The books re-compose themselves as they "de-compose". The decompsition spills them over and out of bounds; re-opens them for a new conversation with the forest. They move back to the gods that made them.
They move back to the gods that made them, drawn downwards and outwards by gravity and weather; they are acted upon by more-than-human elements; "read" and read, differently. Unlike plastic (which it is estimated takes 500 to 1,000 years to decompose) the books can return to the earth in de-compostion. Like our own bodies, we can join back up with the earth and elements. Plastics remain, sadly indifferent to the world and experience. Created to be unwanted and disposable, I ask, What is the ethic of this aesthetic?
Nicola Oddy's "singwalk" oddyssey brought us back to the Field(works) and forest for a different kind of immersion into the landscape, and the soundscape installations of the Fieldwork project 2017. The distancing effects of our gaze are reduced when spectator/participants are given permission to make humming and singing noises, trundling through a group walk like a bunch of deranged children. Curious harmonies occur, and a funny kind of trance-like effect can happen. I felt I stumbled upon our monument to the end of bookishness, and they whispered to me in a new way, opening themselves up...