Swamps and the New Imagination

Contributors consider the vital urgency of human cohabitation with other forms of life, beginning a dialogue with possible futures.

It is not easy to define a swamp, even in biology. The term is frequently used to characterize marshes, bogs, mires, wetlands, meadows, and other grey zones between land and water. In that sense, “swamp” is a metonym for a variety of transitional ecosystems and functions. This book invokes that concept as a tool to address the vital urgency of human cohabitation with other forms of life, placing the swamp at the crossroad of disciplines and practices. It is more than a biological ecosystem; it is a milieu of manifold sympoietic relationships, a locus of imagination, fostering the dialogue for possible futures. It is also a very particular modality—“an interface of Gaia”—offering a “face,” a certain physiognomy to faceless networks of relations, inviting us to engage in regimes of entanglement. The contributors to this volume expand on swampy notions, probing global and speculative art and architecture, intercalating philosophy and queer theory, and filtering these notions through the lens of posthumanist ecology, informed by the histories and theories of cybernetics, sociology, and the commons.

Contributors

Lorena Bello and Brent D. Ryan, Nikola Bojic, Chiara Bottici, Jonathan Jae-an Crisman and Newton Harrison, Glorianna Davenport and Gershon Dublon, T.J. Demos, Vittoria Di Palma, Jennifer Gabrys, Tinna Gretarsdottir and Sigurjon Baldur Hafsteinsson, Stefan Helmreich, Stefanie Hessler, Yuk Hui, Giedre Jankeviciute, Caroline A. Jones, Lars Bang Larsen, Bruno Latour, Gintautas Mazeikis, Astrida Neimanis, Kate Orff and Mariel Villere, Andrew Pickering, Kristina Lee Podesva, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa and Dimitris Papadopoulos, Cristina Ricupero, Egle Rindzeviciute, Kristupas Sabolius, Saskia Sassen, Caterina Scaramelli, Marco Scotini, Pelin Tan, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Angela Vettese

About the Editors

Nomeda Urbonas is cofounder with Gediminas Urbonas of US: the Urbonas Studio, an interdisciplinary research practice.

Gediminas Urbonas is an Associate Professor at MIT and an artist, activist, educator, and is cofounder with Nomeda Urbonas of US: the Urbonas Studio, an interdisciplinary research practice.

Kristupas Sabolius is an associate professor of philosophy at Vilnius University (Lithuania) and a Fulbright Scholar alumnus at SUNY (Stony Brook).