See You There

See You There

We live in a time that offers seemingly boundless opportunities for travel and connection, yet paradoxically, we are more lonely and divided than ever. Dating apps conjure romance within a chosen radius; GPS offers pathways to dreamy holiday destinations; while generative AI interprets unfamiliar sounds into digestible multilingual summaries. Marks of time and space have bent to market desires; outer space travel has become the next horizon for conspicuous consumption; while we keep investing in the illusory capacity to commercialise all forms of human experience.

In a context of global climate crisis and widening economic disparity, the eco-social cost of global mobility is impossible to ignore. The occupation of placescolonised lands and global movement of bodiesdisplaced peoples through conflicts and environmental disasters, sits in stark contrast to the techno-utopian reveries of oligarchs. For many, the everyday experience of a technologically-mediated community increasingly complicates and confuses perceptionsa sense of belonging to one, or any, place on this earth. At the same time, contemporary technologies may offer vital networks of support and distributed spaces for deep connection that should not be underestimated.

How do we find community and connection, in an ever expanding and complex spatial imaginary? What are the images, ideas and questions that shape our multilayered sense of belonging today?

See you there is a publishing project that facilitates contemporary conversations about space, place, community and mobility. Through a series of linked interventions, it showcases the work of a selected group of international practitioners to provoke reflection about how and where we might find our communities (and at what cost).

For Ursula K. Le Guin, stories serve as ‘carrier bags’ to gather and share knowledge. They are woven through complex fibres of word and image, and form a fundamental technology for human survival. For the editors of See You There, the ‘travel bag’ offers a way to re-imagine knowledge exchange, connection and creation. It reflects an incomplete process that holds images and ideas, which are transported between people and places.

Explore the Travel Bag

Table of Contents

Travel Bags

On April 11th 2024, a group of artists, theorists, designers and curators met at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (CWB). Some travelled across countries, continents and hemispheres, while others arrived on foot. In the CWB theatre, they shared stories and unravelled urgent questions about living across new frontiers of space, community, ecology and technology. How do we situate ourselves in today’s complex and ever expanding, technologically mediated space? How do we find one another (whoever we are), once we are there?

‘See You There: 9 Pockets for Celestial Bodies/Terrestrial Beings’, responds to the tradition of publishing conference proceedings, offering a generous carrier bag for the concepts, images and questions gathered through the bilingual (English and French spoken) colloquium ‘Celestial Bodies/Terrestrial Beings.’ Published as a series of postcards and an online syllabus, it is the first experiment by See you there, which seeks to consider how knowledge weaves diverse paths across the globe.

In each of the pockets, readers will find tags that allow them to travel another pathway through the content, along with additional reading material to guide further research. Taking the form of postcards, each pocket is an invitation to connect with See you there’s globally dispersed community.

Pocket 1: Lost bodies Pocket 1: Lost bodies Pocket 2: Horror vacui Pocket 2: Horror vacui Pocket 3: Fertile Cosmos Pocket 3: Fertile Cosmos Pocket 4: Eternal eclipse Pocket 4: Eternal eclipse Pocket 5: Future organisms Pocket 5: Future organisms Pocket 6: Alien wayfinding Pocket 6: Alien wayfinding Pocket 7: Unknown unknowns Pocket 7: Unknown unknowns Pocket 8: Control systems Pocket 8: Control systems Pocket 9: Tender ruins Pocket 9: Tender ruins

Colophon

Editors

Inte Gloerich
Ania Molenda
Denise Thwaites

Contributors

Golnaz Behrouznia
Amélie Bouvier
Annick Bureaud
Louise Charlier
Natacha Duviquet
Manuela de Barros
Inte Gloerich
Vidya-Kelie Juganaikloo
Adriana Knouf
Ania Molenda
Elise Morin
Plant Sex Consultancy (Pei-Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis, Jasmina Weiss Špela Petrič)
Baden Pailthorpe
Denise Thwaites

Graphic Design

Loni Jeffs

Publishing

Amateur Cities

Pocket 3: Fertile Cosmos

Did we grow as planned?
Avons-nous grandi comme prévu ?

They cannot believe their luck.

“placesThe cosmos may be fertile: placesastral bodies, including planets, may be seeded with life, some of them becoming in essence extraterrestrial Gaias” (Dorion Sagan Dorian Sagan, “Gaia versus the Anthropocene: Untimely Throughts on the Current Eco-Catastrophe“, Ecocene 1.1, 2020, pp. 137-146. Shared by Environment and Society portal. )

2_Bouvier-2015.png

Amélie Bouvier, But Keep Your Feet On the Ground #3 (2015). Stills from HD video, 3 min video © Amélie Bouvier & Harlan Levey Projects. Amelie Bouvier, But Keep Your Feet on the Ground, 2014-2016.

A vexed bodiesCurcuma alismatifolia mutters

“bodiesI literally have NO SEX LIFE. I’m infertile… My offspring are just clones.” (PSX consultancy Pei-Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis, Jasmina Weiss Špela Petrič, The Plant Sex Consultancy: Giving Small Pleasures to the Planted, 2014-ongoing. )

2_PSX-2014.png

Pei-Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis, Jasmina Weiss Špela Petrič (Plant Sex Consultancy), Mutation ritual for Curcuma (2014). Copyright and courtesy of the artists.

placesPlanet Earth is pure potential, circling a giant star.

“bodiesL'atome est source de perceptionsconnaissances transformatrices de notre compréhension du monde… Dans sa version transformée en énergie puissante, mais peu fiable, l’atome est le premier agent potentiel de notre destruction.” (Manuela de Barros Manuela de Barros, Cycle de conférences “Sciences & Fictions“, Université Paris 8, d’octobre 2017 à mars 2023. Retransmis et en partie archivé par la radio P-node. )

A geomagnetic storm passes, until the next solar flare.

Pocket 4: Eternal eclipse

“#SUN - now - A girl from the front sitting on a placesgigantic orange bench. #SUN - now- bodiesA glowing sun disappearing beyond the horizon, sea and a sailing boat in shadow. #SUN - now - Lake with clear sky.” (Vidya-Kelie Juganaikloo)

9_Ouroboros-1478.png

Ouroboros drawing from a late medieval Byzantine Greek alchemical manuscript (1478), public domain accessed Wikimedia Commons

The moon orbits all day, hiding in the sunshine, offering

“une tentative de réconciliation entre placesl’Ailleurs et l’Ici, perceptionsd’embrasser les deux ensembles, avec bodiesdes corps et des êtres multiples.” (Annick Bureaud Annick Bureaud, Quelle Planète (2025). )

Stretching into placesunknown galaxies, we return home.

“It matters wherehow bodiesouroboros swallows its tail, again” (Donna Haraway Donna Haraway, Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chtulucene, 2016, Durham: Duke University Press. )

9_total-eclipse-2015.png

Damien Deltenre, *Total solar eclipse of March 20, 20158. Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons

There is no beginning, as the loop unfolds.

Reading material

Index