A Derive in the Cryptoforest of the Anthropocene [A Transcript]

Further transcripts from a Derive, acquired by Time Travel.

Slotervaart Fashion Centre UpComing.

An important academic paper, authored by some of the most important names in the drive for the recognition of the Anthropocene as a proper geological era, mentions the Kmer Temple Ta Prohm in Angkor. Once a triving centre of humanity it has now been eaten up alive by nature. Better examples of reclaimed urbanity abound: the lost cities of Meso-America, the even more obscure lost cities of the Amazon. The last are an interesting example: these cities once housed large numbers of people, organized in what must have been politically advanced societies, have completely vanished from sights. Local myths (Viti-Viti) and the occasional observant traveller/anthropologist did mention them but to deaf ears. Concentrated study of the cities of Amazon is at best only a decade old. 

To return to the paper just mentioned (it's called the 'the new world of the Anthropocene' 2010) point its readers to the overgrown Cambodian temple to show that cities may now be the most obvious source of the anthropocene, they may well be only transient. 

I have a special way of enjoying this insight. For a few years now I have been exploring cryptoforests and I have been trying to turn what I have learned from them into a discipline: Cryptoforestry. The central tenet of which is that cities must at all times fight the onslaught of nature trying to supersede it. The hegemony of the urban, a hegemony which often stands for the integrity of society itself, is always under threat as treeroots and wild plants are wobbling the pivot. (And yes that is a very bad reference to Ezra Pound referencing Confucius Kung).

By visiting places where the urban order is breached, cryptoforests, the city is reveals its vulnerability. 

Practically cryptoforestry means finding the most difficult path between A & B. Follwoing the pavement is easy, taking an elephant path (or desire path as they are better known) to me is a form of social conformity. I prefer the untrodden. I prefer the places where the mosquitoes are.