Monstrous algae meets gentrification: a Tale of Invasion
More than ever today, nature has become inseparable from culture; and if we are to understand the interactions between ecosystems, the mechanosphere, and the social and individual universes of reference, we have to learn to think ‘transversaly’. As the waters of Venice are invaded by monstrous, mutant algae, so our television screens are peopled and saturated by ‘degenerate’ images and utterances. In the realm of social ecology.
Donald Trump and his ilk -another form of algae - are permitted to proliferate unchecked. In the name of renovation, Trump takes over whole districts of New York or Atlantic City, raises rents, and squeezes out tens of thousands of poor families. Those who Trump condemns to homelessness are the social equivalent of the dead fish of environmental ecology.
Felix Guattari, Three Ecologies, 1989
Invitations to contemplate these words and play with your thoughts
What captured our attention
What if we tell a different history
What if “Nature” does not exist
What if we invent an ecosystemic economy
What do you think?
Where does Europe begin and Where does Europe end
Collections that include this source
Imagine an Ecosystemic Europe
Imagine an Altereurope
Keep exploring
Cross Idea
We would ask to transform and reform the modalities of membership by which the city (cité) belongs to the state, as in a developing Europe or in international juridical structures still dominated by the inviolable rule of state sovereignty […] This should no longer be the ultimate horizon for citie …
Cross Idea
A river and algae. Algae grows in the water, for instance in a river. So we might be tempted to link the two texts as describing two phenomena from the same biosphere, but this connection leads us on the wrong track. Rather than being about nature, the texts speak about the impact of human practices. The river is artificially produced through a rain gutter and the algae artificially mutated through pollution. However while the raingutter somehow does not disturb the ecological balance, the mutation of the algae does so. What are the criteria for an ecologically sustainable interaction with the environment and one that is simply destructive?
