ZONE ROUGE RED ZONE

Zone Rouge / Red Zone (Back Forest Reflections)

For the first of a series of posts about my latest film-poem project, I am sharing a short reflection by the commissioner of the work, Dr. Esther Breithoff (Birkbeck, University Of London). Esther is the Principal Investigator on the research project, Ecologies of Violence.

Still from 'Zone Rouge'

Ecologies of Violence uses archaeological, historical and ethnographic research as well as vitalist/‘more-than-human’ frameworks to critically investigate how landscapes remember past violence against both culture and nature, and how these social, material and biological scars persist in...

Return of The Aliveness Machines

Posters produced for exhibition at RGS conference in London next week. A platform for a new development phase of The Aliveness Machines - first seen in Devon in 2012. A NOVA research project.

Data Ecologies, Geopoetics and Augmented Spaces

What follows is the transcript of a presentation I gave at the Data Ecologies Lab, hosted by i-DAT, on November 10, 2012. This was the final happening of the 18-month 'Confluence Project', situated within the North Devon Biosphere Reserve.


DATA ECOLOGIES - INTRO

The Confluence Project
It would be fair to say that - for all involved, this project was a challenge - as its aims were, and are, numerous and diverse:
 - for the creative process to engage with a place - an entire watershed, 
 - to engage with the Biosphere Reserve's stewards and environmental issues, 
 - to engage with innovative technologies and eco data-logging,
 - to engage with communities and schools, 
and in our case, 
 - to engage in a creative collaboration. 

All of this in very limited time and resources allocation. By necessity then, it was a probing exercise, an experimental process, allowing space for serendipity and chance. 

'Shadows and Undercurrents'; this is the title given to the strand of the Confluence Project undertaken by sonic artist, Jon Pigott and myself. We were interested in teasing out some vital, yet somewhat 'obscured' ecological threads within this special protected landscape setting. Making the invisible, visible. 

Tales of the Unexpected

These are a feature of any fieldwork, of any deep exploration of a territory - the real and the metaphorical 'turning over stones' and fossicking for hidden, yet vital, threads in the webs of meaning, along with the ecosystem-webs (or rhizomes). The landscape of the Confluence project is a 'watershed' or catchment. ('Watershed' was originally considered as the project title). It is a territory of relationships, not least of which are the human-nature involvements. Landscapes and inhabitants (human and non-human) have their individual rhythms and pace. Some of these are perhaps more obvious (day/night, tides, traffic flows…); others can be revealed through data-flows and monitoring. In a way, many of these rhythms form part of the 'hidden realms' which we've set out to explore in this project. We are examining patterns of bat activity, the ever changing clarity of the river-water and tidal 'muddiness' (turbidity). 

Shadows and Undercurrents

Immersed now on the Confluence Project with Jon Pigott, i-DAT and others. We're delving into some of the hidden or shadow realms of the Biosphere Reserve of North Devon. With the aid of innovative technologies, we're venturing beyond the range of our human senses, and fusing art and environmental thinking.

The investigations are taking place in and around the Torridge River and Estuary, so the theme of 'undercurrents' seems appropriate. As well as the literal meaning, there is the metaphorical sense of 'an underlying feeling or influence...not expressed openly'. One take on this, in the context of the River Torridge, is perhaps the idea of a mismatch between 'appearance' and 'reality' - as far as the eco-health of this Biosphere Reserve is concerned.