<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Thank you Byron for that introduction. As you mentioned me in the context of the University at Buffalo, I’ll start by saying it seems like I am only now
circling back to certain elements of UB’s rather distinct pedagogy that you have
referred to here. Certainly, being amidst that milieu of Paul Vanouse, Steve Kurtz,
Stephanie Rothenberg, and others was a formative experience as an artist in grad school in their early 20’s. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention that, while
at UB, I fondly recall working in Visual Studies with Gary Nickard and in Comp. Lit. with Henry Sussman. In particular, Sussman’s
course on Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project was instructive in terms of applying
a sort of broad spectrum optics to understanding cities and other anthropogenic exploits that would heavily factor into my work thereafter. While this was about 15 years ago and the details are hazy, I think UB was instrumental in connecting me with a certain type of critical practitioner for sure.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:11pt">On that note, I’ll plug two projects I organized in the past year or so
that your and Liz’s collaborative project, Epicurean Endocrinology, were featured
in: <a href="https://moca-tucson.org/exhibition/groping-in-the-dark/" target="_blank"><i>GROPING in the DARK </i>at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson</a> and <a href="http://drainmag.com/ecology-of-bad-ideas/" target="_blank"><i>Ecology of Bad Ideas</i> for Drain Magazine</a>. The two projects shared quite a bit of research
overlap and contributors addressing anthropogenic land use and how human ideation
and modification of Earth matter </span>effects<span style="font-size:11pt"> ecologies of mind, society, and
environment. I was thinking a lot about Gregory Bateson and Felix Guattari, as a
result of conversations with Paul Sargent, both of whom refer to land use to
varying degrees in a sort of toxicological manner. As a result, artist-researchers
like yourself, Liz Flyntz, Eric Simpson, Mary Maggic, and others with that sort
of UB/ CMU/ SAIC/ RPI/ MIT, etc. etc. bio-art, tactical media. and adjacent pedagogy all made a lot of sense in that
context for different reasons. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">As for my present research and work, I’ve been framing
things around this notion of ‘Ruderal Futures.’ Borrowing the term from urban
ecology, and particularly Peter del Tredici’s ‘Wild Urban Plants of the
Northeast,’ the ruderal typically refers to plant life (but also any life, really) that
thrives in the margins or ruins of anthropogenic activity. Of course, in the
present, we’re really talking about things that reside in the margins or
ruins of capitalism, globalism, neoliberalism, and other ideological regimes
that manifest in shifting material conditions. Bettina Stoetzer has an amazing
essay Ruderal Ecologies on <a href="http://culanth.org" target="_blank">culanth.org</a> that delves into related ideas using the
term ruderal in a social sense. So, with these forthcoming projects, I’m really
looking at these margin and ruin dwellers as guides for new futurisms and
toward a sort of bittersweet aftermath--or at the very least inevitable mutation--of present anthropo/ capitalo/ nationalist/ colonial world systems. In this, my thinking has been greatly impacted by landscape
architect Gilles Clement and art/ design groups like SPURSE, Detroit Tree of
Heaven Woodshop, and the Slovenian collective Re-Generacija. As an aside, I
was—perhaps needless to say—thrilled to see last November’s edition of [-empyre-] with
Margaretha Haughwout, Oliver Kellhammer, Marisa Prefer, and WhiteFeather Hunter’s
discussion on the subject of 'Ruderal Witchcraft.'</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">This research will be culminating in a few ways. There’s
a curatorial project coming up in 2022 that has yet to be officially announced that I’m excited about.
But, right now, I am focusing on a project that I’m calling 'Solar Sallet', which will
utilize pokeweed dye in the fabrication of dye sensitized solar cells that will then power an array of media, landscape, and horticultural projects. This project
was an indirect result of the recent closure of the Bruce Mansfield coal
power plant (in Shippingport, PA - about 40 minutes from me in Pittsburgh) where I noticed an abundance of these betanin-rich (a good photosensitizer) pokeweed plants adjacent to
it, thriving amidst that sulfurous neglected landscape in the shadow of these massive power and manufacturing facilities. It is also very directly influenced by later encountering reportage on a once much-touted project out of Wake Forest University from
about a decade ago (that perhaps never materialized?) that looked to use pokeweed
dye in a mass production of solar cells. So, at the moment I am producing this stuff in a DIY way, even if a proper lab setting would be preferable. My thought here is, even if what I can
do with all of this as an artist is very miniscule, I think there is definitely
cause to look beyond the extractive ecologies/economies of energy, not just of coal, but
also ‘green technologies’ like solar and its reliance upon platinum, silicon,
or even ruthenium in dye-sensitized and perovskite cells. Right now, iterations of this project are slated for Epsilon Spires in Vermont and at Unison Arts in New Paltz, in collaboration with Matthew Friday, for an
amazing project Tal Beery is organizing called ‘Owning Earth.’ </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">And, yes, The Monument to Common Barberry--which Byron mentioned--is
on the horizon as well. This project is maybe more of a memorial to the absurd
folly of extreme human/ state prejudice toward certain other-than-human organisms and select co-evolution with a certain few species that fuel state biopower than it is part
of thinking about ruderal futures. However, I feel
like I’ve covered quite a bit already, so I’ll just leave it at that.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I'm always excited to talk about schlocky popular conceptions of u/eu/dys-topia, so I'm interested to see where this conversation goes. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">-Alex</p></div></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="1" face="times new roman, serif">Alex Young </font></div><div dir="ltr"><font size="1" face="times new roman, serif"><a href="http://www.worldshaving.info/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">www.worldshaving.info</a></font></div></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif" size="1"><br></font></div><div><font face="times new roman, serif" size="1">recent/ current/ upcoming:</font></div><div><span style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:x-small">- </span><i style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:x-small"><a href="http://drainmag.com/ecology-of-bad-ideas/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">Ecology of Bad Ideas</a></i><span style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:x-small">, </span><a href="http://drainmag.com/" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:x-small;color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">Drain Magazine</a></div><div><span style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:x-small">- <a href="https://moca-tucson.org/exhibition/groping-in-the-dark/" target="_blank"><i>GROPING in the DARK</i></a></span><a href="https://moca-tucson.org/exhibition/groping-in-the-dark/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:x-small">, </span><font face="times new roman, serif" size="1">Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson</font></a></div><div><font size="1" face="times new roman, serif">- <i><a href="http://www.worldshaving.info/solar-sallet/" target="_blank">Solar Sallet</a></i>, <a href="https://www.epsilonspires.org/about" target="_blank">Epsilon Spires</a> (forthcoming)<br></font></div><div><font size="1" face="times new roman, serif">- <a href="http://www.talbeery.com/owning-earth.html" target="_blank"><i>Owning Earth</i>, Unison Arts Center</a> (forthcoming)</font></div><div><font face="times new roman, serif" size="1">- <i><a href="http://www.worldshaving.info/monument-to-the-common-barberry/" target="_blank">Monument to the Common Barberry</a></i>, <a href="https://www.franconia.org/about/" target="_blank">Franconia Sculpture Park</a> (forthcoming)</font></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>