Conversation Series with Artist Asad Raza – Feburary 26, 2025

In the second installment Kristine Roome, Andreas Bandak, and Daniel M. Knight joined Asad Raza as we follow the development of a public artwork that focuses on listening to the ecosystem! The discussion focused on Raza’s “Untitled Observatory River Ear” project, a public installation on the River Granta in Cambridgeshire, commissioned by the Contemporary Art Consultancy.

Raza provided updates on his project, describing his collaboration with architects and fabricators to integrate natural materials like thatch, lime, and chalk into his work. He emphasized his decision to work with fabricators over architects to maintain an artistic rather than structural approach to the project. Additionally, he discussed efforts to restore natural soundscapes by adding elements to the river, such as flow deflectors and brushwood ledges, to amplify the river’s presence.

Joining the conversation were Professors Andreas Bandak and Daniel M. Knight, who introduced their new book, Porous Becomings: Anthropological Engagements with Michel Serres. They explored Serres’s philosophy, particularly his views on fluidity, noise, and porosity, and their relevance to Raza’s project. They discussed how rivers act as metaphors for time and knowledge, emphasizing their bifurcations, sedimentations, and disruptions. Raza’s work was framed within these ideas, with a focus on how his installation might function as a “prosthetic ear” for the river, allowing people to engage with its sounds and ecology in a deeper way.

The conversation covered themes of energy, resonance, and human-nature interactions, with a special focus on how the built environment can shape sensory experiences. Raza also reflected on the political and ecological dimensions of his work, noting how urban and industrial developments often isolate people from the very natural landscapes that surround them.

Scholars like Deborah Battaglia and Michael Degani contributed insights on perception, materiality, and ecological design, raising questions about the relationship between art, nature, and knowledge-making. The discussion ended with reflections on balance and proportion in ecological design, emphasizing how interventions in nature should amplify and restore rather than dominate.

The next session in the series is scheduled for April 2025, continuing the conversation on Raza’s evolving project.

You can find the recording and a transcript below.

Kristine:
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Ecological Design Collective. I am Kristine Rome, and I am the host of the Ecoarts Forum. Today is Wednesday, February 26, 2025. This is the second of our four-part series with artist Asad Raza. Today, we are joined by our special guests, Professors Andreas Bandac and Daniel Knight.

Before I make some proper introductions and we get into our conversation, I thought, for those of you who are just joining us for the first time, maybe we could do a little bit of a recap of what we have talked about so far.

So, in our earlier conversations, this all started around August of 2024, and Asad had just been commissioned to do a public installation on the River Granta in Cambridgeshire by the Contemporary Art Consultancy. Since then, we have decided to follow along with him throughout his creative process, and at the moment, we expect the exhibition to open probably sometime in late summer.

So when we first met back in August, I am going to share my screen and just show a few things. Just give me a moment. Here, let us see… slideshow. Hold on one second.

Okay. So when we first met Asad, he was in Barcelona for the opening of Manifesta, which is a biennale, and we were talking about this work here called Prehension.

We had a little bit of time after that to talk about some of his prior works in which he incorporated a lot of natural elements. Here, you see the wind blowing through when he opened up the power station. He has also worked with soil and water in places ranging from the Whitney Biennial in New York City, Gropius Bau in Berlin, and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, just to name a few.

We had a second chance to catch up with the artist, and he had taken on this unique exhibition site, which is actually Pina Magazine. Again, we talked about light, space, and how Asad approaches a site, particularly incorporating nature, space, and all the senses.

Let me just show a few images here from that exhibition in Pina Magazine.

But the River Ear project on the River Granta has really formed the backbone of and the underlying thread for all of our conversations. So let me show a few images here just to get caught up. That is not there. Let us see… back to that.

So here we go.

All right. Before we get started, Asad, I was wondering if you might give us a few updates—any announcements or exhibitions that you might be working on that you want to share since the last time we met.

Asad Raza:
First of all, just thanks again, Kristine. I really enjoy getting these chances to talk to you. This is getting to be a little bit like my therapy session or something where I get to discuss stuff I am working on, and that helps me understand what is going on.

I mean, there are a number of projects that have come about recently. I do not know if I can really speak about them publicly yet because they have not been announced, and usually, I like to check with those institutions. But there are new projects afoot.

I think maybe some of the really exciting things that have been happening—I went to Cambridge in relation to the project that we continue to look at, which is this Untitled Observatory River Ear project in Cambridgeshire. I was in London, Liverpool, and Cambridge recently, working on it and working on this other show that is coming up at Tate Liverpool.

I had two really interesting meetings—one with a fabricator. I decided that although I want to have architects who specialize in natural materials consulting on the project and helping me to understand how to use those kinds of materials in the best possible way, it would be better to actually build the thing with a fabricator. That itself was an interesting choice and moment because fabricators are more related to the production of artworks, whereas architects are more related to the production of buildings. It is a slightly different perspective.

Despite the fact that this will have people inside doing things and all of that, I thought, at the end of the day, this is still an artwork, and I want to have that kind of a dialogue that you can have with a fabricator, which tends to be a very rough-and-ready, “How are we going to do this?” and “What do we use to do that?” kind of dialogue. Conversations with architects tend to be a little bit more elevated, a little more in the realm of ideas and concepts. The architect often translates that, but in my case, I felt like we had already translated it.

It was very interesting to meet these fabricators in London called MDM, and specifically, the head of that organization, whose name is Nigel. We had an amazing conversation.

Then, ironically, given what I just said, I also had an amazing meeting with some architects whom I have now actually asked to help consult on working with natural materials such as thatch, lime, and chalk—things that are in that environment. They happen to have done projects using those materials. They are an architectural organization with a nonprofit focus called Material Cultures in London, run by a person named Summer Islam.

What I really liked about talking to them is that one part of what they do is design buildings and build them. Another side of what they do are community workshops on how to use those materials and how to learn more about them. These days, if you try to build something, most contractors or architects will often tell you, “Well, you cannot do it that way. It has to be done the way we always do it.” The way we always do it involves using gypsum and the materials that have always been used. It takes a strong effort to change that and to try to go in a different direction.

That is what Summer and her organization, along with her co-director Paloma Gormley, are really focused on—giving people the knowledge that you can actually build a building out of lime render and thatch, and it will last 25 years, 50 years, or even 200 years. Just because it is not the way people have been building in the last 40 years does not mean that it is not possible. By giving people that knowledge and conducting those kinds of workshops, they can try to promote a much more sustainable practice of building.

Kristine:
On that point of bringing in new knowledge, how do you feel about talking to some anthropologists today?

Asad Raza:
Great. Sorry, I am going on way too long.

Kristine:
No, I am just going to keep us moving and bring them into the conversation. Talking about natural materials, fabricating, and the senses, I think it would be really interesting for us all to discuss that a little more.

I would like to introduce our very special guests today. Andreas Bandac is an associate professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen and the author of Exemplary Life: Modeling Sainthood in Christian Syria.

Also with us is Daniel M. Knight, a reader in social anthropology at St. Andrews and the author of many publications, including Vertiginous Life: An Anthropology of Time and the Unforeseen.

They are also the joint authors of this new book, Porous Becomings: Anthropological Engagements with Michel Serres.

Before we get into the book, I do want to say a very special thank you to Professor Deborah Battaglia, who I see is joining us today. She is the special connection between all of us, and without her, this talk today would not have happened. A special thank you to you, Professor Battaglia.

I just want to take a moment to get back to the book, and I am wondering if Andreas and Daniel can tell us a little bit about it.

Daniel M. Knight:
Sure. Well, I will jump in. We have not arranged an order of speaking, but thank you very much, Kristine, for having us here, and Asad for the willingness to engage with a couple of social anthropologists. And, of course, thanks to Deborah for the connection.

Andreas and I have edited a collection on the philosopher of science, Michel Serres, but particularly how his work can be used to further our thinking and knowledge within the discipline of anthropology. Serres, as a philosopher of science, is not often engaged with by anthropologists. Beyond the occasional footnote or sound bite, his work is rarely brought into deep conversation with anthropology.

Some of his key works, I think, speak quite nicely to Asad’s project here—works on things like The Natural Contract, which examines relationships between humans and nature, going back to the 1980s and foreseeing a lot of the climate catastrophe we are dealing with now. He discusses the need to negotiate new contracts between humans and nature, alongside other relationships involving technology, knowledge, and more.

Serres also wrote The Parasite, which explores multiple meanings of parasitism—biological, social, and informational—and The Five Senses, which relates to how we experience and interact with the world through different senses. This last work, in particular, might connect with Asad’s project, especially in terms of the engagement of the senses and the amplification of certain sensory experiences.

There is a lot going on in the work of Michel Serres that we thought could be brought to anthropology, particularly linking the individual truths that anthropology tends to deal with.

A village in Greece, staying and living with that community, gathering ethnographic knowledge, conducting interviews and collecting stories—what do you do with that? What does it mean to humanity and collective life on the planet in 2025?

Serres’s ideas, conceptual work, and thought processes help us link those different scales and scopes of knowledge about the human condition in the world today and beyond. From the small-scale ethnographic site to the planetary and the global—perhaps even in some cases, thinking about the universe—he bridges these perspectives through very different means.

The book came together when Andreas approached me and said, “I have noticed that you are one of the only people in anthropology who has really engaged with Serres properly, without it just being a throwaway citation. I do it as well. Do you think that there is something more here? Do you think there is something to this? Are there more people who are a bit weird and niche like us? And does it have something bigger to say beyond that weird niche?”

We agreed there was. So we approached scholars, and in this volume, there are 15 contributors, including us, looking at Serres’s work through three different themes: Parasites and Contracts, Bodies in Time, and Knowledge Quests, particularly how messages move between different figures of thought across space and time.

That is what we have brought to the table in Porous Becomings, and it links into other projects we have as well.

Andreas Bandak:
Thanks for allowing us to take part in this conversation. Without going extensively into it, I think what we also wanted to promote through Serres’s work is the notion of porosity.

What does it mean to remain open to other forms of knowledge? For an anthropologist to engage with an artist, or an artist to engage with other forms of knowledge creation and knowledge-making?

Serres was expansive in the sense that he was not afraid to engage with all sorts of materials, working from ancient texts on Lucretius to high-tech advancements. He embraced the idea of remaining porous—not trying to make rigid concepts or stiff forms of knowledge, but remaining open to knowledge quests.

In that sense, I hope the Porous Becomings idea will also be evident in our conversation today—with Asad, but also with all of you. Perhaps I will leave it there for now, and we can easily extend on it later.

Kristine:
That was my hope. Looking at this project and many of the things we have discussed so far through the lens of Michel Serres—whether it is the idea of Biogea, The Natural Contract, or parasitic relationships—I thought it would be really interesting to connect all that with the River project.

I will step back a little and let you all continue the conversation. Let us see where it goes. Maybe around the top of the hour, we will pause a bit. If anyone has questions or comments throughout, we will be watching the chat. It would be interesting to give you all a chance to explore these ideas through this very special lens.

Who would like to begin?

Andreas Bandak:
One thing that might start us off is that Serres frequently evokes the notion and metaphor of rivers.

He describes time and history as flowing, but also as percolating. It is not just experience being carried forward in an even stream. There are different forms of riverbeds where certain things pass, while others percolate, settling as sediment at the ground level.

He talks about bifurcations, how things branch out, and how we, as humans, try to read things both upstream and downstream—sometimes going with the flow, and sometimes trying to return to the source.

I think these metaphors are particularly relevant when engaging with your work, Asad, on the River Ear and the natural habitat in Cambridgeshire. It highlights both the poetic and practical dimensions of working with a river.

But it also requires attention to the specificity of the river itself. This is not the Nile. It is not an enormous river, but a stream—a creek, perhaps, at certain points. So what does it mean for you, as an artist, to work with water, with rivers, with flow?

Asad Raza:
First of all, I love that question. And second, you do not have to thank me for allowing you to join the conversation. I find it fascinating to talk with you all, especially because Michel Serres has been on my mind for some time.

I was very close with the artist Philippe Parreno, whose work is also deeply connected with Serres, and I was even his dramaturge on some of his exhibitions. We used to discuss the concept of the quasi-object all the time.

About rivers—I think a lot of the things that interest Serres about rivers, both as figures and as realities, I share. Or at least, I echo them. Maybe saying I “share” them would be dignifying myself too much.

I did another project in 2022 in Frankfurt called Diversion, which involved diverting a small amount of the River Main through the Portikus Gallery. In that project, I was trying to rethink the museum or gallery space—not as a container for objects I make in my studio, which are then transported there to be observed by visitors, maintaining a strict subject-object division.

Instead, I wanted to think about how an art exhibition or experience could deal with the flow of energy—the movement of forces through space. Rather than creating an autonomous object to be contemplated, I wanted to redirect an existing flow of energy.

The River Main is constantly flowing right next to Portikus, which is why I thought of doing that project. It makes Portikus into the site of this vector of energy or this part of the water cycle, to put it in more literal terms, rather than trying to create something discrete that can stand alone.

I do not know for sure, but you can tell me—I believe that is somewhat in consonance with Serres’s ideas. That is my sense. Not that I did it in order to align with that, but I think it makes sense from a Michel Serres perspective.

Daniel M. Knight:
Yes, I think so. Serres writes a lot about containers and categories, and the solidification of knowledge—how shutting down knowledge, or even the experience of the world, happens when we create rigid structures. He says that things like belonging, which is an ultimate category, are the ultimate evil because it automatically confines people within certain traits—nationality, religion, or other forms of categorical belonging.

Porosity, for Serres, is about being able to break through the membrane, to both receive and give information, creating a flux and flow. He describes this as a topological movement across space and time. Serres’s background in seafaring is also important here—he was the son of a bargeman, part of the navy, and navigation is a major theme in his work.

This idea of navigating bifurcations, meanders, and the points where rivers split apart and rejoin again fits into his broader critique of the ordering of knowledge into rigid categories. Once solidified, these categories do not allow for breaking free.

The river, water, and fluidity run throughout his work. I can see how, particularly with your previous project, diverting a river through a museum—a container that predefines interaction with artifacts—acts as a kind of solution or challenge to that form of thinking.

Andreas Bandak:
Similarly, Asad, your point about energy is crucial. Serres wrote about this extensively, especially in his last book on religion. Daniel and I have debated whether that book is really about religion or about energy, but certainly, many of Serres’s works can be read as being about energy.

He explores entropy—how do you contain, control, or allow energy to flow? This extends beyond the metaphor of the river to broader questions of energy between generations. How do we avoid holding back energy while also recognizing that an enormous release of energy can also be destructive?

The violent energy humans inflict on each other, from small-scale violence to the larger historical events that shaped Serres’s own thinking—such as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—casts a shadow over his work. Nuclear fission and its consequences are key to his reflections on power. The energy question, whether in museums or in reconceiving relationships, is foundational to his philosophy.

Asad Raza:
I find myself very connected to the idea of working with energy or energies. I often use the plural term because I think about my work in terms of redirecting, understanding, or channeling energies.

In the project we are discussing with Kristine in this series of talks, which currently has the unwieldy name Untitled Observatory River Ear—though it will eventually be something shorter—I want to make sure people do not think of it as just the building we are constructing on the side of the river.

We are also doing a lot of activity in the river itself.

I have gathered a small group of scientists who are studying the river, and I am printing a book containing all the DNA from our first sequencing of the river water. I am also collaborating with a local elementary school so that students—ages seven through ten—can come and learn about the river.

This project involves larger vectors and larger energies. I thought I would quickly show you an image that we just created. This is part of the current deck we submitted for environmental officers to review.

I wanted to make it clear that the observatory structure, which is in purple, is only one element. On the other side, we are creating a large brushwood ledge that will change the flow of water. In the middle of the river, we are installing two flow deflectors to create more sound, which the structure can amplify. There is also tree hinging.

These plans usually focus only on the building, but in this case, it is more blurred. This project is not just about the structure—it includes interventions in the river and the people we are bringing to the river. The social, ecological, and architectural dimensions are all equally important.

The real challenge is making people realize that all of this is happening and making it palpable for them.

Daniel M. Knight:
Looking at that picture, Asad, it reminded me of a prosthetic—almost an add-on or an extension. I know you are using specific materials, but it appears as a non-organic or supplementary prosthetic addition to this natural body, the river.

What do you think of that idea? It makes me think of our conversations with Deborah and our colleague David Henig, an anthropologist who works with people in Bosnia. He studies how, even twenty years after the Yugoslav Wars, people still deal with the consequences of war debris—remnants that have become a permanent part of their forests and landscapes, affecting both bodies and politics.

Looking at your design, it seems like a prosthetic limb attached to this natural, organic body.

Asad Raza:
Absolutely. I love that concept—it had never occurred to me before. The idea of prosthesis or prosthetic extension resonates deeply with this project.

I called it The Ear because one of its functions is to amplify or enhance the sound of the river for those standing inside it. In that sense, it really is like a prosthetic.

For the human, the animal, or any organism that comes to visit it, this structure serves as a prosthetic ear. It sits on the river in such a way that visually, it appears to be growing out of the riverbank. In that sense, as you say, it almost appears to be a prosthetic that the river is utilizing in some way.

I can show you another sketch that might illustrate this idea more clearly. This is a little sketch we made at the fabricators I mentioned earlier. Let me figure out how to share it… Can you see that?

The ear shape is very organic. The frame itself may be timber, though in this drawing, it is shown as scaffold tubing—but I think it will ultimately be timber. You can also see how the thatch is layered around it, and the lime render is applied. It is made of natural materials, and in some way, I feel like it should resemble a mushroom growing from the landscape.

What you said about prosthetics is incredibly thought-provoking. I am so happy to have this concept now to think about and play with because it never quite occurred to me before. A prosthetic has a very interesting and rich liminality in relation to whether it is natural or artificial.

Daniel M. Knight:
Right. And in a sense, the river is making itself heard to new audiences at a different decibel than it could without the prosthetic.

This connects to Serres’s work on the Five Senses—how we engage with the world through our senses. He was open to the idea that our sensory engagement changes over time, particularly as technology enters the natural environment or the human body.

In later works, such as Thumbelina, he reflects on his granddaughter’s relationship with screens. At first, he is skeptical—he sees her constantly attached to a computer screen and worries that she is missing something fundamental. The role of the teacher, for example, is no longer what it was when he was a student.

By the end of the book, however, he tries to convince himself that this new generation engages with technology as a kind of prosthetic—an extension of their body that amplifies and opens the world to them. It allows global reach, instant access to different bodies of knowledge, and new forms of connection that he could never have accessed at his age.

I do think he is trying to convince himself rather than fully embracing this change. But there is this persistent theme of amplification—whether it is the amplification of human senses, social interactions, or even the natural world through technological extensions.

Asad Raza:
Yes, and it makes a lot of sense that he would be conflicted about something like that. We are living through an epistemological shift in the past 15–20 years, and it is difficult to understand its long-term effects without more historical perspective.

Personally, I believe these kinds of prostheses have had a parasitic effect on our attention. I see it firsthand—I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old, and a lot of my work flows from observing them.

When I did the Diversion piece with the river, my daughter, who was two at the time, absolutely loved it. She could run in the water, play, or simply sit and watch it. She was fully engaged with it.

But with screen culture, we see something different. The digital environment has gone through a Darwinian process in which only the most attention-grabbing, fast-moving, high-stimulation content survives. Everything is designed to be visually captivating—fast cuts, bright colors, constant sound. As a result, regular experience can start to feel unbearably dull by comparison.

For me, part of these projects is about bringing people back into an embodied situation where they can engage with their surroundings with renewed attention. Whether it is the River Granta or another natural space, I want people to notice and appreciate what is already around them.

The River Granta flows through a biotech park surrounded by companies that specialize in cutting-edge science. Yet, these companies are built around an artificial lake, and their employees sit behind glass in offices with sealed windows. They stare at a representation of water while the actual river, one of only 25 chalk streams in the world, is flowing through the woods behind them.

The whole development is called Granta Park, yet if you ask employees where the river is, many of them do not even know. It is completely hidden from view.

So part of this project is about reconnecting people with the river. I wanted to create something for the local community, the village, and the school, but also for the employees of these biotech firms—something that brings them to the river, lets them hear it, and makes it present again.

This contrasts with British landscape architecture, which has a long tradition but culminated in the 18th century with projects that were all about visual mastery over nature. I wanted to approach it differently—not through mastery, but through listening to the landscape.

The river, in this sense, becomes an agent, a subject in its own right. That is why I thought about printing a book of its DNA—it is a way of saying, “This is not just an object in the environment. It has an identity. It exists as its own entity.”

Andreas Bandak:
These are great thoughts. And they bring to mind Serres’s metaphor of noise, which I think is particularly potent here.

When you create this prosthetic structure, you are amplifying sound—the sound of the river, which is already organic, but now elevated to a different level. A lot of Serres’s work is about signals and signaling—humans signaling to non-humans and vice versa—which creates noise in the system. Noise can be parasitic; it can be a disruption. In his later work, Serres moves from the concept of the parasite to a broader discussion of marks—the way we put dirt into the system to claim something as ours. He describes human secretions, marks left behind in unexpected places, as ways of asserting property.

In this sense, noise crisscrosses different forms of sense perception and the sensorium. By creating this large ear structure, you are inserting noise into a system where nature has been cordoned off, hidden in the woods, a place unknown and uncrossed. The ear becomes a way of introducing both a new sensation and a new form of navigation.

Daniel pointed to navigation earlier—how Serres sees movement not as a straight line but as a crisscrossing of paths. His metaphors often come from the sea, where routes are never fixed. When you navigate, your path is erased as soon as you pass through it, unlike a road, which remains visible. These shifting pathways are essential to his way of thinking.

Your work speaks back to this—it rearranges our attention. Serres often emphasizes that we have not only adapted to working with technology but also to living in cities. So what would it mean to be grounded again—to return to the soil, to Biogea?

This is not about a romanticized notion of nature, but about attentiveness. Art can provide interventions that make us see again, that cut through the pollution of our attention.

Asad Raza:
Absolutely. I have two quick responses to what you said, which I found incredibly rich.

First, on the point about cities—when I work with rivers, soil, or trees, I never try to create a fake picture of nature. I want people to see how constructed it is. I am not interested in mimicking untouched landscapes but in what Bruno Latour calls compositionism—showing that we can compose with both natural and artificial elements without pretending to return to an idealized nature, like a Central Park-style simulation.

Second, your point about noise is truly fascinating. I have worked a lot with music, sound, and noise. David Lynch, who just passed away, once made a one-minute piece of music for a show I did. I had asked him to compose a sound representing the world coming into being, and what he created was incredible.

Something I think you will find interesting in response to what you said. The chalk stream has been dredged and straightened by the aristocrats—by the wealthy landowners—because they did not want it shifting its banks and interfering with their plantings or landscaping. So they dredged it, straightened it, and periodically removed all the sticks and debris that naturally fell into it.

I have been discussing this with ecologists Ruth Hawksley and Rob Mungovan, and they explained that the natural state of this river would include twigs, brambles, and more twists and turns. There would also be much more sound. But because of the dredging and straightening, much of that sound has been removed.

Part of what I was showing in that first drawing includes the elements we are adding with timber. I am actually making a sculpture whose only purpose is to create sound in the river. By making it a designated artwork, people will not remove it as they would ordinary sticks or branches. It will also create habitats for animals.

So it is not just about amplifying the sound that is already there—it is also about restoring the sound that has been taken away. That is why what you said really resonated with me. It was a very penetrating observation.

Daniel M. Knight:
It sounds like you are marking your territory in the way Serres describes—reintroducing an organic form of pollution, or semi-organic intervention, into the system.

Going back to Andreas’s opening comments on rivers, this is exactly what Serres says about the messiness of a river environment. He uses rivers as a metaphor for time and history—where countercurrents, turbulence, and hidden violence are always present.

Twigs knock into each other, sediments accumulate around stones, and debris gets caught in currents, temporarily solidifying before breaking apart again. This process is often violent—crashing together, dispersing, reforming—but when you stand on a bridge above the river, you see only the smooth, forward flow. You hear a gentle trickling of water, but you do not experience the full range of sounds and movements occurring beneath the surface.

Serres uses this as a metaphor for how we think about time—how we impose artificial order on what is actually chaotic and dynamic.

That leads to two questions, following Andreas’s earlier point. First, what does this renewed attention to nature tell us on a broader scale?

In the UK, much of the conversation over the last 20 years has been about hedge rows. Technological advances in farming have led to the destruction of hedgerows, and my father—who worked on cider apple orchards in Somerset—actually learned hedging to rebuild these lost barriers and encourage nature to return.

So what does this attention to a seemingly nondescript backwater, a river that most people do not even know exists, tell us about larger human-nature relationships?

And second, this reminds me of something that Bill Connolly recently mentioned to Andreas and me at Johns Hopkins, a theory about the need to reorient our cultural and visceral knowledge to help us grow out of old cosmologies. He suggests that we must learn new ways of engaging with climate and environmental challenges by relearning how to interact with the world to come.

Asad Raza:
That is a big thought, and I generally agree that such a shift is necessary. I also think that we need to produce the kinds of relationships that have been eroded over time.

Take rivers, for instance. In Frankfurt, as in almost every major city in the world, rivers were originally the reason these cities were founded. They provided transportation, drinking water, laundry facilities, trade routes—everything. But over time, these rivers were channeled, dredged, concretized, and often terribly polluted. The relationship people once had with them as embodied experiences was lost.

In a way, my project in Frankfurt was about renewing that relationship, even if only in an attenuated form. Similarly, in Granta Park, the river is right there, yet no one even knows it exists. The goal is to produce a relationship to it.

I think art can serve as a space to model these kinds of relationships. It is not politics, social movements, or religion—it does not operate on society in a direct way. Instead, it offers moments where people can pause and think, Oh, this changes how I perceive this thing. Ideally, one does not know exactly how effective it is. Are you actually addressing historical anxieties, or are you just documenting them? That is for others—perhaps people like you—to determine.

I am simply drawn to making things that I feel I need. Unlike Michel Serres, I am not a seafarer. However, in a different project, I sailed from Buffalo to Cleveland with six musicians. We composed a piece of music on the journey and then performed it upon arrival at a triennial in Cleveland.

The river projects stem in part from the fact that I did not grow up with a relationship to these things. I was raised in a suburban development outside Buffalo, New York, where I had little direct interaction with natural systems. And yet, something like a river is not a simple entity—it is one of the arteries of the global water cycle, an immensely powerful and dynamic force.

Earth’s water cycle is a truly unique planetary feature. It is not just about the solid ground beneath us; it is about constant energy flows, feedback loops, and transformations. We often forget how astonishing it is—this endless process of evaporation from oceans, precipitation over mountains, and the return of water to the seas through rivers. It is a living system.

However, we have created spaces that function like white cubes—sealed environments where external forces do not intrude. These spaces have enabled us to hold seminars, art exhibitions, and controlled environments for work. But they have also eroded our relationship with the natural world.

I am interested in creating experiences that reconnect people with these forces—not just through digital representations, photographs, or videos, but through direct encounters. Watching a film about traveling down the Amazon is not the same as being there. My goal is to create conditions where the actual thing—the river, the energy, the presence of nature—is there with you.

Daniel M. Knight:
Just one more point on noise before we continue…

Andreas Bandak:
Go ahead. If you have something on noise, please share it.

Daniel M. Knight:
I was thinking about noise in relation to pollution, following Andreas’s earlier point, your idea of reintroducing sounds that should be present in the river—semi-artificially restoring the soundscape—is fascinating. But what about the noises that occur inside the ear?

Andreas suffers from tinnitus, for example, which distorts hearing. The ear does not simply amplify external sounds; sometimes, it generates its own noise. Water in the ear, for instance, distorts perception—my 10-year-old daughter hates swimming because, when she gets water in her ear, the world does not sound the same anymore.

It struck me that your approach assumes a normative function of the ear—enhancing perception and distinguishing sound. But what about situations where the ear itself creates noise? What about conditions like tinnitus, ear infections, or hearing loss? Some people rely on hearing aids to amplify sound, while others, like a friend’s father who lost his hearing after a reaction to COVID, experience an abrupt transformation in how they perceive the world.

How might this project engage with those distortions, with the pollution of sound inside the ear rather than just amplifying the river’s external sounds?

Asad Raza:
That is an interesting question, and I would need to think more about it. But I can offer one small response before turning to Andreas, who I could tell was about to go on a fascinating riff.

I have a good friend in Berlin, Kristine Sun Kim, an artist who just opened her mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York. She is deaf, and much of her work deals with communication, sign language, and the experience of sound from a non-hearing perspective. She often explores musicality through alternative modes of perception.

When I spoke to her about The River Ear, I was eager to hear her thoughts. One of the things she told me was, “You should make sure that the structure produces resonance—so that someone like me can feel the sound through touch.”

That fascinated me. She pointed out that if someone who is deaf puts their hand on the structure, they could still experience the river’s sound through its vibrations. That is something I now want to discuss with our acoustic expert, Ralph Orlowski, in London. Next week, when we have our next call, I want to ask him: Is lime a good material for producing resonance?

I think it is very important to consider how this project might function in different sensory situations—not just for those who hear, but also for those who experience sound in other ways.

Andreas, I would love to hear where you were going with your thoughts. I could sense you were about to take this in an interesting direction.

Andreas Bandak:
Yes, I will go on that riff. But first, a short comment—Serres himself actually writes about tinnitus in many of his books. He suffered from a kind of hearing impairment, and in his discussions of health, particularly in Crisis, The Five Senses, and The Parasite, he talks about the body as noisy.

In classical thought, the older you got, the noisier your body became. Pain, discomfort, and internal sounds increased. So noise is not just about what we hear—it is about the fact that our bodies themselves are full of sound.

This is also a way to rethink health and the composition of our sensory experience.

In The Five Senses, what I find compelling is that Serres focuses less on hearing or sight and more on touch. He argues that our skin—the largest sensory organ—is the primary medium through which we engage with the world. Our relationship with our surroundings is mediated by our skin as a membrane, an interface between self and environment.

This perspective circumvents the traditional hierarchy of the senses, where sight and hearing are privileged over touch. It moves us away from ableist perspectives that assume a “normal” way of perceiving the world. Instead, it forces us to rethink sensory perception in a more inclusive way.

I think this is an important intervention that an artist can make—when you design a structure like The River Ear, you are not just engaging with sound as an abstract concept. You are engaging with how bodies experience sound. This includes those who feel sound through vibrations, those who experience auditory distortions, and those who engage with the world primarily through touch.

Now, what I wanted to reflect on was how this connects with our broader work on Serres—and how Daniel and I have been thinking about these ideas in our own projects. What has been engaging us recently is the notion of life itself—both the feeling of being alive and the broader concept of life beyond individual existence.

If one were to remark on Serres’s work, his book Incandescent discusses the idea of viability. I much prefer this term over buzzwords like sustainability or empowerment. Viability, Serres claims, has a double etymology: in French, it derives from vie (life), while in Latin, it relates to via (paths, roads).

So what does it mean to think of life in terms of both capacity—the ability to move forward, to open new pathways—and unpredictability—the fact that these pathways are never entirely foreseeable? Life is a force that exists within and between us, something we share with nature.

Curiously, Daniel’s last book is titled Vertiginous Life. He explores how, in Greece, people experience crisis as an ongoing, unpredictable state. Bodies react to crisis—people feel nauseous or dizzy—yet they continue to move forward, seeking new paths.

In my work on Syria, I have studied both Christian communities and the broader context of revolution and war. People try to find ways forward, yet they are impaired by the reality of living in a disaster zone for over fourteen years. The country exists in an uncertain interim, where no one knows where it is headed. Yet, even within destruction—amid rubble and ruins—people are forced to negotiate communal life and coexistence.

Art may play a crucial role in what I call way-making. It is not just about finding paths but creating them. However, for those who have endured war or crisis for years, imagination itself can become impaired.

At the same time, history is full of unforeseen shifts. No one expected Syrians to rise up against the regime when they did. Suddenly, a new situation emerged.

So, I would like us to reflect on the notion of life. How do we enhance life? How do we diminish it? What role does art play in revitalizing our sense of being alive? And when do we need concepts to help us think about life differently? Feeling and thinking about life are not the same, but they are both fundamental to human experience.

Asad Raza:
Wow. That is an incredibly fascinating and suggestive set of ideas.

We are at the top of the hour, so I will not go on too long, but I do not have an immediate, fully-formed response—just some thoughts that come to mind.

I often reflect on the difference between creating an experience for others and doing something I personally need. As an artist, you are always doing both—you pursue what you feel is necessary for yourself while also considering how it might resonate with others.

One thing I have noticed is that when I work with certain open forms—soil, wind, rivers—people engage with them in deep and emotional ways, often beyond what I could have anticipated. It is not about me; it is about them connecting to something fundamental.

For example, when I started working with soil, I was amazed at how intensely people responded to it. Similarly, with the river—it becomes a space for a variety of reactions and interpretations.

This is why I try to create works that are meaningful not just to curators, art theorists, or academics, but also to a 10-year-old or an 8-year-old who may not have any background in contemporary art or philosophy. If they can engage with it, then the work is truly part of life—part of an ongoing, living process.

I am drawn to creating experiences that do not dictate a single interpretation. The work does not demand to be understood in a specific way; it simply exists as an experience within the flux of life. Different people will interpret it differently, and that is precisely the point.

As you say, the unpredictability of transformation—when and how shifts occur—is a mystery. Art can open a space for reflection, but it cannot prescribe change. It can only invite people into an experience where change might happen.

That is the best I can hope for—not to tell people, This is what you should do, but to create spaces where they can think and feel for themselves.

And of course, I will likely think of many more responses to your ideas later tonight, as I continue reflecting on what you said.

Kristine:
Hi, everyone. Maybe this is a good moment to open the conversation up for questions and comments.

One thing that came to my mind is the idea of the prosthetic. A prosthetic is typically seen as a substitute—something that restores function to a level that is “good enough,” whether it is a hearing aid that allows partial hearing or an artificial limb that restores mobility but never quite replaces the original. But what you are describing is a prosthetic that enhances rather than just substitutes.

By amplifying the river’s sound, by inviting people to listen more closely to water and nature, are you helping us become more than what we were before? Think of how other species have sensory abilities beyond human capacity—bats navigate with sonar, octopuses have a decentralized nervous system that allows them to taste and touch simultaneously.

I feel like your work draws attention to the other—to different possibilities, to how things could be otherwise. It does not just restore awareness; it expands it. I do not have a specific question, but I wanted to share that observation. Your prosthetic is not about replacement—it is about enhancement.

Asad Raza:
I personally do not think we should only take questions. Any kind of response or comment is very interesting to me. I have to give a lot more thought to the idea of the prosthetic and the idea of the more than. But in some ways, all art is a kind of prosthetic. It provides a temporary experience, a different capacity, or a new perspective that one would not have had otherwise. It acts as a lens through which one can see or engage differently.

Kristine:
We do have some conversations coming in. Deborah Battaglia, would you like to turn on your screen and ask your question?

Deborah Battaglia:
Yes. I am sorry, I do not know why my screen is not turning on, but as long as you can hear me, I will not waste time trying to fix it.

I have a number of thoughts, but I tend to be wordy, and you will have to forgive me for that. I am especially wordy when I am excited, and I find this conversation extraordinarily so—it is more of an excitation than a conversation, really. Everyone here, including you, Kristine, is contributing to something truly dynamic.

Building on Kristine’s point about prosthetics, I am interested in how, distinct from a hearing aid, a cochlear implant does not simply amplify sound—it transforms it. It converts sound into information, fundamentally reshaping the way one processes and experiences auditory input. In this way, the ear is not just an amplifier but an invitation to make knowledge otherwise.

As Asad pointed out earlier, along with Daniel and others, the notion of alternative modes of perception is significant. When Asad’s artist friend, who is unsighted, suggested incorporating resonance into the River Ear so that someone could feel the sound, that moved the conversation beyond the visual. It reminds us that we do not live in an ocular-centric universe but in a pluriverse—one in which different sensory capacities become focal points.

This is what fascinates me about Asad’s project: its inherent kinesthetic dimension. The experience of the river is inseparable from motion, from the way one feels it. Sound is not just something one hears—it is something one experiences haptically, through vibration, through movement.

Imagining myself in the River Ear, I see how noise becomes distinguishable from sound—not by eliminating it, but by channeling and focalizing it. The structure paradoxically sharpens focus while also amplifying the entire sensory experience.

This brings me to a set of questions about the materiality of the project. What will the interior walls of the River Ear feel like? What textures will be involved? What will the smell be? Will it carry the scent of the river inside? Will it invite people to experience the riverine environment as permeable rather than separate?

The question, ultimately, is not just about the river or the people but about the relationship between them—how the river and its human visitors impact each other in a porous, dynamic exchange.

This, I think, also ties into the larger theme of life itself—of felt aliveness. But I will pause here, as I do not want to take up too much space.

The itinerary of connection, for example, with the soil, is another theme—one that is extremely interesting. I say itinerary of connection because sometimes it is strongly felt by agents or actants in space, while at other points, it is strictly pragmatic. There is no felt connection whatsoever—it is simply about logistics.

For instance, consider how a certain mix of soils and guano might be transported from one place to another to grow grapes in Sonoma, which will eventually become wine. The location of the vineyard, near a river or a water source, plays a crucial role in this process. For the people consuming the wine, the water, soil, and climate are what make the wine distinctly Sonoma wine, or Washington State wine, rather than French wine. Yet, in reality, the soil may not even be from Sonoma—it is an artificial concoction of different soils sourced from New Orleans, Peru (for the guano), or elsewhere.

For the grape growers, it is purely pragmatic. But for the wine drinkers, it is a deeply felt connection to place—even if that connection is, in some sense, fabricated.

Asad Raza:
Deborah, please, this is incredibly fascinating. I have written down so much of what you just said—I am trying my best to capture it all. You might be interested to know that I have done projects where I make soil. I create artificial soil using waste products, sand, clay, and organic materials from the region where I have been invited to exhibit. I then fill the museum with this constructed soil and give it away to visitors so they can take it home and use it to grow things.

The way you describe soil truly resonates with me—using another term you just used. I see industrial processes as breaking down the landscape into components, commodifying them, and selling them separately. But soil is a holistic material—it brings those fragmented elements back together into something fertile and interconnected. In that way, the process of making soil is an itinerary of connection, reconnecting what has been severed.

The project is not just about distributing a material—it is about recomposition, about creating a medium of renewal rather than separation. It is fascinating to hear you describe this in such a way that aligns with that thinking. But I do not want to take up too much space—I would love to hear more from others.

Deborah Battaglia:
Yes! And in Serres’s terms, it is about resonating across the sensorium. You used the word attention earlier—the importance of gathering attention, redirecting it from the daily routines of workers, IT specialists, and whoever else might be drawn into this space, toward something else—toward an embodied encounter with the river.

I think the extent to which they are cued to understand what they are hearing—what they are sensing—is also a key question. For example, in musical terms, we often talk about the color of sound. Could an experiment be done where visitors are asked: What color is this sound? That might be an interesting jumping-off point for reimagining one’s relationship to the river.

There is also a lot of discussion about awarding legal personhood to rivers and other natural entities as a way to protect them. But I think it is also useful to flip that question. Instead of asking, How do we give the river personhood?, we should ask: How might a person’s riverhood be activated? How might we cultivate an awareness of our own riverhood—our own porous, dynamic connection to these environments? The connection can work in reverse.

Asad Raza:
Oh, I love that! A person’s riverhood! That is such a brilliant phrase. I actually had a conversation with Karen Barad about something similar, but this way of framing it—a person’s riverhood—is truly wonderful.

Deborah Battaglia:
Well, do not blame me! (Laughs)

Asad Raza:
No, no, I love it! It is really thought-provoking.

Kristine:
Thank you. We have a question. Michael, do you want to ask?

Michael Degani:
Sure, I am happy to ask, though I do know Jessie had her hand up first. I am happy to yield the floor to her.

Kristine:
Jessie?

Jessie Croteau:
Hi, thank you so much. This was such a fascinating and generative talk. The discussion started with a mention of porosity as a way of remaining open to different forms of knowledge-making, and I could not help but think of the ear as an obvious hole of the body. This connection between the pore and the body made me interested in the ways in which porosity emphasizes both the opening—where things can flow through—and also the borders around it.

The import of edges also seems evident in the discussion of rivers, where a river can only flow because it is constrained by the barriers of the land and the detritus inside of it. In other words, we might understand flows as directed and co-created through the edges.

While solidification can be a shutting down, a boxing in, or an imprisoning of the morphological movement across space and time, it also strikes me as generative of the flow itself. So I am wondering about the creativity of the negative, about the anti or the opposite—which not only allows for something, but we might also think of it as co-producing something. This could be materially, or even conceptually, like thought itself, where the outside of thought creates the zone of the thinkable.

I am not thinking of this in terms of a dialectical process, but rather, how what appears to be the opposite of a creative force is actually what makes creativity possible.

Asad Raza:
Again, another thought that is very rich, and I would need to think more before I can say anything remotely intelligent in response. But I do think there is something about negating, or the creativity of temporarily negating a state of affairs, that is interesting to me.

On the other hand, I am also interested in producing what I call proposals—something that you can engage with as a proposal in itself, rather than as a critique of something else. So I have different thoughts about this issue of the creativity of negativity, but I will leave space for Daniel and Andreas to speak to it as well.

Daniel M. Knight:
Thank you very much, Jessie. I am sure Andreas has more informed things to say than I do, but I was thinking about the holes in the body and portholes in our book Porous Becomings.

Elizabeth Povinelli’s chapter discusses bodies at sea, particularly what happens when a ship is sinking—who survives, and who does not. Historically, black bodies were confined beneath the ship in the transatlantic slave trade, while others were trained in the Naval Academy to transport them. The training of the body is crucial—one must pass through the metaphorical porthole of training, and also the actual porthole of the ship itself. The ship’s structure creates conditions of survival or death, and where one is located in it matters. The barriers of the ship are not just physical, but also social and hierarchical.

Your point about the absence of presence in the ear resonated with me. When Deborah was speaking earlier about resonances, I could not help but think of the waxy canal of the ear and its texture—how it relates to the gloopy substance of the river. Just as a river needs dredging to maintain its flow, so too does the ear canal need clearing, or else pressure builds up, resonance becomes painful, and the structure—the eardrum—might even break. It is similar to a river breaking through a dam.

So again, we have these barriers to flow. Deborah once told me, “Forget about eliminating the edges—we can maintain them, we can operate at the edges.” It is not about removing structures, but about seeing how they fit into the bigger picture, especially within porous membranes of knowledge, disciplines, and nature-culture—which is what Andreas and I are exploring in the book.

I am sure Andreas will have something to add to this.

Andreas Bandak:
Thanks for your confidence and trust, Daniel. Yes, that was a great intervention.

I think it is interesting that Serres also talks about different forms of canals. He discusses chimneys extensively in some of his last books, as ways of creating outlets for energy—whether letting out steam or as an integral part of industrial production. When I mentioned fabrication earlier, it connects to this idea of construction—where in order to generate energy to produce something, you also need valves or chimneys.

Chimneys function as metaphors for Serres, representing moments of breakthrough in history. He locates these moments in the Axial Age—particularly in Mesopotamia—where fundamental ideas about religion, life, and the polis emerged. These moments serve as vectors or chimneys that allow certain forms of existence or energy to explode across time. Such moments are not continuous; they emerge in particular instances, shaping the world significantly. Serres examines these foundational moments—whether in the history of Rome, where he reinterprets its founding myth of fratricide, or in the broader evolution of thought.

Serres rarely speaks positively about dialectics. In The Five Senses, he expresses a strong dislike for dialectics, arguing that it fosters competition rather than genuine thought. He sees human relations as being founded on violence—exemplified in the foundational myths of brother-killing—but insists that we must find alternative models of relating. He does not want human interaction to be framed in terms of competition; rather, he seeks conversation.

However, Serres remains skeptical about when genuine conversation actually occurs. In his Conversations book with Latour, he concludes that their discussion was one of the few that truly produced something. In The Incandescent, he reflects on conversation as a model where the author must allow space for the other. For Serres, conversation is like dancing—you move with others, always making space for them, and in doing so, something unexpected can emerge.

These models, Daniel and I argue, are ways of producing porosity—whether in conversation, in our attentiveness to each other, or in our relationship with our environment.

Regarding the second part of your question, about the creativity of the negative, this is certainly a formative thought as well. Outside of Serres’s framework, you find it in French philosophy and negative theology, traditions where the negative itself is highly potent.

For Serres, the negative often appears in relation to danger. One of the quotes Daniel and I use in our book is from Branches, where Serres asks: Would we ever invent ourselves if we were not in peril or in danger? He sees moments of crisis—whether climate catastrophe, social upheaval, or historical perils—not just as moments of risk, but as moments of possibility. Even if we cannot predict what will emerge, the very experience of reckoning with the absence of possibilities may itself be formative of newness.

So while Serres does not always articulate this in terms of the negative as such, his work challenges us to think about how crisis and absence generate change. These questions productively challenge his work, creating new avenues for conversation.

To conclude, I want to mention resonance. Last week, I was in a conversation at the National Museum of Denmark with the sociologist Hartmut Rosa and historian Monique Scheer, discussing resonance. Rosa’s most recent book is entirely about resonance, and the discussion focused on what it means to resonate and connect. He comes from a different tradition than Serres, but his ideas are relevant here.

Rosa argues that we can never control or harness resonance—we can only create openings for it, but it remains a gift that we can only receive by staying attentive. We never have primacy over it. Resonance is what makes us feel alive—whether in music, religious experiences, or profound moments of connection. We do not expect it, and we cannot control it, but when it happens, it takes us out of ourselves.

This links to Serres’s notions of ecstasy and epiphany, which appear throughout his work. These are moments that transport us beyond the self, opening pathways to new ideas and movements—yet, crucially, without control.

Deborah Battaglia:
If I may, just on that and also from what Daniel said earlier, resonance can be negative also. Of course, resonance is not always invariably connected. It can be overwhelming. And at this moment, here, speaking from Washington, DC, there is a cacophony of absolutely attuned-to-one-another’s resonance—noise that is purposeful in disrupting focus and has something to do also with proximity to source. So it is going to have more of that capacity than otherwise.

But yes, absolutely. I mean, of course, one is the other side of the coin. I am just mentioning the other side of the coin that you have engaged and commented on here. What you have said does make me wonder at what point noise and resonance and cacophonous impacts can be channeled also for evil purposes.

It can be part of an agenda, not just a tactic but a part of a strategic operation to drown out more delicate or nuanced and proper procedure. This just comes from this moment of an assault on our world order.

Daniel M. Knight:
That reminds me, Deborah. And then, Michael is still waiting to ask his question. But when we talk a lot about the whirlwind or the tornado, you and I, and this idea of fatitionism being whipped off, it is a very violent procedure. It is a very violent structure that tears through households. It does not know quite where its trajectory is going, but there are other trajectories within the whirlpool, whirlwind, or tornado.

Still, at the heart, at the center, at the vortex, there is a stillness. And from the position of that stillness, the world looks very different than those being whipped up around it. That is also moving on the same trajectory as the tornado itself as part of that structure, but it is a different edge of it, and it is a different positionality within that.

So you could use it metaphorically or analogously for the political goings-on in Washington right now, perhaps. And it also relates to entropy and againtropy that Asad said at the very beginning—the chaos of the world in these constant fluxes of energy. But there are the solidifications where there is a stillness, where there is an order, where there is an egontropic order to it in this sort of Stieglerian sense that you and I are sort of a little bit into as well.

So energy, violence, stillness—at the heart of these things—entropy and againtropy. This is all the messy trajectories and energies of life that I think Andreas and I are looking at with the idea of life.

Deborah Battaglia:
I appreciate that it is the messy, entropic—it is all of that experientially. When you look into the physics, and it is all a system, even chaos is a system. But that is only recently learned.

So yes, but this is—but you are the one who began the conversation about how it feels to be in a political maelstrom in Greece, in austerity Greece, Daniel. So I do not want you handing this over to me or to Andreas. This all comes from you guys. So just to clarify this.

Daniel M. Knight:
For clarification, it is all in conversation with each other—I mean, Andreas, myself, and you. A lot of what I have said today has been through conversation and interaction with you both.

Asad Raza:
Guys, I want to just note that unfortunately, I have about maybe five to ten more minutes max because of my kids’ bedtime over here. And I am aware that Michael is still waiting to do his comments. So I would love to hear that too, and then obviously would love to keep talking for as long as possible. But I have max ten minutes left.

Michael Degani:
I will toss out my question, and I will try to make it brief to maximize the time. But it was a fantastic conversation, and I am hailing you from Cambridge, so I look forward to making it out to the Grantor River and seeing the exhibition if I can. That is going to be fantastic.

It is also a strange coincidence that you mentioned Material Cultures because I have been thinking a lot about them and writing a little bit about their work. They did this wonderful project they call the Flat House at Margent Farm just north of Cambridge, made entirely of hemp fiber, with structural and insulation components. The natural material aspect of their work is fantastic.

Jumping off what Jessie was saying, I do think that the trope of porosity, with a lot of admiration for Daniel and Andreas’s book, has to have a background structure of what it is not. The difference between a river and a flood is that a river has banks—it has some sort of channeling structure. That is what I took Jessie to be saying about the negative.

For me, Serress is the great theorist of proportion and balance. You see this in his discussion of hospitality—the difference between a good guest and a parasite is one of thresholds and proportions. It is when you begin to take too much, when you are a bad guest, that you become parasitic.

Since this is the Ecological Design Collective, and along with Kristine and Jessie, I am a curator here, it seems to me that design is so much about finding balance and proportion. It is the same with resonance—if you increase the frequency too much or too little, you do not get resonance. It is about finding that right proportion.

Thinking about your design, you are, in some sense, a guest on the river. You do not want to take up too much space. You are also hosting—you are kicking out the muntjac deer, which I see scampering around on early morning walks. So I would love to hear your thoughts on the trope of proportion and balance in terms of a proper porosity. Porosity itself can be self-negating—it is just an opening to nothingness. How do you see that fitting into the broader theme of ecological design, and perhaps connecting to what Material Cultures is doing?

Asad Raza:
First of all, thank you. I am very happy to know that you are in Cambridge, because when I visit, I often stay at Jesus College. The project is intended to be permanent, so once it starts, you can go back whenever you want. I am also planning to do workshops with Material Cultures in the area, so if you are interested—

Michael Degani:
Oh, I will be there! That is cool.

Asad Raza:
Summer and Paloma are really great, so I am very happy to have them as part of this evolving brain trust for the project. Right now, that includes Nigel from MDM, Summer and Paloma from Material Cultures, and Raf, an acoustic expert from the Bartlett. My producer is Jordan Kaplan.

I will be very honest—I do not think about these things at a very high metaphysical or intellectual level when I am creating. My artworks are not fully understood by me when I start. I never thought about proportion, design, or even ecology when imagining the River Ear. The image of the ear on the river came to me first.

As I kept working, I started seeing why it might be interesting—why it resonated with me. For instance, I realized it is about listening to the landscape, rather than looking down upon it from a high vantage point. That contrasts with the Capability Brown-style British landscape architecture, which is about visual mastery over the land. But that occurred to me later. Initially, it was simply the image of the ear on the river and the possibilities it suggested.

Michael Degani:
With all due respect, it actually sounds like you do ideate first. In a way, my question is about the practical considerations—how much foliage are you going to put on the bank to keep the muntjac out without, say, obscuring visibility?

Asad Raza:
I did not want to just end by saying I do not think about things, because I do. I would say I ideate before and after, but at some point, something comes to me as the central thing—like in this case, the ear idea—and that sticks with me.

In terms of the practicalities, I am basically following Rob Mungovan and Ruth Hawksley, two ecologists living there. Rob is advising me on how much timber I can put in the river to produce sound before I completely clog it up. That will be very good for trout, because he is interested in promoting trout and crayfish habitats. Ruth is talking to me about how many trees I could cut down, which would bring much more sunlight to the bank and be beneficial for plant life. There are all kinds of considerations, and I follow those experts.

At the same time, I follow something more difficult to discuss—something like an aesthetic sense. I did not go to art school, so I do not necessarily consult art history or previous artworks, but I have developed a sense from things I like and how they have worked on me. I try to produce something that might work on me in the same way if I had not made it, and maybe it would work on someone else too.

For instance, thinking about oneself in the landscape in a way that Dan Graham’s pavilions have made me do in the past—where you see yourself reflected in the glass while also looking through it at the landscape—there is a moment of reflection on your place in the environment. These kinds of things are not about allowing you to see yourself next to the River Granta but rather to be with the river in a more embodied, haptic way—touching it, smelling it.

In the Frankfurt piece, we filtered the water so that people could drink glasses of the river water inside the gallery, which they were also able to walk through. I wanted to allow for a deeper interaction with the river than simply looking at it. That is part of what is going on for me.

I also have an innate sense of when something is too much. That sense has developed over the years. When I started making works a decade ago, I often put in a lot of different things, feeling like I had to work harder and produce more. But over time, I realized that if you stumble on something that has a certain strength as an entity or a symbolic communication, adding too much actually weakens it.

In some ways, making work is about restraining yourself from doing all the many cool things that you had in mind. It is like writing an essay—you might have a great paragraph or sentence, but if it is not relevant, it has to go. Otherwise, it becomes a blind alley.

There are concrete goals for these river enhancements beyond the ear—to produce sound, create habitats for animals, encourage variation in the river, and contribute to rewilding. But I have a feeling for when it is too much. I just know when I need to hold back.

Kristine:
At some point, Asad, I know we have been talking for a long time. Sometimes I just have to introduce a temporary closure, though we will renew this conversation again.

Asad Raza:
I got us off to a bad start by rambling on about my fabricator for the first ten minutes, but—

Kristine:
No, it resonated! It fits with what we do at the Ecological Design Collective. It was the perfect direction to go, and I think we will pick it up again in our next conversation in April.

I invite you all back, and for anyone listening in, I encourage you to join us. There is a lot more of this kind of discussion at the Ecological Design Collective. Thank you all for a fascinating and brilliant conversation. We look forward to seeing you again in April.