back to school, new stones and lost earbuds
September ramblings from the Summer months
Academic new year
It's the start of September - for many that involves a new uniform, a new pencil case, a new travel coffee cup and to hopefully finally find the most effective ad-free distraction-busting focus app. Slightly mundane things I admit, but significant rituals that I re-enact at this time of year as routine re-commences and habits begin to fold into what has been a lush summer of wondering.
Why do schools and universities start in September I wondered? Well according to this article it dates back to the introduction of schools in 1880 and the seasonal duties children had in helping their families with agricultural farming and in the factories. From May onwards there was lots to do in terms of picking fruit and from autumn onwards there were less jobs to do so it was deemed more acceptable for children to be absent from their family and be schooled during the day.
For many families living in cities this agricultural seasonal calendar for term times no longer makes much sense, but the family summer holiday is now a staple seasonal activity for many. While we didn’t do any farming we did go on some adventures and did some some fossil hunting on the Dorset coast which i will tell you more about below.
Fossilised media
During a week long holiday in Dorset in July me and my partner got ourselves a fossil hammer and managed to sneak off down the coastlines of the Jurassic Coast, scanning the floor for ammonites, pulling apart soft clay and bashing open rocks to discover what was hidden within.
While I was doing this I was reading Jussi Parikka’s ‘Geological Media’ (2015) a short book consisting of a theoretical basis for thinking about media as geological artefacts, both materially, temporally and conceptually. Parikka takes on board previous notions of technology materiality to dig a little deeper (eh?) through the term Medianatures; rather than considering media and nature as separate entities but, through the term medianatures, understand environmental and media genealogies as common epistemologies.
“medianatures is to contribute to politics of global life of media products in their prehistory and their afterlife—as well as the various people exposed to media before, and after, they become media for the consumer sphere”1
Parikka speculates on the material lifecycle of obsolete consumer technology and compares the decay of e-waste (laptops, phones, batteries etc) with minerals, animals and other life forms that fossilise. He asks What are the fossils we are producing now? What is the layer of dead matter residue that we are producing in future fossils?
While reading this I signed up for a ceramics introduction and hand made a dozen porcelain bluetooth earbuds that i thought could be hidden on the coast. A speculative fossil artifact of consumer technology that is more likely be crushed by the waves and fragmented into tiny particles or dust before it is re-constructed by some post-human archeologists attempting to understand why someone would bother trolling them by making fake bluetooth headphones out of clay(also my beginner clay modelling skills ended up looking more like miniature cameras!)
Back in London I was walking the Thames Foreshore last week and came upon 2 parts of a Macbook laptop washed up on the shoreline. I watched it as the tide came in and submerged the metals back underwater. The question of future fossils and the material residue of obsolete technology is already floating to the surface. A short walk along the thames foreshore reveals victorian clay pipes nestled with electronic vapes, 19th century porcelain and 20th century spark plugs, 21st century laptops and 17th century gem brooches slowly decomposing into a fossilised landscape of different generations discarded debris.
Upcoming
Screen Walks
If you like thinking about the geological traces of technology I am hosting another ‘Rare Earth Walk’ on the Thames Foreshore on Saturday 23rd September as part of ‘Screen Walks’ curated by Photographers Gallery.
The walk begins at 12 (midday) and we will end around 13:30, during which time we will look for different artefacts along the foreshore and reflect on the material and mythical narratives of different elements that can be found in a smartphone (who knows, we might even find another macbook!)
The walk is free, but tickets are very limited so if you would like to come please do sign up!
If your not able to make this date don’t fret, I plan on doing another walk along the Thames foreshore in October as part of Earth Science Week during the week of October 13 - 19, 2024 - More details on that soon.
Pixel festival
I’m also looking forward to traveling to Norway at the end of November to do an edition of ‘Rare Earth Walks’ for children as part of Pixel Festival in Bergen, curated by artist Joanna Moll and Mediengruppe Bitnik.
Books
The pebbles on the beach - the perfect companion for beach combing with some lovely illustrations
Structural Geology vol. 3 - i’ll be honest havnt’t been able to comprehend much of this, but love some of the graphics.
The Nation of Plants - Another great book lent to me by Miranda Webster this short collection of essays makes the case for plants to be in charge.
Secrets of Crystal Healing - slightly dated / problematic book describing different shamans of North American Indigenous communities approaches to stone healing and crystal therapy.
Podcasts
Most All of the audiobooks i have listened to have been children’s stories while we travelled around in the Campervan for most of August, if anyone has any recommendations for some good pods i can get stuck into now i have my headphones please do pass them on!
Exhibitions
Ok so apart from the Goldsmiths exhibition I havnt’t actually had a chance to visit some of these yet buuuuutt ….
Goldsmiths MA computational arts show - was last weekend, lots of highly technically skilled students and large scale mechanical installations exploring Computation, materialities, ecologies and robotics.
‘From the Big Splash to the Last Splash Glasgow’ is the second in a series of group exhibitions curated by Toby Messenger on show 2 - 16 September at Unlimited Studios in Glasgow, featuring the fabulous meat shop window display ‘Sorry Babe’ by Ruth Faulkner (@rufie_rufe)
New Christian Marclay at Masons Yard - at slight risk of becoming one-trick 24hr video artist guy Christian has made a new film sliced together with scenes of people opening and presumably walking through doors. Knock knock?
Jack Warner - ‘blind by the age of four’ 7 sep - 5th October Unit 6, 39 Gransden Avenue, London E8 3QA (near London Fields.) sounds fascinating! - see info here An exhibition that seeks to disrupt the norms of how to perceive and interact with a visual arts show, incorporating co-created Audio Description, physical wayfinding features and AR experiences devised with blind and sighted collaborators.
Tim Spooner - a new kind of Animal - 15 JULY-24 SEPTEMBER 2023 - again havnt been to this but sounded quite fun and playful and worth a visit on a sunny day as you get southwark park to play in, with the ducks and an affordable cafe.
That is all from me, good luck finding your feet if your returning to some sort of routine.
best
Max
Parikka, Jussi: Medianatures. In: ZMK Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung. Mediocene, Jg. 9 (2018), Nr. 1, S. 103–106. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/18701.
Jussi Parikka. A Geology of Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.