Saturday, 8 June 2019
Saturday, 27 April 2019
1. Context of project Voicing the soil in Herefordshire, in the Anthropocene.
I was unable to submit work at the same time as my cohort on 31st January because I was off sick. As a result, I am writing this retrospectively, in April 2019, as part 2 of my submission of the PGRP to Hereford College of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA Fine Art. Since it is now April 2019, and I have continued working on the project, I now have a different perspective, just like a farmer, time has provided its harvest.
This project, Voicing the Soil in Herefordshire, the Anthropocene, is not clear-cut. This is because my research method is heuristic and iterative, the research is on-going and the project emerges from this. For instance, when I wrote the Literature Review, in early December, I had hardly started to conduct interviews and the nature of the project had yet to emerge, let alone a final piece of art. My critical approach to the Anthropocene itself only began to take form from books that I read after my operation.
The outputs started with a collection of soils and words to define soil samples, video of spiders on compost heaps (See blog, October 2018 ), audio recording of soil manipulated in a studio and Duseline Stewart, an experienced gardener, explaining the formation of soil in an interview (Blog October 2018). This then developed with a line of soil and the cross-section of geological layers, drawing on the work of C18 geologist William Smith. The geological cross section represents the region of the world where I live. The data on the map re-present the categories thrown up by my research. The way they are placed on the map is arbitrary.
This project, Voicing the Soil in Herefordshire, the Anthropocene, is not clear-cut. This is because my research method is heuristic and iterative, the research is on-going and the project emerges from this. For instance, when I wrote the Literature Review, in early December, I had hardly started to conduct interviews and the nature of the project had yet to emerge, let alone a final piece of art. My critical approach to the Anthropocene itself only began to take form from books that I read after my operation.
The outputs started with a collection of soils and words to define soil samples, video of spiders on compost heaps (See blog, October 2018 ), audio recording of soil manipulated in a studio and Duseline Stewart, an experienced gardener, explaining the formation of soil in an interview (Blog October 2018). This then developed with a line of soil and the cross-section of geological layers, drawing on the work of C18 geologist William Smith. The geological cross section represents the region of the world where I live. The data on the map re-present the categories thrown up by my research. The way they are placed on the map is arbitrary.
An early draft of an Anthropocene map for Voicing the soil, based on the geological cross-section of William Smith (1817) Saunders Waterford’s watercolour paper, 300 gms, cold press. The paper is distressed with red soil from Herefordshire.
As an artist I approach the ‘task of research not just from the side of the image (or of materials, my note), but from that of text’ (Dronsfield, 2009). The publication that accompanies the map, a newspaper, tells a story about the map ‘image and text become indiscernible’. The newspaper is published in 2050 and includes a picture of the map and its key. It looks back at the discovery of an early map of the Anthropocene and comments on the arbitrariness of the data, which has become story.
What is the Anthropocene? (Crutzen, Stoermer, 2000) A name for a suggested
a new phase of geological time in which human activity is considered so
powerful an influence on the environment, climate and ecology of the planet
that it will leave a long term signature in the strata record (Macfarlane,
2017). Inevitably the Anthropocene
intrudes into every aspect of our lives. We have to imagine ourselves as emerging
from and impacting earth’s ‘deep time’. We need to question the vulnerability
and guilt that exist between us and other species as well as between us and
future generations, and wonder is nature gone? We also need to be sceptical about the novelty
of the idea, its universalising rhetoric, how it ‘enters into visuality and its
politics of representation’ (T.J. Demos, 2017) using advanced technologies and the
assumption of technocratic planetary mastery they encode:
“A daunting task lies ahead for scientists
and engineers to guide society towards environmentally sustainable management
during the era of the Anthropocene. This will require appropriate human
behaviour at all scales, and may well involve internationally accepted, large
scale geo-engineering projects, for instance to ‘optimize’ climate”
(Crutzen, 2002).
While sociologist Bruno Latour christens
the Anthropocene earth ‘our contemporary Frankenstein’, philosopher Virginie
Maris and historian of sciences Christophe Bonneuil suggest that we need to fix
ourselves and our systems rather than nature (Maris, 2018. Bonneuil, 2016). These
tensions traverse Voicing the soil in
Herefordshire.
The project is interdisciplinary
as a result of its subject. The Anthropocene requires many minds from various
disciplines - economic, environmental, political, cultural, social and
logistical – working collaboratively to respond to its implications.
This leads to another question: can this way of working turn into an information gathering
exercise? Is it art or is it
research or is it infographics? When does data become story? At some point I
decided to focus not on making an object called art, but on what is happening
in Herefordshire, with the felt local knowledge of soil in the Anthropocene. If
the process of gathering information evidences aesthetic decisions and values,
then I think of it as creative, generous for participants and spectators who
can generate their own story-telling of soil. This is why with the geological cross- section of William Smith, I blur
the line between infographics and something that is unique and handmade, in an
era where the Anthropocene is aestheticised (Walter Benjamin’s aestheticization of politics) by mainstream presentation (Globaïa) which blurs the line between GPS’
visualisation and photography, with the former often taken for the latter (T.J.
Demos, 2017).
In the Anthropocene epoch, does this
map represent an anachronism? The map juxtaposes different times: it
re-presents Deep Earth time, C18, C19, C20 and C21- the times of the rise of
capitalism and the commodification of nature, and the slow time needed by
Alison and the rest of the team to create the watercolour, together with future
impacts.
It may be an anachronism to call
Smith’s piece an infographic, as the word did not exist then. It is now
considered an artwork, deserving its own room in a museum (Cardiff) and shown
in an exhibition meant by definition to create an experience of artworks for
visitors.
Summary of previous blogs from 25th October up to 5-12-2019
It has also always been my intention
to create a diptych, following up my previous project, Voicing the Wye, with Voicing
the Soil. The unifying thread of both projects is to collect, collate and
re-present the stories of people in Herefordshire in the Anthropocene. The
project places the focus on soil, the main actor, to show the social and political forces that
are at play in its formation.
The project is sited in Herefordshire as a whole: why
didn’t I choose a narrower geographical area?
I learn by talking to people and I needed the
variety and scale that comes from covering the whole county. Herefordshire
contains a great variety of soils. I also discovered the
mutability of soil, how its nature and fertility can change, and the
countryside with it. Hence, by extrapolation, the key question of how soil is
created. A
smaller area would miss out a great deal. Finally, dealing with a smaller area
would have been no less complex, because I would still have had to address all
the issues raised by ‘the Anthropocene’.
Returning to the point about variety and scale, soil in the
Anthropocene project was inevitably an accretion of micro and macro scales from
soil biota to deep time.
Can information gathering be aesthetic? For example, I experimented with the possibilities of
listening to the sounds of soil’s biota,
based on my visiting A Sound Not Meant To Be Heard at the Oriel
Davies Gallery (Anthony Shapland, 2018). I also experimented with the
possibilities of using geology to explain the creation of soil as a historical
element, resulting from deep time processes. William Smith’s Geological Section from London to Snowdon,
Showing the Varieties of the Strata, and the Correct Altitudes of the Hills (1817),
which runs through Herefordshire soil, queries our relationship to our origins
as a species (Darwin) and simultaneously, as a continuum from birth to death,
that of soil and the survival of species on the planet (the Anthropocene).
William Smith, Geological Section from London to Snowdon, Showing the Varieties of the Strata, and
the Correct Altitudes of the Hills (1817). Oxford University Museum of Natural History
I could have represented Voicing the Soil by focusing on a local
plant and its soil profile. Both this and the map above could provide the spectator
with an X-ray vision of earth’s history and human influences. They both survey
the terrain by using a direct relationship to soil, rather than current remote sensors. However, Smith’s offers a geological
cross-section left to right, a panorama which narrates his travels from ’the
slate and granite mountains of Snowdonia, through the coal tracts [and
Worcester], the chalk hills and ending at the plains of the Thames’ (Edwards, 2018).
This tells a personal story that goes far wider in time and space.
Watercolor #22 by Walter L. Kubiena (both Podzols with
bleached E horizons underlain by Bhs horizons rich in illuviated humus and
iron). The Atlas of Soil
Profiles,1954
The painting was done by Gertrude Kallab Purtscher and Anton
Prazak. Kubiena interpreted the profile morphology, sketching and demarcating
horizons, and collaborated with the two illustrators on the colour renderings.
Finding resources and ways of working
During a crit, I presented a literature search for soil-words, together with soil samples.
These ranged from clay to mud. People
were divided within themselves on whether this was soil. Part of them felt that
it was, while another part defined soil only as say humus. Collecting soils
around Herefordshire led me to understand that I needed to find a soil
biologist to learn about local soils. I extrapolated from this to conceive the
idea of a Herefordshire word hoard, inspired by Landmarks, written by Robert Macfarlane in 2015. The word hoard
would be presented on a beautiful roll of heavy Fabriano paper, with soil running
from the wall into the room.
What emerged in
October is the difficulty that arises from my being an in-comer in
Herefordshire and a foreigner in the UK. I cannot have a voice, but I can be a
catalyst. How to find these people for face-to-face interaction, encounter
local communities and their social and cultural significance for
soil? Hence an early action was to put
together an Advisory Group, including a local sponsor, Nick Read from the Brightspace
Foundation, Katie Brymer a young local graphic designer, Franca Luz a
mindfulness practitioner and Perry Walker a game designer. I used interviews as
practice to learn both about soil and Herefordshire (see Analysis of work
process below).
2. Work Process and Research Methods part 1
My practice is sited in
Herefordshire. It is a kind of field work, engaged, holistic and emphatic.
My research is based on the
Harrisons’ collaborative work process – responsive to the particularities of
local soil, place and people. The Harrisons also provided a research method to
understand the scope of the project. (See blog 06-12-18)
How big is here and how long is our
Now - understood as an instant, but the instant may be 250 years long? How can
what’s happening here be understood and engaged? What patterns are forming or
reforming? And how can we, and those with us, add to the well-being of the now
of this place? (A MANIFESTO FOR THE 21ST CENTURY)
Given that I work in a
collaborative manner I needed ethical principles. I borrowed these from art
critic Lucy Lippard. Lippard’s list of eight criteria for ‘an art governed by
[a] place-ethic’ (1997:286) has been adapted to fit the context. The criteria
are:
SPECIFIC enough
to engage people in Herefordshire on the level of their own lived experiences
of soils, to say something about their native soil and place as it is or could
be.
COLLABORATIVE at
least to the extent of seeking information, advice and feedback from these
people.
GENEROUS and
OPEN-ENDED enough to be accessible to a wide variety of participants and people
from different classes and cultures, to different interpretations and tastes.
APPEALING enough
either visually or emotionally to catch the eye and be memorable.
SIMPLE and
FAMILIAR enough, at least on the surface not to confuse or repel potential
viewer-participants.
LAYERED, COMPLEX
and UNFAMILIAR enough to hold people’s attention once they’ve been attracted,
to make them wonder, and to offer deeper experiences and references to those
who hang in.
EVOCATIVE enough
to make people recall related moments, places and emotions in their own lives.
PROVOCATIVE and
CRITICAL, yet safe enough to make people think about soil and its issues.
Work Process and Research Methods part 2
-Empirical research Interviews:
Collaborators: When I started the Soil project, I collected soil samples, comparing and contrasting them, not knowing why they looked so different nor how to talk about them. I inferred that I needed to learn about soil. That’s an example of why I need collaborators – some of whom also became co-creators of the project. There are three kinds of collaborations:
Working with the Advisory Group is the most vital collaboration. Nick Read from the Bright Space Foundation sponsored the project by identifying participants and communities involved in current soil challenges. This saved vast amounts of time.
Voicing the soil, Advisory Group, December 2018
Working with Interviewees: How do
I choose who to interview? I seek interviews where the encounter is relevant,
the person concerned has values, perspectives and information that relate to
the project, and where I am able to draw that out in the course of the
interview.
I let conversations drift. Most
are recorded by the sound engineer, Perry Walker, who is also a member of the
Advisory Group. My role is to question and listen and not to advance a point of
view.
Perry Walker, sound engineer, with an affectionate cow at Will Edwards 's farm near Ross on Wye, December 2018
To
illustrate my method of collaborating, I found my way to Tim Monckton (January
2019), a local soil biologist. I asked Tim questions about the types of soils
in Herefordshire. What of soil and its health in differing contexts: intensive agriculture, medium, small farmers?
Soil biodiversity? How did Tim see the future of soil in Herefordshire:
Precision agriculture? Agrochemicals? Protecting soils? Carbon capture? Future
generations and food security? Should his voice contribute visibly to the
project, Tim’s prior agreement will be sought.
No artist has all the knowledge required for an
Anthropocene project; hence the value of several viewpoints plus a discursive and
multidisciplinary approach. The views of specialists and people close to the
soil were collected and they inform the project. The participants are four
farmers: Will and Debbie Edwards in the south of the
shire
and Malcolm Lewis and Antony Williams, his adviser, in the north west of the
county. Then there is Duseline Stewart in the east, a very experienced gardener
and a member of the Royal Horticultural Society. Tim Monckton is a soil scientist. I met Lucinda
Lewis, a Herefordshire ecologist, agronomist and a farmer also working for an
NGO (the Wye and Usk Foundation) at a meeting organised by Hereford Wild life
Trust in November 2018. An unnamed Herefordshire farmer and Councillor from the
Conservative party said he did not believe in climate change. His ideas also
inform the project. Moira Jenkins is a member of the Woolhope Club. In a
January 2019 interview, she describes the Anthropocene from a geological
standpoint and evidences the changes
in soil over hundreds of years.
Moira concurred with the idea of William Smith’s map.
I
attended a meeting with the Herefordshire branch of Extinction Rebellion (XR),
whose demands in a letter to Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs) include that soil health be part of ‘public good’
within the Agriculture Bill.
Moira Jenkins, geologist and member of the Woolhope Club, January 2019
Will and Debbie Edwards's worm rich pastures, near Ross on Wye, December 2018
Working with artists-fabricators: At the XR
event, I met two militant youngsters who are on the Art Foundation Course at
HCA. One of them, Sam Townley-Evans, contributed to exploring soil as audio
experiment (see blog, October 2018) and later as
part of a performance. After this, I made one of the many decisions that the
project has required: I decided to omit humans from future sound and video in order not to distract from soil.
Sam Townley-Evans, performing art student, impersonating a flower blooming. HCA green screen studio, December 2018.
This led to another problem. Could the sound of soil have been replaced by another material such as flour or sugar, like with Foley, the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film?
This led to another problem. Could the sound of soil have been replaced by another material such as flour or sugar, like with Foley, the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film?
I answered this by observing myself, to discover how my brain was seeking
to put a name to a first-time-heard sound and associate it with an identifiable
sound. This almost inevitable brain process could obscure my critical listening
to a new phenomenon: instead of listening to understand, I was probing my memory
for something familiar. Which if extrapolated could be strange: for example
when I listened to spiders’ mating call, I saw a moped running in the street as
both sounds can be similar. So who would know sugar from soil? In this project
sound has a direct link to its origin, there is no manufacture. This is an aesthetic decision. The intention
is for the listener to discover, in the directness of real life, mediated by a
microphone, how a realm beyond human auditory perception feels. This solicits a
different hearing which challenges limits, as ‘sound is always moving away from
a source; it abandons its origins…in migrating…it sweeps through the social field’
(Brandon LaBelle, 2018).
It took me
four weeks to form a team of collaborators (January 2019) comprising Nicky
Barter a technical illustrator, Alison Barter an aquarellist, Christine Oxley a
calligrapher, Katie Brymer a graphic designer and sound designer Hayden Bail. The
project cannot happen without them. I chose them because they live locally, are
skilled, with a variety of experience, are reliable, and enjoy working as a
team. I have to accept, though, that, in the
context of the art market, viewers are not familiar with multiple authorship.
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)
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.
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