[-empyre-] living systems

[shu lea cheang]

Hi, Mary

Thanks for bringing up the issue of water.
I am glad to read about The Swale project, it's 'cultivated' multi 
collaborators/collaboration and
the think through of water/filter system for the floating forest.

Here in Paris- a floating garden project, initiated by the city. I am 
afraid it's more about landscaping the city?
http://www.urbangardensweb.com/2013/08/12/floating-gardens-giant-chalkboards-and-climbing-walls-on-banks-of-seine-in-paris/

I once proposed for them to filter the water of the Seine for the 
plants and to create a water soundscape installation (yet another 
unrealized project). The possibilities of the saline, seawater farming
interest me a lot.  I have been thinking about water as a medium for 
transit and  transmission(radio waves). For the border crossing 
floating boat people, if the sea water can be sourced?

Hernani who started with finding a solution for automated watering 
system in home gardening  has moved on to monitor olive trees for the 
farmers. The resistance power of the open source tools.

best
sl


At 9:14 PM -0400 3/16/16, Mary Mattingly wrote:
>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>Thanks Amanda,
>
>
>Yes, I believe I started focusing on water because I grew up in a 
>farming town where the drinking water was polluted with DDT, a Dow 
>chemical made for warfare, and then mass produced as a pesticide. 
>When water privatization became one of the final frontiers of the 
>commodities market, it was a subject that (ahem) seeped into my 
>work. But I've always been engaged with questions of economy, 
>specifically how we can live more interdependently and less solely 
>on commodities markets. When I moved to New York and most everything 
>in my life became monetized, making living systems or ecosystems was 
>a form of survival masked as art-as-life. Then it became art for the 
>sake of learning from the experiment, and at some point along the 
>way I hope it has become more poetic. With Swale, I'm honing in on 
>food. It could be about my health in part (probably most everything 
>we do stems from the very personal). Living with Celiac I'm more 
>conscious than ever about the importance of healthy food and systems 
>- and permaculture merges economy and health: after an initial 
>investment of time (and in urban centers, money) food forests 
>eventually care for themselves, and you, in an undeniable way. 
>
>
>
>Swale will be a floating food forest where people can visit and pick 
>fresh free food. It's a resource and a more utopian proposal for New 
>York: what if food was a public service?  The hope is that it will 
>become a permanent fixture.
>
>
>
>Shu, thank you for bringing us back to this all too real future 
>scenario. Since the present is already far from great, the future of 
>food is therefore all levels of disturbing. I wonder what will 
>happen with the Svalbard Seed Bank in 2030. Will Monsanto and the 
>Gates Foundation patent the entire collection of genetic material 
>they have collected? Will they continue to alter the material and 
>conduct new tests on humans around the world, and by proxy, 
>everything else? Will we continue to let them?
>
>
>
>So as to eventually fall asleep at night, I tend to look for 
>something to grasp onto throughout the bleak, murky psycho-corporate 
>oligopolies, and more recently it's been companies like Greenwave 
>(<http://greenwave.org>http://greenwave.org) that offer some sort of 
>temporary respite - the business focused on multi-species 3D ocean 
>farms "aiming to restore ocean ecosystems and create jobs in coastal 
>communities by transforming fishers into restorative ocean farmers." 
>Co-owned urban farms that profit share is also a powerful movement 
>that gives me hope - which, growing up as a US citizen, I have been 
>trained to want so badly.
>
>
>
>I'm also keen on saline farming - how much salinity can fruits and 
>vegetables tolerate and for how long? Can we do more growing in 
>saltwater marshes if we are surrounded by ocean yet have little 
>fresh water? Could this provide some respite for California?
>
><http://www.futurefarmonline.com.au/farm-research/farming-saline-land>http://www.futurefarmonline.com.au/farm-research/farming-saline-land
>
>
>
>
>
>I'll leave on this succinct note, "Industrial fertilization is the 
>science of ignorance." - Vandana Shiva
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Amanda McDonald Crowley 
><<mailto:amandamcdc at gmail.com>amandamcdc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
>Mary,
>
>By way of further introduction, I thought I might bring to the 
>attention of this discussion list your current project, Swale, that 
>you'll be working on over the summer 2016 in New York City. I wonder 
>if you might introduce the project a 
>little. <http://www.swaleny.org/>http://www.swaleny.org/
>
>And perhaps it would also be useful to give some background to a 
>particular thread in many of your works: I am thinking of the works 
>that I see as related, that began with The Waterpod Project, which 
>led to a series of other works: Flock House Project New York,Triple 
>Island,  Flock House Project Omaha, and Wetland. In each of these 
>projects, growing food as part of the infrastructure of the project 
>was a key element to the "live / work" nature of each of these art 
>projects.
>
>With Swale, your attention is turned more specifically to growing 
>food on a public floating "park". So in essence food seems to be the 
>core concern of this work, where previously it was part of an 
>integrated system, something I've heard you describe as a living 
>system. Can you describe a little why this concept of a living 
>system has become so central to much of your art practice?
>
>Amanda
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
><mailto:empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
><http://empyre.library.cornell.edu>http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
>
>
>--
>
>Studio: 20 Jay St. #204 Brooklyn, NY 11201  
><http://www.marymattingly.com>www.marymattingly.com
>
>
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