IMAGE [Splendor Solis. Plate 8. It is a living thing, which no more dies, but when used gives an eternal increase.]
I´m very happy that I´ve been invited to join the upcoming “Earth Observation Source: Workshop at Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station”. My participation is being kindly supported by the “Goethe-Institut Finnland”.
“The Earth Observation Source (EOS) workshop at Helsinki University Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station sets out to bother and to complicate the linear stories of deep-time, geology and anthropocenic discourse. EOS seeks to re-jig the history of the bones and stones with a vitalist writing of the earth and peat, of whiskies, bogs and tree sap, of mycelium and the blinded imaginaries of all earthly, airy and extraterrestrial creatures. We wish to untether planetary futures from an auto-destructive laboratory planet, exploring in the process how linear histories and geologies inform instrumental sciences and industries which are implicated in the initiating of this destroyed planet through effects such as global warming and technologies of resource management and extraction.
Within the context of the exciting work of the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station (within) forest and atmospheric studies and peat-based measurements, the workshop will explore a more actively aesthetic relation to planetary phenomena such as climate change and to the measurements/research which inform the study of these large-scale objects. Through action and discussion we will ask questions such as:
How can we imagine other non-linear terracentric histories and geologies informed by re-cyclings and recursions?
What kinds of event impact on, for example, tree ring formation and how could we have a bodily experience of these instances and events?
How can we immerse ourselves in natural-technical-industrial cyclings such as of tree fluids, and carbon cycles, sinks and sources?
We will attempt an overview of technologies of dating and carbon exchange as scientific objects and examine how these relate to experiences within the forest and within the peat bogs of the research station. We begin to view peat as a carbon-rich, non-linear and living archive; preserving rituals, metals, ancient bodies and living plants.
Through practical and speculative exercises we will begin to access and document potential responses to these ideas, involving discussions of non-linear and animate geologies, and measurements of carbon cycles. The workshop will stress human and non-human involvements in these circulations and flows within the burning of peat, the immersion in the bog, the sauna, working with dew, collections and distillations, and carbon cycle measurements.
The workshop will be hosted by Jamie Allen, Martin Howse and Ulla Taipale with special guests Erich Berger, Mari Keski-Korsu, and Timo Vesala as part of Shift Register and Climate Whirl.”
Supported with a travel grant by:
