Michail Vanis

Our idealisation, romanticism and paradoxical thinking in ecology is holding us back from finding new ways to interact with nature. Neo-nature is part thought experiment, part manifesto which suggests a new way to interact with nature in which we let go of our presumptions and emotions through rationality in ecological thinking.

The first chapter, Animalia, deals with the animal kingdom and suggests three alternative ways to conserve coral reefs. In all three alternatives, the humans speed up the coral's evolution by genetically modifying it to adapt to the new environmental conditions that put the species in danger. The motivation behind why each coral is created illustrates how humans can donate, protect, or exploit.

The second chapter, Caelum - the latin word for sky - explores a fictional experimental artificial climate located in Mali. In a vast 254-mile-wide area, humans have complete control over the weather system. They can shape winds by casting tornadoes and seeding heat currents, they can toggle the visibility of clouds with the push of a button, and they can cast every weather phenomenon on demand. With this level of control, they can train plants to adapt to unusual climates, practice new ways of agriculture, and generate electricity from planned weather. In this precisely orchestrated equilibrium of tipping points, the relationship between leverage and fragility in human techno-activity becomes day-to-day life.