dived into a folder on my desktop called 'cave cult'. image by architect Rasem Kamal for an project in Wadi Rum, Jordan. ended up here while searching for the group of architects and artist from San Fransisco in 1968, who named themselves 'ant farm'.
It was silent. Wood conducts sound beautifully, but it does not make much of it on its own.
At some point I thought I could hear the sound of my surroundings filtered through the cavities in the wood, but it was just the microphone picking up sound from outside.
did you also listened to a living tree?
I remember reading about the sound of water in the stem of a tree; water that is being transported up to the leaves, like blood through vains. this transport proces amazes me.
Cappadocia in Turkey comes to mind. A few weeks ago I found a small book about Cappadocia. I will share some of the pages. Even though erosion and architecture seem quite far from each other at first glance; a proces of a substance slowly disappearing and a proces (as well as product) that often entails creating new substance, but both can give shelter; unintentionally or intentionally. Now that I think about it more, this notion of architecture is actually more of a modern western characteristic of it than a core element. There are many cultures that use natural/given/existing substance to build with or in. Like the Berbers in the North/North West of Afrika. (On the picture you see liquids leftovers of the salty Biscay sea, that found company on a rock. I realize I miss surrounding myself with rocks (deep time?), here in this sand and sweep country.)
The tree was riddled with strains of dead rot.
Apparently, when the rotting fungi dies, the decayed mass it creates eventually crumbles away. What is left is a network of hollow tunnels running through the wood.
I imagine they would look similar to Rasem Kamal's cavities.
i imagine the crawling ants enjoying this architecture of tunnels created by fungi, maybe some sort of erosion architecture as well? I am also wondering what sounds they can hear in the fallen tree
it might be some sort of constant fear of places where we can not rely on our vision (or see we are human), that make us close the gates with grids. the fear can be comfort for others.
knees, shoulders and legs are great storytellers
i miss listening to them
they write the best fictions
i hope the abyss is a cleft or cleavage
maybe ants can teach us to built body bridges
so we can take our knees, shoulders and legs along
they might be able to climb the steep cliff
but some suffering seems inevitable
maybe accepting it is an absyss and not a gap
is a better option?
then we just need stairs
Touch and smell have become luxuries.
Most of our interractions with other people come through the computer screen, which requires only vision and hearing.
The distance between myself and the person on the other side of the screen is like an unbridgeable virtual abyss.
It seems almost vulgar that not too long ago I would have been close enough to touch and smell whoever I talked with.
