The Shadow Biosphere Observatory
A workshop based on an environmental-planning platform that fosters multispecies perspectives among users and supports multinatural intelligence.
A two-day performative workshop will be organized at LUMA Arles on October 23–24 2024.
The workshop is based on an environmental-planning platform that fosters multispecies perspectives among users and supports multinatural intelligence.
Envisioned as a ButorStar* role-playing game restoration project and based on interdisciplinary scientific work on the Camargue marshland in France, the Shadow Biosphere Observatory simulates the impacts of diverse factors: sea level and salinity dynamics, a volatile climate, and economy-informing decisions made by various “stakeholders” of the wetland (e.g., farmers, fishers, livestock breeders, reed harvesters, hunters, conservationists, but also birds and plants), allowing players to explore the “pluriverse,” as coined by anthropologist Arturo Escobar.
The Shadow Biosphere Observatory was developed as an educational tool that could be enacted as performance. The game emphasizes the entanglement of landscapes and humans and their inseparability. It creates a continuum of learning from other species, which crosses the traditional boundaries between disciplines (geography, ecology, economy, anthropology) and allows participants to conduct multipurpose experiments that contribute to their understanding of socioecosystems and sustainability while respecting the plurality of wetland beings’ perspectives.
To support the development of this experimental tool, the two-day performative workshop will be organized at LUMA on October 23–24 with the participation of architecture students from ENSA Marseille.
More information about the game can be found at wetland.games.
The Shadow Biosphere Observatory is a collaborative effort between scientist Raphaël Mathevet (CNRS, France), artists Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas (MIT, USA), the LUMA curatorial team and programmers Terry Kang and Thomas Lee Harriett (USA), with design in collaboration with NODE Berlin.
The workshop is part of a year-long project coconceived with LUMA Arles and supported by Season of Lithuania in France 2024; the Creative Interdisciplinary New European Bauhaus – NEB Research Centre; and MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology. The project is part of the Season of Lithuania in France 2024, which is organized by the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the French Institute in Paris.
*ButorStar was developed in the context of a LIFE-Nature European Programme (2001–2005), which aimed to improve reedbed management for the conservation of a vulnerable heron, the Eurasian bittern, by the interdisciplinary team of Raphaël Mathevet, CNRS, Tour du Valat; Christophe Le Page, CIRAD; Michel Étienne, INRA; Gaëtan Lefebvre; Sophie Proréol, Amis des Marais du Vigueirat; Brigitte Poulin, Tour du Valat; Guillaume Gigot, CIRAD; André Mauchamp, Tour du Valat; and François Mesléard, Tour du Valat.
