[-empyre-] invasive species

Thu Jun 14 21:47:11 AEST 2018

Yes we are part of nature, and yes we (some of us much more than others) are part of its destruction. But i fear the notions of us being an INFECTION even as an auto immune issue… we are part of evolution, this is key, no more, no less than any mycelium of fungi, any tree, insect, bacteria…. 

To see us as an infection rejects this and it can really fall into a trap i see more and more around me (i work in the radical ecology anticapitalist movements) where the nihilism of young people who see absolutely NO future, begin to see humanity as the problem, overpopulation etc and  human nature as inevitably destructive of living systems. Of course there is NO human nature, but billions of them and the historical record shows very different relationships between us and forms of life depending on contexts and territories.  

But this notion and rise of negativity  can lead to self hatred, it  also means that some of them go towards anarcho primitivism, where it becomes ok to bring down civilisation (via mass sabotage of things like the electricity system )  and thus kill millions of humans for the sake of the planet. (see Derek Jensen et al ) 

Humans can be healers, re builders, re claimers… we have the capacity to rebuild eco systems working with nature not against it (not tech fixes … see permaculture etc..) Infant its the only way we will get out of this crisis… 

We need positivism in this crisis - forms of life that give us a collective force - not paralysing notions that lead us into guilt !

Murray BOokchins social ecology taught me this - with his notion of 2nd nature - see 
Murray Bookchin: Anthropocentrism versus biocentrism – a false dichotomy

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/02/15/anthropocentrism-versus-biocentrism-notes-on-a-false-dichotomy/

yours JJ

PS i don’t walk away i live on the zad which just got a major airport cancelled after 50 years of struggle ! I tend to throw my body in the way of the machines ! 

> On 14 Jun 2018, at 12:56, Julien Ottavi <julien at apo33.org> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> hey 
> reach for your gun? 
> nice one! what are you waiting for? there are so much facists at the moment everywhere in the world that I supposed you are busy reaching for your gun!! 
> 
> well while 15/20% of the richest bastards capitalist are busy destroying the world 15/20% are busy resisting and fighting them and in the same time 50/60% are busy not doing anything... I still reinforced that humans are an infection for the world and for themselves too. While you reaction is expected as probably part of the 15/20% resistance you jumped on what you thoughted as expected answers to my statment ie probably nazi and facist solutions ie eradication of the humanity... which is not what I meant with my statment which was followed only by questions... therefore you are talking about hate for ourselves which I didnt talk about.
> I was reffering more of auto-immune system or at the image of our subject mycelium and building a network or fungus. 
> Humans are an infection. Yes! and fortunetly its not dangerous to say this! In fact its also a way to think about our relation to nature and the wild. The fact that we are part of it and that we are also responsible for its destruction.
> whatever you say you cant just walk away by saying that 15% of the population the horrible capitalist (who unfortunetely for us does exist) are responsible for all the damaging of the planet. its too easy!!
> 
> In facist and nazi systems, dictatorship in general, the silent and compleasant majority are also responsible for what is happening. You cant simply pushed that away and take your gun. I am sure you are more clever than that. Resistance is not a one way motorway system. Actions is good questions too.
> 
> for the rest on the subject on the wild I think we agreed somehow.
> 
> cheers
> 
> Julien
> 
> Le 13 juin 2018 20:40:23 GMT+02:00, John Jordan <artactivism at gn.apc.org> a écrit :
> When i hear the words 
> 
>> humans are like an infection.
> 
> I reach for my gun, and prepare for fascism….because this opens the door for culling the human race, for murder of others and for hating ourselves…..how will we ever build a revolutionary transformation of our worlds if we hate ourselves !!! 
> 
> Its such a dangerous thought, the problem of ecology is NOT humans.
> 
> The problem is a small amount of humans maybe 15 % at most  (the rich, the elites, the hyper consumer classes - mostly in the north of the world) who are forced by a SYSTEM - industrial capitalism to consume, to destroy, to commodify life  !! 
> 
> INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM IS AN INFECTION 
> 
> When i hear the words 
> 
> WILD
> 
> I reach for the bacteria in my gut and realise its a fantasy
> 
> Most anthropology shows us that the notion of WILD is a totally western concept… most of our human time on this planet - remember 98.9 percent of our time on this planet we were hunter gatherers - we did not separate nature from the  human, and we did not have a notion of nature as different or pure or outside of us. Most forest peoples gardened the forest, the western eye came and saw wild untouched forest, the locals knew the territory, modified it and helped it become more abundant for them…. 
> 
> love and rage JJ
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 13 Jun 2018, at 18:19, Julien Ottavi <julien at apo33.org <mailto:julien at apo33.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> humans are like an infection.
>> Even the concept of nature is wrong and the forest where we found lots of fungus is made up by humans. The wild forest before is used to be reculated by humans where much more wild and what we could nature used to be wild for humans.
>> Whats is the problem with infected humans with fungus? Why are we so attracted to used mycelium? what art have to say to this domain? what artists have to bring to the debate in the mycelium research to save the planet or to change the course of the destruction of our world?
>> 
>> more questions could be raised on this matter but here few of them.
>> 
>> cheers
>> Julien
>> Sent from Nine <http://www.9folders.com/>
>> De: Elaine Gan <eganuc at gmail.com <mailto:eganuc at gmail.com>>
>> Envoyé: mercredi 13 juin 2018 17:21
>> À: soft_skinned_space
>> Objet: Re: [-empyre-] invasive species
>> 
>> such an important conversation. thanks!
>> 
>> I work with plants and fungi. Which particular species, spores, seeds matters a lot. Regardless of what names “we” (moderns, elites) choose, things act and react, travel, etc. So if one really needs to spread spores to make symbolic statements, one might be meticulous and careful about which spores, which material effects. Fungal blasts, blights destroy fields, forests, plantations, etc. Others rebuild them. Mycorrhizals are not necessarily good. Saprobes are not necessarily bad. We know little about them. but we can at least try to be specific about what to use. 
>> 
>> I hope that as interdisciplinary artists-scientists, we might try to figure out small, grounded ways of really listening to these materialities anew, to figure out how they act in the world —instead of assuming that these are already known, or that they are ours to play with. 
>> 
>> Elaine
>> 
>> On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 5:50 AM John Jordan <artactivism at gn.apc.org <mailto:artactivism at gn.apc.org>> wrote:
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> 
>> This article has some interesting sections about the Nazi mix of invasive species discourse and its policies of purity
>> 
>> Confronting introduced species: a form of xenophobia ?
>> 
>> http://fwf.ag.utk.edu/mgray/wfs560/biological_invasions.pdf <http://fwf.ag.utk.edu/mgray/wfs560/biological_invasions.pdf>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 13 Jun 2018, at 08:58, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift at gmail.com <mailto:bhcontinentaldrift at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> Greets John! Greets Shu Lea! 
>>> Invasive species is a terrible term, for sure, but zebra and quagga mussels have turned Lake Michigan a beautiful pure almost Aryan blue, and they've basically wiped out almost all other life in the lake... They were brought in the bilge water of freighters coming from the Black Sea, as quite a few others have been; and though it would be relatively easy to transfer the cargo of these ships to trains before they ever get to the Great Lakes, nothing is done, apparently because the US and Canada are so proud of engineering the locks of St Lawrence Seaway. Or maybe it's just because the state only thinks in terms of money, production and trade, and not of beings and balances and histories and futures. I guess the main thing is to be aware of the consequences of what one does, and of what powerful forces in out societies do, and to struggle not for purity or even Nature, but for more vital and viable tomorrows all around.
>>> 
>>> Thanks to everyone for this thread and the whole series, it's beautiful, Brian
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 8:03 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com <mailto:sondheim at panix.com>> wrote:
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> 
>>> I think you're referring to Lorenz possibly? But the answer begs the question in a sense; I'd rather start from an in-depth knowledge of a landscape/biome, rather than aryan purity.
>>> 
>>> - Alan
>>> 
>>> On Tue, 12 Jun 2018, John Jordan wrote:
>>> 
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> 
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> ________________________________
> 
> ZAD FOR EVER <https://zadforever.blog/> a new blog in english, dispatches from the liberated territory where we now live.
> 
>  <https://labofii.wordpress.com/>The Laboratory of Insurrectionary <https://labofii.wordpress.com/>Imagination 
> Laboratoire d'Imagination Insurrectionnelle 
> Mailing list <https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/labofii>
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> twitter:  @labofii 
> mobile:+33 (0) 6 80 85 71 88
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> Notre livre-film "Les Sentiers de L'utopie" (Editions Zones/La Découverte 2011)
> twitter: @nowtopia. 
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> www.labofii.net <http://www.labofii.net/>
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> -- 
> JULIEN OTTAVI
> 
> Composer, Artist, curator and PhD student on new music and network
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________________________________

ZAD FOR EVER <https://zadforever.blog/> a new blog in english, dispatches from the liberated territory where we now live.

 <https://labofii.wordpress.com/>The Laboratory of Insurrectionary <https://labofii.wordpress.com/>Imagination 
Laboratoire d'Imagination Insurrectionnelle 
Mailing list <https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/labofii>
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twitter:  @labofii 
mobile:+33 (0) 6 80 85 71 88

Notre livre-film "Les Sentiers de L'utopie" (Editions Zones/La Découverte 2011)
twitter: @nowtopia. 

www.labofii.net

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