Micro-Landscapes of the AnthropoceneMain MenuMarginal WorldsPlant WorldsAnimal WorldsAmy Huang, Natasha Stavreski and Rose RzepaWatery WorldsInsect WorldsBird-Atmosphere WorldsContributed by Gemma and MerahExtinctionsMarginal WorldsSam, Zach and AlexE-ConceptsAn emergent vocabulary of eco-concepts for the late AnthropoceneSigi Jöttkandt4115726eb75e75e43252a5cbfc72a780d0304d7d
Blinkers
12021-04-15T01:38:28-07:00Sigi Jöttkandt4115726eb75e75e43252a5cbfc72a780d0304d7d309862plain2021-04-15T01:40:11-07:00Sigi Jöttkandt4115726eb75e75e43252a5cbfc72a780d0304d7dThere is a certain artificiality in commenting on one's own note, but as I come back to this at the end of the term I am full of new ideas and new questions. One such question emerges here: are we truly limited to human ways of seeing and human ways of thinking? According to Thomas Nagel, the answer must be yes. If we cannot know what it is like to be a bat, nor can we know what it is like to see like a bat-- or, for that matter, an ant. But we can certainly imagine what it is like to see like an ant (I have been attempting to do it all term) and I suggest that such acts of imagining generate sympathies and perspectives that are inherently beneficial. That is the premise of the insectostance.
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12021-02-22T21:58:05-08:00Gateways10plain2021-04-15T01:38:36-07:00As I explored this chapter, I too was struck by the allure of the in-between-world, the gateway spaces that mark the transition from the mundane to the exotic. They seem to me to be imbued with a prosaic beauty, a wildness defiled by human touch. These landscapes have been corrupted by humanity's endeavour to tame, transform and control. They are less because of it. Less wild, less majestic, less free.
They are less, but they are also more. These landscapes act as access points to the more than human world, conduits that drive me onwards, forwards, pushing me into an environment I would otherwise never be permitted to encounter. The critical discussion speaks of the lens through which we perceive the world, the cameras and facebook feeds that engage and blinker our vision. I would argue that our eyesight is already blinkered. We see with human eyes, and so are restricted to human thoughts. It is only in these in-between places, where the human and the natural overlap, that we are truly able to access the wild. These micro-landscapes are our gateways.