publications

Future Clouds: Diatoms, Speculation and Weather Modification

Monday, 10 July 2023

This article uses diatoms and the role they play in cloud formation as a prompt to consider histories of weather modification in practice, science fiction and possible future applications to address climate change.

Apparitions and Atmospheres: an Introduction to the Special Issue “On Gases, Clouds, Fogs and Mists”

Monday, 10 July 2023

I am happy to see ‘On gases, clouds, fogs and mists,’ a special edition of the journal Coolabah published. "Appriations and Atmospheres" is the introduction to this edition that collects articles and creative writing on the theme of atmospheres. While set in a variety of geographic regions and spanning different historical time periods, a through line in these works is their concern for the embodied experience of atmospheres. They are also full of ghosts, monsters and unexplained apparitions, gaseous forms that demand our attention.

Orangeries, heat sinks, and walled gardens: architectures of microclimates and the metaverse

Tuesday, 1 November 2022

A chapter in the book "Meta.space - Visions of Space from the Middle Ages to the Digital Age" that considers orangeries and gardens as precursors to the design of the metaverse.

Some Things are not held together by Glue: Chunambo and other ‘Sticky Matter’ in Subtropical Macao, China

Saturday, 8 October 2022

a new article which is part of a special issue of the eTropic journal on "Tropical Materialisms: poetics, practices, possibilities."

Atmospheric Visions: Mirages, methane seeps and ‘clam-monsters’ in the Yellow Sea

Wednesday, 28 April 2021

This article in Shima uses Chinese folklore and mythology about the origin of mirages to provide new ways of thinking about deep sea ecology. It brings together scholarship on atmospheres, multispecies research and island studies approaches. Taking examples from ancient bestiaries, pop culture and contemporary science, it shows how narratives and speculation are used to make sense of the unknown.

Ghost trains: past and future mobilities haunting a Southern Town

Thursday, 1 July 2021

This article juxtaposes two transportation projects in the town of Ashland, Virginia, one a short-lived electric rail network from the early 20th century and the other part of a planned expansion of high-speed rail along the southeast corridor of the US.

Looking at the Sea through a window: land reclamation and art installation in Macao, China

Thursday, 20 August 2020

This research note provides an introduction to a collaborative art exhibition by two artists, Crystal W. M. Chan and Benjamin K. Hodges, entitled Mountain Surrounded by Sea. The exhibition, installed at the Creative Macau gallery in May and June of 2020, is a sound and installation work that centres on the ‘Macau New Urban Zone’ project which consists of five new islands currently being constructed through land reclamation in Macao.

Kick the Dead Rabbit: Tuxedos, Movies, and Cosmopolitan Urban Imaginaries in Macao

Thursday, 21 June 2018

This article explores ways in which a cosmopolitan, urbane subject is on display in Macao’s gaming, tourism and leisure industries. Much like the fin-de-siècle flâneur studied by Walter Benjamin, the cosmopolitan tourist and gambler portrayed in the visual culture of Macao witness the city as both an aesthetic object and as a set of new experiences to be seen and felt.