{"id":2025,"date":"2014-10-24T00:15:24","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T07:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.org\/weblog\/?p=2025"},"modified":"2014-11-26T15:12:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-26T23:12:24","slug":"the-sea-and-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/?p=2025","title":{"rendered":"the sea and the desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name=\"plastisphere\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 25%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-2025 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398074262_7cf625c358_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398074262_7cf625c358_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211891517_214fd14d89_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211891517_214fd14d89_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398399545_881c62a160_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398399545_881c62a160_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211740950_66efbdd73b_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211740950_66efbdd73b_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211741270_533203acf5_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211741270_533203acf5_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211656949_f57611784c_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211656949_f57611784c_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398076352_ddbccd42c4_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398076352_ddbccd42c4_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398401555_5a5c5a307b_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398401555_5a5c5a307b_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15375374606_6e104accfb_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15375374606_6e104accfb_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211894537_8faa7f38e0_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211894537_8faa7f38e0_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211894947_8f6db3df37_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211894947_8f6db3df37_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395229991_9d4b383dde_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395229991_9d4b383dde_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398397075_53150c56f4_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398397075_53150c56f4_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398396085_6e7895ac70_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398396085_6e7895ac70_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398070772_67a43f0715_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15398070772_67a43f0715_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395232251_cf8957e655_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395232251_cf8957e655_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395224681_23865a3b0e_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395224681_23865a3b0e_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395223941_67d842e5ba_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15395223941_67d842e5ba_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211890447_e242f78193_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211890447_e242f78193_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211745920_66ba263f14_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211745920_66ba263f14_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211739590_795bbde2e2_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211739590_795bbde2e2_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211739130_835bb1c886_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211739130_835bb1c886_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211737340_612690e226_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211737340_612690e226_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211651689_e4d6bc5bd1_o.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/15211651689_e4d6bc5bd1_o-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a name=\"plastisphere\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The <a title=\"full text courtesy of the American school\" href=\"http:\/\/www.egs.edu\/library\/henry-david-thoreau\/articles\/cape-cod\/ixthe-sea-and-the-desert\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sea and the Desert<\/a>\u00a0is a chapter in Henry David Thoreau\u2019s chronicle of his extensive \u2018sojourning\u2019 around Cape Cod in\u00a0the 1860\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">We might think of rising sea levels and creeping desertification as uniquely contemporary symptoms of anthropogenic climate change but Thoreau noticed them way back in his day, recording with his\u00a0characteristic eye for detail,\u00a0a great many\u00a0meteorological, ecological and human phenomena\u00a0that together create\u00a0the shifting territory\u00a0of the thing we call &#8216;the Cape.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>This desert extends from the extremity of the Cape, through Provincetown into Truro, and many a time as we were traversing it we were reminded of &#8220;Riley&#8217;s Narrative&#8221; of his captivity in the sands of Arabia, notwithstanding the cold. &#8230;.\u00a0<\/em><em>In one place we saw numerous dead tops of trees projecting through the otherwise uninterrupted desert, where, as we afterward learned, thirty or forty years before a flourishing forest had stood, and now, as the trees were laid bare from year to year, the inhabitants cut off their tops for fuel.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3044-e1414126395321.jpg\" class=\"thickbox\" rel=\"grupo2025\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2071\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3044-e1414126395321-764x1024.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_3044\" width=\"300\" height=\"402\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3044-e1414126395321-764x1024.jpg 764w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3044-e1414126395321-224x300.jpg 224w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3044-e1414126395321-522x700.jpg 522w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3044-e1414126395321.jpg 1936w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Though Cape Cod has been in a state of constant flux ever since it was first bulldozed\u00a0into place by the glaciers\u00a0of the last ice age, there is a certain poignancy to its more recent, post-colonial\u00a0history, as one\u00a0of the first landfalls of European incursion into North America.\u00a0The successive human waves that broke upon its\u00a0shores\u00a0left their own layers of \u00a0deposition\u2013the\u00a0accumulated strata of hopes, ambitions and failures are embedded\u00a0all over the landscape, if one knows where\u00a0to look.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Thoreau <a title=\"Thoreau on Cape Cod\" href=\"http:\/\/thoreau.eserver.org\/capecd9b.html\" target=\"_blank\">encapsulated the protean quality of the Cape so beautifully<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><i>The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><i>It is a wild, rank place, and there is no flattery in it. Strewn with crabs, horse-shoes, and razor-clams, and whatever the sea casts up,\u2014a vast morgue, where famished dogs may range in packs, and crows come daily to glean the pittance which the tide leaves them. The carcasses of men and beasts together lie stately up upon its shelf, rotting and bleaching in the sun and waves, and each tide turns them in their beds, and tucks fresh sand under them. There is naked Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">There is still a seething, hissing quality about the place; a sort of fragility too,\u00a0as if all the quaint human infrastructure, the architectural bric-a-brac of National Seashore information kiosks, the tourist shops\u00a0and thriving gay bars of Provincetown, the upscale beach houses and black-topped roads could all be washed away with the slightest turning\u00a0in\u00a0the weather.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3043.jpg\" class=\"thickbox\" rel=\"grupo2025\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2072\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3043-1024x764.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_3043\" width=\"400\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3043-1024x764.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3043-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3043-700x522.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Given my interest in disturbance ecologies, I was thrilled to be offered an artist\u2019s residency at one of the Cape&#8217;s oldest houses, at\u00a0a place called\u00a0Phats Valley near the town of Truro. I was joined there by my friends and collaborators, <a title=\"smudge home page\" href=\"http:\/\/smudgestudio.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Liz Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse<\/a> of the New School, whose artistic practice focuses primarily on matters geologic and the study\u00a0of deep time, and who both have had\u00a0a long term aesthetic engagement with the landscape and culture of the Cape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">We set ourselves a mission of a contemplative nature: to endeavour\u00a0to capture something of the <em>essence of\u00a0our\u00a0locality<\/em> in its current, Anthropocenic,\u00a0moment; to attune ourselves to its ephemerality by \u00a0simply walking, pausing and observing. Our inspiration was the 17<\/span><span class=\"s2\">th<\/span><span class=\"s1\"> century Japanese poet<a title=\"Basho\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D\" target=\"_blank\"> B\u0101sho<\/a>, who set <\/span>set out on a five-month journey, documented in his poetic chronicle: <a title=\"Narrow Road to the Interior\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oku_no_Hosomichi\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Narrow Road to the Interior<\/i><\/a>. While traveling, Bash\u014d drew upon and modified\u00a0the traditionally collaborative haiku practice known as <em>renga<\/em>, which incorporates\u00a0sensations of place, events and allusions to literature, history and myth. <em>Renga<\/em>, in its most basic form, is written by multiple authors who link their verses, building\u00a0upon each other&#8217;s words under the inspiration of\u00a0the environmental and social contexts of the moment (the trees in bloom, the stage of the moon, and who else is present at\u00a0the <em>renga<\/em> party.) At its best <em>renga<\/em> embodies the impermanence,\u00a0the <em>\u2018this-ness,\u2019<\/em> of an instant in time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">Deleuze gave (this) &#8216;<i>this-ness&#8217;\u00a0<\/i>a name, calling\u00a0it\u00a0<i>haecceity,<\/i> from the Latin \u2018to behold.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><i>A season a winter, a summer, an hour, a date have a perfect individuality lacking nothing, even though this individuality is different from that of a thing or a subject. They are haecceities in the sense that they consist entirely of relations of movement and rest between molecules or particles, capacities to affect and to be affected.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><a title=\"A Thousand Plateaus\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A_Thousand_Plateaus\" target=\"_blank\"><i>A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (with Felix Guattari)<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">With the inspiration of Thoreau and B\u0101sho to guide us, Liz, Jamie and I set out under the great blue vault of a magnificent late summer sky to begin\u00a0what the theorist <a title=\"Jane Bennett\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jane_Bennett_(political_theorist)\" target=\"_blank\">Jane Bennett<\/a> refers to as \u00a0<em>microvisioning<\/em>, in reference to the way Thoreau\u00a0practiced his art of<em>\u00a0engaged observation<\/em> and deep attention\u2013not an overly probing or systematic scrutiny\u2013but rather more of a perceptual wandering;\u00a0a seeing without preoccupied looking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><i>Go not to the object; let it come to you\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">(Thoreau\u2019s Journal 4:351)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">From our base at\u00a0the verge of time and space on the margin of Phats Valley&#8217;s\u00a0picturesque salt marsh, we sojourned to various nearby localities, making a daily practice of easing into our immersive awareness,\u00a0starting our sessions\u00a0with conversation and tea before we delved\u00a0into contemplative observation and ultimately, the\u00a0generation of the\u00a0<i>renga<\/i> stanzas.\u00a0These take the format of (5,7,5,7,7) syllables. .<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>(5, 7, 5,7,7)<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>My gaze it returns<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>To dying rays of sunshine<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>A vulture circling<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>In an otherwise empty<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>Blue anthropocenic sky<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">(For example)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Liz and Jamie&#8217;s \u00a0long-standing relationship with the Cape\u00a0complimented my situation of never having\u00a0been there before, and writing together gave us the\u00a0chance to meld our sensibilities and subjectivities, our\u00a0responses to the environment and the material conditions we encountered; both in the perfect individuality of the moment and in the larger geologic and historic frameworks\u00a0where\u00a0these moments seem to <em>float.<\/em>\u00a0 I had just been at\u00a0the massive (600,000 person strong)\u00a0<a title=\"People's Climate March\" href=\"http:\/\/peoplesclimate.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">People&#8217;s Climate March<\/a> in New York City\u2013a watershed moment in\u00a0the public\u00a0acknowledgement that <em>something ought to\u00a0be done<\/em>\u2013but what did it\u00a0all mean? Through\u00a0<em>renga<\/em>, I hoped I might get a little\u00a0closer to some\u00a0kind of\u00a0understanding<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Our daily practice \u00a0evolved as a kind of meta-narrative, a record of our <i>pausings, <\/i>when we made the time to\u00a0observe and acknowledge the <em>this-ness<\/em> of a given moment\u00a0within the multiplicity, or <em>white hiss<\/em>, of all the other moments, extending through\u00a0space and time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3055.jpg\" class=\"thickbox\" rel=\"grupo2025\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2073 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3055-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_3055\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3055-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3055-1024x764.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3055-700x522.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">We ended our residency with a public<em> renga<\/em> writing party and shared\u00a0a lovely afternoon with a group of intrepid poets, who composed the \u00a0<em>renga<\/em> with us\u00a0on large rolls of paper, tacked to the outside walls\u00a0of the historic Phats Valley headquarters. The whole event is nicely documented here on <a title=\"smudge's blog\" href=\"http:\/\/www.smudgestudio.org\/smudge\/renga.html\" target=\"_blank\">Liz and Jamie\u2019s blog<\/a>. Thanks in particular should be given to the residency coordinators Ann Chen and Davey Field of the <a title=\"Nomadic Dept. of the Interior\" href=\"http:\/\/phatsvalley.org\/About\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Nomadic Department of the Interior<\/i><\/a>, who made our residency possible. The house, dating back to the American Revolution, has been in Davey\u2019s family since the early 1960\u2019s and staying there was truly a delight, though when I first\u00a0walked in, about to spend the night in it\u00a0alone, I could sense there was\u00a0some kind of\u00a0<em>ghost<\/em> or other (palpable though\u00a0not visible) presence sharing my abode. As is my custom, I introduced myself to the empty yet somehow electrically charged\u00a0air of one of the\u00a0attic\u00a0bedrooms, and from that point on a cosseting calmness descended and I was able to sleep most soundly. Ghosts very much need to be acknowledged\u00a0I think, and might appreciate\u00a0a certain degree of politeness. After all, who knows what it might\u00a0be like for them having to put up with us\u00a0clattering around like boors\u00a0in the overlapping domains of our reality?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Be it the accumulated spirits of the\u00a0deceased inhabitants or the drifts of plastic waste\u00a0piling up on its beaches, Cape Cod is all about layers. It is\u00a0a shifting palimpsest that appears\u00a0to <em>will itself<\/em> into being; reconstituting itself out of the products of\u00a0its own decomposition\u00a0and\u00a0perpetually reemerging as the\u00a0<em>new<\/em> Cape, out of the shifting, drifting sediments of the old. With its\u00a0vitality, agency\u00a0and interconnectivity to the\u00a0deep, swirling cycles of geology and weather, Cape Cod is truly a <a title=\"Morton on hyperobjects\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Timothy_Morton#Hyperobjects\" target=\"_blank\"><i>hyperobject<\/i>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In order to engage such an ephemeral subject at a given instant, we thought it\u00a0helpful to embrace Thoreau\u2019s concept of \u2018incomplete learning,\u2019 an experience akin to what one feels when starting a foreign language, when the sounds and meanings are not yet clear and still largely perceived as an undifferentiated continuum\u2013with the inherent capacity to startle, yet without\u00a0being subsumed into the banality of explicated meaning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><i>\u2018Not until we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>(Thoreau, Walden 171)<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Jane Bennett <a title=\"Bennett does Thoreau\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.ca\/books\/about\/Thoreau_s_Nature.html?id=IRWZtminrrUC&amp;redir_esc=y\" target=\"_blank\">makes reference to this <\/a>non-judgemental, rather Zen-like practice of observation, in her 2002 \u00a0<i>\u2018Thoreau\u2019s Nature: Ethics, Politics in the Wild,\u2019<\/i> where she builds a convincing case for his surprisingly\u00a0post-modernist tendencies.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2078\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_30501.jpg\" class=\"thickbox\" rel=\"grupo2025\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2078\" class=\"wp-image-2078\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_30501-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_3050\" width=\"350\" height=\"261\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_30501-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_30501-1024x764.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_30501-700x522.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2078\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">mineraloids<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Phats Valley house and its immediate environs exist as\u00a0\u00a0a kind of microcosm for the cycles of ebb and flow, erosion and sedimentation that so define the \u2018Cape-ness\u2019 of the Cape. The salt marsh is bisected by an\u00a0artificial ithmus\u2013 the abandoned causeway of the Cape Cod railway, now the domain of sombre pitch pines and scraggly sumachs. In its\u00a0rubble, I found anthropocenic <i>mineraloids\u2013<\/i>\u00a0fragments of slag, coke and brick constituting\u00a0the geologic stratum of a once thriving Steam Age civilization that existed here during the 19<span class=\"s3\">th<\/span> century. The quaint house, <span class=\"s4\">archetypical<\/span> Americana, with its prim clapboard and gnarled, rustling trees, \u00a0now seems a world away from the spectre of machinery. The long\u00a0driveway floods during the higher tides, adding to the sense of\u00a0\u00a0splendid\u00a0isolation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Yet the view from the front door, which now looks out over an olive-coloured expanse of soughing cord grass and wheeling marsh birds, was once very different; the railway passed by\u00a0just a few feet away, and I can imagine the chugging, clanging locomotives vibrating the windows of\u00a0the parlour, backlighting the curtains with a roiling orange glow\u00a0as they pulled\u00a0their squealing train cars on into\u00a0the magnetism of their destination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">That is all long gone now of course\u2013another layer obscured by more recent sediment, continually accreting. The topmost strata is unmistakable in that it contains massive inclusions of discarded plastic, the most ubiquitous material of our age. In the relatively short time of its existence, plastic has spread throughout the biosphere, substantial parts of which, particularly in marine environments, can now legitimately be called the <a title=\"plastisphere\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Plastisphere\" target=\"_blank\"><i>plastisphere<\/i><\/a>, as organisms have already adapted to the problematic material by colonizing it and breaking it down into an even greater multiplicity of substances potentially harmful to man. Indeed,<em> Plastics &#8220;R&#8221; Us!,\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<a title=\"check out Max Liboiron's chapter in this!\" href=\"http:\/\/punctumbooks.com\/titles\/petroleum-manga\/\" target=\"_blank\">as water-soluble plastic chemicals\u00a0like\u00a0bisphenol A (BPA) and flame retardants already circulate in all of our bloodstreams.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">At Phats, the <i>plastisphere<\/i> is most visible in\u00a0the zone of flotsam deposited at the high tide line. Plastic dominates this territory in a surprising variety of material expressions, creating an overall aesthetic experience that borders on the beautiful or the repulsive, depending on what\u00a0frame of mind one is in. <a href=\"#plastisphere\">I include some photos<\/a> of these happenstance assemblages at the start\u00a0of this post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Poking around those drifts of discarded polypropylene, polyethylene, styrene, vinyl, polycarbonate\u00a0and nylon, I wondered what will form the stratum\u00a0of the next geologic age? Will it be the ashes of human extinction\u00a0that mark\u00a0the dawn of the\u00a0<em>post-human,\u00a0<\/em>the way the\u00a0<a title=\"K-t boundary\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_boundary\" target=\"_blank\">K-T boundary<\/a> delineates the quick and brutal end of the dinosaurs? Or will we be someday heralding\u00a0the age of the<em> neo-human<\/em>, having somehow morphed\u00a0into a species with\u00a0greater sensitivity to\u00a0the material realities of\u00a0the planet on which\u00a0we evolved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Whatever will come\u00a0next?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Whoever?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Sea and the Desert\u00a0is a chapter in Henry David Thoreau\u2019s chronicle of his extensive \u2018sojourning\u2019 around Cape Cod in\u00a0the 1860\u2019s. We might think of rising sea levels and creeping desertification as uniquely contemporary symptoms of anthropogenic climate change but Thoreau noticed them way back in his day, recording with his\u00a0characteristic eye for detail,\u00a0a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,53,68,111,1],"tags":[113,126,71,119,90,112,100,115,114,116],"class_list":["post-2025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-climate","category-climate-change","category-ruderal-ecology","category-uncategorized","tag-cape-cod","tag-climate","tag-climatechange","tag-environment","tag-global-warming","tag-hyperobjects","tag-oliver-kellhammer","tag-phats-valley","tag-smudge-studio","tag-truro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2025"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}