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fieldnotes_biosymbiotics

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Fieldnotes

Field_Notes is an art&science field laboratory at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in Lapland/Finland. Five groups work for one week in the sub-Arctic Lapland to develop, test and evaluate specific interdisciplinary approaches in relation to the notion of Ecology of Senses.

Ecology of the Senses

Ecology of Senses will explore the role of sensing within this convergence: the ways we make sense of the world, how worlds are made through our senses and the changing sense of self which comes along. We expanded our original sensorium considerably with technology. The spectrum is wide: in it we find our own human body senses, but also animal- and bio-sensors we learned to appropriate, chemical and electronic sensors and also the future prospect of a fully quantified computational planet with its first implementations of orbit tracked, networked bird swarms or fully wired forests already being tested. Our excitement into technological sensing possibilities with its reliable production of objectivity has led us to give less value to the human senses or phenomena and environmental indicators around us, considered to be subjective.
During Ecology of Senses we will explore this gap. Our aim is to engage with the inner and outer landscapes, create field experiments, find and establish test sites, set up observatories and excavations. We will breath, smell, taste, touch, listen and walk with open eyes as well as install the sensors brought with us or made on site.

Surfing the Semiosphere (Judith van der Elst)

All organisms perceive and react to certain sensory data as signs, carriers of significance picked up in their own perceivable surrounding or Umwelt. This concept was introduced by Jakob von Uexküll during the early 20th century and became the foundation of the current field of biosemiotics. The semiosphere is then the sphere in which sign processes operate in the set of all interconnected Umwelten.
As hunters, herders, gatherers, artists, and scientists, we will come together to experience, explore and inventory carriers of significance in, often radically, different, subjective worlds within the larger electric and magnetic fields in which we are all ‘suspended.’ Inspired by von Uexküll who anticipated many computer science ideas, especially in the field of robotics and theories of embodied cognition, we are guided by the question how these signals interact and interfere within our sphere to enable effective communication and navigation between and among organisms and their environment.
“The eyeless tick finding his way to the top of the blade of grass through his skin’s sensitivity to light”, and birds migrating over long distances using the Earth magnetic field in navigation; the masters who can show us novel interfaces to expand our semiosphere and intersubjective knowledge.

Judith van der Elst is an anthropologist/archaeologist specialized in humanistic approaches in the geosciences. Her work focuses on understanding multimodal perception of the land, through merging embodied learning, sensing technologies, and ubiquitous computing within a biosemiotic framework.

Spatial Ontology: an ontology for respresenting spatial concepts, anatomical axes, gradients, regions, planes, sides, and surfaces. These concepts can be used at multiple biological scales and in a diversity of taxa, including plants, animals and fungi. The BSPO is used to provide a source of anatomical location descriptors for logically defining anatomical entity classes in anatomy ontologies.
bioportal
Icon, Index & Symbol

welcome to the group list for Surfing the Semiosphere hosted by Judith van der Elst.
On this list are:
Judith van der Elst, intro-judith.pdf
Björn Kröger
Pia Lindman
Neal White, intro-neal.pdf
Paolo Patelli
AnneMarie Maes, intro-annemarie.pdf
Christina Gruber
Erich Berger
Piritta Puhto
Leena Valkeapää

program:workplan

research

What is happening with the ages-old bacteria that are set free from the gletsjers of the permafrost?
Besides the horror stories of invasive virusses…
The simplest definition of permafrost is ground that has been frozen for at least two years.
The top few inches (up to a few feet) of the permafrost is what’s known as the “active layer.” This topsoil does thaw with yearly seasonal changes, and is home to a thriving ecosystem.

fieldnotes_biosymbiotics.1537789256.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/09/24 11:40 by ami