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. 

Pictures From An Exhibition

'Shadows and Undercurrents'
at the Appledore Arts Festival, June 2012

part of the 'Confluence' project; a collaboration with Jon Pigott

www.UNmapping.net

Some images

Shadows, Mussels and Rhizomes

Confluence : As the end-of-residency exhibition approaches, my mind is focused on drawing out the core strands of this project. There are many interwoven elements: environment, technology, community, landscape, creativity - but the root, the foundation, here is the fact that this is a 'Biosphere Reserve'. This is the primary reason the project is happening in this place, in this time, in this landscape. Stripping away all the mechanisms of the project plan, and even the shiny coating of the cutting-edge technology, what is at play is an exploration of connections and harmony (or rather of 'trajectories' towards - or away from - harmony), in the context of 'biosphere' and 'ecosystem* health'. An essential part of this is making sensible some hidden tensions in a landscape. And as 'landscape' is a human construct, this is about tensions and pressures arising from human impacts, human designs. It is also about opportunities, including those affecting the local economy - much of which is founded on landscape - and waterscape -  concerns (e.g. in the case of the bats, mussels and salmon populations that we have been encountering).

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.