images by Gavin Kroeber

Hello commoners!

As those who attended can confirm, the first meeting of the Anthropocene Commons group was full of enthusiasm. What emerged was the notion that we, as a group, could engage in territorial practices at different scales, constituting scientific and poetic vehicles to move through places in the neighborhood, the city, the metropolitan area, and ultimately some further destination requiring more complex planning, to be reached next summer.

The reading of Joe Underhill’s text proved very fruitful: everyone understood rapidly what this could be about. We took inspiration from a lineage of previous practices, from Deep Time Chicago’s Walk about it series to more recent excursions with the Metabolic Rift group of 2024-25. Attendees suggested that sometime soon, individuals or small groups could propose a site visit and a reading. The ambition to express these practices and render them public in diverse ways was also voiced.

Startlingly, the majority of attendees actually appeared in person. This seems generative. It caused us to change the projected formula: we’ll do the whole two hours actually and virtually, not as a reading group but rather as a project group, using texts, art works and videos as inspirations and tools. Additionally, each meeting will start with a fifteen-minute presentation from a group member, just to get to know each other, followed by a discussion and a short break. Then we will dive into texts, discussions and proposals.

The first presentation will be offered by Andrew Sonnenschein, focusing on his attempt to construct an instrument that might verify or falsify the results of what some scientists believe is the first-ever observation of dark matter, deep in a former gold mine in South Dakota, within a chamber filled with liquid xenon. Andrew is no stranger to experiments in mines, nor to the construction of sensitive instruments. A New York Times article gives a brief introduction to the subject.

Two further short readings ask about sensitivity to place: Susana Ventura, “Poetic Landscape,” and Gavin Kroeber, “Field Notes 1.1.18 – 3.2.20 (Towards an Archaeology of the Future).” Together these texts introduce the idea that humans can participate in something like an expressivity of nature, whether in bucolic Swiss mountains, or on California hills ravaged by fire.

If you couldn’t make the first meeting, you are still entirely welcome at Watershed on October 18 at 11am. If you must participate by Zoom, so be it – we’re going to definitively solve the tech problems and make that a better experience. The great thing is that this group is off to a running start, inspiration high, destination unknown.


Readings:

Katrina Miller, Scientists Hunting Dark Matter Found Something Strange

Susana Ventura, Poetic Landscape 1

Gavin Kroeber, Field Notes 1.1.18 – 3.2.20 (Towards an Archaeology of the Future)

ZOOM LINK HERE – STARTS AT 11AM

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