Dr. Jonathan Pugh on Islands, the Anthropocene and Why There Will Still be Islands At the End of the World

“After the collapse of human, of modern reasoning, this idea that the humans can stand outside of the world, command and control the world, we have become interested in this question of how humans are more entangled with the environment, so this is why islands rise to the fore. There is no longer this imaginary of the kind of western man who was above nature and everything is about sites of ongoing … island relational entanglements, and attunements and adjustments. Islands become these key figures for thinking through how the Anthropocene unfolds”

Dr. Jonathan Pugh

In this episode of A Correction, I speak with Dr. Jonathan Pugh about what is meant by the Anthropocene and he explains why islands and islanders, are centre stage in cutting-edge debates related to quantum theory, alternative energy, and science and technology in general. He explains the influence of Charles Darwin, and concepts of ‘resilience’, ‘correlation’, ‘algorithmic form’ and ‘entanglements’ in relation to islands and the Anthropocene. He also discusses how Caribbean literature and culture support a groundbreaking understanding of these issues and explains why we must move beyond resilience to critical thinking, which engages islands and islanders’ conceptualisation of life. We also talk about avoiding islands being exploited as ‘the canary in the coal mine’, and the benefits of islands becoming more archipelagic.

Listen to this episode on the A Correction podcast website, Spotify, Apple podcast, or any of the usual podcast stations.

Biography

Dr. Jonathan Pugh is Reader in Island Studies, Department of Geography, Newcastle University, UK. He has more than 70 publications and is particularly noted for his work on the ‘relational’ and ‘archipelagic’ turns in island studies, disrupting the figure of the insular island. He has held a number of visiting fellowships, given international keynote addresses, and/or invited lectures, including at Princeton, Harvard, Virginia Tech, London, Cornell, Vienna, Zurich, Trinity College Dublin, Rutgers, California, University of West Indies and National Taiwan Normal University.

Jonathan’s present work examines how work with islands is playing an increasingly prominent role in the generation of wider approaches to critical thinking, knowledge, and policy practices associated with the Anthropocene (particularly in the prolific development of relational ontologies and epistemologies in opposition to modern reasoning). Establishing a platform for discussion and debate, in 2021 he launched the ‘Anthropocene Islands’ initiative (https://www.anthropoceneislands.online/). This includes a monthly reading group, dedicated section of Island Studies Journal, early-career study spaces, workshops, agenda-setting publications, and talks. The initiative gains its initial impetus from the book Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds (Pugh and Chandler, 2021) free to download here https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book52/ and the Dialogues in Human Geography paper Anthropocene Islands: there are only islands after the end of the world (Chandler and Pugh, 2021).

Publications: https://newcastle.academia.edu/JonathanPugh

Twitter: @jonnypugh1974

Facebook and Instagram: Jon Pugh Islands

Dr. Vernelle Noel on Craft, Carnival, Architecture and Artificial Intelligence

In this episode of A Correction, I speak with Dr. Vernelle Noel on her amazing and innovative research, work and creations connecting the craft of wirebending in Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival with architecture and Artificial Intelligence. She speaks about how she came to study architecture and the way this connects with engineering, design and Artificial Intelligence. She also talks about how Trinidad and Tobago’s culture has informed her research and designs and why it is important to center voices that are usually historically sidelined. She emphasises how craft like Carnival wirebending is technological, scientific and mathematical and explains how Trinidad and Tobago’s culture allows for fluidly and creatively making connections across cultures and concepts and discusses how indigenous forms of creating and making supports innovation. She also explains what is meant by computing, why it is important to question, know history, teach yourself, and involve communities as well as lessons from Singapore’s model.

Have a look at her wonderfully creative new project Carnival-ai which is also being used to educate the public about AI and support experimentation and creativity around design and making in Carnival.

Listen on A Correction podcast, Spotify, Apple podcast and all the usual podcast platforms.

About Dr. Vernelle Noel

Vernelle A. A. Noel, Ph.D. is an architect, design scholar, artist, TED Speaker, and Director of the Situated Computation + Design Lab at Georgia Tech. where she investigates traditional and automated making, human-computer interaction, interdisciplinary creativity, and their intersections with society. Dr. Noel’s scholarship and expertise include design in the Trinidad Carnival, craft practices, architecture, and art. She builds new expressions, tools, and methodologies to explore social, cultural, and political aspects of making, computational design, and emerging technology for new social and technical reconfigurations of design practice, pedagogy, and publics. Her work is thoroughly interdisciplinary with training in architecture, design computation, science, technology, and society (sts) studies, media arts, and sciences; engineering, and arts. Her research has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Mozilla Foundation, and ideas2innovation (i2i), among others. Dr. Noel is a recipient of the 2021 DigitalFUTURES Young Award for exceptional research and scholarship in the field of critical computational design.

Currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture and the School of Interactive Computing, at Georgia Tech she teaches courses in design, computation, and architecture. She holds a Ph.D. in Architecture (Design Computing) from the Pennsylvania State University, an MS in Architecture (Design + Computation) from MIT, a B.Arch. from Howard University, and a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the John S. Donaldson Technical Institute (Trinidad & Tobago).

Alone, To Dance We Must Still Dare

A deafening silence is filling our well of discontent.

Desperate, newsfeeds languish without laughter

‘Cause the ground has been grasped from beneath our feet,

So we yield and to Mercy, we beg

As furious, speedy spirals dizzy us,

Yet limbs, fingers and toes invisibly tangle to show what we share.

We isolate under the phones on our heads

And so still we meet.

Our musical tongue confesses

The volume in our homes we pump.

Alone,

To dance, we must still dare.

In these uncertain times here are some songs from all around the world to consciously inform, inspire, and uplift as we wait for the world’s storm to end. I pray we awaken from the wreckage, spirited to new meaning and inner sunshine, for one and most importantly for all.

Spotify Playlist – Consciously Uplifting in Quarantine

YouTube Playlist – Consciously Uplifting in Quarantine

An answered call…

Hello!

“Another world is not only possible, it’s already on her way.

On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

Arundhati Roy

I love reading and I love writing, especially poetry. My curiosity about what it means to be and how we use and change the technology we create to interpret that has increased exponentially with the birth of my son. It’s what made me yield to my mindful, inner push to create and to write here today. Even though the site is not at all perfected and this takes 20 minutes away from working on my thesis, that keeps shouting at me about that looming deadline.

I guess it really is no coincidence that I am doing a PhD in Web Science, which looks at how the web intersects with the every day. It tries to bring greater understanding of fields, worlds, outside of what we call our own by forging new ideas and different connections for a positive way forward.

I’ll be posting here articles and opinions on technology-related issues, how we impact them and they impact us. My poetry and prose will I hope also inspire, and I’ll link you to any authors that I find interesting and thought-provoking. Let’s see what comes from answering this moment’s call. I hope you hear and answer your nagging call today too.

Ring…

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