Floating Coast
In Demuth’s Floating Coast, makes use of multipolar relationships between three bodies. These bodies are human, non-human, and environmental forces. This framework of three helps to understand the differences between the twisting network of relationships in the Arctic, which helps to deconstruct the often hierarchical view of having humans on top and everything else (even nature) beneath them. To add to this, the more-than-human view Demuth uses includes the agency and the voice of non-human entities. This helps to humanize (I can't really find a better word for this?) the arctic as a flexible and delicate ecosystem where the actions of one element can affect the entire ecosystem, instead of the typical harsh wasteland it is often depicted as. The more-than-human idea that this is framed hopes to develop a posthuman view that distributes agency and subjectivity across different non-human entities, such as the use of land, sea, and ice.
Adding transversal posthumanities and Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
Transversal posthumanities build upon the idea of a posthuman or more-than-human approach to how humans interact with their environment with the use of interconnectedness. The use of the transversal part refers to connections that traverse between different systems and species, breaking down the preplaced boundaries that are elected arbitrarily like human and non-human, cultural and natural, ect. Callon’s (ANT) is similar to this but still distinct. Callon views human and non-human actors as part of a greater network of relationships that shape the world and reality. Callon focuses on the non-human agency and its significance for the more-than-human framework Demuth presents, blurring the boundaries placed between entities.
Expanding the Organic Machine
Adding Demuth’s ideas of multipolar and more-than-human frameworks, we can create a model where no single actor/element dominates the ecosystem.We can see the deliberate actions of actors within the entangled networks that recognize the agency of non-human entities which leads towards a more fluid and dynamic system. This helps to elevate some of the issues of White’s Organic Machine, by opening the idea that ecological systems are not just rigid machines, but complex and living networks of relations that involve all species and non-human entities. But we can go even deeper by considering transversal posthumanities and ANT which reframes the environmental interactions of Demuth’s Floating Coast as multi-actor systems instead of individual interactions playing off of one another. This use of multi-actor systems helps deliver a more nuanced and decentralized view of ecosystems instead of White’s rigid organic machine.