Exploring Human and More-than-Human Relationships

Multimodal Approaches, University of Bern, FS23

Outlook

…aka some thoughts made in the beginning of the course

The idea behind this project is the coming together of different water infrastructures, some human-made, some non-human-made. The small river Suze traverses the city of Biel/Bienne. At one point, a small dam, two smaller streams are forked off. I assume this was made for industrial reasons, as well as being able to control the water flow. The whole of Seeland was a giant water-mediating project, in order to gain land. The smaller stream is generally in a bad shape, highly mediated and not the prettiest thing. Further down they “renaturalized” it, in parallel to newly built apartments. Now, in the “renaturalized” part a beaver built his home, a beaver dam. The beaver’s infrastructure dammed up the water, and it was endangering the gardenish area of the new apartments. The city decided nonetheless to let the beaver where it is and install overflow-pipes, that ensure the proper flow of the water-stream. I am very interested in how these water-infrastructures come together and change their respective environments.

Waiting, hoping for a beaver to appear

…aka thoughts made before working on the final piece

At first the place pulled me in through it’s urban wilderness, in lack of a better word, unfolding from it being forgotten and unused. Seemingly nobody makes a claim to it, and the place can rest, not unlike a fallow. This wilderness is a pleasant contrast to the otherwise constantly cleaned city-space. It eminates a specific kind of tranquility, in which other-than-human can go about their ways in their own manner.

When I started to listen in I needed to relearn the place. It was an exhausting process. The once calm path became intense and teaming with sonical life. So many birds, so many industrial outlets, cars, and the unbearable loud and stinging white noise of the dam. Some thing became more present, such as the clickedyclack of passing bicycles. Or the crow colony from two blocks over. The water, once central to my visuality, almost completely vanished.

After many recording session, video- and sound-wise, I have yet to see an actual beaver. I might never see one. But, I have gotten in touch with the place, and I love that. I love to get in touch with place. It’s a mere 8 to 10 minute stretch of a walk, from dam to dam. Again and again, I am politely visiting, as outlined by Donna Haraway when talking about the practice of Vinciane Despret.

Referring both to her own practice for observing scientists and also to the practices of ethologist Thelma Rowell observing her Soay sheep, Despret affirmed “a particular epistemological position to which I am committed, one that I call a virtue: the virtue of politeness.” In every sense, Despret’s cultivation of politeness is a curious practice. She trains her whole being, not just her imagination, in Arendt’s words, “to go visiting.”

The more often I visit, the more I listen, the more stories come into presence, or layers, or threads. Birds, path, plants, felled or not, bicycles, sounds, pulled long or formed spherical, reflections in the water, all woven together. Not into a chaotic whole, but into a walkable pattern. Street, dam, path, bridge, long stretch, street, path, dam, path, street, deepening on where one is starting.

I will continue with recording and attempt to layer, or weave, the material into a listenable pattern. One that recreates my all-over-all, or summarised experience of the place through sonic and visual material.

See also

These texts originated during the course.