Antony Lyons | Artist and Independent Scholar (original) (raw)
Papers by Antony Lyons
Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing
Archaeology International, 2016
Heritage Futures: Comparitive Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices, 2020
Blue Space Health and Wellbeing: Hydrophilia Unbounded, 2019
Book Chapter. In 'Water, Creativity and Meaning; Multidisciplinary understandings of human-water ... more Book Chapter. In 'Water, Creativity and Meaning; Multidisciplinary understandings of human-water relationships'. Edited by Liz Roberts, Katherine Phillips; Routledge , 2018
ABSTRACT Referencing a selection of geographically situated long-durational involvements, these reflections are a distillation of hybrid creative responses to complex site-specific and mytho-poetic dynamics. My use of cinematic and sculptural assemblage draws on past legacies and enables the exploration of, and speculation on, new considerations and imaginaries of ecological place-relationships. There is no single thread nor argument in the streams of watery activations and flights of fancy described here. Like water, there is flowing, meandering, braiding and mixing-addressing both biophysical space-time patterns (cyclical, oscillatory or spiral-like) and imaginative questing. We tend to accept empirical observations as 'fact'; I suggest here a complementary acceptance of the validity of subjective and intuitive integrations and disturbances. Often, this is not a striving for an ever-elusive denouement, but rather a celebration of 'ostranenie' 1 – seeing the familiar in a strange, or new, light. Creative research involves dynamic, fluid enquiry. For me, it is mycelial and rhizomic-an emergent cluster of approaches framed here as geopoetic practice. This has a flavour of ethnographic and geographical study, attuning to the immediate eco-social and political undercurrents and shadows, whilst engaging with deep-time and cyclical-time patterns. The Sunless Waters of Forgetfulness are a " commodious vicus of recirculation " 2 , percolating amongst many thinkers and makers. I include references to Ivan Illich's H 2 O and Waters of Forgetfulness and the 'sunless sea' from S.T Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. Illich is an appropriate anchor here, as he was a pioneer in highlighting expanded multi-facetted human-water relationships. Likewise, Coleridge's 'esemplastic' 3
Heritage Futures is a four-year collaborative international research programme (2015–2019) funded... more Heritage Futures is a four-year collaborative international research programme (2015–2019) funded by a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) ‘Care for the Future’ Theme Large Grant, and supported additionally by its host universities and partner organisations. The research programme involves ambitious interdisciplinary research to explore the potential for innovation and creative exchange across a broad range of heritage and related fields, in partnership with a number of academic and non-academic institutions and interest groups. It is distinctive in its comparative approach which aims to bring heritage conservation practices of various forms into closer dialogue with the management of other material and virtual legacies such as nuclear waste management. It is also distinctive in its exploration of different forms of heritage as future-making practices. This brief paper provides an introduction to the research programme and its aims and methods.
Ubiquity: The Journal of Pervasive Media, Oct 2012
Leonardo, Apr 2012
Rural artist residency as ‘deep-mapping’ research. As part of the Lovely Weather project, arti... more Rural artist residency as ‘deep-mapping’ research.
As part of the Lovely Weather project, artist and environmental scientist Antony Lyons undertook a rural science and art residency project examining the relationships between the locality of the River Finn Valley, Co. Donegal, Ireland and the processes of climate change. The local countryside is, in many ways, enmeshed in the wider global systems. At the core of my project was the quest for new avenues of communication and dialogue - through revealing unseen and metaphorical connections – enabling the local community and others to engage with the global issues, and the science, in a meaningful way. A research-based ‘deep-mapping’ approach was used. Art installations were developed and there now exists a platform for some locally grounded sustainable development initiatives to emerge.
Talks by Antony Lyons
Lough Gur Deep Mapping presentation May 2011 (full notes, minus images), 2011
Full presentation notes for Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011.... more Full presentation notes for Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011.
Introduced on-going slow creative poetic investigations at the archaeologically important location of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Contains exploratory outline concepts of expanded 'deep mapping' approaches to place investigation.
[The Space&Place Research Collaborative is a translocal scholarly and creative network, based in the Department of Geography at the Maynooth University. This event was linked with Ómós Áite: Space/Place Research Group at the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland Galway.]
Building on the groundwork of an earlier public-art sculptural project (2008), the scoping phase of a 'deep mapping' project is underway in the protected landscape (sacred/cultural/ecological) of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick. This is a location I have known since early childhood. A re-visiting and a re-reading of place and identity can emerge via encounters with archival memories, local eco+geo-tensions and field-based documentation. In the process, there is an interplay between investigations of the physical site and the presence of lingering 'voices' from a published memoir - The Farm by Lough Gur (Mary Carbery, 1937), with further interweavings of archaeological and mythological traces.
Presentation to Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011 Introduced o... more Presentation to Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011
Introduced on-going slow creative poetic investigations at the archaeologically important location of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Contains exploratory outline concepts of expanded 'deep mapping' approaches to place investigation.
[The Space&Place Research Collaborative is a translocal scholarly and creative network, based in the Department of Geography at the Maynooth University. This event was linked with Ómós Áite: Space/Place Research Group at the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland Galway.]
Sabrina Dreaming Residency, 2015
Presentation in connection with the Leverhulme funded artist residency at the CCRI (University of... more Presentation in connection with the Leverhulme funded artist residency at the CCRI (University of Gloucestershire), 2015
Presented at the IBG-RGS London August, 2014 The concept of the 'Aliveness Machines' emerged fro... more Presented at the IBG-RGS London August, 2014
The concept of the 'Aliveness Machines' emerged from a landscape-based artist residency, conducted by Lyons and Pigott throughout 2012, within the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Tasked with working in and around the River Torridge (including involvement of local schools and communities), we slowly familiarised ourselves with this place and its ecological character. Our primary aim was to harness environmental data to enable a meaningful portrayal of some of the hidden zones - the 'shadows and undercurrents' - in the landscape. Specifically, we monitored the situation of bats (the shadows), and the aquatic environment of the ecologically important, but seriously declining, salmon and freshwater mussel populations (the undercurrents). The 'Aliveness Machines' are kinetic sculptural works which are activated by environmental data – both live and recorded. With the assistance of the iDAT unit based at the University of Plymouth, we installed wireless micro-sensors at a number of sites in the river catchment area. Finally, within an off-site gallery setting, we translated or exposed the largely hidden activity (hidden at least to our human senses). Through kinetic sculptural animation, sound effects, light and shadow, we are attempting to ‘give voice’ to the changing levels, and complexity, of the 'aliveness' of these non-human ecosystem realms. The audience experience is multi-sensorial and holistically immersive; a deliberate avoidance of screen-based visualisations and texts. In this respect, our approach involves a form of 'intimate science', as described by Roger Malina (2009) “helping to make science intimate, sensual, intuitive”. In this presentation, we offer a snapshot of the evolving project, using photographic, video and sonic documentation.
‘Traces of Tide & Time in Bristol’. Paper given at ‘A Second City Remembered: Rethinking Bristol’... more ‘Traces of Tide & Time in Bristol’. Paper given at ‘A Second City Remembered: Rethinking Bristol’s History, 1400-2000’. A conference organized by the Regional History Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, in partnership with M-Shed, the Museum of Bristol, University of the West of England, Bristol, 23-24 July 2010.
Drafts by Antony Lyons
Coal Tree Salt Sea, 2017
Short essay contribution to the artist book: Sarah Rhys – Coal Tree Salt Sea 2017
ABSTRACT Referencing a selection of geographically situated long-durational involvements, these r... more ABSTRACT Referencing a selection of geographically situated long-durational involvements, these reflections are a distillation of hybrid creative responses to complex site-specific and mytho-poetic dynamics. My use of cinematic and sculptural assemblage draws on past legacies and enables the exploration of, and speculation on, new considerations and imaginaries of ecological place-relationships. There is no single thread nor argument in the streams of watery activations and flights of fancy described here. Like water, there is flowing, meandering, braiding and mixing-addressing both biophysical space-time patterns (cyclical, oscillatory or spiral-like) and imaginative questing. We tend to accept empirical observations as 'fact'; I suggest here a complementary acceptance of the validity of subjective and intuitive integrations and disturbances. Often, this is not a striving for an ever-elusive denouement, but rather a celebration of 'ostranenie' 1 – seeing the familiar in a strange, or new, light. Creative research involves dynamic, fluid enquiry. For me, it is mycelial and rhizomic-an emergent cluster of approaches framed here as geopoetic practice. This has a flavour of ethnographic and geographical study, attuning to the immediate eco-social and political undercurrents and shadows, whilst engaging with deep-time and cyclical-time patterns. The Sunless Waters of Forgetfulness are a " commodious vicus of recirculation " 2 , percolating amongst many thinkers and makers. I include references to Ivan Illich's H 2 O and Waters of Forgetfulness and the 'sunless sea' from S.T Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. Illich is an appropriate anchor here, as he was a pioneer in highlighting expanded multi-facetted human-water relationships. Likewise, Coleridge's 'esemplastic' 3
Chapter published in Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge Studies in Huma... more Chapter published in
Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge Studies in Human Geography) 2016
Introduction: Resident in Expanded Ecologies
The River Torridge catchment (Devon, South West UK) is a picturesque and serene wooded river valley setting, with a largely undeveloped estuary coastal zone. It has been selected as one of six sites in England to be designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Beneath this seemingly idyllic surface however, there exist some serious ecological health issues that are being actively addressed by the reserve’s operational staff. Key indicators of declining health include the freshwater pearl-mussel, whose habitat lies within the gravel-beds of the river. This shellfish species is rare in the UK, and noted for its longevity and high sensitivity to water quality. An individual’s age can be determined by counting the annual growth rings on the shell. In the River Torridge, the local population has not reproduced for over fifty years. Thus, unless the water quality and habitat conditions can become conducive to reproduction again, the concern is that the freshwater mussel will become locally extinct.
This situation is symptomatic of a loss of biodiversity, both within the catchment and more widely, with marked declines also observed in salmon and bat populations.i Adding extra complexity is the fact that the life cycles of the salmon and mussel are intimately connected, and both are negatively impacted by the increasing build-up of waterborne silt and mud, with associated high levels of turbidity. These species are bio-indicators; they are the 'canaries in the coalmine’ – warning of larger shifts at play, and of knock-on effects on wider ecological
systems, as well as on the local rural economy through tourism and leisure fisheries. The pervasive damage to ecosystems, such as the Torridge, from agro-chemicals and soil run-off caused by land use practices can be gradual and cumulative, occurring at landscape, regional and global scales.
Monitoring and data harvesting may reveal specific trends - at least to a technical audience of conservationists and environmental governance agencies. For the most part, however, the chronic accumulation of pollution impact proceeds beyond the radar of human perception and the need for significant changes to land-use and catchment management is difficult to express politically and culturally. Shadows and Undercurrents was the name we gave to our rural eco-art project in the catchment of the River Torridge,ii which sought to respond to some of these challenges. In the project, we explored methods that may help generate a deeper awareness, empathy and understanding of the co-dependency of the hidden processes and flows. The situation called for a questioning of the status – both material and conceptual – of the many ‘actors’ involved (Latour 2005). For us, this included contemplation of water as a participant in the mesh of activity.
In this chapter, we draw on a range of theoretical positions including the thinking of PAR scholar Peter Reason, media theorist Jussi Parikka, STS scholar John Law and philosopher Felix Guattari to discuss our work and to explore concepts of water’s participation in the blurred world of
environmental and media ecologies that the Aliveness Machines, (sculptures created as part of Shadows and Undercurrents), speak to and for. In the following sections, we first discuss the project in general terms before exploring some of the conceptual frameworks on which we drew. We then outline some of the technical and practical aspects of the creative making process, as situated in an experimental laboratory context. Finally, we reflect on the project overall and particularly how it might be seen as one that invited the participation of non-humans, via aspects of both practice as research (PaR),and Participatory Action Research (PAR).
Papers in journals by Antony Lyons
Books by Antony Lyons
UCL Press, 2020
Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the ... more Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds.
Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management.
Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing
Archaeology International, 2016
Heritage Futures: Comparitive Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices, 2020
Blue Space Health and Wellbeing: Hydrophilia Unbounded, 2019
Book Chapter. In 'Water, Creativity and Meaning; Multidisciplinary understandings of human-water ... more Book Chapter. In 'Water, Creativity and Meaning; Multidisciplinary understandings of human-water relationships'. Edited by Liz Roberts, Katherine Phillips; Routledge , 2018
ABSTRACT Referencing a selection of geographically situated long-durational involvements, these reflections are a distillation of hybrid creative responses to complex site-specific and mytho-poetic dynamics. My use of cinematic and sculptural assemblage draws on past legacies and enables the exploration of, and speculation on, new considerations and imaginaries of ecological place-relationships. There is no single thread nor argument in the streams of watery activations and flights of fancy described here. Like water, there is flowing, meandering, braiding and mixing-addressing both biophysical space-time patterns (cyclical, oscillatory or spiral-like) and imaginative questing. We tend to accept empirical observations as 'fact'; I suggest here a complementary acceptance of the validity of subjective and intuitive integrations and disturbances. Often, this is not a striving for an ever-elusive denouement, but rather a celebration of 'ostranenie' 1 – seeing the familiar in a strange, or new, light. Creative research involves dynamic, fluid enquiry. For me, it is mycelial and rhizomic-an emergent cluster of approaches framed here as geopoetic practice. This has a flavour of ethnographic and geographical study, attuning to the immediate eco-social and political undercurrents and shadows, whilst engaging with deep-time and cyclical-time patterns. The Sunless Waters of Forgetfulness are a " commodious vicus of recirculation " 2 , percolating amongst many thinkers and makers. I include references to Ivan Illich's H 2 O and Waters of Forgetfulness and the 'sunless sea' from S.T Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. Illich is an appropriate anchor here, as he was a pioneer in highlighting expanded multi-facetted human-water relationships. Likewise, Coleridge's 'esemplastic' 3
Heritage Futures is a four-year collaborative international research programme (2015–2019) funded... more Heritage Futures is a four-year collaborative international research programme (2015–2019) funded by a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) ‘Care for the Future’ Theme Large Grant, and supported additionally by its host universities and partner organisations. The research programme involves ambitious interdisciplinary research to explore the potential for innovation and creative exchange across a broad range of heritage and related fields, in partnership with a number of academic and non-academic institutions and interest groups. It is distinctive in its comparative approach which aims to bring heritage conservation practices of various forms into closer dialogue with the management of other material and virtual legacies such as nuclear waste management. It is also distinctive in its exploration of different forms of heritage as future-making practices. This brief paper provides an introduction to the research programme and its aims and methods.
Ubiquity: The Journal of Pervasive Media, Oct 2012
Leonardo, Apr 2012
Rural artist residency as ‘deep-mapping’ research. As part of the Lovely Weather project, arti... more Rural artist residency as ‘deep-mapping’ research.
As part of the Lovely Weather project, artist and environmental scientist Antony Lyons undertook a rural science and art residency project examining the relationships between the locality of the River Finn Valley, Co. Donegal, Ireland and the processes of climate change. The local countryside is, in many ways, enmeshed in the wider global systems. At the core of my project was the quest for new avenues of communication and dialogue - through revealing unseen and metaphorical connections – enabling the local community and others to engage with the global issues, and the science, in a meaningful way. A research-based ‘deep-mapping’ approach was used. Art installations were developed and there now exists a platform for some locally grounded sustainable development initiatives to emerge.
Lough Gur Deep Mapping presentation May 2011 (full notes, minus images), 2011
Full presentation notes for Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011.... more Full presentation notes for Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011.
Introduced on-going slow creative poetic investigations at the archaeologically important location of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Contains exploratory outline concepts of expanded 'deep mapping' approaches to place investigation.
[The Space&Place Research Collaborative is a translocal scholarly and creative network, based in the Department of Geography at the Maynooth University. This event was linked with Ómós Áite: Space/Place Research Group at the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland Galway.]
Building on the groundwork of an earlier public-art sculptural project (2008), the scoping phase of a 'deep mapping' project is underway in the protected landscape (sacred/cultural/ecological) of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick. This is a location I have known since early childhood. A re-visiting and a re-reading of place and identity can emerge via encounters with archival memories, local eco+geo-tensions and field-based documentation. In the process, there is an interplay between investigations of the physical site and the presence of lingering 'voices' from a published memoir - The Farm by Lough Gur (Mary Carbery, 1937), with further interweavings of archaeological and mythological traces.
Presentation to Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011 Introduced o... more Presentation to Space & Place Collaborative, Mapping Spectral Traces IV: 25 May 2011
Introduced on-going slow creative poetic investigations at the archaeologically important location of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Contains exploratory outline concepts of expanded 'deep mapping' approaches to place investigation.
[The Space&Place Research Collaborative is a translocal scholarly and creative network, based in the Department of Geography at the Maynooth University. This event was linked with Ómós Áite: Space/Place Research Group at the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland Galway.]
Sabrina Dreaming Residency, 2015
Presentation in connection with the Leverhulme funded artist residency at the CCRI (University of... more Presentation in connection with the Leverhulme funded artist residency at the CCRI (University of Gloucestershire), 2015
Presented at the IBG-RGS London August, 2014 The concept of the 'Aliveness Machines' emerged fro... more Presented at the IBG-RGS London August, 2014
The concept of the 'Aliveness Machines' emerged from a landscape-based artist residency, conducted by Lyons and Pigott throughout 2012, within the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Tasked with working in and around the River Torridge (including involvement of local schools and communities), we slowly familiarised ourselves with this place and its ecological character. Our primary aim was to harness environmental data to enable a meaningful portrayal of some of the hidden zones - the 'shadows and undercurrents' - in the landscape. Specifically, we monitored the situation of bats (the shadows), and the aquatic environment of the ecologically important, but seriously declining, salmon and freshwater mussel populations (the undercurrents). The 'Aliveness Machines' are kinetic sculptural works which are activated by environmental data – both live and recorded. With the assistance of the iDAT unit based at the University of Plymouth, we installed wireless micro-sensors at a number of sites in the river catchment area. Finally, within an off-site gallery setting, we translated or exposed the largely hidden activity (hidden at least to our human senses). Through kinetic sculptural animation, sound effects, light and shadow, we are attempting to ‘give voice’ to the changing levels, and complexity, of the 'aliveness' of these non-human ecosystem realms. The audience experience is multi-sensorial and holistically immersive; a deliberate avoidance of screen-based visualisations and texts. In this respect, our approach involves a form of 'intimate science', as described by Roger Malina (2009) “helping to make science intimate, sensual, intuitive”. In this presentation, we offer a snapshot of the evolving project, using photographic, video and sonic documentation.
‘Traces of Tide & Time in Bristol’. Paper given at ‘A Second City Remembered: Rethinking Bristol’... more ‘Traces of Tide & Time in Bristol’. Paper given at ‘A Second City Remembered: Rethinking Bristol’s History, 1400-2000’. A conference organized by the Regional History Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, in partnership with M-Shed, the Museum of Bristol, University of the West of England, Bristol, 23-24 July 2010.
Coal Tree Salt Sea, 2017
Short essay contribution to the artist book: Sarah Rhys – Coal Tree Salt Sea 2017
ABSTRACT Referencing a selection of geographically situated long-durational involvements, these r... more ABSTRACT Referencing a selection of geographically situated long-durational involvements, these reflections are a distillation of hybrid creative responses to complex site-specific and mytho-poetic dynamics. My use of cinematic and sculptural assemblage draws on past legacies and enables the exploration of, and speculation on, new considerations and imaginaries of ecological place-relationships. There is no single thread nor argument in the streams of watery activations and flights of fancy described here. Like water, there is flowing, meandering, braiding and mixing-addressing both biophysical space-time patterns (cyclical, oscillatory or spiral-like) and imaginative questing. We tend to accept empirical observations as 'fact'; I suggest here a complementary acceptance of the validity of subjective and intuitive integrations and disturbances. Often, this is not a striving for an ever-elusive denouement, but rather a celebration of 'ostranenie' 1 – seeing the familiar in a strange, or new, light. Creative research involves dynamic, fluid enquiry. For me, it is mycelial and rhizomic-an emergent cluster of approaches framed here as geopoetic practice. This has a flavour of ethnographic and geographical study, attuning to the immediate eco-social and political undercurrents and shadows, whilst engaging with deep-time and cyclical-time patterns. The Sunless Waters of Forgetfulness are a " commodious vicus of recirculation " 2 , percolating amongst many thinkers and makers. I include references to Ivan Illich's H 2 O and Waters of Forgetfulness and the 'sunless sea' from S.T Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. Illich is an appropriate anchor here, as he was a pioneer in highlighting expanded multi-facetted human-water relationships. Likewise, Coleridge's 'esemplastic' 3
Chapter published in Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge Studies in Huma... more Chapter published in
Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge Studies in Human Geography) 2016
Introduction: Resident in Expanded Ecologies
The River Torridge catchment (Devon, South West UK) is a picturesque and serene wooded river valley setting, with a largely undeveloped estuary coastal zone. It has been selected as one of six sites in England to be designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Beneath this seemingly idyllic surface however, there exist some serious ecological health issues that are being actively addressed by the reserve’s operational staff. Key indicators of declining health include the freshwater pearl-mussel, whose habitat lies within the gravel-beds of the river. This shellfish species is rare in the UK, and noted for its longevity and high sensitivity to water quality. An individual’s age can be determined by counting the annual growth rings on the shell. In the River Torridge, the local population has not reproduced for over fifty years. Thus, unless the water quality and habitat conditions can become conducive to reproduction again, the concern is that the freshwater mussel will become locally extinct.
This situation is symptomatic of a loss of biodiversity, both within the catchment and more widely, with marked declines also observed in salmon and bat populations.i Adding extra complexity is the fact that the life cycles of the salmon and mussel are intimately connected, and both are negatively impacted by the increasing build-up of waterborne silt and mud, with associated high levels of turbidity. These species are bio-indicators; they are the 'canaries in the coalmine’ – warning of larger shifts at play, and of knock-on effects on wider ecological
systems, as well as on the local rural economy through tourism and leisure fisheries. The pervasive damage to ecosystems, such as the Torridge, from agro-chemicals and soil run-off caused by land use practices can be gradual and cumulative, occurring at landscape, regional and global scales.
Monitoring and data harvesting may reveal specific trends - at least to a technical audience of conservationists and environmental governance agencies. For the most part, however, the chronic accumulation of pollution impact proceeds beyond the radar of human perception and the need for significant changes to land-use and catchment management is difficult to express politically and culturally. Shadows and Undercurrents was the name we gave to our rural eco-art project in the catchment of the River Torridge,ii which sought to respond to some of these challenges. In the project, we explored methods that may help generate a deeper awareness, empathy and understanding of the co-dependency of the hidden processes and flows. The situation called for a questioning of the status – both material and conceptual – of the many ‘actors’ involved (Latour 2005). For us, this included contemplation of water as a participant in the mesh of activity.
In this chapter, we draw on a range of theoretical positions including the thinking of PAR scholar Peter Reason, media theorist Jussi Parikka, STS scholar John Law and philosopher Felix Guattari to discuss our work and to explore concepts of water’s participation in the blurred world of
environmental and media ecologies that the Aliveness Machines, (sculptures created as part of Shadows and Undercurrents), speak to and for. In the following sections, we first discuss the project in general terms before exploring some of the conceptual frameworks on which we drew. We then outline some of the technical and practical aspects of the creative making process, as situated in an experimental laboratory context. Finally, we reflect on the project overall and particularly how it might be seen as one that invited the participation of non-humans, via aspects of both practice as research (PaR),and Participatory Action Research (PAR).
UCL Press, 2020
Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the ... more Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds.
Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management.
Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the ... more Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds.
Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management.
Limbo Landscape Lab (geopoetic reflections), 2018
Accompanying exhibition notes for Limbo Landscape Lab (2018), by Antony Lyons -Senior Creative Fe... more Accompanying exhibition notes for Limbo Landscape Lab (2018), by Antony Lyons -Senior Creative Fellow, Heritage Futures research project.
An exhibition at Wheal Martyn Museum, Cornwall, UK (July-Nov. 2018) Assembling human and non-human stories in a transforming landscape #Transformation theme of the Heritage Futures project.
"It is the children born now who will see if we humans can turn it around…can re-balance? It's not us. We've messed it up. They will fix it…or they won't. I would like to be around in 75 years time to see which way it will go; what they do; what is done to them …but I won't be there"
(a worker at Wheal Martyn, Aug 2018)
DEEP-MAPPING in the mists of DEEP-TIME
"This film is time-compressed. I recorded it-hand-held-for over 30 minutes, from the shelter of my trusty mobile studio/campervan. The circumstance was happenstance, serendipitous. The occasion presented itself after many visits, over the course of a year, in the environs of the Sky Tip mound of mining waste outside St Austell in Cornwall-the centre of the long-established industry of kaolin mining. The Sky Tip has slowly, yet inexorably, inserted itself on my radar, and also now it is the focus for a project by a group of photography students-from the local Poltair School-with whom I'm working. The effect of the Sky Tip is partly due to its strong visual presence-its distinctive outline being clearly visible on the horizon when viewed from high ground over 20 miles away. Beyond the dominating presence and the part it plays in forming the local landscape character, there are the strong personal attachments it evokes. For some it is a marker of a lifetime of work 'winning the clay'; for others a symbol of proud Cornish identity to be emphasised by flying the flag with the white cross of St Pirian at the summit; and for many young people of St Austell, it is a place of freedom, an in-between zone, a wild space of escape.
Lovely Weather: Art and Climate Change, 2010
Essay contribution. Published by Donegal County Council 2010 ISBN10 0955656702 What began as a ʻ... more Essay contribution. Published by Donegal County Council 2010
ISBN10 0955656702
What began as a ʻclimate changeʼ (and weather) artist-resicency project, has slowly, inevitably, expanded to encompass issues of land-use, land-care (environmental stewardship), and layers-in-the-land (palimpsest). This is the result of casting the net wide and excavating deep. Accelerated climate change is one consequence of a pervasive world-view-a view that fuels humanityʼs rush to extract the earthʼs finite resources, and which is characterised by a heedlessness of the fragility of delicately balanced systems and ecologies. Whilst the Finn Valley, in Central Donegal, may - for the time being - escape the worst ravages of accelerated global climate change, it is certainly true that the local countryside is, one way or another, enmeshed in the wider global systems. Importantly for this project, there are ways - through revealing ʻunseenʼ and metaphorical connections - for the local community and others to engage with the issues in a rich and holistic way.
The Situation: Over time, the subject of weather leads on naturally to thoughts on climate. "The earth has never been in sustained long periods of climate stability, and major climate change episodes like ice ages have been important contributing factors to the long history of human migration, and indeed of evolution of life forms. The challenge of anthropogenic climate change is that it is occurring on time scales short compared to the ability of societies to adapt easily." Roger Malina
From the outset, the broad aim was to identify a suitable locality and to explore links between the landscape, ways of life and climate change. A starting points was the idea of ʻslownessʼ, represented visually by the image of a farmer leaning on a field-gate. Early on in the project, I identified the River Finn and its watershed area-The Finn Valley-as a locality for the work. Fieldwork (walking, talking, listening, recording)...
Sounding Places More-Than-Representational Geographies of Sound and Music, 2019
We offer a free-flowing, reflective, creative ecology of narratives on 'voicing waters'. It draws... more We offer a free-flowing, reflective, creative ecology of narratives on 'voicing waters'. It draws upon a group of research projects, and longer running interests, in the research/writing trajectories of Owain as a cultural geographer, delving into various aspects of nature-society relations, Luci's artistic explorations of hidden waterways in her home city of Bristol (UK) and Antony's eco-creative research practice situated largely in diverse water landscapes. These interests, attuned to sensory experiences of water, intersected in a project called Towards Hydrocitizenship and in tidal landscapes of the Severn Estuary (UK). We also draw upon a participatory research project with non-humans, including workshops with trees and water conducted with a small group of artists and scholars-'in conversation with water'.
Weatherproof/Quantock Dreaming, 2012
Published to mark the completion of Antony Lyons’ WeatherProof project, one of five Lovely Weathe... more Published to mark the completion of Antony Lyons’ WeatherProof project, one of five Lovely Weather art and science residency projects, undertaken in Co. Donegal, Ireland throughout 2010. Includes essays that reflect on and contextualize artist and environmental scientist Antony Lyons’ rural science and art residency project, which examined the relationships between the locality of the River Finn Valley, Co. Donegal, Ireland and the processes of climate change.
Supported by Place Research, Bristol.
Weatherproof/Quantock Dreaming, 2012
Antony Lyons’ deep mapping project of the Quantock Hills in Britain, which was called Quantock Dr... more Antony Lyons’ deep mapping project of the Quantock Hills in Britain, which was called Quantock Dreaming. Secret Mappings and Mapping Secrets (2008), and which he conducted with members of the public and in co-operation with poet Ralph Hoyte, as a “slow residency”.