Feedback is a phenomenon that occurs when the output of something returns to its input. I liken this primarily to my relationship with music and sound art. The cacophonous oscillations that occur when a guitar is resting on an amplifier or a delay pedal routed into itself to conjure a cosmic display of noise. Feedback also occurs outside of an audio acoustic environment. I think about the feedback of materiality in the world. Sites of material as origins and destinations and the wall of sound that those circuits manifest.
The palm tree is emblematic of Los Angeles. This iconic plant can be found in every neighborhood, town and city in the region. They are non-native, costly to maintain and offer little in regards to a symbiotic relationship with the ecosystems they live in. They were brought in because someone thought they would be decorative. Conversely the water hyacinth is a plant native to the Amazon. Through waves and tides of imperialism, and colonial carnage this plant eventually made its way to India because of their perceived beauty. They have overrun waterways and shores of most coastal nations in South/South East Asia. The proliferation of these non-native species and the currents that sent them around the world is an example of material feedback as an element of culture and the post-human natural world.
The Port of Los Angeles is a resonator. A receiver of material information, amplifying its frequency through redistribution across the US. I drive through the port often to reach San Pedro and the tide pools and hikes that lie just north of this industrial gauntlet. As I drive south on the 710 past downtown Long Beach and across the Gerald Desmond bridge the sound changes. The din of a thousand trucks shaking the roadways and cranes loading and unloading shipping containers is all I can hear. I drive with my windows down to better hear it. To me the sound is not separate from the tidepools or the sound of the sea. For the sound of the sea is not just moving water. It is a feedback loop of materiality reverberating around the Earth.