Flow

The Anthropocene Project. An Encyclopedia

water in a riverbed. caught between matter and action. substance and fluid. material, event, process. an unintentional agency moves rocks and stones, fish, soap and waste. animation. a force fed by the hydrological cycle, the sun. it’s always the sun. cosmic force. carving through things. carrying residues of life and loss. a flow, a river, flux, much more than it seems to be, a partly cultural entity, never solid. information flow, data flow. cash flow. gold rush. migration. relocation. transformation. animation. indication? never a logic to follow. streams of consciousness absorbing material culture. being-in-the-world caught in between matter and action, between animation and animism. we’ve never been cultural beings separate from nature. we have never been thinkers apart from the world. why still cling to these dualisms, to structure and order? alienate yourself, become a stranger to time and escape the wonderings of the present, as a certain curator, whom we are quoting here, might advise. follow the flows, as multi-sited research kindly suggests. don't care about borders and discipline. take up unintentional action. and dare to drown entirely in the flow, in slow motion. dissolve. downstream. accrete, vaporize or radiate, lotic particles of the anthropocene.