vizKult : A Line in Nature
Fall 2008 - ongoing
A research/reading group that examines the relationships between humans and nature throughout time, thus tracing a line in nature. Although the general goal is to explore, we are also open to presentations, proposals, and experiments (both collaborative/individual and formal/informal. [Original ideas for visual propositions on nature date back to 2008 but in October 2010 it was proposed as The Urban Foraging Reading Group at The Public School NYC.]
to join us: send an email w/your interest to x@*this-website-name*.org
NEXT (informal) MEETING:
Saturday, June 2nd, 8-10pm
Conviviality in the Garden w/Artist
La Petit Versailles Garden
E. 2nd St. b'tween Ave B &
“The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world.” -Foucault, Of Other Spaces (1967)
The conviviality that is possible in the garden is multiplied by it's ability to be at once many different spaces for those who are present, and exponentially so as one moves through the garden. As the sunsets on this long day of venturing inside gardens, we've invited several artists to this informal gathering to reflect on art projects related to nature, gardens, and conviviality. Invited artist include Brian Zegeer, Hsiao Chen, Forest Purnell, Antonio Serna, and others TBA.
This meeting is part of Occupy The Land UNconference by NYC Community Gardens Coalition,June 1, 2, 3(Fri-Sat-Sun) For a special Art + Garden + Commons guide by vizkult visit our blog: Bureaux: Occupy The Land Guide for Saturday June 2 - Williamsburg & East Village Gardens.
PREVIOUS MEETINGS:
Ritual and Nature pt.2
October ?
The group members should start to think about which readings we should do for next meeting, do we continue some more on the topic of sacred rituals in nature or go into the profane. While there is no rush I feel as though we should do one more reading on sacred rituals and maybe introduce more art to this discussion?
Hopefully we can get more feedback from the group.
readings TDB.
In the meantime I've found a tangential text by Foucault in regards to spaces and thier uses. Very much the reasons why Michel Conan suggests that researching garden spaces is much more urgently needed.
• Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias (1967), Michel Foucault [PDF 96kb ]
• Of Other Spaces an exhibit catalogue by Bureau of Open Culture (2009)[PDF 5mb ]
....
Ritual and Nature: a walk and reading
initiated by ArtCodex and vizKult
September 11, 2011, 5:45 P.M.*
@ Broadway & W. 155th St.
(Trinity Cemetery & Mausoleum Uptown)
Google Map: http://g.co/maps/gt8xh
subway: A, C to 155th st. / 1 to 157th St.
Please RSVP to join this walk: x@*this-website-name*.org
& READINGS:
• The Cultural Agency of Gardens and Landscapes, Michel Conan [pdf]
• Africans Discover America: The Ritualization of Gardens, Landscapes, and Seascapes by Suriname Maroons, Richard Price [pdf]
invited guest:
Art Codex, Brian Zegeer, Dillon DeGive, et al.
As part of 'a Line in Nature/Urban Foraging Reading Group', a few of us are going on a walk this Sunday, Sept 11th. We'll be meandering along the Northern tip of Manhattan just before sunset, stopping along the way to reflect on the reading topic 'Ritual & Nature'.
'Ritual & Nature' is a collaborative walk where anyone can lead with questions, experience, or knowledge in regards to the topic or locations we visit. There's an ancient saying that can better describe the idea behind a collaborative walk:
三
人
行
必
有
我
師Three people walking, definitely have my teacher - Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
*We will be leaving the meeting point at 6pm so please be on time, a trip from Union Sq to w.155th street is about 45min ride on the subway. There will be several stops on our walk, which will coincide with foraging, the readings, and any other related topics, if you have knowledge to share please join us, this is a collaborative walk, anyone can lead the various discussions: ...
- Trinity Cemetery/Mausoleum - Ralph Ellison "Invisible Man", John Audubon
- Fort Washington Park Area - the fort, lighthouse, Chinese Mulberry
-
Inspiration Point Shelter @ sunset - 1930's leisure-driving stop
-
Fort Tyron Park/Inwood Hill Park - Lanape Tribes, glaciers
- Ritual and nature in The Americas Pre, Post, & during colonial times.
- Ritual and nature today.
Join vizKult's general email list to recieve info on this and other future projects:
vizKult email-list
ON-GOING READINGS & RESEARCH
Intro
PART 1: Early Foragers
II. EARLY FORAGING & PROTO-AGRICULTURE
PART 2: The Old World
III. EARLY AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS
IV. EARLY N. AFRICAN & EUROPEAN CIVILIZATIONS
V. THE MIDDLE AGES: THE SECOND AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
PART 3: The New World
VI. CHANGES IN EUROPE (1500-1800)
VII.CHANGES IN THE AMERICAS (1800- WWI)
VIII. SPARKS OF MODERNITY
PART 4: The Contemporary
Bibliography
Propositions (rough notes)
Intro
I. GARDEN PERSPECTIVES
http://nyc.thepublicschool.org/note/2896Through the first series of readings we get a historical overview from the perspective of an Curator/Art Historian, Artist/Researcher, and Garden Historian. We can conclude with a discussion of upcoming readings and particular interest in the group.
LISTEN: Patterns of Plants, Mamoru Fujieda. Tzadik, 1997
READINGS:
[PDF]Conan, Introduction, pp.1-16. Perspectives on Garden Histories, 1999. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1999.(NYPL Schwarzman)
[PDF]Conan, "From Vernacular Gardens to a Social Anthropology of Gardening", pp. 181-204. Ibid.
[PDF]Gessert, "Divine Plants and Magical Animals" ch 1, pp 1-10. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. (NYPL Schwarzman)
[PDF]Matilsky, "Art and the Balance of Nature: An Historical Overview" (first half only) pp 1-16. Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists' Interpretations and Solutions, New York: Rizzoli International, 1992. (World Cat)
Further Reading:
[PDF]Gessert, Introduction. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. (NYPL Schwarzman)
[PDF]Matilsky, Introduction. Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists' Interpretations and Solutions, New York: Rizzoli International, 1992. (World Cat)
PART1: Early Foragers
"If the 150,000 years since modern humans emerged are likened to an hour, it is only in the last four and a half minutes that humans began to adopt farming, and agriculture only became the dominant means of providing human subsistence in the last minute and a half." -The Edible History of Humanity, Standage.
II. EARLY FORAGING AND PROTO-AGRICULTURE
Who were the first foragers? What are some of the theories as to why they managed to exist for some for over 100,000 years before the arrival of agriculture? We then look at theories that brought about the first agricultural revolution. Reading range from Standage's "edible" perspective to Gessert "aesthetic" perspective.
VIEW: The First Civilizations: Secrets of Ancient Empires. West Long Branch, NJ : Kultur, [2006] (NYPL)
[PDF]Conan, Michel and W. John Kress "A Historical View of Relationships between Humans and Plants" Intro, pp3-11. Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations, and Cultural Changes, v28. ed. Michel Conan. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2007 (NYPL Schwarzman | Bard Graduate Center:Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture)
[PDF] Gessert, "The Rise of Ornamental Plants" ch 4, pp.33-40. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. (NYPL Schwarzman)
[PDF] Sahlins, Marshall, "The Original Affluent Society" (abridged)**, ch.5. The politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and practice, edited by Jacqueline Solway. New York : Berghahn Books, 2006. (**There are three versions of this text, the first a brief statement that was presented in the conference "Man the Hunter" 1966, which is readily online. Second is the main expanded essay which includes the data from where he drew his theory, this is printed in his Stone Age Economics, 1972. Finally, there is this abridge version in Jaqueline Soloway's The Politics of Egalitarianism, 2006, which also includes a follow-up essay, four decades later. see next entry)
[PDF] Solway, Jacqueline, "'The Original Affluent Society': Four Decades on", ch.4. The politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and practice, edited by Jacqueline Solway. New York : Berghahn Books, 2006.
[PDF] Standage, Tom, "The Invention of Farming", Ch01, pp19-40. The Edible History of Humanity. Waterville, Me. : Thorndike Press, 2009.(NYPL Schwarzman)
[PDF] Standage, Tom, "The Roots of Modernity", Ch02, pp41-61. (ib.id)
[PDF] Standage, Tom, "Food, Wealth, and Power", Ch03, pp64-94. (ib.id)
[PDF] Standage, Tom, "Follow the Food", Ch04, pp94-113. (ib.id)
FURTHER READING:
[RTF] "Foraging Systems (notes)" Eric A. Smith, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Washington) (website) Notes based on the following reading:
Kelly, Robert L. (1995) The Foraging Spectrum: diversity in hunter-gatherer lifeways, pp 1-23. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.(NYPL: Schwarzman)
Winterhalder, Bruce (1993) Work, resources, and population in foraging societies. Man 28:321-340.
Kelly, Robert L. (1995) ib id., pp 50-57 and chapter 3. [exclusively for notes on Foraging Strategies]
Solway, Jacqueline, ed. The politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and practice, New York : Berghahn Books, 2006. (NYPL: Schwarzman) Select Essays include... Subtle matters of theory and emphasis : Richard Lee and controversies about foraging peoples by Thomas C. Patterson.
Sahlins, Marshall, Stone-Age Economics. Chicago : Aldine-Atherton, 1972.(NYPL: SIBL offsite) Includes the original essay The Original Affluent Society.
[PDF] Embers, Carol. Myths about Hunter-Gatherers Ethnology, Vol. 17, No. 4. (Oct., 1978), pp. 439-448.
[RTF] "Origins of Agriculture (notes)" Eric A. Smith, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Washington) (website)
[PDF] Kosuth, Joseph "Artist as Anthropologist" 1974. Extracted in The Everyday: Documents of Contemporary Art edited by Stephen Johnstone. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2008. Originally essay first appeared in The Fox, N.1 (New York, 1975); full text reprinted in Kosuth, Art after Philosophy and After: Selected Writings 1966-1990 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1991) 117-24. [NYPL]
Miwon Kwon in conversation with Mark Dion. pp.6 Mark Dion. London : Phaidon Press, 1997. [NYPL]
look into:
Walke, Renee B. and Boyce N. Driskell, ed. Foragers of the terminal Pleistocene in North America Imprint Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c2007. (NYPL Schwarzman)
PART2: The Old World
Covering Civilizations between 4,000b.c. and upto the end of the Middle Ages, just before the discovery of the Americas.
III. Early American Civilizations
Early American Civilizations and the next section Early N.African Civilizations can be seen as the beginnings of the urban paradox, whereabouts the first city dwellers attempt to maintain a close relationship with nature.
VIEW: Passageways, James Turrell. (Film 26 min./ 1995, NYPL)
READING:
[PDF] Evans, "Precious Beauty: The Aesthetic and Economic Value of Aztec Gardens" ch 6, pp61-101. Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations, and Cultural Changes, v28. ed. Michel Conan. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2007. (NYPL Schwarzman)
Ancient American Poets. translated from Nahuatl, Maya, and Quechua with Lives of the poets and intro by John Curl. Tempe, Arizona : Bilingual Press, c2005. (NYPL: Schwarzman):
[PDF]"The Flower Songs of Nezahualcoyotl" (Intro by John Curl)
[PDF]"The Flower Songs of Nezahualcoyotl" (Songs)
[PDF]"The Flower Songs of Nezahualcoyotl" (Life by John Curl)
Further Reading:
Ancient American Poets. translated from Nahuatl, Maya, and Quechua with Lives of the poets and intro by John Curl. Tempe, Arizona : Bilingual Press, c2005. (NYPL: Schwarzman):
[PDF]"Songs of Dzitbalche" - Ah Bam (Intro by John Curl)
[PDF]"Songs of Dzitbalche" - Ah Bam (few song selections)
[PDF]"Songs of Dzitbalche" - Ah Bam (Life by John Curl)
Bernal-Garcia "The Dance of Time, the Procession of Space at Mexico - Tenochtitlan's Desert Garden" ch 4 Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations, and Cultural Changes, v28. ed. Michel Conan. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2007. (NYPL Schwarzman)
IV. Early North African and European Civilizations
[PDF] Carroll, Maureen "Utilitarian and Ornamental House Gardens" Ch2 pp20-39,
Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archeology, London: British Museum Press, 2003. (NYPL & Schwarzman)
[PDF] Touwaide, "Private gardens and botany in the early Roman Empire." ch 3. Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations, and Cultural Changes, v28. ed. Michel Conan. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2004. (NYPL Schwarzman)
Further Reading:
[PDF]Aufrere, Sydney "The Vegetable Universe of Ancient Egypt, its Symbiosis and Religious Reinterpretation" 2004. (PDF OFFLINE)
Ancient Roman Villa Gardens, Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, X ; edited by Elisabeth Blair MacDougall].Washington, D.C. : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, c1987. v10 NYPL Schwarzman: OFFSITE - Request in Advance for use at Schwarzman Bldg 3-MSK 87-3149
Gardens of Pompeii, by Annamaria Ciarallo. Translated by Lori-Ann Touchette. (Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum: 2001. Pg 73, illustrated, plant list) ISBN: 0-89236-629-X.(NYPL: Schwarzman JFE 02-82)
[PDF] Calame, "Gardens of Love and Meadows of the Beyond: Ritual Encounters with the Gods and Poetical Performances in Ancient Greece".ch 2. Sacred Gardens and Landscapes: Ritual and Agency, v26. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002. (NYPL Schwarzman)
- - - - -
Further Topics of Study: Plants of the Ancient World
Carroll, Maureen, "Plants of the Ancient World" Ch7, Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archeology, London: British Museum Press, 2003. (NYPL & Schwarzman)
Heilmeyer, Marina "Ancient Herbs" [David J. Baker, translator. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, c2007. (NYPL Schwarzman).
V. The Middle-Ages: Second Agricultural Revolution
Early Near East and Middle Age Advancements and Changes that serve as a prelude to changes in Europe
[PDF] El Faïz, Mohammed "Horticultural Changes and Political Upheavals in Middle-Age Andalusia" Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations, and Cultural Changes, v28. ed. Michel Conan. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2007. (NYPL Schwarzman)
Atasoy, Nurhan "Links Between the Ottoman and the Western Worlds on Floriculture and Gardening"(ibid)
Further Reading:
Medieval Gardens, Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, IX ; edited by Elisabeth B. MacDougall]. Imprint Washington, D.C. : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, c1986. (NYPL: Schwarzman (OFFSITE REQUEST)
VI. CHANGES IN EUROPE (1500-1800s)
Major developments in Europe disrupt and begin to question the old world: Increase interest in science, the search for liberties, Readings in this period are wide ranging primary texts from Leonardo to Schopenhauer & Caspar David Friedrich. Some secondary text about romantic/neoclassic encounters, and utopia.DATE: TBD (end of Nov/First Week of Dec)
PLACE: TBD
LISTEN: ZIZEK on Nature.
READING:
Christian, Kathleen "Landscapes of Ruin and the Imagination the Antiquarian Gardens of Renaissance Rome". Ch5, Gardens and Imagination: Cultural History and Agency (WORLD CAT: Met Museum: Watson Library)
Gessert, "The Rainforests of Domestication" ch 3. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. (NYPL Schwarzman)
Leonardo on Painting. Leonardo Da Vinci, 1452-1519
Preface: Knowledge, Learning and Experience, pp. 9-11 & General Principles; The Science of Art, pp. 11-19 "Would we similarly deny the existence of particular qualities of herbs, stones or plants because men where not acquainted with them?"
Freiedrich, Letters of Caspar David Friedrich, German Romanticism and the Landscape 1774-1840
Schopenhauer, On the Will in Nature, 1835. "we shall understand that plants, having so very much fewer requirements than animals, no longer need any knowledge at all. On this account precisely, as I have often said, knowledge is the true characteristic which denotes the limits of animality, because of the movement induced by motives which it conditions."
Marx' Ethnological Notebooks. (also see, member suggestion: John Bellamy Foster's Marx's ecology- materialism and nature, Chapter 2: The really earthly questions pg 66-80. (available on aaaaarg). And Christine Ward Gailey's essay Community, State and Questions of Social Evolution in Karl Marx's Ethnological Notebooks [PDF] includedin The politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and practice, Solway, Jacqueline, ed. (see II. Foragers section above)
Hal Foster, The Artist as Ethnographer.
Member Suggestions:
See also, Cronon's Environmental History class, which incorporates romanticism and concepts of wilderness: http://www.williamcronon.net/courses/460.htm (cberwick)
PART 3: The New World
VII. CHANGES IN THE AMERICAS (1500- WWI)
Throughout the European colonies, a clash of old world and new world brings about a mixing of both men and plants. This sections we will look at this mix, discussing also the possible influences of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) in the relationship between how we view plants and each other.DATE: TBD (JAN 2011)
PLACE: TBD
BROWSE: Weeds Across Borders
LISTEN: Bats'i Son (Maya|Chiapas)
READING: TBP
TO BE CONSIDERED:
Matilisky, "Art and the Balance of Nature: An Historical Overview" (second half ?) pp 1-16. Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists' Interpretations and Solutions, New York: Rizzoli International, 1992. (World Cat)
Thoreau, Walden (excerpts), Henry David Thoreau. 1854. (possible influence ont the modern anarcho-primitivism, when self-sufficiency within nature.
[PDF] Magnolo, Walter, The Communal and the Decolonial. Pavilion Magazin #14. pp 146-155. Bucharest: Pavilion 2009-2010. (entire magazine here)
Members selections:
Cronon, William. Changes in the land : Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England / William Cronon. New York: Hill and Wang, c1983. (NYPL placed hold 10/19)(cberwick)
Nature and culture : American landscape and painting, 1825-1875 , Barbara Novak (NYPL Placed hold 10/19)(cberwick)
American Environmental History An Introduction, Caroline Merchant, New York : Columbia University Press, 2007.(NYPL)
look into:
?? Seeds of change : five plants that transformed mankind by Henry Hobhouse. New York: Harper & Row, c1986. (NYPL) <-- Not read yet. Seems to focus mostly on perspective of colonial European and it's encounters with the Americas and China in relation to Sugar, Cotton, Tea, Potato, and Coca. I could be wrong.
NOTE: Do any of these authors essentialize Native American tribes and their relation to nature? How, where? Are there any Native America perspectives writings about this period?
VIII. SPARKS OF MODERNITY
The continuation of industrialization, scientific advancement, make for a difficult and confusing new realty. We begin to see the push with and against this tide.
DATE: TBD (JAN 2011)
PLACE: TBD
VIEW: ROBERT SMITHSON: SWAMP, SPIRAL JETTY, RUNDOWN
READING: TBP
TO BE CONSIDERED:
? • Art and Fear by Paul Virilio (NYPL/ PDF link) Reference the act of Demonstration and monstare in relation to the work of Critical Art Ensemble, Claire Pentecost:
? • When Art Becomes Life, Artist-Researchers and Biotechnology (*See Claire Pentecost artist website from more of her writings on food/nature/science, Yates McKee, phD Columbia for more on indigenous + modernism.)
Playing God, Gessert Green Light Chapter option?
Member Suggestions:
• Cronon, William "The Trouble with wilderness, or getting back to the wrong nature" would be a good addition to the conversation. (Pdf link above, HTML here)(Neznez)
?• The Origin of the Work of Art by Martin Heidegger, 1935. Discusses and art, Earth and the World.
PART 4: The Contemporary
IX. Contemporary Ecostruggle
As time becomes a crucial factor, forces around these Ecological issues begin to grow restless. On one hand extreme measures are seen as the only solution, others see hope in small changes.(Can be three sessions: Permaculture/Indigenous Knowledge and the Neo-primitive/Anarcho-Primitivism/Psychogeography and Urban Foraging today)
DATE: TBD (FEB 2011)
PLACE: TBD
VIEW: Rivers and Tides, Andy Goldsworthy working with time. (Film 195 min/ 2004)
NYPL)
BROWSE: Cryptoforestry.blogspot.com - Inner City Reforestation in Utrecht and the G/Local Amazon.
UrbanEdibles.blogspot.com - Mapping wildfood sources in Amsterdam. (using gps maps, etc)
Augmented Foraging - Combining the ancient skills of foragers with the newest mobile media. (Boskoi)
http://brooklynlocavore.blogspot.com - recent NYC research on locavore (aka eating locally grow food).
READING: TBP
TO BE CONSIDERED FILMS:
Food, Inc.
Daily Bread
Foraging in New York
Grizzly Man
Into The Wild
TO BE CONSIDERED BOOKS/ARTICLES:
? • Permaculture : principles & pathways beyond sustainability, David Holmgren
Hepburn, Vic. : Holmgren Design Services, 2002. (WORLD CAT; NYU, Brkyn Bot, City College)
? • Notes on Art as/and Land Reclamation, by Robert Morris (essay AAAAARG, 1974)
? • Avant Gardening: ecological struggle on the city & the world, ed. Peter L. Wilson & Bill Weinberg. (NYPL Schwarzman)
? • The Garden of Peculiarities by Jesus Sepulveda, 2005. The neo-primitivist model. (NYPL: Schwarzman)
? • Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics : a Darrell Posey reader. Darrell Addison Posey; Kristina Plenderleith. New York : Routledge, 2004. (WorldCat: NYU, Columbia U, Brooklyn College, Amer.Mus.Nat.History.)
? • The Forest Within by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff. Totnes: Themis, 1996. (NYPL: Schwarzman)
? • Beyond intellectual property : toward traditional resource rights for indigenous peoples and local communities Darrell A. Posey and Graham Dutfield. Ottawa : International Development Research Centre, c1996. (NYPL: Schwarzman)
?• [PDF] Riddell, John. From Marx to Morales: Indigenous Socialism and the Latin Americanization of Marxism. 2008.
? • Evo Morales and the prospects for an Indigenous Nation in Bolivia:
Bolivia: On the Road With Evo
The making of an unlikely president BY Tupac Mauricio Saaverda and Gabriel Dvoskin. May 04, 2006, Frontline, Rough Cut
"Bolivia Celebrates its First Indigenous President", by Katherine Charin. Cutting Edge News, June 28th 2010. <-- I've not checked this info/source.
? • (See Charles Zerner's publications, like People, Plants, and Justice: The Politics of Nature Conservation", chapter 14, The Fate of Collections Social Justice and the Annexation of Plant Genetic Resources., by Bronwyn Parry pg 374, 2000. (NYPL Schwarzman)... Or Nature and Narrative: Environmental Discourse, property, and power: A Graduate Seminar Environmental concentration. Published in Capitalism, Nature Socialism, Vol. 9, Issue 2. pp 129-141 (NYPL, off-site request)
?• Industrial Society and Its Future & Road to Revolution - Ted Kaczynski.
?• The Invisible Committee: The Coming Insurrection (Chapter on Environment)
?•Anarcho-Primitivism, John Zerzan, et al.
?•Species Traitor [PDFs] #2,#3, #4.
?•Landstreicher, Wolfi.
A Critique, Not a Program: For a Non-Primitivist Anti-Civilization Critique [ZineLibrary ]
MEMEBERS SELECTIONS:
• Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway (Katebelski)
• Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas W. Tallamy (Katebelski)
• Hungry City: how food shapes our lives by Carolyn Steel. London: Chatto & Windus, 2008. (urbanibalism.org)
• The urban homestead : your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. Coyne, Kelly. Los Angeles : Process Media, c2008. (by Casco: GRD project)
Bibliography (ever expanding)
Gessert, George, ed. Green Light: Toward and art of evolution. Cambridge: MIT, 2010. (NYPL Schwarzman)
Anderson, Edgar. Plants, man, and life. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1952.(NYPL Offsite request for use at SIBL)
Conan, Michel, ed. Perspectives on Garden Histories. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1999 (NYPL Schwarzman)
Lippard, Lucy R. Overlay : contemporary art and the art of prehistory. New York: The New Press New York, 1983 (NYPL)??**
Matilsky, Barbara C. Fragile Ecologies : Contemporary Artists' Interpretations and Solutions. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc, 1992. (NYPL) (Queens Museum of Art, Exhibition 1992).
Curl, John, ed. Ancient American Poets (translated from Nahuatl, Maya, and Quechua with Lives of the poets and intro by John Curl. Tempe, Arizona : Bilingual Press, c2005. (NYPL: Schwarzman)
Michel Conan/Dumbarton Oaks books with Chapters & Locations
FURTHER READING:
Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash. (worldcat , online reading guide)
Chapter 1: Old World Roots of Opinion - Chapter 2: A Wilderness Condition - Chapter 3: The Romantic Wilderness - Chapter 4: The American Wilderness - Chapter 5: Henry David Thoreau - Chapter 6: Preserve the Wilderness! - Chapter 7: Wilderness Preserved - Chapter 8: John Muir--Publicizer - Chapter 9: The Wilderness Cult - Chapter 10: Hetch Hetchy:
Greening of Art, M.J.M. Bijvoet, 90-808524-2-2 (Book ONLINE)
See sources for Greening of Art too!
Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook. (out of print!!) excerpts. ( World Cat available several NYC libraries including Columbia University. )
FILMS
- Rivers and Tides, Andy Goldsworthy working with time (Film 195 min/ 2004, NYPL)
- Passageways, James Turrell. (Film 26 min./ 1995, NYPL)
A pilot for many years, James Turrell is today the greatest American "Land Art" artist, and considers the sky as his studio. Upon spectacular and historical aerial images of Arizona's canyons, Turrell recalls his formal research on natural light and his friendship with the Hopi Native American? The film gives Turrell the opportunity to present his masterpiece, Rodin Crater, a true celestial light "observatory."
- Swamp, Spiral Jetty, RunDown by Robert Smithson.
RELATED EVENTS
- Remediate/Re-Vision: Public Artist Engaging the Environment. Wave Hill. August 1- November 28, 2010
RELATED WEBSITES
- Cryptoforestry - Inner City Reforestation in Utrecht and the G/Local Amazon.
- Urban Edibles - Mapping wildfood sources in Amsterdam. (using gps maps, etc)
OTHER MUSINGS...
DeBord - artificial plants and farmed clones, can they be considered an aspect of the Spectacle?
University of Chicago: Spectacle defined
Propositions (rough notes)
Did agriculture marginalize the forager? Theories of agriculture explored. (Early Civilizations pt.1)
The Urban Paradox. Maintaining close connections to nature in dense urban environments. (Early Civilizations pt 2 & 3, Contemporary Eco-Struggle) But this detachment from nature doesn't end with urban environments, we see a similar detachments in rural suburban areas, too where the image of nature is simplified and our taste are manufactured around a simplistic aspects of nature. Perhaps introduce the work of Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman.
Decorative Flourishes: Symbols, Politics of Ornamentals. The start of decorative hybridization, grafting, as symbolic, political acts (Early Civilizations pt. 2?, pt. 4: Middle Ages & Changes in Europe 1500-1800)
Wild America: 3 perspectives. Defining 'wild' in the Americas from the Colonizer, the Native, and the Laborer/Slave. (Changes in America 1500-WW1, plus ethnographic studies like "The Forest Within" see: Cont. Eco-Struggle, or Chinapas, before and after the Spanish- for native perspectives)
Experimenting with Life. (Sparks of Modernity WW1-WW2, even domestication as discussed by Gessert)
Indigenous Knowledge and the Birth of the Neo-Forager/Agrarian. (See VI. Eco-Struggle) esp. The Communal and the Decolonial by Walter Mignolo as opposed to Marx "Primitive Communism" and other European Left colonial ideas.
Ritual, Drugs, or Medicine. the battle over classification systems and legality. (See: Plants of the Gods by Shultes, Hoffman, Ratsch (NYPL), Food of the Gods by McKenna NYPL, The Great Drug War: and radical proposals that could make America safe again by Trebach (N
New York: Macmillan,
1987,)(NYPL SASB offsite)
Performance and Bodily Engagement with Nature. Taking cues from Michael Conan's Encounters in the Gardens.
Perspectives of Plants. What are the theories about the lives of plants, from their perspective. Examine Michael Pollan's take The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (NYPL: Books and Video ) (via larval-subjects.blogspot.com) And perhaps also look into Schopenhauer's On the Will in Nature and even Dona Haraway's on domestication as they relate to plants(?)
Creativity and gleaning? What's in common? A look into the relation between foraging and art making. taking hints from Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I. Can we look at what's in similarities and differences.
Beyond Domestication: Nature Commodified. Examine the discourse surrounding nature and how this discourse has reached a new level with patents on nature and creation of new nature, in other words, are there limits to domestication that began with the first agricultural revolution? What are the alternatives, perhaps a look into the idea of co-evolution?
Suppressing the Natural: Colonialization through Nature. Looking at the idea of plant knowledge as control (Foucault/Knowledge=power) and the idea of nature as product (Marx and Nature), how has western civilization extended it's colonial appetite to eradicate indigenous power/knowledge. Also see: Walter Mignolo in theme: Indigenous Knowledge and the Birth of the Neo-Forager/Agrarian.
For example...
Sepúlveda argues that civilization and progress should be rolled back up like a carpet and that the last non-civilized, indigenous people on earth, most of whom are in South-America, should do it or at least should inspire this unrolling of 'progress'. By uncoiling the Neanderthal inside us, by reminding us that the discovery of America is not yet complete and that America is not the new world but also an old world, a world that has generated vast stores of specific knowledge on ecological sustainability that is now more needed than ever before. - Social Fiction referring to "The Garden of Peculiarities" (2005) by Jesús Sepúlveda
Mayan Garden from From 'Plants, man, and life' (1967)by Edgar Anderson. by way of Social Fiction
The garden I charted was a small affair about the size of a small city lot in the United States. It was covered with a riotous growth so luxuriant and so apparently planless that any ordinary American or European visitor, accustomed to the puritanical primness of north European gardens, would have supposed (if he even chanced to realize it was indeed a garden) that it must be a deserted one. Yet when I went through it carefully I could fine no plants which were not useful to the owner in some way or another. - "Plants, man, and life" (1967)by Edgar Anderson via Social Fiction.
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Many anthropologists working in the Amazon Basin have been struck by the resemblance between gardens and the forest. Fifteen months after the forest has been cleared, Achuar gardens have reached their grown-up appearance, and their three-tiered levels of foliage reproduce on a smaller scale and in rather orderly fashion the surrounding forest. Larger-leafed banana trees and papaya trees provide the top cover, cassava plants contribute the larger part of the second cover that prevents the earth from being washed out by rain, and different vegetables and smaller plants provide ground cover. Thus gardens appear as a cultural imitation of the natural forest. One of the most arresting results of the method used by Descola is that it enabled him to show that this is only true to the eye of a Western observer. Actually for the Achuar, the forest is just another garden that is cared for by the spirits who are almost human (they take care of the wild animals as humans do to their own tame animals, and they hunt them in order to eat them as humans do their poultry). He has shown that nature is organized according to social relationships that are identical to social relationships within the household. Nature is perceived along a pattern derived from household life in Achuar society. It turns out that social relationships within their society provide the models for describing nature, rather than nature providing the model for social relationships and artifacts as we would have it. 'Perspectives on garden histories' by Michel Conan by way of Social Fiction.
Roma "Gypsie" gleaning on the edge of Bucharest Romania, Obor station, 2010.
Avant Gardening...Essays on Eco struggle, published by Autonomedia:
Wild plant resembling marijuana found in abandoned lot in Bucharest Romania, near Universitat, 2010
Brooklyn/NYC, September 2008-2010. vizKult/antonio serna
related project: Garden, 2008.