Hyperobject

I feel very fortunate to have been selected to follow the Reality Base Camp: Crises in Information Ecologies course this October. This course by Nate Hagens from The Great Simplification now has a pre-run with around 150 participants from all over the world.

I am now in the second Module and it is no easy task: the course focuses on the wicked problems we face in the world today. I learn about hyperobjects such as the climate crisis, or food transformation, or plastic polution. This term coined by philosopher Timothy Morton describes phenomena so complex that they resist simplification. They are too vast and layered to ever be fully understood and comprehended, no matter how much we stretch and educate ourselves.

This drawing of mine links to these ideas. It feels like a personal replica of a hyperobject, through my perception: a web of human, animal, and pattern which is impossible to fully see, understand or separate. To me, it captures what this course invites me into. Which is definitely not certainty, but perhapsa deeper ability to see and stay with complexity.