Desk research for the Anthropocene

I really shifted my position on the Anthropocene. I started from the perspectives of sociologist Bruno Latour and feminist Donna Haraway, both of whom couple together human, nature and machine, thus erasing the difference between living and non-living nature. My views evolved towards the perspective of humanist philosophers Frederic Neyrat and Virginie Maris and the necessity to rehabilitate the “great divide” between nature and culture:

‘the destructive patterns of contemporary societies may lie in the hierarchy between humans and non-humans much more than in the recognition of separate realms between culture and nature.’ 

(Maris, 2017)

I decided to re-present the Mesofauna group who live under our feet. I found banks of sounds from worms, spiders, small invertebrates etc. on the internet, to design soundscapes and add the voice of members of other species to the project. 
This is a test for a soundscape: Scientists recording spiders mating
https://soundcloud.com/user-507948161/naming-spiders-mixdown

Regarding humans as a biological and geological force is not a new idea. The Harrisons’ Survival Piece (1970-72) exposed half a century ago the destruction of biotopes, climate change and the necessity to shift away from science, market place and mega technology. Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), a best seller, documented the adverse effects of the use of pesticides. Thus the Anthropocene which purports to be a new concept, an advent, is a concept fraught with tensions. Bonneuil, a historian of science, sees a pattern of continuity rather than a break: from the commodification of soil (C18 & C19) and severe industrial exploitation (C20) to the disappearance of topsoils (C21). Bonneuil therefore rejects the notion of an advent, because the agents responsible for that damage are the same.

Given this understanding of the Anthropocene, how to represent it? A representation that suggested a contrast, a break, such as a Google map, would be false to my understanding of the concept. ‘Besides being historically false, [it – the notion of an advent] depoliticizes the long history of the Anthropocene’ (Bonneuil, 2013).

To represent the Anthropocene as a sign of a new era with a different audience, rather than continuity would ushers in a false narrative of awakening, with technology the solution now we are awake. But the Anthropocene is complex and there is no clean slate that absolves those 90 or 100 at most coal and oil companies, cement, car organisations etc. – and the many of us with a finger in those pies, particularly via shares and pensions.