HYBRIDS and the New Nature

Duration: 1 week - Procedure: A thorough collection of audio, video and image observations and a series of constructions to investigate possibilities - Outcomes: surprising

For this part of the investigation S.U.N. looked at existing and imagined crossbreeds between natural, human and urban components. Again we chose the park, the Meta Hybrid, as point of departure.

We were able to collect numerous samples, creating a pool of hybrids and establishing categories and a folksonomy for future evaluation, new associations and real research within the Human-Urban-Nature trinity.

In order to be able to cross between and within our three elements we literally brought them onto the same level, refusing established norms and categorizations and formed a new basis for research, investigation and discovery allowing us to play with the idea of a Nueva Naturaleza {a New Nature}, where different rules apply and our current reality can be reflected and commented on.

Over the course of 1 week we revisited the park several times in groups and as individuals to observe and collect hybrids. As part of the investigation we also constructed a few hybrid possibilities inspired by found situations in the park. Just imagine!

A few of our Hybrid Categories are: Shadows, *Real* Hybrids, Imagined Hybrids, Hybrids-In-Action, Hybrid Traces, Sound Hybrids, etc.

*Real* Hybrid

Hybrid Traces Shadows

Posted 1 year ago

About:

The Society of Urban Naturalists {S.U.N.} is an international open collective of urban investigators dedicated to unravel the hidden relationships between nature, city and humanity.

Trough play, storytelling and conversations, S.U.N. deals with the same mysteries that natural and social sciences face in the urban ecosystems, engaging the audience in a reflexion about their place in the city.

Always looking for new methods and inventions to interrogate the city (and ourselves), sun has developed experimental toys using tokens found on-site and a set of rules to engage the public, protocols for observing human/nature interconnections and forms of creative observation that have made us aware of previously unrecognized forms of nature.

We aim to catalog and categorize our findings for contributing to the creation of a folksonomy that might help us think about, and react to our environments in a new way.

The first stage of the project evolved during the Interactivos?'10, Neighborhood Science at the Medialab-prado, thanks to Chirstina Krall, Carolina Gruffat, Ivonne Villamil and Héctor Cataño who built on a proposal by Emilio Zamudio.

La Sociedad de Naturalistas Urbanos {S.U.N.} es un colectivo internacional de investigadores urbanos dedicado a descubrir las relaciones ocultas entre naturaleza, ciudad y humanidad.

S.U.N. Se acerca a los mismos problemas que estudia la ciencia a través de las historias de los habitantes de la ciudad empleando diversos métodos y dispositivos inventados, ya sea para interactuar u observar las interacciones de los humanos con su ambiente urbano/natural.

Para este ciclo de investigaciones, la Sociedad eligió el Parque del Retiro como patio de juegos común y punto de partida. El parque es un híbrido por derecho propio, reuniendo los tres aspectos claves para la investigación y está convenientemente ubicado en las proximidades del Medialab Prado.

Los métodos y propuestas de la Sociedad abarcan la investigación a través de un tablero de juego usando formas simples encontradas en el lugar y un conjunto de reglas para involucrar a las personas del parque en una reflexión sobre las interconexiones naturaleza–ciudad–humanidad, un formato de investigación que mezcla la investigación detectivesca con la ficción real, y una concienzuda colección de híbridos encontrados haciendo nuevas asociaciones, catalogando y categorizando los hallazgos con la idea de contribuir a la folksonomía de una nueva naturaleza.