Why farmpunk?

A farmpunk could be described as a neo-agrarian who approaches [agri]culture, community development and/or design with an anarchistic hacker ethos. "Cyber-agrarian" could supplant neo-agrarian, indicating a back-to-the-land perspective that stands apart from past movements because it is heavily informed by conceptual integration in a post-industrial information society (thus "forward to the land" perhaps?) The art and science of modern ecological design—and ultimately, adapting to post-collapse contexts—will be best achieved through the combined arts of cybermancy and geomancy; an embrace of myth and ritual as eco-technologies. In other words: the old ways of bushcraft and woodlore can be combined with modern technoscience (merely another form of lore) in open and decentralized ways that go beyond pure anarcho-primitivism. This blog is an example of just that. Throughout, natural ecologies must be seen as the original cybernetic systems.

**What we call for at the farmpunk headquarters**
°Freedom of information
°Ground-up action + top-down perspectives
°Local agricultural systems (adhering to permaculture/biodynamic principles) as the nuclei of economies
°Bioregional autonomy
°Computers are optional but can be used for good—see peer to peer tech, social media for direct popular management of natural or political disasters (e.g. Arab Spring), or the mission of the hacker collective Anonymous
°You

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Farmpunk Declaration of Interdependence

In some words of mine:

A farmpunk* could be described as a neo-agrarian who approaches [agri]culture, community development and/or design with a hacker ethos. "Cyber-agrarian" could supplant neo-agrarian, indicating a back-to-the-land perspective that stands apart from past movements because it is heavily informed by conceptual integration in a post-industrial information society. The art and science of modern ecological design - whether it be earthworks, shelter building, farm design, or urban reprogramming - is best achieved through the combined arts of cybermancy and geomancy. These hermeneutic discliplines are not categorical or reductionist, but open-ended. Natural ecologies must be seen as the original cybernetic systems.


I blame my penchant for word synthesis on dead languages, Bucky Fuller, and all the elves in the fifth dimension.

4 comments:

Zed said...

It might take me a while to figure out what your words mean in layman's terms but it is the best spent time, in my opinion. lol

Anonymous said...

thank gods for hypertext. :P

Jay Dedman said...

Don't be scared off by the big words. I totally agree that many of us are coming to gardening/farming from a new perspective.

No longer is it all hippie/spiritual. The natural systems are something to understand, respect and hack.

Chris said...

thankfully the thoughts of the true punk movement are seeping into the soil in solution, nurturing the soil, growing into silica based plant life, feeding us, returning to the soil and then allowing our little noggins to process and hack all this with our little silicon based wafers with buttons on them so we can yell to others about the great silica we just grew. whew!!!! finally.