Feral2

feral↵

Feral Atlas

feral↵ is not necessarily a negative or positive word; it has different meanings in different contexts. In Feral Atlas, feral↵ refers to a nonhuman entity (biological, chemical, geological) that is beyond human control.

feral↵ effects are all around us. Flora and fauna adapt to and transform ecologies in tune with their own cycles and rhythms beyond the anticipation and control of human activities all the time. An apple tree thrives after a forest visitor tosses the core after eating an apple, for example.

The feral↵ effects Feral Atlas is concerned with are the unexpected, non-designed consequences of human-made imperial and industrial infrastructures, which materially transform land, water, and air with such intensity that shifts occur in formally stable nonhuman ecologies. These shifts can create favourable conditions for living or non-living entities to run out-of-control, whose feral↵ activities tip these ecologies from one state to another. Jellyfish caused ecological disaster in the Black Sea after being accidentally brought there in ballast water in cargo ships, for example.

feral↵ effects occur across multiple, overlapping, and uneven scales and often go unnoticed and unattended—a consequence perhaps of the hubris of modernizing infrastructure projects—and so feral↵ effects pile up. This accumulation of feral↵ effects shifts interactions between humans and nonhumans across scales, creating new, life-threatening ecological conditions. This, Feral Atlas argues, is the more-than-human Anthropocene.

In these critical times we argue that we need urgently to learn methods and practices of attention to what our infrastructures do. Rather looking at feral↵ effects as a result, Feral Atlas asks, what triggers and encourages them?

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During the symposium Making Matters: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times, we (Feral Atlas members Lili Carr and Feifei Zhou) conducted a group exercise in noticing feral↵ effects in the area where you live. The workshop↵ instructions are reproduced below.

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Feral Atlas is curated and edited by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou. It can be accessed online at Stanford University Press: www.feralatlas.org.

You are invited to explore the more-than-human worlds of Feral Atlas > www.feralatlas.org.

workshop↵: feral atlas as a verb

Lili Carr & Feifei Zhou

Making Matters Symposium 2020 20 November 2020 | Driving the Human Opening Festival 22 November 2020

introduction: feral atlas as a verb

The Feral Atlas concept of infrastructure-mediated state change is where ongoing human-made infrastructural processes radically change environments to the point where our social and ecological systems are tipped from one state to another. In Feral Atlas, we call these infrastructural processes Tippers. Tippers are a non-exhaustive set of verbs that express the transformative actions of human-made infrastructures.

This workshop↵ is an experiment in noticing, recording, and expressing the actions of Tippers in our daily environments. Can we imagine ways of doing the infrastructural work we observe differently?

See Introduction to Feral Atlas and Feral Atlas as a Verb: Beyond Hope and Terror at www.feralatlas.org.

infrastructures

In Feral Atlas, infrastructures are technological apparatuses constructed to do kinds of work that (at least some) humans want done. Feral Atlas defines infrastructures in relation to three conditions:

1. Infrastructures are material apparatuses that affect landscapes, waterscapes, and airscapes.
2. Infrastructures are ‘public works’ in the sense that they involve many people and projects, and are part of broadly imagined campaigns to change landscapes in the interests of some kind of governance programme.
3. Infrastructures are apparatuses created by human design.

See Feral Atlas and the More-than-Human Anthropocene at www.feralatlas.org.

tippers

To show how infrastructures create state changes, Feral Atlas starts with the kinds of work they are designed to do. We ask: In the process of doing that work, what gaps and rifts appear in the state of things? What disappears? What proliferates?

Feral Atlas expresses Tippers as eight one-syllable words, each derived from the early history of the English language, and, as such, at the base of English-speakers’ experience. Consider these words as verbs; they describe things that people—and infrastructures—do. By classifying infrastructures according to these verbs, we aim to make clear the rifts that can appear when imperial and industrial modes of work take over from other ways of doing things.

Notice TAKE as the action of ‘taking’.

Notice SMOOTH/SPEED as the action of ‘smoothing/speeding’.

Notice PIPE as the action of ‘piping’.

Notice GRID as the action of ‘gridding’.

Notice CROWD as the action of ‘crowding’.

Notice BURN as the action of ‘burning’.

Notice DUMP as the action of ‘dumping’.

See Tippers: Modes of Infrastructure-Mediated State Change at www.feralatlas.org.

exercise

Take a walk outside in the area where you live. What infrastructural work do you observe in action? Which Feral Atlas Tipper(s) could describe this work?

Observe infrastructures working as they have been designed and built to do—not infrastructures that are being misused, or have broken down. Can you think of any other Tipper categories—other verbs—that could also describe this work?

Using video or sound recording, written text or spoken word, drawings, or photographs, try to capture directly the sounds and sights of infrastructural work and the scene in which this kind of infrastructural work is being done.

Feral Atlas uses short videos and sound pieces to convey something of the sheer power of Tippers, that is, their ability to rip apart existing social and ecological systems and to create new ones. This is just one of the ways Feral Atlas has attempted to capture the direct sounds, sights, and actions of infrastructural work. We encourage you to come up with others.

Please be prepared to share with the group your first-hand observations and recordings. Do you notice any feral↵ entities that attune to the infrastructural work you observe?

Look together at the group’s collection of observations and recordings. Notice the similarities in infrastructural actions manifest differently across scale, duration, and place. Can we imagine ways of doing the infrastructural work we observe differently?

See Tipper Sound and Video Poems Artists Statements at www.feralatlas.org.

For more Feral Atlas exercises, see Feral Atlas Exercises: Connecting the Material to the Place Where You Live at www.feralatlas.org.

The text for this brief has been adapted from Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene.

Curated and edited by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou.

transdisciplinary↵

The more-than-human Anthropocene is multiscalar, patchy, and overlapping. Its landscapes, its histories, its ecologies do not add together neatly. To study these more-than-human worlds in active formation, Feral Atlas argues the need for situated, multiperspectival accounts that are transdisciplinary↵ in approach, method, and form.

Centuries of disciplinary precedent have siloed knowledge-making practices, making it difficult for scholars to study entangled Anthropocene histories that bring attention to humans and nonhumans at the same time. The following caricature is over-the-top, and yet it contains a grain of truth: Humanists are severed heads floating in the stratosphere of philosophy, while scientists are toes grubbing in empirical dirt. Even in turning towards the concrete, humanists too often stop with an abstract discussion of ‘materiality’ before we even get to the material. Natural scientists ignore such discussion—but to their peril; uninformed by humanist scholarship on politics, history, and culture, scientists too often grab simplistic and misleading paradigms for measuring humanity. None of these habits allow much in the way of conversation. Without this conversation, the false dichotomy of subservient Nature and mastering Culture continues to be affirmed.

Feral Atlas argues that bringing together theoretical studies and field-based practices in dialogue—often across lines of mutual unintelligibility and difference—is essential for studying the Anthropocene. Feral Atlas contributors describe feral↵ ecologies based on first-hand observation and assessment (including archival materials) each according to their practice. They are biologists, historians, anthropologists, geographers, climate scientists, artists, poets, and writers; their witnessing comes in various forms, from poetry and natural history to the painting of an Aboriginal artist and the memoir of a British professor. Sometimes several reports follow the activities of a particular feral↵ entity, revealing moments of both accord and disconnect. Just as with Anthropocene landscapes, Anthropocene knowledge does not add together neatly either.

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During the symposium Making Matters: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times, we (Feral Atlas members Lili Carr and Feifei Zhou) conducted a workshop↵ in noticing feral↵ effects in the area where you live. The workshop↵ took place online and therefore all participants, each coming from different disciplinary backgrounds and based in their respective homes across Europe, observed and recorded feral↵ effects around them, each according to their practices. Sharing first-hand observations formed the basis for a rich discussion during the workshop↵. A selection of recordings is reproduced below.

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Feral Atlas is curated and edited by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou. It can be accessed online at Stanford University Press, www.feralatlas.org.

1. Ann-Katrin Günzel, Cologne. A botanical greenhouse under renovation. Global transport and trade of plants and soils since the early eighteenth century has led to the spread of non-native plant species, pests and disease, many of which have caused world ripping feral↵ effects.
2. Kate Donovan, Berlin. A Detektor (by Martin Howse and Shintaro Myazaki) detects a cacophony of EM radiation beyond human audible range. There is some indication (yet still limited research) that EM radiation generated by human-made telecommunications infrastructures (such as transmission towers, antennas, and cables) has a detrimental effect on certain bird, insect, fish, crustacean, reptilian, mammal, and plant life, while the physical infrastructures themselves have been observed to affect migration patterns.
3. Anthea Oestreicher, Karlsruhe. An increase in the variety of lichens observed during the Covid-19 pandemic indicates a fall in particulate air pollution levels.
4. Amsterdam. The installation of EV charging infrastructure underground↵ causes ground temperatures to rise, encouraging the proliferation of potentially harmful pathogens in municipal water pipes.
5. Katharina Wilting, Amsterdam. Tropical fruits are sold at a street market in winter. The palettes on which they are transported overseas harbour non-native insects which, when introduced to new habits, can flourish, and spread.
6. Zeenath Hasan, Copenhagen. The chemicals in rock salt spread to prevent the formation of road-ice is dissolved by run-off and leaches into the groundwater.
7. Amsterdam. A marker indicates that on this site, treatment for the eradication of Japanese knotweed is taking place. Japanese knotweed was introduced to the Netherlands as an ornamental plant in the mid-nineteenth century and spread through Europe’s botanical gardens. It is known to break through concrete and damage roads, building foundations and dykes.

A selection of images and conjectures provided by the participants of Feral Atlas as a Verb @ Making Matters Symposium: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times (Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, 21 November 2020) and @ Driving the Human Opening Festival (ZKM Karlsruhe, 22 November 2020).

representation↵

Feral Atlas sometimes uses the term ‘stories’ to refer to how we tell and so form knowledge. Modernist commitments have narrowed the kinds of knowledge that count, therefore the use of the term is to open up a discussion of genre. What kind of storytelling is most appropriate for the Anthropocene?

Feral Atlas is designed to encourage an exploratory and open journey through an assembled polyphony of materials. Hand-painted watercolours, field recordings, molecular diagrams, scientific charts, photographs, sound art, maps made from satellite data, and calculated projections sit alongside scientific writing, autoethnography, memoir, poetry, biological modelling, music, video poems, and song. Each element offers an empirical account of the Anthropocene in its own right, each according to the material practices↵ of its authors. Yet when they come together, these diverse elements perform an iterative, multisensuous, multiperspectival, and multiscalar account of how imperial and industrial infrastructures make Anthropocene worlds.

One of the challenges for Feral Atlas is to tell terrible stories in ways that are faithful but not paralyzing. By telling these stories beautifully, the hope is that readers stop to linger over the gathered materials, holding their attention to the scenes in which feral↵ ecologies play out rather than turn away. By telling these stories with such absorbing detail and care, the hope is that readers become curious to know more. By telling these stories together even as they overlap or come together awkwardly, the hope is that readers learn to navigate and become attuned to diverse ways of knowing and noticing the radical ecological shifts to which we all are subject.

---

During the symposium Making Matters: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times, we (Feral Atlas members Lili Carr and Feifei Zhou) conducted a workshop↵ in noticing feral↵ effects in the area where you live. A screenshot of our collective online map of collated observations is reproduced below.

---

Feral Atlas is curated and edited by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou. It can be accessed online at Stanford University Press: www.feralatlas.org.

A collective work by the participants of Feral Atlas as a Verb @ Making Matters Symposium: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times (Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 21 November 2020) and @ Driving the Human Opening Festival (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 22 November 2020).

1. Ann-Katrin Günzel, Cologne. A botanical greenhouse under renovation. Global transport and trade of plants and soils since the early eighteenth century has led to the spread of non-native plant species, pests and disease, many of which have caused world ripping feral↵ effects.
2. Kate Donovan, Berlin. A Detektor (by Martin Howse and Shintaro Myazaki) detects a cacophony of EM radiation beyond human audible range. There is some indication (yet still limited research) that EM radiation generated by human-made telecommunications infrastructures (such as transmission towers, antennas, and cables) has a detrimental effect on certain bird, insect, fish, crustacean, reptilian, mammal, and plant life, while the physical infrastructures themselves have been observed to affect migration patterns.
3. Anthea Oestreicher, Karlsruhe. An increase in the variety of lichens observed during the Covid-19 pandemic indicates a fall in particulate air pollution levels.
4. Amsterdam. The installation of EV charging infrastructure underground↵ causes ground temperatures to rise, encouraging the proliferation of potentially harmful pathogens in municipal water pipes.
5. Katharina Wilting, Amsterdam. Tropical fruits are sold at a street market in winter. The palettes on which they are transported overseas harbour non-native insects which, when introduced to new habits, can flourish, and spread.
6. Zeenath Hasan, Copenhagen. The chemicals in rock salt spread to prevent the formation of road-ice is dissolved by run-off and leaches into the groundwater.
7. Amsterdam. A marker indicates that on this site, treatment for the eradication of Japanese knotweed is taking place. Japanese knotweed was introduced to the Netherlands as an ornamental plant in the mid-nineteenth century and spread through Europe’s botanical gardens. It is known to break through concrete and damage roads, building foundations and dykes.

A selection of images and conjectures provided by the participants of Feral Atlas as a Verb @ Making Matters Symposium: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times (Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, 21 November 2020) and @ Driving the Human Opening Festival (ZKM Karlsruhe, 22 November 2020).

representation↵

Feral Atlas sometimes uses the term ‘stories’ to refer to how we tell and so form knowledge. Modernist commitments have narrowed the kinds of knowledge that count, therefore the use of the term is to open up a discussion of genre. What kind of storytelling is most appropriate for the Anthropocene?

Feral Atlas is designed to encourage an exploratory and open journey through an assembled polyphony of materials. Hand-painted watercolours, field recordings, molecular diagrams, scientific charts, photographs, sound art, maps made from satellite data, and calculated projections sit alongside scientific writing, autoethnography, memoir, poetry, biological modelling, music, video poems, and song. Each element offers an empirical account of the Anthropocene in its own right, each according to the material practices↵ of its authors. Yet when they come together, these diverse elements perform an iterative, multisensuous, multiperspectival, and multiscalar account of how imperial and industrial infrastructures make Anthropocene worlds.

One of the challenges for Feral Atlas is to tell terrible stories in ways that are faithful but not paralyzing. By telling these stories beautifully, the hope is that readers stop to linger over the gathered materials, holding their attention to the scenes in which feral↵ ecologies play out rather than turn away. By telling these stories with such absorbing detail and care, the hope is that readers become curious to know more. By telling these stories together even as they overlap or come together awkwardly, the hope is that readers learn to navigate and become attuned to diverse ways of knowing and noticing the radical ecological shifts to which we all are subject.

---

During the symposium Making Matters: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times, we (Feral Atlas members Lili Carr and Feifei Zhou) conducted a workshop↵ in noticing feral↵ effects in the area where you live. A screenshot of our collective online map of collated observations is reproduced below.

---

Feral Atlas is curated and edited by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou. It can be accessed online at Stanford University Press: www.feralatlas.org.

A collective work by the participants of Feral Atlas as a Verb @ Making Matters Symposium: Collective Material Practices in Critical Times (Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 21 November 2020) and @ Driving the Human Opening Festival (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 22 November 2020).