BY KALPANA ARIAS AND JULIE MALLAT
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
Kalpana Arias is a technologist, urban gardener, climate activist, ecosomatics educator, writer, speaker and the founder of Nowadays On Earth a social enterprise advocating for nature connection in the digital age.
Julie Mallat is a climate creative and founder of The Climate Propagandist, an independent media project exploring the intersection between culture, communication, and climate.
BY KALPANA ARIAS AND JULIE MALLAT
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
Kalpana Arias is a technologist, urban gardener, climate activist, ecosomatics educator, writer, speaker and the founder of Nowadays On Earth a social enterprise advocating for nature connection in the digital age.
Julie Mallat is a climate creative and founder of The Climate Propagandist, an independent media project exploring the intersection between culture, communication, and climate.
BY KALPANA ARIAS AND JULIE MALLAT
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
Kalpana Arias is a technologist, urban gardener, climate activist, ecosomatics educator, writer, speaker and the founder of Nowadays On Earth a social enterprise advocating for nature connection in the digital age.
Julie Mallat is a climate creative and founder of The Climate Propagandist, an independent media project exploring the intersection between culture, communication, and climate.
BY KALPANA ARIAS AND JULIE MALLAT
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
The chemical composition of air consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent mix of argon, neon, hydrogen, and most notably carbon dioxide. Though its materiality remains largely unseen as it is mostly a free-roaming gas journeying through bodies and borders, it is impacted by the surmounting effects of the ecological crises we are facing. Air, a vital element to our existence, has become a threat to public health worldwide disproportionately impacting marginalised groups and communities of the global majority. Raging on the fringes of our atmosphere, Air Pollution is a symptom of neo-colonial capitalism that has become weaponised across the world with national governments and agencies (hyper-focusing) on tackling carbon dioxide pollution through techno-utopian solutions and policies that (furthers) our disconnection from nature.
Systems of extraction and pollution have pulled most of the global population from the rhythms of the Earth, creating a culture destined for climate and social collapse. Yet, stories, social knowledge, and practice is becoming an emergent strategy in forming an intercultural resistance through mythtelling. By reframing our relationship with nature and technology, an alternative future weaves its path through time, space and air collectively envisioning a radical world where all species flourish.
…but to generate a new myth, we need to deconstruct the vast network of entangled concepts that conceals the fluidity and connectivity of our identities.
In an age of increasing digitisation, technology has become an essential aspect of life and formed an integral part of how we connect to nature, shaping the way we relate to our environment. Yet nature and technology are often placed in opposite conceptual poles, creating a dialectical tension, that displaces the role of humans on earth. The separation myth - the idea that humans are separate from and superior to nature - is anchored in Western culture. This human-centred ideology stems from the Judeo-Christian belief that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth. In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes reinforced the religious doctrine by considering human beings as “the masters and possessors of nature” and the nonhuman world as inert and to be exploited. His dogma has greatly shaped human-nature relationships in the West, and the rest is history. As historian Lynn White famously argued, it is our Western worldview that is the cause of the ecological breakdown - not our technological ability to alter our climate.
When we look at technology throughout time beyond the latest innovation or gadget, an entwining pattern emerges displaying how our ancestors have co-evolved with technology and how this evolutionary process continues today. Yet this unbroken sequence of technological progress is often dominated by an anthropocentric narrative that humans and their creations exist outside of the ecosystems in which they inhabit creating a complexity of issues that drive the environmental crisis and counteract forms of self-regulation between nature and technology.
Today’s global economic systems and technological innovations are built on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. All-conquering capitalism continues to frame nature as a resource for human benefits encouraging the myth that nature is separate from humans. For example, when we talk of “natural resources” and “ecosystem services”, we are suggesting that non-human species hold no value apart from what they provide us. And while new technologies contribute to depolluting the air, it’s paradoxically used to measure nature as a commodity. The resulting tech policies based on trading carbon credits or paying countries for not clearing their forests perpetuate a toxic relationship in which the living world is objectified and exploited for human use, often to the benefit of polluting industries. Currently, oil and gas giants have been speculating on not-yet-existing technologies of carbon capture to deceive the public about the solvability of climate breakdown and perpetuating the myth of technocapitalism through “technosalvation”.
Still, when we look deeper into the complexity of interactions we see that human and planetary health are interconnected, for example, exposure to soil bacteria mycobacterium through airborne soil or dietary ingestion activates brain cells that improve our moods, create serotonin, reduce anxiety, and support our immune system. Yet, technocapitalism’s war against nature fabricates environments that are highly sterile and sanitised contributing to ill-health across populations and ecosystems. When we examine the relationship between our breathing cells and the breathing planet, the liminal boundary between self and other dissolves into one, debunking the dualism rhetoric of technocapitalism . While we typically limit the extent of our body to the skin we reside in, our breath reminds us that at a cellular level we are connected to the more-than-human world through particles and molecules within air. Breath and air are the connecting force between us and the ecosystems we inhabit. Yet, while breathing is an autonomous activity, we’ve consciously detached from it and our own nature.
Instead of seeing nature (and air) as necessary for physical and mental wellbeing, we have bound our survival to technosolutions that curate perfectly air-conditioned rooms as rising global temperatures create demand for more electricity and inadvertently lead to more greenhouse emissions. Already air conditioning accounts for a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world. A large portion of that electricity stems from power stations that give off greenhouse gases, and consequently leak hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
In a collective effort to drive change and address our disconnection with the natural world, researchers including cyber analysts, experts in nature and human behaviour, and neuroscientists have begun to use the concept of technobiophilia to envisage a future where we can reclaim our identity as a part of nature while embodying our ingenuity. Technobiophilia is defined as “the innate tendency to focus on life and vital processes as they appear in technology”, a concept developed from the biophilia hypothesis used by biologist Edward O. Wilson in Biophilia, proposing that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has a genetic basis.
Technobiophilia in the digital age offers an ecological awareness of the symbiosis between nature and humans encouraging proactive intervention and action against a broken system that is destroying people and planet. Rather, the dynamism of technobiophilia is contributing to a new mythology of technology that disrupts the oppressive narrative of individualism and commodification by imagining an alternative future where all species can thrive. As the digital and physical worlds merge, technobiophilic design has the potential to enhance the accessibility, connectivity, and continuity of nature supporting the development of green heritage for future generations and enabling us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and the natural environment while promoting ecological behavioural change.
Our current climate, the air (we live on), has transformed from a substantial essence of life into a sociopolitical space polarised into party agendas that put profit over planet creating a downward spiral towards an uninhabitable future. Yet, the immersive and imaginative qualities of air reveal an antidote to doomsday visions – kinship – radical solidarity rooted in intersectionality and liberation for people and the more-than-human world that reconnects us to the sacred and magical properties of air.
Sources:
**‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’ by Sue Thomas
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” by Lynn White
Kalpana Arias is a technologist, urban gardener, climate activist, ecosomatics educator, writer, speaker and the founder of Nowadays On Earth a social enterprise advocating for nature connection in the digital age.
Julie Mallat is a climate creative and founder of The Climate Propagandist, an independent media project exploring the intersection between culture, communication, and climate.