STRANGE STRANGERS
The creative research for Strange Strangers is primarily in collaboration with a mated beaver pair, the three of us actively (and temporarily) interfering with the flow of a wetland stream and the lifeforms in that stream — the beavers, through the construction of their dam, and (in the case of this video) by intra-acting with the interference patterns made by the dams construction.The list of participants does not end there, for the DNA expressions of each of the wetland plants and all the life forms in that stream are also intimately involved in this entanglement.
If current popular scientific theories are correct, we are working with the same exact amount of matter that this solar system was originally created with (Cohen 2022). It is this very matter that constitutes what we currently call Nature. The very idea of Nature as a human construct is wrought with problematics, however. It seems that the only way we can come to understand Nature is to understand culture. They are inextricably linked. This nature-culture binary has become one of the biggest binaries in modern science. French sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour regarded it as a defining point of modern life (Keskitalo 2). Timothy Morton, whose work focuses on philosophy, environment, and the coexistence of humans and non-humans with explicit relation to race and gender, suggests we rid ourselves of Nature altogether. He presents Nature as a “transcendental term in a material mask” (Morton 14). He argues that, “One of the ideas that inhibits genuinely ecological politics, ethics, philosophy, and art is the idea of Nature itself” (The Ecological Thought 14). Morton (Thinking Ecology 2009) reminds us of the interdependence theorem which tells us that all life forms are made of other life forms (theory of symbiosis) and all life forms come from other life forms (evolution). He then suggests that we begin to understand ecology in its totality as a mesh of interconnected matter/life forms where we are unable to fathom where it might begin or end, where there are no rigid boundaries between life and death, no real differentiation between species, and above all, there is no centre. He imagines all life forms as strange strangers mucking about in this unimaginably expansive ecological goo. It is intimate and awkward and queer — not unlike my own work, ha. So much so, I have borrowed “Strange Strangers” from Timothy Morton for the title of this video.
I am unsure that humans will ever be able to resolve our relationship with Nature, certainly not as a society. As an individual, I am continually grappling with all of my relationships, human and non, and forever in search of my own words to describe what I merely intuit. I quite like the suggestion of Poet Robert Bringhurst who looks to Taoist philosophy as he comes to terms with the idea of Nature:
“An old Chinese term for nature or the wild is zìrán, which means ‘just like itself’
or ‘that’s the way it is.’ There is a passage in the Dào Dé Jing, the classic of
Láo Sim that says, rén fá dì, dì fá dào, dào fá zìrán: “humans align themselves
with the earth; Earth aligns itself with the sky; the sky aligns itself with theTao;
the Tao aligns itself with nature” — or, “the Tao aligns with being what it is.”
(Bringhurst 17).
Just imagine — this matter, this energy, this nature, this ecological goo — all that is —never created or destroyed. It is transformed endlessly (Cohen 2022), as is everything within ecology, as is my own body — all of us continually transforming and co-evolving with all that is.
Strange Strangers, Handheld Video and Intra-active Gesture, 2024, Duration: 9:18
Strange Strangers is created in collaboration with a mated beaver pair, the three of us actively (and temporarily) interfering with the flow of a wetland stream and the lifeforms in that stream — the beavers, through the construction of their dam, and myself (in the case of this video), by intra-acting with the interference patterns made by the dams construction. The list of participants does not end there, for the DNA expressions of each of the wetland plants and all the life forms in that stream are also intimately involved in this entanglement.
If current popular scientific theories are correct, we are working with the same exact amount of matter that this solar system was originally created with (Cohen 2022). It is this very matter that constitutes what we currently call Nature. The very idea of Nature as a human construct is wrought with problematics, however. It seems that the only way we can come to understand Nature is to understand culture. They are inextricably linked. This nature-culture binary has become one of the biggest binaries in modern science. French sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour regarded it as a defining point of modern life (Keskitalo 2023). Timothy Morton, whose work focuses on philosophy, environment, and the coexistence of humans and non-humans with explicit relation to race and gender, suggests we rid ourselves of Nature altogether. He presents Nature as a “transcendental term in a material mask” (Morton 14). He argues that, “One of the ideas that inhibits genuinely ecological politics, ethics, philosophy, and art is the idea of Nature itself” (The Ecological Thought 14). Morton reminds us of the interdependence theorem which tells us that all life forms are made of other life forms (theory of symbiosis) and all life forms come from other life forms (evolution). He then suggests that we begin to understand ecology in its totality as a mesh of interconnected matter/life forms where we are unable to fathom where it might begin or end, where there are no rigid boundaries between life and death, no real differentiation between species, and above all, there is no centre. He imagines all life forms as strange strangers mucking about in this unimaginably expansive ecological goo. It is intimate and awkward and queer — not unlike my own work, ha. So much so, I have borrowed “Strange Strangers” from Timothy Morton for the title of this video.
I am unsure that humans will ever be able to resolve our relationship with Nature, certainly not as a society. As an individual, I am continually grappling with all of my relationships, human and non, and forever in search of my own words to describe what I merely intuit. I quite like the suggestion of Poet Robert Bringhurst who looks to Taoist philosophy as he comes to terms with the idea of Nature in Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis:
“An old Chinese term for nature or the wild is zìrán, which means ‘just like itself’
or ‘that’s the way it is.’ There is a passage in the Dào Dé Jing, the classic of
Láo Sim that says, rén fá dì, dì fá dào, dào fá zìrán: “humans align themselves
with the earth; Earth aligns itself with the sky; the sky aligns itself with theTao;
the Tao aligns itself with nature” — or, “the Tao aligns with being what it is.”
(Bringhurst 17).
Just imagine — this matter, this energy, this nature, this ecological goo — all that is —never created or destroyed. It is transformed endlessly, as is everything within ecology, as is my own body — all of us continually transforming and co-evolving with all that is.