This work proposes to include references to physical reminders of place and its inhabitants, as well as to the passage of beings through space and place as tracked through technology.

This work will include several components: an instructional audience-participation event (for empathic movement with remote caribou), an exhibition component, and components for walks with divergent activities in the region. While all of these are proposed and related, I am willing to be flexible in what is included if not all components work for Balance-UnBalance.

Coastal and other trail walks are part of a culture of understanding place, and this is especially so in Southwest England, with many historic coastal and nature trails near Plymouth or in North Devon – attracting many people interested in environment and nature who are concerned about the effects of climate change on these environments and their ecosystems. While I have not encountered these specific trails, I have done extensive project research in a nearby area of Cornwall in Poldhu, at the site of Marconi’s first trans-Atlantic wireless transfer. While Marconi and wireless may seem unrelated to animals that visit or inhabit the UK or the Arctic, wireless technologies and culture have changed our understanding of embodiment, identity and place, and what is ‘remote.’ We can follow and potentially have empathy for animals that are remote to our own immediate environment (and understanding), because so many animals are not only tracked for scientific purposes (using GPS and satellites), but also made ‘near’ to a general public through websites (e.g., the WWF website) that share information on where they are or have been. This information is usually translated from data into an easily understood online graphic format that reveals animal movements and habitats, so one does not need to be a scientist or specialist to decipher it, bringing it one step closer to (an embodied) empathic understanding.

The work I am proposing will refer to animals (tracked through satellite tracking or traditional- or citizen- science) whose habitats are changing as a result of climate change and human development. These will include birds that migrate through the UK who can be seen and documented by the audience, as well as two animals I have focused on in the past that are very remote to the UK, but may be known by some people there already via the aforementioned kind of websites (caribou and polar bears, both distant from the UK). Additionally, a third ‘being’ will be referred to – a disembodied signal that was sent from Poldhu across the ocean by Marconi, precipitating our present-day understandings and experiences of place, space and being.