Under the Rustle of Trees, We Listened to the Hum of Machines

The "Relationality Work Group" within Thinking Together gives time and space to focus on relationality itself, its politics, different forms, conceptualizations, genealogies, and practices.

“Under The Rustle of Trees, We Listened To The Hum of Machines” is a workshop developed by Abhijan Toto and Dennis Dizon for the Forest Curriculum, drawing on their ongoing research project “The Forest Curriculum's Weather Stress Index”. The workshop takes the form of listening sessions, reading and annotation groups, embodied exercises and karaoke interventions that investigate more-than-human relations and political and aesthetic registers. Rather than a traditional workshop model, these sessions are conceived of as sites of collective research to unpack ideas of “registration” and “indexicality”, and from here to turn towards an alternative conception of sensitivity.

“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” (Donna Haraway)

Thinking Together is the discourse format of MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues. Dedicated to the materiality of thought – the bodies, minds and senses that share this space –, the format provides time to connect to stories and through questions that lay at the heart of the festival.

Consisting of lectures, workshops, public talks, reading groups and experimental settings, Thinking Together invites artists, participants, guests and hosts to reflect present time related issues through the lenses of sound and vice versa.

Hosted by Abhijan Toto and Dennis Dizon for the Forest Curriculum