Inter nos: Between us

Abstract

In the Anthropocene, the human epoch, humans have become increasingly disconnected from their natural environment. People have forgotten that they are a part of nature’s ecosystems and depend on them for their survival. The very act of breathing depends entirely on plants producing oxygen. Darrin Qualman suggests that nature’s cyclical processes of production, in which everything is transformed and recycled so that nothing is wasted, have been replaced with linear ones that rely largely on fossil fuels, which has led to oceans full of plastics and other objects that take centuries to decompose (2019, 6-10). This shift to linear systems of production has encouraged the human race to see themselves as separate and above non-human life.

Inter nos: Between us explores interconnectivity and the spaces between industry and ecology in the Anthropocene through transdisciplinary knowledge and interactivity. The juxtaposition of plants living within the oil drums speaks to the traditional binary framework in which ecology and industry are opposed as well as the tangled and complicated history between them. The delicate patterns cut into the oil drums reference the parallels between the structural binaries supporting the oppression of women and those supporting the exploitation of nature. Bio-sonification acts as reminder of our connection to non-human life around us by transforming the invisible life force of the plant, which is influenced by its environment, into something that can be experienced audibly, creating a relationship between human and plant life. This relationship encourages the viewer to consider their influence on their immediate environment and their responsibility to care for and maintain it in the Anthropocene.