Lightning Talks

Diana Leca, University of Oxford

In 1987, a field recording of a male Kaua’i ʻōʻō (Moho braccatus) was captured by bio-acousticians from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The small bird was the last of its genus, and subsequently declared extinct. More recently, however, the rich silvery mating call, preserved in the field recording, has been revivified and widely circulated in the form of gifs and YouTube videos (‘Male Singing to Female That Will Never Come’; ‘This is What Extinction Sounds Like’). As the artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen has observed: ‘Through archives and digital technologies, the bird has been reanimated from extinction as a newly created species––one defined by its original vocal evocation, remixed by humans and partially composed of new bits of digital data.’ My talk will use this recording as an entry into discussing acoustic hauntings, touching on Steensen’s VR artwork RE-ANIMATED (2018), along with CAConrad’s creative rituals in Amanda Paradise: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (2021), which involve the poet filling their body with the sonic vibrations of extinct animals. If, as Anna Tsing et al. have argued, ‘Bad deaths generate their own variety of ghosts’, what can we learn by listening to the spectral, digitised songs of species pushed to extinction? The talk will consider the digital implications of what Wai Chee Dimock calls ‘a haunting of the ear’ (Wai Chee Dimock).

Diana Leca specialises in twentieth-century poetry and poetics, with a focus on short forms. Her broader research interests include American lyric poetry, critical theory, aesthetics, natural history, and the environmental humanities.

Mayline Strouk, University of Edinburgh

Since the 1990s, the introduction of geo-tracking devices in the field of ornithology has profoundly changed the relationship between researchers, their field sites and the birds they study. The tradition of prolonged on-site observations of birds and the frustration of not being able to track them out in the open ocean have been modified by the possibility of following birds throughout their migratory journeys. This is even truer in extreme environments like the Arctic, where many seabirds breed. Existing literature in STS and geography have studied the ways tracking technologies are changing the relationships between the researchers and wildlife. In ornithology, a growing body of studies reports the challenges that the democratization of geo-tracking devices has, in particular on the impacts of the researchers on the birds they study. Drawing from such studies, I aim to address how the methods of geography of science can enable us to study the ways in which these changes in tracking practices affect researchers’ relationships with the birds and the field, and their consequences on the knowledge they produce. Thus, I will present an exploratory study on the Arctic and North-Atlantic region that assembles qualitative interviews with seabird ornithologists and a quantitative and mapping analysis of a tracking database, Movebank. Early results are that tracking devices change the mobilities of seabird ornithologists to the field, depending on the type of device they use (geolocators, GPS and GLS) and that researchers tend to work in more remote and diverse sites than they could before.

Mayline Strouk’s PhD research investigates what leads the researchers in seabird ornithology to the field and to a specific field site in particular. She explores seabird researchers’ networks and mobilities to study and follow seabirds along their migratory journeys in the North Atlantic and Arctic region, and thus also investigates the specificities of polar environments for fieldwork.

Susanne Wieland, University of Edinburgh
Larissa Pschetz, University of Edinburgh
Maike Gebker, University of Edinburgh

Ecosystems depend on the intricate and often delicate balance of behaviours across a multitude of species. In the sciences, however, species are often studied in isolation or in relation to one other species, resulting in data, visualisations and knowledge that misses the complexity of phenomena in the overall ecosystem. Here, we created a map that illustrates the network of relationships between different trees, herbivores and pollinators in the UK, as currently documented in research literature. The map visualisation indicates how changes in the population of one specific organism could affect others and the ecosystem more broadly. By modelling the interaction between species, the map also allows for better understanding of impacts of changes and interventions, either in terms of climate change or direct rehabilitation programmes. The visualisation further demonstrates the lack of data (and therefore research) on the interaction of specific species drawing attention to opportunities for further research. This work is part of a larger project to reveal the complexity of climate change interactions in collaboration with Ally Phillimore’s Evolutionary Ecology group and Michelle Bastian’s Environmental Ecology framework.

Susanne Wieland is an artist, designer, and researcher interested in ecological temporalities and innovative design recently graduated from the MA Material Futures programme at Central Saint Martins.

Larissa Pschetz’s research focuses on Interaction Design and related areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Social Sciences and Humanities. She is interested in “Temporal Design”, a design approach that looks at time as emerging out of relations between cultural, social, economic and political forces. Her research is currently also focused on Inclusive IoT, and Biodesign.

Maike Gebker is a design researcher who focuses on designing temporal ecologies, the materiality of the internet, and artificial nature.

Jan Christian Schulz

Throughout the entire evolution, the human species develops their senses and creates prostheses that extend their bodily capabilities to survive. Some of these prostheses are augmentations for the individual – others, however, support whole communities or operate worldwide. With the technological externalization of human senses into sensors and monitoring stations, the emergence of the techno-sensorium began. Increasingly linked to communication network systems, the techno-sensorium becomes a hyperconnected prosthesis allowing a multi-sensorial experience on a planetary scale. The human perception expands into a dimension, that allows detecting environmental changes that up to this point stay unnoticed, as they are too stretched out in time and space. The techno-sensorium reveals the human-caused imbalances within the biosphere and mediates ecological sensitivity, which expresses in the form of environmental prostheses. These interventions augment dysfunctioning ecosystems and support the preservation and flourishing of lifeforms within their surrounding environment. The existence of environmental prostheses as agents coupling the human-environment relations testifies to attachment and care towards the nonhuman inhabitants of the earth and can therefore be seen as metaprostheses as they operate beyond supplementing the mere human body. This talk investigates the transition of the individuals’ bodily sensorium into a collective global techno-sensorium extending the deployment of digital technologies and mediating the temporospatial perception of the human. Examples of extended-body prostheses (sensor technologies…) and their functioning are being used to explain the interrelationships of a proliferating techno-sensorium that activates environmental prostheses (Biorocks, glacier blankets, anti-deforestation listening-technologies…) to protect local ecosystems.

Jan Christian Schulz is a social designer and researcher based in Germany and the Netherlands. He investigates environmental hyperprocesses and the constitution of ecosystemic relationships through technological media through an approach at the intersection of design and science.

Kristine Grønning Ericson, Yale University

The severity and impacts of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century tornadoes are known primarily through written descriptions, maps of affected areas, and photographs or other illustrations. Visual representations (maps, photographs, drawings) generally describe these events in terms of what the tornadoes left behind in the hours, days, or weeks after a storm’s most intense moments. Post-event survey drawings indicate felled trees, torn roof shingles, and flooded streets. These documents provide a partial view of these destructive events, opening the documents to varied interpretations and both intentional and unintentional “misreadings.” As a digital artist, I examine and re-animate archival storm data. Using the 3D modeling and animation programs Rhinoceros 3D and Blender, I translate archival documentation of tornado paths of destruction into 3D digital space–including tornadoes near New Harmony, Indiana, in 1852; in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in 1890; and in Omaha in 1913. By transforming archival maps, texts, and photographs into 3D landscapes and dynamic digital objects I highlight the idiosyncrasies of various historical mapping and recording techniques while also exploring the potential of archival materials for spatial extrapolation and playful reimagination. How can digital visualization tools call attention to the limits of data visible in archival documents?

Kristine Ericson researches the history of design and technology, with an interest in designed simulations of the natural world.

Maike Gebker, University of Edinburgh

The forest in itself is a constantly balancing ecosystem. Species, such as trees and the mycorrhizal network exist in a life-sustaining symbioses. The network is used by trees to send signals about external threats to collaborating plants. Due to effects of climate change this symbioses is weakened by droughts and flooding. Therefore, the transfer of signals is no longer given and the health of the ecosystem is under constant risk. FORSY-A is a speculative design project of an AI temporally bridging the communication gap of trees in the forest ecosystem. It tracks the meteorological and historical data of endangered forest areas through satellite monitoring, sensing and modeling techniques. Once extreme weather conditions are forecasted, FORSY-A analyzes the forest‘s air components for chemical compounds, emitted by threatened trees. As an agent-based learning algorithm, FORSY-A learns to understand the signals of trees in correlation with weather patterns and sensing data. If an attack of a herbivore for instance is detected, FORSY-A uses the data of the air components and instructs a mechanical laboratory to produce the chemical substance of the natural defense mechanism. Drones will then spray these substances in the endangered forest ecosystem to let distant trees naturally pre-immunize. The ecosystem communication is thereby bridged by FORSY-A, supporting the forest until the natural communication network is strengthened again. The project questions the potential of technology as a tool to design for the more-than-human and can be used for reflecting possible consequences.

Maike Gebker is a design researcher who focuses on designing temporal ecologies, the materiality of the internet, and artificial nature.

Larissa Pschetz, University of Edinburgh
Maike Gebker, University of Edinburgh
Susanne Wieland, University of Edinburgh

Hedgerows have traditionally provided safe corridors for wild species to move across green spaces in rural and urban areas. However, the employment of larger agricultural machinery has led to a drastic reduction of hedgerows, and therefore biodiversity, in rural landscapes. Awareness of the negative consequences of such impact has led to several proposals to remediate biodiversity loss, including strategic redevelopment of hedgerows as green corridors. In our work, we have looked for designerly ways to support these proposals as well as an increase in biodiversity more generally. We developed Fendge, a structure that bridges the temporal gap between the growth of a hedge and the urgent need of species for safe spaces for reproduction and habitat. Fendge is made of organic matter and provides an instant hedge effect while maintaining a symbiotic relationship with the hedge plant: decomposing as the hedge grows into its final shape, which can take up to 5 years. Fendge is developed with a focus on specific more-than-human needs. Its shape is defined based on data regarding light, movement, shelter and nesting requirements of chosen species (e.g. insects, birds, hedgehogs, etc.). Through development of different manifestations of Fendge, we reflect on the role of designers to intervene and support natural ecosystems with support of digital and data-driven technologies. Fendge was developed as part of the Designing Temporal Ecologies project with Michelle Bastian in collaboration with Ally Phillimore’s Evolutionary Ecology group at the University of Edinburgh.

Larissa Pschetz’s research focuses on Interaction Design and related areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Social Sciences and Humanities. She is interested in “Temporal Design”, a design approach that looks at time as emerging out of relations between cultural, social, economic and political forces. Her research is currently also focused on Inclusive IoT, and Biodesign.

Maike Gebker is a design researcher who focuses on designing temporal ecologies, the materiality of the internet, and artificial nature.

Susanne Wieland is an artist, designer, and researcher interested in ecological temporalities and innovative design recently graduated from the MA Material Futures programme at Central Saint Martins.