Experimental methods: Survival & The Anthropocene
What is the Anthropocene?
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human (‘anthropo’) and new (‘cene’), but its definition is contested and controversial.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and modern humans have been around for around a mere 200,000 years. In this relatively short time, humans have fundamentally altered the physical, chemical and biological systems of the planet on which all life depend.
What is the Hauntology?
Hauntology is a term coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx (1993). It is a portmanteau of haunting and ontology. It describes a state or process that persistently returns to elements from the past, as in the manner of a ghost. It has since been widely used in the analysis of the visual arts, philosophy, politics, fiction and many other genres.
Fisher argues that what is key to understanding the idea of Hauntology, is the idea of understanding broken time, or time out of joint. It describe the presence of things, people, places, animals who are present, but missing. This kind of presence represents a spectre, a ghost of kinds.
Hauntology is useful in thinking through the Anthropocene. It is a concept that can help us think through what is no longer; what is no longer, yet repeating itself as a compulsion, aspiration or set of desires.
Emergent Strategy
“In the framework of emergence, the whole is a mirror of the parts. Existence is fractal — the health of the cell is the health of the species and the plant”
Emergence is an approach, a method of being in the world that makes use of everything in the process of adaptation, using an iterative, experimental process.
“We are constantly impacting and changing our civilization — each other, ourselves, intimates and strangers. And we are working to transform a world that is, by its very nature, in a constant state of change.”
