Eating Sand

Tasting Textures of Communication in Warm Data

Nora Bateson 2019

For years I have written about the systemic crises of our times in terms of tenderness, and rawness. I have exposed my inner world in its morphing potential. I have felt it important to offset the many graphs and articles that blaze facts of climate change, people trafficking, addiction, immigration crisis, racism and wealth gap as statistics baked and served in varying analysis. I wanted to feel it, and to share the language of that sensorial exploration. I have been on the outside of corporate trends of language. I have been eating sand; doing gritty work, reaching into the frequencies that people felt were too far out of reach to be communicable. I do not have a single thing that is sellable on the market of solutions. But the sand has been good, it was formed by the tempests of both wind and sea. Response to today’s complex emergencies requires multisensory familiarity with emergence.

It matters. The way we talk about the crises, from rape to refugees, to climate and wealth gap, from crooked politics to obsolete ways of living –the way we discuss what needs to be done now will shape what it is possible to do.

Finally, it is time to publically notice what has been unsayable. If the discourse is moored to the existing notions of logic, then that is what will be delivered. The need to get out of the rational, credible, authorized tones of dishwasher instructional manuals cannot be overstated — This is not a moment to…