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| dust_and_shadow:fieldnotes_2 [2018-03-02 12:20] – created maja | dust_and_shadow:fieldnotes_2 [2018-03-02 17:35] – maja |
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| ==== Sonoran desert 020171123 to 020171206 ==== | ==== Sonoran desert 020171123 to 020171206 ==== |
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| By Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney | Excerpts from [[https://medium.com/@foam/dust-and-shadow-field-notes-2-3a4542feeecd|Dust and Shadow Fieldnotes #2]] by Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney |
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| We spent two weeks on and around ASU — immersed in university life and surrounded by urban sprawl — inquiring about the relationships between people and the desert. Uncovering the mythical foundations of contemporary lifestyles. Seeking out counter-myths more closely attuned to the desert environment. From time to time we would follow the edges between city and desert. Searching for sites of dust and shadow, where the city-desert and the wilderness-desert entwine. | We spent two weeks on and around ASU — immersed in university life and surrounded by urban sprawl — inquiring about the relationships between people and the desert. Uncovering the mythical foundations of contemporary lifestyles. Seeking out counter-myths more closely attuned to the desert environment. From time to time we would follow the edges between city and desert. Searching for sites of dust and shadow, where the city-desert and the wilderness-desert entwine. |
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| We followed the shadows along the abandoned “Cut” of a railway that was not to be, in the remains of utility poles, in the cairns beneath a flight path and a wetland between two highways. We traced a path of divination. In the delirium of heat and jetlag, we hiked into the Superstitions in search of the mythical source of dust storms, finding enigmatic petroglyphs and a dry creek bed. From our higher vantage point the city became a mirage, merging into the hazy plain punctuated by saguaro cacti. Centuries of civilisation evaporated in that mirage. | We followed the shadows along the abandoned “Cut” of a railway that was not to be, in the remains of utility poles, in the cairns beneath a flight path and a wetland between two highways. We traced a path of divination. In the delirium of heat and jetlag, we hiked into the Superstitions in search of the mythical source of dust storms, finding enigmatic petroglyphs and a dry creek bed. From our higher vantage point the city became a mirage, merging into the hazy plain punctuated by saguaro cacti. Centuries of civilisation evaporated in that mirage. |
| 2312\\ | 2312\\ |
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| Here we are, working on a project funded by the Global Institute of Sustainability, looking at environmental issues in the region. Even our short commute across Tempe suggests that environmental issues are an inextricable part of entangled social, economic and political realities. "Arms trading, dictatorships and murder are environmental politics." points out China Miéville. They cannot be separated from pollution, climate change and renewable energy targets. | Here we are, working on a project funded by the Global Institute of Sustainability, looking at environmental issues in the region. Even our short commute across Tempe suggests that environmental issues are an inextricable part of entangled social, economic and political realities. "Arms trading, dictatorships and murder are environmental politics." points out China Miéville. They cannot be separated from pollution, climate change and renewable energy targets. |
| <blockquote>[T]he importance of propositions is not limited to matters of truth and falsity. Language is used to evoke attention to features of the world that another person may be missing. Perhaps someone wants me to look up at a branch in a nearby tree. She has propositional feelings of a rare bird being there. Her interest may be in my entertaining the same proposition, but the most effective method may be just to point with a certain expression on her face, or to say “look quick” with some excitement. These gestures may lead to the result better than the sober statement that there is a rare bird there. Of course, it may be that the proposition the speaker entertained was false. Perhaps the bird in the tree is of a common species. […] The propositional feeling is always clothed in some emotional tone. These are often communicated with the propositions.” | <blockquote>[T]he importance of propositions is not limited to matters of truth and falsity. Language is used to evoke attention to features of the world that another person may be missing. Perhaps someone wants me to look up at a branch in a nearby tree. She has propositional feelings of a rare bird being there. Her interest may be in my entertaining the same proposition, but the most effective method may be just to point with a certain expression on her face, or to say “look quick” with some excitement. These gestures may lead to the result better than the sober statement that there is a rare bird there. Of course, it may be that the proposition the speaker entertained was false. Perhaps the bird in the tree is of a common species. […] The propositional feeling is always clothed in some emotional tone. These are often communicated with the propositions.” |
| – Gorgias Romero, That is interesting but is it true </blockquote> | – Gorgias Romero, That is interesting but is it true </blockquote> |
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| We travelled through layers of signals, systems and stories in search of the hardened sediment of metaphoric undercurrents. The libertarian ethos and protestant work-ethic ration desert time into the neurotic drip and trickle of temporal scarcity. Time is submitted to a relentless economic valuation. Work must continue, no matter the conditions, in the “Sand of the Free, Sprawl of the Brave”. Idleness is still considered the devil’s playground, siestas close to sacrilege. The distrust of “elites” and rhetoric of self-reliance encourage a culture of conservative individualists and a precarious belief in the Dominion of Man over Earth. | We travelled through layers of signals, systems and stories in search of the hardened sediment of metaphoric undercurrents. The libertarian ethos and protestant work-ethic ration desert time into the neurotic drip and trickle of temporal scarcity. Time is submitted to a relentless economic valuation. Work must continue, no matter the conditions, in the “Sand of the Free, Sprawl of the Brave”. Idleness is still considered the devil’s playground, siestas close to sacrilege. The distrust of “elites” and rhetoric of self-reliance encourage a culture of conservative individualists and a precarious belief in the Dominion of Man over Earth. |
| <blockquote>To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness | <blockquote>To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness |
| -Ursula Leguin, The Left Hand of Darkness </blockquote> | -Ursula Leguin, The Left Hand of Darkness </blockquote> |
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| Yet a larger conundrum remains; Phoenix exists far from equilibrium, requiring massive external inputs for its continued existence. Despite the desert, not within the desert. Holding onto an idealised image of urban life, haunted by the shadow of its possible demise. Water, power and other essentials imported from afar to keep up an appearance of a stable oasis. The myth of the Wild West in a desert on demand. | Yet a larger conundrum remains; Phoenix exists far from equilibrium, requiring massive external inputs for its continued existence. Despite the desert, not within the desert. Holding onto an idealised image of urban life, haunted by the shadow of its possible demise. Water, power and other essentials imported from afar to keep up an appearance of a stable oasis. The myth of the Wild West in a desert on demand. |
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| <blockquote>I have also tried to make the desert my own. But none us will be able to capture and resell the lonely magic. That belongs to the High Desert and to experience it, you will have to let yourself get lost. | <blockquote>I have also tried to make the desert my own. But none us will be able to capture and resell the lonely magic. That belongs to the High Desert and to experience it, you will have to let yourself get lost. |
| –Donna Haraway, Staying with the trouble</blockquote></blockquote> | –Donna Haraway, Staying with the trouble</blockquote></blockquote> |
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| We reached Shadow Belmont. A place deeply familiar with shade. Shade architecture, shaded transport, sheltered time. A cityscape layered with a latticework of porches, pergolas, verandas, galleries, awnings, canopies, umbrellas and trees. From above the city looks like a desert garden. The shade of the high canopy stands on cactimorphic succulent pillars, doubling as public water sources. Closer to the ground, multi-trunked mesquite marquees diffuse light across outdoor kitchens and intimate courtyards. The ubiquitous antennae of the place mingle with soaring ocotillo vines, their cabling protected by dessicated saguaro skeletons. | We reached Shadow Belmont. A place deeply familiar with shade. Shade architecture, shaded transport, sheltered time. A cityscape layered with a latticework of porches, pergolas, verandas, galleries, awnings, canopies, umbrellas and trees. From above the city looks like a desert garden. The shade of the high canopy stands on cactimorphic succulent pillars, doubling as public water sources. Closer to the ground, multi-trunked mesquite marquees diffuse light across outdoor kitchens and intimate courtyards. The ubiquitous antennae of the place mingle with soaring ocotillo vines, their cabling protected by dessicated saguaro skeletons. |
| <blockquote>… machines themselves – rather than destroying aura or hastening the disenchantment of the world – were granted an uncanny power to animate the inanimate, to emancipate and spiritualise “vibrant matter.” The powers of technology triggered aspirations toward an intersubjectivity that would embrace more than just humans; they lent support to the view that all elements of the world would participate in a single, living, intelligent, and perhaps divine substance. (...) Rethinking technology meant rethinking the basis of the social bond and the order of the universe and, potentially, living very different lives. Updated to the present, mechanical romanticism suggests that even if solutions must be small and local, they require a conceptual and aesthetic frame that is deep and wide." | <blockquote>… machines themselves – rather than destroying aura or hastening the disenchantment of the world – were granted an uncanny power to animate the inanimate, to emancipate and spiritualise “vibrant matter.” The powers of technology triggered aspirations toward an intersubjectivity that would embrace more than just humans; they lent support to the view that all elements of the world would participate in a single, living, intelligent, and perhaps divine substance. (...) Rethinking technology meant rethinking the basis of the social bond and the order of the universe and, potentially, living very different lives. Updated to the present, mechanical romanticism suggests that even if solutions must be small and local, they require a conceptual and aesthetic frame that is deep and wide." |
| - John Tresch, Romantic Machine</blockquote> | - John Tresch, Romantic Machine</blockquote> |
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| Geology of media\\ | Geology of media\\ |
| Romantic machines\\ | Romantic machines\\ |
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| <blockquote>As the day comes to an end, the twilight dissolves the surfaces, absorbing their colors, leaving their reflections suspended in space. The luminous transparency in open spaces condenses into beams and phosphorescence. Things lose their separatedness. The shadows advance over the colors and the contours that they outlined are lost. Darkness infiltrates the landscape, obliterating its paths and filling up its open planes. Overhead the blue of the atmosphere recedes and the starlights drift over unmeasurable distances. | <blockquote>As the day comes to an end, the twilight dissolves the surfaces, absorbing their colors, leaving their reflections suspended in space. The luminous transparency in open spaces condenses into beams and phosphorescence. Things lose their separatedness. The shadows advance over the colors and the contours that they outlined are lost. Darkness infiltrates the landscape, obliterating its paths and filling up its open planes. Overhead the blue of the atmosphere recedes and the starlights drift over unmeasurable distances. |
| —Alphonso Lingis, The Imperative</blockquote> | —Alphonso Lingis, The Imperative</blockquote> |
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| ---- | ---- |
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| Dust and Shadow Reader Vol. 1 | Dust and Shadow [[reader_1|Reader Vol. 1]]. Previous: [[recipes]]. Next: [[bibliography]]. |
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| [[fieldnotes 1]]\\ | |
| [[alternative awareness]]\\ | |
| [[ways of listening]]\\ | |
| [[objects and cairns]]\\ | |
| [[designing bridges]]\\ | |
| [[walking exercises]]\\ | |
| [[recipes]]\\ | |
| [[fieldnotes 2]]\\ | |
| [[bibliography]]\\ | |
maja