21 Mar The tick, the epiphyte and the camel

Can a place learn? Can the capability for learning be found not solely within the organism, or the organism responding with its immediate surroundings? Can learning be a capacity found within the wider field of relations between many life forms, a field that includes the non-living?

The question whether a place can learn might act to bring into existence a problem or contradiction. Or be an ingredient of a place that performance can show. Or lead to the invention of a field in which a problem finds its solution.

These variations are discussed by way of the tick, the epiphyte and the camel.

The talk is in two parts. In the first part, the question is treated as if it could be researched, as if experimentations could be made towards its solution. In the second part, the question is treated like a speculative concept, one that is added to a problem and changes the way the problem is understood, but the question itself is not answered.

key words: Isabelle Stengers, Gregory Bateson, AN Whitehead

at Aberystwyth University ‘Ecology and Environment’ Series, Theatre, Film and Television Studies & Geography and Earth Sciences 2013