How to Empower the Earth with Words

Have you even needed a book about inclusive emancipation and non-human language that includes instructions of how to make the earth rule itself? Well, now is your chance to help make it a reality. Styx förlag, a Stockholm based non-profit art collective, is gathering momentum to build a Kick Starter campaign to help raise awareness about the planetary emergency and about how poetry can make a difference.

“Even if we manage to save the earth this time”, they argue, ”and prevent the invasive impact of our human societies, this is not enough. If we do not change the way we talk and think about our planet and its inhabitants, the same mistake will be repeated again”.

The book they are making will be called Geopoetics and, according to Styx, it is a “a realistic critique of how we speak about the earth”, with the aim to “dismantle the language of our current monobiotic society and give room for the idea of a new geocratic civilization”.

That may seem to be a lot to swallow. But Styx is not reluctant to explain how they will go about. The book, they explain, will have three parts. The first will concern the future. It will identify and outline three visionary moments in relation to what they imagine to be the effects of a fully liberated earth constituency: true individuality, interspecies communication, and geocracy. The second part they describe as concerned with the present. It will lay bare and analyze a number of contemporary challenges centered around three core concepts: anthropocentrism, the reification of the voice, and power accumulation. The third part will concern the transition. This part they describe as outlining three main courses of action: the substitution of the emancipatory subject, the de-reification of language, and the establishment of a full-scale global geocratic constitution.

Conceptually, the project’s point of departure is said to be self-critical. “We presuppose”, they write, “that the earth is not what we imagine it to be. We assume that it cannot be captured from an anthropocentric point of view. This means that our poetical efforts are best described in terms of withdrawal.” For this reason, they argue that the geopoetics must acknowledge and embrace a frank, honest and effective absurdity. “A geopoetical examination”, they write, “must try to reach beyond what it can ever hope to accomplish”. Apparently, this means that it must be open to the possibility that what will be found is not what is sought for. According to Styx, the bottom line is nevertheless the same: “We need a shift of mind and of word. Without it, we can never hope to change the destructive actions of our species.”

The team at Styx förlag describes the collective as a non-profit organization. They are based in Stockholm, since 2005, and is a progressive collaboration between contemporary artists, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, scientists and filmmakers. Styx förlag publishes books, arranges public performances and works in the essential silt of society.

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If you need images with even higher resolution (e.g. for printing), please email info@geopoetics.org