Bringing the jungle to the city: A techno-shamanic quest to reconnect urban life to ecological reality
Note: I originally published this in June 2014 Issue of Contributoria . It is republished here under a Creative Commons licence. If you wish to republish, please also attribute the original article I once lived in a village on the rural Wild Coast of South Africa. It had a horizon so vast you could almost glimpse the curvature of the earth. There was one computer with a dial-up modem, and it almost never worked. That was just before I moved to London, to work in the steel and concrete of the city’s colossal financial sector. In London, as in many cities, you cannot see the horizon. The average visibility extends perhaps 30 metres in front of you. On the other hand, you are connected to a vast hallucinogenic web of broadband media connection, constantly. That is, of course, provided the electricity doesn't go out. In London, the electricity doesn't tend to go out. It is hooked into the all-powerful National Grid , a company I used to try sell financial derivatives to. In Sout...