| Symposium
Adam Zaretsky
Rewilding North America from the Urban Out: Architectural
Ecology for the Sustainable Urban Psyche
Can we use our green imaginations
to create realities of urban design, which are not incompatible with sustainable
futures? What kind of psychological hurdles and habitat habituations must be overcome
before we can even begin to apply concepts of rewilding in an urban context? Architectures
that blend Field Ecology and Cleanroom Technology are models of panic sustainability
within a multi-species framework. Animal Enrichment Architectures for captive
wildlife are also rich with the future possibilities of everyday deep urban ecology.
Blend these two aesthetics with an honest assessment of the human behavioral blockage
currently preventing sustainable enculturation and we may have our first steps
towards workable Urban Rewildings.
Rewilding –
More Space for non-Humans
Rewilding is
a plan for mega-conservation of big wilderness areas in the service of non-human
biodiversity. Rewilding emphasizes an ecologically sound, multi-species redistribution
of wealth. Rewilding underscores the need for large carnivores to have vast spaces
to roam and hunt in. With this in mind, some of those who love unfettered life
might choose to work on promoting vast interconnected rural land grants to be
converted and conserved as wild spaces. The Wildlands Project suggests the creation
of these huge swaths of green, wild park/zone, stretching from Mexico to the Yukon.
The ultimate objective is to convert more than half of the land area of North
America into hardcore wild areas, which will be off-limits to humans. It is hoped
that some neurotically embattled city dwellers might attempt to start rewilding
from our urban centers out. Some urbanites are feral positive. Why don’t
we set forth a plan to convert half of our cities into nature reserves?
Methodologies:
Containment –
Clean Space for non-Humans
An overview
of the architectures of Biosphere II and The Workhorse Zoo mocks up the problems
of joining urban architecture and ecology activism. The interior architecture
of these Closed System Containment Experiments either emulate our varied ecosystems
(i.e. Ocean, Savannah, Dessert, Rainforest, Agriculture and Human Habitats) or
they reinforce human social codifications of the lifeworld (i.e. a kitchen, a
water garden, a farm, a laboratory, a natural setting.) Why is Multi-species field
ecology experimentation so popular? Displays of organisms living together in an
aseptic containment facility are based on space stations or architectures for
a post eco-catastrophic world. Can closed systems integrate sustainable complexity?
Why do we seem to showcase our most isolationist fantasies of the future? How
can we use these reflections to design new urban wildlands?
Enrichment –
Fun Space for non-Humans
A short introduction
to state of the art animal enrichment tactics will be presented. Animal enrichment
is a programmatic architectural and interactive design of environments for captive
animals. This includes animals in zoos, on farms, occupied as pets, all lab animals
and prisoners of the penal, workplace, home and/or educational systems. Enrichment
provides tools to encourage naturalistic behavior expression. The appearance of
control over the environment in question is always helpful for the well being
of a prisoner. Humanist Voyeurs are also less upset when surveilling an enriched
subject due to the reduction of apparent neurotic (abnormal or stereotypical)
behaviors. Preoccupation with ‘the enrichment device’ is usually a
sign that the decoy is working. A proposal for Radical Animal Enrichment Architectures
reviews various tactics for rewilding urban settings and culture in general, beyond
our current focus on gadget love.
Deprogramming –
Free Space for Humans becoming non-Human
The fact that
not one of us, regardless of our commitment to making the world a better place,
none of us has just taken a fork and permanently left for the woods. None of us
are wild enough to walk naked through our mountains and never come back. Perhaps,
along the lines of urban rewilding, we should have a crash course in how to rehabilitate
ourselves from the essentially puritan ordeal we have been put through during
socialization. The key to Urban Rewilding lies in the ability of urbanites to
non-humanize themselves. Urbanites can feel their way out of humanity by coercively
deprogramming all social expectation, by acting as urban gorillas, by designing
infective feral cult spaces beyond poise and falsity and/or by being swept away
in a spread eagle outerface of ungrounded mortal nguhhh.
Rewilding:
http://www.twp.org/
http://www.texemarrs.com/091997/REWILD.HTM
Containment:
http://www.biospheres.com/bio2photos.html
http://www.edenproject.com/
http://emutagen.com/wrkhzoo.html
Enrichment:
http://www.enrichment.org/volume11.html
http://www.animalenrichment.org/
Deprogramming:
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/
http://www.baader-meinhof.com/students/resources/communique/engconcept.html
http://www.rickross.com/deprogramming.html
Biography
Adam Zaretsky graduated in Art Studio from University of California at Davis.
He has an Art and Technology MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago where he Assisted
in teaching a History of Art and Biology course with Eduardo Kac. He then spent
two years as a Research Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
the Arnold Demain Laboratory for Microbiology and Industrial Fermentation in conjunction
with Joe Davis. For the last year, Adam taught VivoArts: Art and Biology Studio,
an experimental 'living art' production class for Steve Wilson's Conceptual/Information
Arts (CIA) department at San Francisco State University, 2001 with Julia Reodica,
San Francisco Exploratorium and then taught VivoArts again with Oron Catts of
SymbioticA, The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory at The University
of Western Australia's Art and Architecture Department. Adam is continuing his
VivoArts class and Biology and Art Research for the next year, at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute as a Professor in the Integrated Electronic Arts Department.
Adam Zaretsky
Clinical Associate Professor, VivoArts
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
302 West Hall, 110 8th Street
Troy, NY 12180
phone: (518) 276-2366
URL: www.emutagen.com
Email: zareta@rpi.edu
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Speakers