-healing

31:13

system that is not ever going to be perfectly ordered right perfect order was the modern you know

31:19

uh outdated approach to cities and to planning into infrastructure now the thinking is that you know you

31:25

have to be resilient so to be resilient means that you have to be and the infrastructures have to be

31:31

capable of surviving a world of turbulence where disaster and disruption and

31:36

instability are uh natural omnipresent uh always going to be coming and should

31:42

be expected as part of the normal course of things in fact even welcomed and embraced because that is according to this way of

31:48

thinking the the true state of the world and of of life itself right so this is kind of the

31:55

thinking which is behind this sort of shift towards resilience infrastructures and resilience planning and resilience

32:00

planning then has has been really uh focused on okay so how then should we rethink

32:08

infrastructure in line with that ontology of the world that i was just you know kind of

32:13

summing up there how can we build infrastructures that obey all those new sort of um standards for what uh cities should

32:21

be and how you manage disaster right so you should allow disaster to occur rather than trying to stop it in this

32:27

approach there’s no sustainability in this approach the approaches instead weathering uh endless storms right so

32:34

um what i have found particularly interesting within the turn to resilience is uh the way in which two forms of life

32:42

are being revalued as infrastructure nature and people so i’ve been i’ve been following the the

32:47

rise of resilience as uh you know a big dominant uh object and problem uh rubric in new york

32:55

city since a little bit before sandy hit in 2012 which is now like a really long time ago

33:00

but that was a really interesting time because you actually saw in real time the way that media and

33:05

government and planets were really um in the midst of crafting what uh the

33:10

response to uh disasters like sandy would be and what resilience was going to mean

33:16

so i’ve been watching the the this shift towards building these new kind of soft nature-based infrastructures there

33:23

in new york but also in miami uh where i was living for the last several years and in miami

33:28

um miami is you know this other situation you don’t have this these big punctuated storms obviously

33:34

you do have those right like sandy but you have this ongoing problem of sea level rise related

33:39

flooding that’s already happening in the city so there’s different infrastructures uh in both cities that are trying to adapt to

33:45

these new uh both environmental changes but also um standards for what design can mean so

33:52

you have in new york you have of course oysters um being used as infrastructure

33:58

living infrastructure um that would grow and build uh themselves as an

34:04

infrastructure so rather than um building a big concrete sea wall something like that

34:11

designers are working with the state of new york now to build this two-mile

34:16

uh very large experimental oyster reef that is considered emergent or living

34:22

infrastructure so oysters you know the shells build one on one another over time building these

34:27

massive reefs that will be uh positioned by uh you know the army corps of

34:33

engineers and and uh planners out in the high wave action parts of the the water along staten island’s coast

34:40

which is an area that was hit hard during sandy where they can try to field and buffer but not stop

34:45

you know storm surge and flooding from future storms um so this idea that you know it’s it’s

34:50

life’s nature’s own capacities these things that nature does it you know without

34:56

human interference you know the the the pre-anthropocene nature the things that nature does naturally

35:03

are what constitute infrastructure in this in this vision of this living breakwaters project which is

35:10

you know um was originally envisioned by escape landscape architecture and kate orff who’s

35:15

a brilliant uh designer and thinker in in new york city um and so it’s this

35:21

is very interesting i did that if you just allow nature to do what it historically did then that

35:28

process that natural process can field unnatural natures which are like these anthropocenic natures you

35:34

know this the storm surge the flooding and that kind of thing so it’s this very interesting idea of infrastructure right that is about

35:42

pitting one nature like holocene nature against another nature anthropocenic bad right one against the

35:47

other um you know not to again stop the series not to stop the flooding not to stop the

35:53

storms anything like that but to to attenuate and manage their effects and therefore preserve sort of you know the existing systems on land right

35:59

um and we see you know another example of this in in uh in miami which i think is like

36:05

extremely interesting and i just finished writing um a chapter about it it with the everglades if you’ve ever been

36:11

to um south florida or miami you probably have visited the everglades or we’ve seen pictures of them

36:18

these this huge beautiful wetland ecosystem with alligators you know and wading birds and

36:23

crocodiles it’s one of the only places where crocodiles and alligators coexist and they’ve got now invasive pythons and

36:30

it’s a very very beautiful wild kind of place um but it’s been you know basically

36:35

obliterated by modern water management you know and urbanization so you know historically

36:41

to build miami and we say historically with regard to miami you’re talking very very recently but historically building miami building

36:48

urban development in south florida was seen as contingent on draining the everglades and getting rid of the

36:54

everglades so when um you know the state of florida was uh founded and miami was then

37:00

originally built that whole area was you know watery marshy you know considered like just like awful

37:07

by you know the the governmental explorers who came out there and then the real estate um prospectors so drainage was the key

37:15

to building urban uh habitation down in that in that region so they drained them they damned them

37:21

they rerouted the water flows to the point where now um you know the water at one point historically before urbanization

37:27

flowed south and these slow moving sheets down into uh the the bay and into the ocean and so

37:34

on but now it all kind of is routed out or contained or just dried up so now the everglades are an ecosystem

37:41

considered to be like on the brink of collapse at a tipping point that maybe is impossible to actually reverse

37:46

um but they’re also being kind of heralded as the the best hope for saving miami from um

37:54

sea level rise so this is an interesting thing where um miami is having this problem of uh

37:59

drinking water uh contamination with salt water so one of the biggest threats um a lot of people and you know um

38:07

experts in miami see uh with regard to climate change is not that it would be flooding coming over

38:13

you know the coast or something like that it would actually be that salt water comes

38:18

in infiltrates the aquifer which rests right under the city contaminates all the drinking water that

38:24

the city relies on and deads the city essentially right that would be the real city killer as

38:30

they see it so the idea is that if you could restore those everglades water flows and this is

38:35

being done now if you could restore those water flows of the everglades they could be used as a buffer

38:41

you know fresh water coming down to push back against that salt water intruding from

38:46

the seas right so the water kind of moves together in this interface under the under the city and the hope is

38:53

that the fresh water will will push push pushers keep that that contamination or that invading sea

38:58

as they put it uh from from coming in and ruining the drinking water supply um some of this salt water contamination

39:05

has already been happening and they’re they’ve been pushing wells moving wells further and further west and now they’re

39:10

a lot of them are as far west as they can go um the city miami beach maybe some of

39:16

you who are on this this talk have been there probably they used to have their own walls but now those are all on the mainland as well

39:22

out pretty far west um so this is another interesting case of this like anthropocenic

39:28

nature is infrastructure where again it’s um you know a pre-anthropocene nature

39:36

the everglades as they were historically uh understood to have flowed those water flows the way they move on this

39:43

this hydrological gradient of the slightly sloped southward towards the coast flow with gravity

39:48

this could be restored this natural nature in order to push back on the antiphoscenic nature right

39:54

and and therefore save the city so these two sort of uh natural and unnatural natures but

40:00

what’s always sandwiched in between they’re sort of the the urban and the city and that’s not often considered

40:06

uh as something in question at all that’s the most natural kind of element in this in this whole

40:11

picture right where of course you would save the city and just you know the socioeconomic

40:18

structures of the city that’s not often up for a debate right it’s just how you would do it and rethinking infrastructure around

40:24

that um and so and and i won’t i won’t belabor

40:30

this whole point here but i uh i think that it’s very interesting to see this rethinking of infrastructure

40:35

and how the urban is naturalized as a good in need of saving within that um and i have been finishing

40:41

a book on that topic recently but i think it’s also tomorrow important

40:46

to mark how this rethinking of nature uh and life as infrastructure really reshapes

40:54

what it could mean to uh you know even define life or to define nature in the anthropocene and you know

41:00

um it’s not just ecosystems or organisms like oysters it’s also people that are

41:05

being rethought of as infrastructure and this is often coming from you know well-meaning sort of um

41:10

critical commentators as well this idea that people are infrastructure that their social infrastructure so in that realm you see um you know

41:18

a lot of workshops and trainings and initiatives that are trying to um help the poor the marginalized the

41:26

vulnerable populations of cities um you know get prepared for disasters have them form these community

41:32

resilience hubs where they might you know have go bags and emergency generators and things like

41:38

that so that they can better endure the the the crises that will come right so that they then

41:44

can be infrastructure as well to help maintain that that operating system of the city

41:51

amidst crisis right so in both cases what we’re seeing is that you know what it means to to um respond to the

41:58

anthropocene what it means to uh transform infrastructure

42:03

and life is sort of held at well becoming critical infrastructure systems to support this city

42:09

right and i think you know these things make a lot of sense in some ways they’re very pragmatic and there’s nothing wrong with them

42:15

each of these projects you know totally um may work there’s absolutely every reason

42:21

why um you know the poor and the working class do want to like skill up on these things

42:26

and be prepared for disasters because we’ve seen like absolutely horrific food shortages and

42:31

drinking water shortages after big storms and things like that in florida in new york and all around the

42:36

world right and and more recently we saw what happened after um the winter storm in texas you know where

42:43

you had people actually just freezing to death in their beds because there was no um

42:48

infrastructure for a storm like that because government you know because politicians went on vacation and rather than trying to

42:55

do anything to to help people in the city and it was an absolute catastrophe and this continues repeatedly repeatedly

43:01

the same scenario where it is the you know the poor and the working class who are just you know

43:06

hopefully surviving these disasters but kept at that bare minimum you know uh trying to have enough sweaters to

43:12

wear during the you know um historic winter storms so that they don’t have um hypothermia at night right you know

43:20

while meanwhile there is sort of another emergent trend that i think is very interesting in the realm of infrastructure which

43:26

is that the the very wealthy and uh whether we’re talking about um politicians or celebrities or what

43:32

have you with a very wealthy or islandizing infrastructure right so uh we’re seeing this this shift towards um

43:39

you know trying to build sort of these autonomous infrastructural enclaves uh to not only um write out disasters so

43:47

you have you know you can function off grid or something like that but just in general kind of um shore up the needed infrastructures

43:54

and even maybe have sustainable ones solar ones or what have you um to to to live in this age of

44:00

turbulence so we might think of you know mike davis as an author who’s written a lot about these kind of like

44:05

um evil paradise uh enclaves of the wealthy for quite some time but we’re seeing kind of an anthropo scenic

44:11

version of this now too where it’s um you know we’re seeing some of these island these these prefab island cities

44:19

that will be sustainable just for the wealthy gated super patrol like in lagos um you know we’re seeing

44:25

things like you know celebrities kanye west is always floating these ideas of having like fireproof communities

44:31

um there’s you know the sea setting institute and you know they have all their interesting ideas about

44:37

you know autonomous uh floating communities uh in miami there is a company called arkup

44:43

which has these very very beautiful uh luxury yachts and luxury eco villages

44:50

that are floating eco villages that they’re um just now kind of putting on the market so

44:55

all the they have you know of course uh sustainable um solar grids water catchment all these

45:00

you know localized little technologies so there’s this turn towards islandization both like literally and figuratively too

45:07

of infrastructure um that i think that we’re seeing on the part of the very wealthy wall on the other hand um you know we have sort of the the

45:14

plebs of the world you know at best building go bags and and you know uh being part of these uh government

45:21

initiatives to make community resilience centers so um you know in the in the redefinition of life is infrastructure

45:27

i think there are both positives and negatives uh you know on the one hand uh it is a very dismal view of what

45:34

human being can be that you know maybe that that we are rethinking human being as just merely surviving or merely um

45:41

adapting to crisis uh you know because the whole thing with resilience infrastructure is that it is a necessary piece of a broader

45:49

system right resilience infrastructures are not going to replace um modern infrastructures they don’t replace all the the power

45:56

plants they don’t replace uh you know all the greenhouse gas emissions they don’t replace the

46:01

the global systems the logistics and so on they just mitigate the effects of them right so they

46:06

mitigate the disasters produced by those systems so they’re you know they’re they’re like a life support uh system that gets added to

46:12

an ongoing you know technosphere that’s that’s there right um so so to me like the question is

46:19

obviously then well you know is there is there anything more than that is there anything better than that that can be

46:24

thought that could be imagined that could be built uh you know as a way forward as a way of

46:30

prying open some kind of um exit out of the situation that we find ourselves in

46:36

um you know both for ourselves living right now and for the people who are going to come

46:41

after us right um and i do think that infrastructure is again key there as i was saying in the

46:47

beginning um i think infrastructure is obviously really key there and i think that so many people

46:53

see and sense that that reality and that’s part of why they’re trying some of these local

46:58

little projects like one one example that i talk about a lot uh in some of my writing and that i always

47:04

kind of return to is this guy um a fusion physicist

47:09

in missouri who started a project called open source ecology

47:14

and originally he was trying to make a civilization starter kit so it would be the 50 machines and open

47:22

source blueprints for building them the 50 machines that anybody anywhere would need to restart and remake their own civilization right

47:29

so for him he’s a really i never met him but he’s a very interesting seeming person

47:34

uh you know he was uh you know a physicist he realized like i can’t even fix my own

47:40

tractor so he quit his career and started this project he was like none of us know how to do anything

47:46

society is a disaster you know i don’t want to work for somebody else how do i fix these problems you know so

47:52

his answer to that which is like an epochal problem right it’s a huge civilizational problem that

47:58

we all face right his answer answer to that was the civilization starter kit uh with these 50 machines and so he

48:05

started inviting other people to come to this this farm they have all these crazy weird names for the the farms and the

48:11

projects like the farm is called the factor e farm you know um and it they

48:18

they built different uh habitations for the people there they have dorms and they have these like

48:24

boot camps where you can learn you know all different types of things build 3d printers build their power cube

48:29

um you know all these different things uh that they are part of their kit right so they they’ve kind of grown this

48:35

project into something bigger i first heard about it like it was probably like a decade ago or something at this point but

48:42

um and i think it’s had its ups and downs and all that but the basic idea the basic premise i find like really

48:47

interesting is that if you yourself and your people whoever those are right we all have

48:53

our worlds and our communities and they’re all different right but if you yourself had access to these

48:58

tools these techniques these technologies these infrastructures then that would enable you empower you

49:04

to maybe open up another pathway for your future rather than one of being a wage worker generating profit for somebody always

49:10

and forever and surviving disasters right um and that is really how he sees the project and that’s how he couches it

49:16

he’s like you know i think people kind of have a choice if we give them these tools you know it opens up a

49:23

choice do you want the same old same old do you want to go to work and work for somebody else or do you want to try something new you

49:29

know to me and he’s like you know to me trying something new is far more compelling as a life

49:34

project but the choice is yours you know i like that attitude i think that’s interesting you know um

49:41

and i also what i think is also pretty cool about their project is that um you know they’re not envisioning

49:47

the that what you have to do is go out leave the city go to a rural commune and like get sheep

49:53

and wear like giant sweaters that are hand-knitted or something like that you know what i mean like maybe some people want to do that and that’s

49:59

cool but they’re also envisioning this could be like a very high-tech project an experiment right so they’re using 3d

50:05

printing they’re using all kinds of you know they’re building tractors they’re building machinery that you know all these types of you know different

50:12

levels and and and typologies of technology which you know uh digital digital projects and so on um and i

50:18

think that that’s more realistic and it’s it’s more dynamic and you know it opens up a lot of

50:24

you know a lot more pathways potential pathways and potential cultures that could be generated too out of out of engaging with that that

50:30

kind of project so i find that like super super interesting as one example um it seems to me that this is like you

50:37

know imagine this this experiment in infrastructure and

50:42

developing you know one’s own civilization or many civilizations in you know in networked uh formations with

50:49

other people trying this out you imagine this is happening on a massive scale imagine if there were the means that the

50:55

very wealthy have to build their islands you know enclaves imagine if that were somehow available to the majority

51:02

of people imagine what could come from this time period you know the way the the anthropocene is such a moment of like

51:08

of of horror and disaster and and last year i think a lot of people have seen you know a lot more um cynicism about

51:16

you know certain possibilities and way people ways people treat one another right and then what could come from this but on

51:22

the other hand imagine just imagine for a second if we did have this this massive democratization of the

51:28

infrastructural means of life available to us and we did take up that project what could come from this moment

51:34

could actually be something absolutely like heroic and beautiful and surprising and you know

51:39

probably a lot of things would fail too and a lot of things would end up not being what you want of course but it could be something that we could at

51:45

least say we tried you know and i find that really compelling um

51:50

it seems in some ways like uh i don’t know if you uh if anyone ever reads kim stanley

51:56

robinson but i had just realized i’m a mega fan of kim stanley robinson and i didn’t think i was gonna be

52:01

because uh i thought i thought he might be a little bit like too politically like uh i don’t know

52:07

ideological but no oh my god he’s the greatest author i just finished i think the last book of his uh anyway it seems like this could be a

52:14

plot of a kim stanley robinson book in real life on earth you know the mars project but here

52:19

and i find that to be something worth really trying to to imagine you know because our

52:25

imaginations are so key here too because i think so much so many times our imaginations get you know um limited to survival and

52:32

adaptation too but also a project worthy of um exploring technically you know um you know and

52:39

then i would just say one other thing and i don’t i actually forgot to time myself so i don’t know how long i’ve been talking but probably

52:46

perfect yeah i’ll just say one other thing that i have recently been thinking about that i have found pretty pretty pretty thought provoking

52:52

too it’s you know um when it comes to thinking about infrastructure

52:57

in this way and you know the anthropocene uh is often kind of couched as the the

53:04

the need to create other forms of life they need to build other ways of living so in this in this positive productive

53:09

sense uh we often hear critical theorists and activists describing the anti-scene as a time where we need to make something new

53:16

right and i totally totally agree with that but um i think sometimes the volume gets turned down too low on the need to

53:23

um de-presence things you know to to decreate things uh on the you know in some sense we

53:28

might say the destructive side of the human capacities right that i think are also like so

53:34

important and needed right now when it comes to infrastructure and thinking about like so how do we how do we you know uh

53:41

eliminate some of the ones that are destructive and how do we think about what that might actually mean how do you turn things off how do you

53:46

how do you you know what do you do so so here i’m actually very inspired by um

53:52

some work that’s being done by some academic researchers in france in particular um alexandra monin

54:00

who has just put out a book um which is looking at this idea of depressing uh you know

54:08

infrastructures that are you know um [Music] destroying the world you know and so

54:14

they’re trying to to conceptualize theoretically uh but also pragmatically they’re working even with like

54:19

businesses and like designers to come up with strategies around this this idea of

54:24

not just you know how do we bring into presence you know to put it in a heideggerian way uh new forms of living and new

54:30

infrastructures and all that but how do we de-presence the ones that we don’t need anymore that are that are already obsolete in some sense um and he he

54:38

he uses the term the negative commons um what do we do with these negative commons that we all inherit right

54:43

um that is the the environment that we inhabit and that is just kind of building up

54:49

ever more around us right um and i think this is very very thought-provoking uh as an idea um

54:56

because you know negri you can think of this idea of the comments we had antonio negri it’s like ah the commons

55:01

in in that sort of particular view of the commons it’s like all the the the workers you know we produce

55:07

this it is actually ours we want it we want to control it or reappropriate it or whatever and it’s like well

55:12

actually maybe no we don’t you know because a lot of these things are are quite negative that we inherit that have been produced

55:19

around us or that we’ve been put to work building um in different ways right so how can we

55:24

start to think about not only bringing online other other better better ways of life that

55:29

would just make something livable here on here on earth for us and for the earth right but also

55:35

then as part of that same project how do we how do we uh put out of commission some of those ones

55:41

that are you know that are that are destroying us and the earth as well um and that’s not something that i have an

55:47

answer to obviously this is a hugely technical conversation but it is conceptually um

55:52

very thought-provoking i think for for all of us to to kind of remember and consider because sometimes

55:57

that seems like it’s just a social movement or a political upheaval moment type question

56:03

but i think it’s actually part of this ongoing kind of uh diffuse turn towards infrastructure

56:09

it could be um uh yeah yeah infrastructural brutalism

56:15

exactly yeah he’s these these death dealing infrastructures absolutely yeah thank you thank you michael um yeah

56:23

the what do we do with some of these um these absolutely crushing infrastructures

56:28

is a big question um and uh yeah so i think that that that’s that’s

56:33

a lot of different little pieces but i’ll stop here because i’d rather just let everybody else talk um but i hope

56:38

some of this was was interesting for you and uh yeah thanks thanks for your time

56:46

thank you stephanie for concluding on deep presence so now we can invite the audience to presents themselves

56:52

um you can type a question in the in the q a box or you can use the raise your hand

56:57

function um if you’d like to join us with a live voice and uh be part of a discussion with yourselves

57:06

maybe i’ll uh jump in with one thing that i don’t even know if it’s actually a question but thank you so much i feel like my

57:12

imagination is running wild right now in like all the best ways um but i’ve been thinking so much about

57:18

uh as you’ve been speaking about trial and error and failure and i know that that’s something that you’ve written about as

57:24

well and as you were giving some examples like the fusion physicist project um i was thinking a lot about

57:31

scale and how scale maybe fits into this idea or thinking about strategies of

57:37

failure which seemed to me to be very much embraced uh on the local levels of

57:43

response and of thinking about these new infrastructures or adapting and building new infrastructures you know when you’re

57:48

sort of working diy or ad hoc it’s much easier to just like try a thing and like see where it goes

57:54

um and then maybe how how that might be imagined or functioned within these

57:59

larger uh ways of thinking about infrastructure um so the everglades example that you gave

58:06

i started to think ah this is really interesting because it’s sort of like the failure itself is now able to sort of lead to

58:12

something else but i’m trying to think through how do we think about failure

58:17

in like a larger scale or is it something that has to begin locally or smaller scale

58:25

and how we can use it as a strategy beyond just like our own or maybe that is the point is to use it

58:31

within our own

58:37

yeah thanks thanks christina yeah i mean that’s that’s a really interesting question um i mean i don’t have i don’t

58:44

have the answer at all but um i think you know i think for me i do value the

58:52

aspect of experimentation that you know is really about embracing trial and

58:59

error in the sense of throwing out ideas seeing if they work testing out new ways of doing things

59:05

seeing if they work um in reality rather than um always expecting that the answer comes from on

59:11

high from some kind of blueprint from someone or something right that’s saying okay i have to see

59:17

what works in my context because nobody can actually tell me what’s going to work in my context only i

59:23

i we you know who whoever it is that is experimenting can figure that out in the real world

59:29

right um and i have been uh influenced by the geographer jamie warmer’s work on

59:34

uh the idea of um wild experimentation in the anthropocene he does a lot of work on rewilding and

59:40

conservation uh projects um and he’s a great writer and he he describes you know yeah and the intimacy

59:47

and experimentation is is happening in the the open air like real world context

59:52

of where people are of where the experiment is occurring but also in a landscape that has been

59:57

transformed uh really dramatically you know it’s an anthropocene landscape it has been altered radically

1:00:03

so there is no even if we’re talking about rewilding we’re never actually bringing back the exact landscape that was there

1:00:08

before um we’re creating something new in the process and that can be that’s going to produce something

1:00:15

unexpected there’s no way to know in advance what that’s going to produce um and in some ways that

1:00:20

openness is is very um you know to me it can be a really positive thing

1:00:25

because that allows you to you know get together with different types of people it allows you to get to to bring

1:00:31

together different environments different tools old and new rather than saying there has to be one way

1:00:36

of doing things or one set of people no it’s actually you can put lots of very different uh components together and see what

1:00:43

comes from that to me that’s always been the most interesting thing i’ve done a lot of stuff with like artists um and and i’ve always been and

1:00:50

different people um who are not in let’s say like um specifically political realms and i have

1:00:56

always found those to be way more interesting uh projects you know because you don’t really quite know what’s going to come from it

1:01:02

because it’s a big mix of people rather than the same type of person you know same kind of thing same old same old um

1:01:09

but yeah like i mean on the other hand that there’s also the the possibility that everything fails you know there’s a

1:01:14

possibility that all this failed so this is a missed opportunity um and i mean this i mean the big picture like

1:01:20

that that we don’t get it together we don’t stop this from happening uh you know we we head towards hot house

1:01:27

earth and we we never actually waged uh a powerful enough uh

1:01:32

resistance to what’s going on that’s a possibility like historically it’s happened a lot of times that um the

1:01:38

moment was missed and you know that you know attempts to to change the course of history

1:01:44

or thwarted right um but but you know there’s also the possibility when it comes to an

1:01:50

individual experiment with an infrastructure that it that it also um can’t take hold given

1:01:58

the transformations of the anthropocene right so with the everglades i mean one of the really really sad things because i

1:02:05

love the everglades i love them and it’s it’s really sad but you know when you talk to the some of the

1:02:11

ecologists who are involved in that project what they’ll what they’ll tell you is that um you know it’s it’s possible that

1:02:17

you know so far the rehydration of that uh landscape hasn’t worked as much as they

1:02:22

would hope that it would um that the timing is off the distribution of the water is off you know so on and so forth and that you

1:02:28

know if seas rise um you know enough at some point that landscape is just going to be all just

1:02:34

open water you know and then you have this additional problem which is that the peat soil is collapsing from the the

1:02:39

salt water intrusion so when the soil the soil contains a lot of carbon in it and so they’re not sure what’s going to

1:02:45

happen but it’s possible that it might be released at that point so then you have a system that potentially

1:02:51

uh you know can turn from being you know a resiliency infrastructure as it’s been

1:02:57

conceived to being actually productive further productive of the problem so we don’t know right but

1:03:04

that is a looming possibility likewise you know uh you know oysters might not be able to

1:03:09

live in such a uh you know polluted environment as new york harbor

1:03:15

yeah i don’t know if that answers your question very very very well i mean i think in terms of scale uh we probably need a lot bigger scale

1:03:22

but uh i’ll i’ll let everybody else um talk more great we have a question coming in

1:03:28

actually about scale um from an attendee named mixel so i’ll pass the mic over to you now and

1:03:34

hopefully you’re still there and you can ask your question

1:03:49

okay is this working okay great uh yeah i want to contribute

1:03:55

to the question uh christina had about a scale as a i’ve been able to experiment a bit as a

1:04:02

artificial life engineer um and using a lot of the the concepts that i’ve been learning from from

1:04:10

ecosystem dynamics like the the concept of the trophic cascade and how that actually

1:04:15

recreates uh a tragedy of the commons in in digital ecosystems so there there’s a

1:04:22

lot of like things uh growing exponentially but also collapsing exponentially

1:04:28

and we can learn a lot about the the ecosystem dynamics in in a safe space to actually see how we

1:04:35

can actually bring it back in in natural spaces so i’m trying to figure out how to do that

1:04:42

i’m trying to collaborate with also the peer-to-peer foundation on this but also with actual um bio

1:04:49

engineers in the netherlands and i’ve shared um in via the back channel uh models they

1:04:57

are using they are using like this treffold knot and it looks like very similar to the methods i see in

1:05:02

this space so that’s why i wanted to connect to you guys so just reaching out and see how we can help each other make slime not speaking

1:05:09

thank you yeah thank you that’s a great um example

1:05:16

too of something that stephanie brought up earlier about technology and how maybe that’s also a useful way of technology to help get us through

1:05:22

this of projecting and imagining and forecasting these larger scale

1:05:28

smaller scale responses that we can then see play out in the larger scale um i’m gonna share the link

1:05:37

i’m going to try to share the link that mixel just shared with everyone

1:05:43

and maybe there’s another question too

1:05:48

yeah we have a question coming in from an attendee in writing so i’ll read it out um they’d like to remain anonymous uh and

1:05:55

they say i may be too obsessed with political structures but i tend to see those structures as

1:06:00

pivotal as you say much of what we are doing now is too small in scale like how will without state or federal

1:06:07

government support how will the restoration of marshland’s estuaries be supported

1:06:12

or is chaos robinson suggested at a conference a year or so ago that we turn the oil drilling equipment

1:06:17

to re-freezing icebergs how can that be turned around without some control governmental over the big business interests

1:06:28

yeah yeah thank you um anonymous attendee for that question uh i i mean it’s it’s

1:06:35

a great question you know i mean you know i on the one hand it’s

1:06:42

you know historically it’s very hard to be you know to honestly say that

1:06:50

governments are you know acting in the best interest of

1:06:55

the people the environment anything uh and it’s it’s very hard to imagine a

1:07:00

government that might do so i will admit as a person who’s just been

1:07:06

reading kim stanley robinson non-stop i will admit that i am influenced by sometimes the

1:07:11

way he depicts this uh this the role of government because i you know he does sometimes imagine that

1:07:18

you know you could have you know some kind of government by the

1:07:23

people that gets it together to do exactly what you’re saying there all these different types of things

1:07:28

large large scale terraforming large large scale total reorganization of

1:07:36

economies to become ecological and to redistribute power down to

1:07:41

people on the ground down to you know uh you know small businesses or cooperative

1:07:47

you know i mean it’s compelling it’s compelling i mean given the the you know the

1:07:52

fortunes of attempts to do that at the governmental level historically it’s hard to be really optimistic about

1:07:58

that right on the other hand if you’re being um [Music]

1:08:04

serious about the magnitude of what we’re talking about here and not just like playing around um you

1:08:11

have to be honest that yeah it’s gonna a really large scale kind of intervention would be needed

1:08:19

yeah i mean there’s no there’s no denying that right um carbon capture carbon

1:08:25

mitigation you know cutting greenhouse gas emissions yeah the idea of the refreezing of the the the glaciers

1:08:32

of the you know the ice sheets massive technological mobilization wartime mobilization times

1:08:38

20 you know is is what that it would entail but uh you know then then the questions

1:08:46

become like but what else comes with that you know what other social and political um

1:08:52

effects come with that what kinds of coercions on us come with that what kinds of dictates on on on people

1:08:59

come with that you know so these are all questions that have to be thought about i don’t know can we have like a sacks from the mars

1:09:05

trilogy um you know in you know becoming or the the one whoever is the president in the dc

1:09:11

uh the washington dc books um i’ve clearly been reading this way too much these came sally robinson books too much

1:09:17

but you know could you have figures like that that actually you know create a different type of governmental mobilization maybe

1:09:24

maybe you know um i i’m not gonna sit here and be like

1:09:29

that’s off that’s like an impossible pathway you know because that’s unrealistic and i think it’s immature

1:09:34

but on the other hand i think that always there’s always there’s always this kind of response

1:09:40

that’s like that that says you know there could never be a democratic popular organization uh you know

1:09:48

networking and mobilization that would be able to adequately at a proper scalar level address the

1:09:54

amphibious scene right and it always it’s kind of like a refrain that you hear often that it would have to be the state

1:10:00

as we know it it would have to be governments as we know them um you know well

1:10:06

maybe maybe there are other possibilities that we’re not we haven’t thought of maybe we are just stuck in these you

1:10:12

know tropes these old political tropes and maybe there is something else you know i would like to think that there’s a possibility where um

1:10:20

people have some autonomy in what they do some the ability to have power over

1:10:25

their lives to not just be hostage to a system of wage work uh and extraction you know to not just

1:10:31

be pawns in this big game for the very wealthy you know as this planet sinks into the abyss you know i’d

1:10:37

like to think there’s another option where you know the people who have you know been

1:10:42

bulldozed by the the system for so long actually are able to you know to take the reins and change things

1:10:47

um but i think it’s very clear to all of us that that won’t look like anything from the past you know if that were to ever happen um

1:10:55

you know i think again this like infrastructural kind of moment is is it’s like hinting towards that

1:11:02

need and that possibility but it’s so embryonic and so small right

1:11:11

yeah just on that note um you know there’s benjamin bratton at the who’s doing the terraforming program at

1:11:16

some stroke institute kind of you know climate change and covet 19 are these comparative governance tests that

1:11:23

we’re going to see how we reform our governance to kind of meet these challenges because we can say the current

1:11:28

governments we have have been formed around modern thinking and so i think there’s going to be an

1:11:34

evolution in governance i hope to meet these challenges which come next and just one of the ideas that came out of the students at

1:11:40

the at the terraforming program that bratton leads is very much in line with that big government thing can you repurpose

1:11:46

military to not to like instead of fighting each other could militaries like capture and contain carbon

1:11:52

um could that be a mission because of course militaries are amazing at large-scale infrastructural projects and

1:11:57

deployment but also what are the what are the civil rights risks of that sort of thing

1:12:02

and how do we mitigate that as well at the same time it’s also just really hard to imagine

1:12:07

getting to that stage given what we see of governments worldwide right now right i mean it’s just like absolutely carnage you know and so it’s really hard

1:12:14

to imagine where does that come from and and how does that how would that ever come into being if that were to be a desirable

1:12:20

thing um you know with seeing what’s happened in the united states with covid response um has been like

1:12:27

mind-boggling uh in terms of you know even the inability to fulfill what is

1:12:33

the supposedly the american uh promise or dream of you know

1:12:38

even taking care of its own citizens not to mention other people even even that ideological thing can’t even it’s not

1:12:43

even has not even been on the table um you know just absolute mistrust of person against person everybody on everybody

1:12:50

um sorry this large fireworks outside my house for some reason

1:12:56

uh and you know and absolute just like you know uh lack of belief

1:13:03

in in science or um you know lack of concern with taking

1:13:09

care of just the basic things like not letting people die you know or you know this kind of i mean

1:13:15

it’s just been unbelievable so you know this in some ways is like a test run for you know what’s coming in terms of

1:13:22

climate change when things ramp up with that you know because it’s not just the cynical um

1:13:27

you know catholics greed and you know that kind of thing right and leave the the working class to starve and rot

1:13:34

and all that it’s not just that it’s that it’s definitely that right put them in the grocery stores and let

1:13:39

them die because you know they don’t matter right but it’s also this just like delirious craziness now where it’s just like

1:13:46

internet rumors are are actually shaping the future of our country the future of

1:13:51

like life here whether or not you know you live or die or based on like potentially just like

1:13:57

bought bought comments on facebook and things like that so the way that this is all going to play out in the in the climate change

1:14:03

response too and government and political realm is uh will be it will be interesting

1:14:09

yeah totally yeah that just brings me back to the workshop we did with new models but um christine la riviera who’s

1:14:15

kind of really interesting on social media and how you can tell these narratives kind of in that now kind of landscape that’s full of

1:14:21

booby traps it feels like online and how what are these narratives that are going to take off i think that’s what we need to find out

1:14:28

you know that’s why artists are so crucial to helping to shape this because i hope that they’re listening i hope

1:14:33

we’re all listening um and trying to figure out new languages to bring people along

1:14:42

i think i was i’m i like that you bring up these this idea of thinking about new languages because i’ve been thinking a

1:14:47

lot um this afternoon about language and how even definitions are shifting

1:14:53

especially as we’re talking and thinking about infrastructures like this idea that infrastructure is like kind of trending seems like

1:15:01

useful to me somehow although i i recognize on a very probably minor scale um i was watching something

1:15:07

online or on the news yesterday after biden you know released his infrastructure plan and then they sort of like cut to every

1:15:13

other president across time who has also led and um announced different

1:15:19

infrastructure plans because often infrastructure plans is that sort of solution to stimulating economy but maybe like this

1:15:27

idea of infrastructure as being defined through language differently somehow now um is a way to sort of get at that like

1:15:34

larger scale shifts um pulling from the failure and the trial and error on the

1:15:41

more local scale maybe that is also naive but i feel like language plays an

1:15:46

important role especially as we’re up against uh the bots and the bizarre conversations happening

1:15:54

online that are really gaining speed

1:16:03

so when i read this one so lanny had a comment um about robertson’s robinson’s utopian

1:16:10

governments uh and again this is what what i think you were just also speaking about of this like

1:16:17

how that translates into reality um where i think even you know in this

1:16:23

country we have no shortage of examples either of those supposed well-meaning uh those who

1:16:32

appear like they care about these things and are working in progressive ways and really it’s just more of the same uh so

1:16:38

how do we like restore these things without relying on the politics of it

1:16:48

i mean i think that’s an interesting comment the comment is about um the governor desantis in florida who’s a

1:16:55

republican and you know campaigned on being like the biggest uh

1:17:00

supporter of donald trump like he was like really like kind of you know trying to gain favor let’s say

1:17:06

to put it nicely with with trump you know and um but he’s actually been a big supporter of everglades restoration and

1:17:11

has really actually done a lot um in terms of water uh water quality uh protection and

1:17:18

remediation in in south florida um and and this is you know partially because uh you know a lot of his constituents uh

1:17:27

are people who live on the water they fish they do the the water economy is big there but

1:17:32

they’re also people engaged with the water who have a real connection to it um and when they see red tides coming through and there’s huge fish kills

1:17:39

just washing up on shore and it’s horrific and it’s just you know dead manatees and thousands of dead fish

1:17:45

because um you know there’s fertilizers and agricultural runoff getting flushed in

1:17:50

there and you know they see that they they care that the water is actually um you know healthy and improved and

1:17:57

protected you know and so that’s partially i think why he’s been doing a lot of this um everglades but also uh water uh

1:18:04

protection uh funding and measures and so on um you know and this i think brings up a bigger point which is that you know i don’t think

1:18:11

that if we’re if we’re talking about the the back loop or the anthropocene or this moment that we’re in the

1:18:16

the the old even though even though there’s this huge drive to to re-entrench these two single

1:18:24

categories of these political categories of left and right um those do not capture what’s actually

1:18:30

happening in real people’s lives and they do not capture um what could be possible amongst

1:18:36

people if they’re actually just engaged in the real questions that that animate them that

1:18:42

they face that you know that are in their their real worlds right um and and i think the majority of a

1:18:48

huge swath of people at the very least in america in the places where i have lived i can only speak from there but

1:18:54

the majority of people do not identify with either of those categories actually um at all they think that that’s just a

1:19:00

circus they don’t use twitter they don’t use social media they used to use instagram because they

1:19:06

love to see their friends pictures you know but they don’t want part of this this huge

1:19:11

um game you know and then i think even more people do follow some of those

1:19:17

you know are you red or are you blue whatever um when you actually uh interact with them on the ground it often doesn’t turn

1:19:22

out the way that those binaries would tell you it would turn out

1:19:27

and i think this is very important in terms of thinking about things like scale and the possibility of actually you know

1:19:35

intermixing different types of people um and building something you know larger and creative and dynamic

1:19:41

rather than you know reproducing the same you know always having the same exact uh

1:19:47

you know qualifications for who who can be involved in such a transformative project or who would want to be right

1:19:52

or who would actually think that uh you know building kind of an exit route out of

1:19:57

this this current the situation would be a desirable thing actually i think a lot of people

1:20:02

on all spectrums in america are are very interested in that and they’re very interested in things like

1:20:08

you know protecting ecosystems but for different reasons and so so in any case like i think what really

1:20:13

matters is being on the ground and actually being in a real world in one’s real world talking to those people on

1:20:20

you know about the the things that are actually happening um and and experimenting trial and error again kind of comes up there

1:20:26

um you know to see what what people are actually like rather than allowing these kind of binaries that are

1:20:31

really being crafted by uh you know media and and and politicians

1:20:36

and placed upon us rather than allowing those to define what we can and can’t do i think that we have to you know find out for ourselves

1:20:48

thank you guys so much for um all this this super generous conversation i keep um thinking i i guess i think a lot of

1:20:55

metaphors but i keep thinking about like draining the swamp in reference to this sort of um everglades situation and it’s almost

1:21:03

uh like i feel like some of the work we need to do is like uh reach and maybe it’s like

1:21:09

you’re saying christine like a reworking of language but it’s like we need to shift like our colonially understood like beauty

1:21:16

standards like what if muskeg we looked at it and it gave us the same pleasures as

1:21:22

looking at an ocean or what if like the everglades you know could be as exquisite as a rainforest or something you know like

1:21:28

how could we it’s like shifting our understanding of how we

1:21:34

appreciate these places or or even like thinking about the examples of um like in the bay in new york like

1:21:40

maybe this is it’s like the anti-monumental you know you don’t even see the work that’s being done it’s not like

1:21:46

this exquisite sea wall or something it’s like this secret um but i’m not sure it’s not

1:21:53

exactly a question sorry but i i do feel like yeah how much can a reworking of

1:22:00

language or an introduction of poeticism like can that help in this situation or

1:22:06

is it too incremental

1:22:11

i think that’s a really interesting thing to think about um i think that there’s a there’s

1:22:18

there’s a risk right okay so on the one hand i think that uh it it’s so important to

1:22:26

you know allow ourselves to to rethink what we mean what languages we want to use what what

1:22:32

imaginaries um are possible what imaginaries we produce um you know what what is considered good

1:22:40

you know in in all of those right but i i think there’s a risk in that there’s a risk of potentially

1:22:48

creating a new hegemonic kind of mandatory new trope and discourse and imaginary right and i

1:22:54

think that that is sometimes happening i think inadvertently uh but it’s happening in the

1:23:00

anthropocene type of uh theory and sometimes art and all that where we kind of are seeing

1:23:06

this assembling of a new kind of unquestionable uh you know definition of life and of what

1:23:12

is good and what the imaginaries are it’s sort of this like um you know

1:23:17

entangled systems um you know uh staying with the

1:23:22

trouble kind of imaginary where it’s sort of this uh this

1:23:27

these certain elements of what life can be right now kind of are positive as unquestionable right so

1:23:33

it’s like before there was according to this kind of way of thinking sometimes it seems as if

1:23:38

there was that modern enlightenment subject separate from the world kind of thinking

1:23:44

but that was wrong but now we found the enlightened solution which is

1:23:50

entangled complex adaptive systems eco-cybernetic thinking which you know of course has its own history i mean

1:23:55

cybernetics is in no way like natural necessarily good or

1:24:00

you know unquestionable whatsoever but it has become this sort of unquestionable um undercurrent to these these

1:24:07

imaginaries i think that you’ve seen a lot of anthropocene thinking and anthropocene art um where it’s sort of

1:24:12

like well of course in the anthropocene everything sticks and the anthropocene we’re just in these loops it’s sort of like um

1:24:19

a way that tim morton will sometimes describe that there are loops and loops and we have to go further into the loops and you it would be just backwards modern

1:24:26

thinking to try to get out of the loops or get out of entanglement or you know we have to stay here and we

1:24:31

should you know really humble human being and try to give up that hubris of modern thinking

1:24:36

and you know accept that we are just you know sort of here in the in the tangles or whatever

1:24:43

right i mean i think there are a lot of different things that people mean when they draw

1:24:48

on these imaginaries but there is a way in which i think that they’re they’re repeated to such an extent and repeated as

1:24:54

um authoritatively right as the long-awaited like proper definition of life that we

1:25:00

should always just be a little bit and this is not even questioning or critical of what you were saying nicole

1:25:06

at all it just made me think of this right it’s like um rather than we should we should we should we should

1:25:12

just try to be you know uh wary of anything that sort of posits the new language

1:25:17

right the new imaginaries saw new images uh that would speak for everyone and everything instead i think you know i

1:25:24

think that’s the cool thing about you know the trial and error like ethos of experimentation it’s it’s all

1:25:29

it’s it’s it should be it could be an environment where you know new ideas new new

1:25:35

languages new imaginaries are welcomed rather than you know close down

1:25:41

because they don’t conform to a particular pre-existing desired imaginary or language right

1:25:47

and that’s hard because our social climate right now isn’t necessarily taking that direction

1:26:00

i’ll just open it up into the audience as well um if there’s no other or if you have any last questions please

1:26:05

ask them now because we’re at about an hour and a half and stephanie i’m sure you’re curious what’s going on outside with your fireworks

1:26:11

maybe you’re missing a party you want to get to tonight

1:26:18

oh manuel here we are coming up as the last question um here we go invited manuel

1:26:24

pina to ask a task a question yeah thank you guys for the conversation

1:26:31

it’s very exciting um well yes here maybe even christine know that

1:26:38

i’m very interested in the question of the new language but i want you to actually want to uh go back to the idea of this uh

1:26:44

the negative commons i find it very exciting and i also think and know about that

1:26:49

idea before but we’re surrounded by uh

1:26:55

by this uh in ruins right of a system that is just dying

1:27:00

in our hands right so we have all this negative commons or negative assets or whatever because they are not

1:27:07

common right my question is precisely how do you see that common happen in so many like

1:27:14

just to put a close to home example i’m thinking of the university this failed as a model and now the

1:27:21

neoliberal system in which the university were forced to become this uh

1:27:28

i don’t know company corporations it’s also failed right because of code so i’m thinking a lot

1:27:33

about what’s going to happen uh with the university and everything and

1:27:39

so i don’t know how do you see that common in happening because you mentioned that as a giving i felt or i’m just not aware of

1:27:46

the discourse can you can you tell me tell me a little bit about that what they call my negative comments

1:27:57

sure i mean i i this is not my idea at all this is uh an idea that i was introduced to uh quite recently uh

1:28:04

in um the work of uh the french researcher alexandra monan

1:28:10

and he has been with some of his colleagues uh starting a um a new anthem

1:28:17

design and strategy uh nsc program at um esc claremont

1:28:23

i believe near lyon in france um and and they’re they’re working there

1:28:28

with um students of all different kinds uh in the business world and design and so

1:28:36

on um to to partner with different organizations or communities or what

1:28:41

have you that have a particular like problem area that they’re trying to to figure out how to like turn off certain like uh

1:28:48

destructive uh you know infrastructures or what have

1:28:53

you that are part of their their existing um models so so it’s different in each case and it’s a very

1:28:59

new program and i don’t know all that much about it but he he recently invited me to to meet with them and so i was learning about it

1:29:05

through through him and through the students and it’s an interesting idea i mean and they they just use this term

1:29:11

negative commons um i think he’s written about it quite a bit more than i have actually read um

1:29:16

but he uses this term just simply to say um yeah that we you know

1:29:22

again there there was this like negrious idea uh that you know the commons are

1:29:29

all this you know this this stuff of the society the infrastructure the knowledge infrastructure and so on that

1:29:35

you know were actually produced by the living labor of you know the proletariat right and the the the the revolutionary

1:29:42

liberatory task would be to like reclaim those comments to reappropriate those commons that that you know that the worker built

1:29:49

with its power right i mean that’s that’s a particular negarious um interpretation of what the commons would

1:29:54

be so the commons would in that in that view be what’s already here and it would view it as something to

1:30:01

to to want right something is positive right but that has been uh you know that we’ve been separated

1:30:08

from or alienated from or expropriated from right or what would have you through through the capitalist process but in

1:30:13

this case i this is my interpretation of the cause of the term but the the thinking i believe is that no

1:30:19

actually you know so much of what has been produced is actually it’s negative it’s destroying the land

1:30:24

it’s destroying people it’s destroying the future it’s destroying potentially the possibility

1:30:30

of even life right so then um what would you do if that’s how you understood the these

1:30:35

these infrastructures and these these landscapes that we share that we inherit we inherit these

1:30:40

technologies that are already obsolete you know and even within a lot of you know you know businesses and you know

1:30:46

design firms they feel this way too and they want to actually you know figure out what to do about it you know that’s not always the

1:30:52

case but it is often the case that a lot of times um designers get too you know they get

1:30:57

stuck having to just always build more resilience of what already is but i think that what they actually want is something

1:31:02

better than that they want to actually make a better future um and so i think this is their kind of

1:31:08

uh attempt to you know pry open that pathway a little bit right maybe there’s

1:31:14

actually a legitimate possibility of of depressing some that’s that’s the term that they

1:31:19

use um some of these negative comments um and and i think that that’s a that’s an idea that just it opens up more ideas

1:31:26

rather than it answers everything right it’s just it starts to open imagination a little bit for me

1:31:37

that’s a that’s a nice way to think about to leave the talk so let’s increase the holocene’s commons and decrease

1:31:43

modernity’s comments and we might get to uh to to a new place

1:31:49

great so stay tuned christina’s fellowship continues with 221a and she’ll be publishing

1:31:55

some of her research and work on our website and we look forward to a forthcoming public realm project with christina and

1:32:00

um in the next year or so take care everyone and have a good evening yeah thanks everyone for being

1:32:07

here thank you stephanie so much and uh jessie nicole and tao thanks so much for your support and

1:32:14

watching the chat and keeping the conversation going um and i also just wanted to i’m gonna put

1:32:20

um in the chat my email address i can’t talk and type at the same time but if anyone has any

1:32:27

other questions or comments or thoughts uh please like feel free to get in touch i’m looking forward to hearing from

1:32:33

everyone thanks again stephanie for leaving us thinking about these like really critical important things

1:32:39

and and also centering imagination in the role of that within all of this as we now go on back into

1:32:47

these like super wild times and places that we’re living in thank you likewise thank you so much

1:32:54

christina and thank you everybody uh this is really nice to talk to you again take care yeah thank you everyone for

1:33:02

coming and yes thank you both for um such a beautiful morning i guess afternoon where you are too steph

1:33:08

thank you bye

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