Art as an oriented threshold

Sustained reciprocity

GAMcCullough

In ecology, ecotones are considered to be a geo-zone where at least two eco-systems overlap.¹ This ‘hybrid’ zone is where most evolutionary opportunities occur. Yet an ecotone is not simply a static locale. These overlapping eco-systems are continuously gifting conditions to each other. In other words, an ecotone is acting as a reciprocal relation that sustains both ecosystems. In this view, the ecotone is much more then a boundary between two completed systems. In essence it is the dynamic through which multiple systems continually emerge. The ecotone is the visible manifestation of a deeper reciprocity.

These overlapping systems may be understood as media. The abutment and overlap of these media create the possibility of co-influence. So what we are describing in the Arterroir as an ecotone, interests us not so much as a location but as a condition of emergence. The locus of the reciprocity is the conditions, relations, and transformations that arise as a subject encounters unfamiliar media, practices, or modes of perception. It isn’t hinged simply on things moving through the zone. It is focused on what happens as a consequence of this co-involvement.

Consider a conversation. Its location is not localized in one speaker or the other. It exists in the reciprocal adjustment between them. Similarly the ecotone is more a threshold where the ongoing process of mutual adjustment of both the overlapping systems allows the emergence of what they become. Ultimately, the ecotone is the relationship, and what we call the zone is merely the trace left behind by its sustained reciprocity.

In terms of the Arterroir, these overlapping systems may be understood as overlapping ‘media’ As McLuhan suggests, technological systems are actually environmental systems and vice a versa.² The ecotone in this sense, is the reciprocal relation that sustains the overlapping media. So the ecotone might be re-considered as a media environment encountering a social system. This is where where meaning is translated between the abutting systems. This co-encountering is often termed transversalization though as grounded in the movement across the ecotone.³ But our interest lies in what supports the transversing of meanings, not the movements across a domain.

One might say that the ecotone is the process of the mediation itself. These mediations occurring where social practices adapt to technological affordances and where technologies are reshaped by human use. This is where media meets media in its broadest terms. In this sense, ecotonal reciprocity occurs wherever media environments and other social, cultural, technical, or biological systems meet and mutually transform one another. In this view, the ecotone is a generative zone where reciprocal mediation itself becomes visible.

This co-mediation is significant, and these co-relationships have been embraced across many societys. Their names and descriptions though varied, point toward a remarkably similar experiential structure. These similar concepts ‘promouvoir’ mutual relationships, renewal, and social obligations at their cores.

In Andean thought, the concept of Ayni is often translated as reciprocity, a mediation and exchange.⁴ It is a living obligation of mutual nourishment and balance among humans, ancestors, mountains, communities, and more-than-human beings. Ayni focuses attention on the participants in this ongoing processes of mutual becoming. It highlights the ecotones mediation as being co-created via the medias relationships.

Ayni emphasizes that these relationships are an ongoing process, whereas the Japanese concept of Kami holds them to be sacred.⁵ Requiring of these co-relationships their constant renewal, attentiveness, reverence and care. It moves us from being simply aware of the ecotonal relationships in the Arterroir to accepting them as needing ongoing engagement and being necessarily reciprocal. It recognizes that connection is simply a fact, which leaves one as only an observer of the relationship. Wherein a reciprocity of relationships means one is open and willing to being reshaped by their involvement in the co-relationships. Engagement is at least a two way street. Ones’ participation in the engagement opens the possibility of one in turn being reshaped by the relationship, by the media.

For an artist, it is this reciprocity and potential of the relationship’s renewal which is present in oeuvre's that endure over time. The art work becomes evidence of a conversation rather than a monologue.⁶ Great artwork is a node where many relationships intersect. The artist influences the world, but the world also influences the artist and the art. That reciprocity creates depth because it prevents the artist from standing outside the system as a detached observer. For the viewer of such art, it is these engaged relationships which the artist helps us ourselves perceive. L’oeuvre may be an object, but it is the co-relationships that emerge which is the threshold allowing the viewer to enter and (re)new the relationships that the memory opens to.

So, how does one learn to inhabit reciprocal relationships? How may reciprocity to be maintained? How does one not remain an outsider to these exchanges? Reciprocity must be cultivated through practice. Some disciplines and technologies, continually educate their practitioners towards this required attentiveness of these relationships. This happens as the conditions of their medium refuse abstraction. In every encounter the medium says, "Remember where I came from." So the reciprocal relationship is continually renewed because the medium insists upon it, our dependence within the relationships is brought to the fore.

Other mediums tend to hide this reciprocity. They minimize the visibility of these relationships and when relationships become invisible they become easy to neglect or outright ignore.

Haut Cuisine as a discipline privileges ecotonal relationships within its agricultural terroir. The culinary practitioner is continually exposed to this inter-dependency. A chef cannot ignore the seasons; spoilage; farmers; growers; weather; scarcity; locality. Resources are precious and temporary within its terroir. Thus the reciprocal relationships are continually renewed, because the medium insists upon it.

As creators, these chefs must pay attention to their terroir. They are not separate from it as an outsider looking in. They are engaged intimately with it. This depth of constant attention produces an intimacy and intimate relationships produce a depth of knowledge and acceptance. Both parties are changed by this level of engagement.

Culinary practice naturally leans towards reciprocity. This is not because they're more virtuous then other fields, but because their materials constantly teach chefs these Ayni type lessons.

Other disciplines may lean in the opposite direction. For example, a painter can, in principle, simply buy standardized pigments; pre-stretched canvases; prepared grounds; manufactured brushes; digital reference images; ... without ever knowing where any of their media came from. The same holds true for photographers and other creative fields. They are not necessarily reminded daily of their inclusion in the Arterroir like the culinary arts are. Their Arterroir technologies may tend to create a greater distance from their material origins.

Any technology can obscure the terroir’s realities. Yet they can also reveal them. For example, contemporary artists often now have access to scientific research; historical archives; environmental data, satellite imagery; global perspectives; that earlier artists never could. The tenuousness of the relationship to the terroir actually matters little whether technology is present or not. What is key to strengthening the relationship is whether the technology becomes transparent enough that the artist forgets that it exists.

The danger isn't abundance brought on by technology itself. The danger is a frictionless abundance. If resources appear unlimited, creators may stop asking what is special of their relationship to their terroir. The level of technology may encourage this separation, but it isn’t the cause of it. The crucial issue is awareness versus invisibility. Yet, although awareness is valuable, it may still remain observational. Reciprocity though asks what obligations arise from this awareness of ones relationships? Reciprocity encourages awareness and is in turn reinforced via awareness.

That is what the ecotonal reciprocity inspires within the artist. It’s the willingness to embrace and nurture ones relationships within the arterroir. The concepts of Ayani and Kami can reinforce this reciprocity of relationships. The co-reciprocity of this type of relationship and even the ‘simple’ renewal of their existence is what the art itself orients the viewer towards. It is that engagement with these forgotten (transparent) relationships that the viewer re-enters into upon their interaction with the art object. The art object is the threshold that orients the viewer to the call of sustained engagement with the relationship.⁷ The engaged reciprocal relationship co-constitute each overlapping media into being. This sustained reciprocity of relationships is the fundamental aspect of the ecotone in the Arterroir.

In other words, great art is a device of re-attentiveness. Its function is to interrupt transparency. It makes visible again what ordinary technological life has rendered invisible. It makes the medium, and more importantly the relationships mediated through it, perceptible again. It renews and helps sustain the ecotonal reciprocity.

Footnotes *

¹ The ecological concept of the ecotone was developed throughout twentieth-century ecology to describe transitional regions between ecosystems. Although often treated as boundaries, contemporary ecology increasingly understands ecotones as highly dynamic sites of exchange, adaptation, and biodiversity.

² Marshall McLuhan argued that media are not simply tools but environments that reshape perception, culture, and social organization. See Understanding Media.

³ The notion of transversal relations has been developed in different ways by Félix Guattari and later by Gilles Deleuze and Guattari, where transversal movement describes connections that cut across established structures rather than merely linking fixed domains.

⁴ Ayni is a foundational Quechua principle describing reciprocal obligations among persons, communities, landscapes, ancestors, and more-than-human beings. While often translated simply as "reciprocity," it denotes an ongoing practice of mutual sustenance rather than exchange alone.

⁵ Kami refers within Shinto traditions to the sacred presence or vitality manifest in natural phenomena, places, ancestors, and other beings. Rather than discrete deities, kami are often understood as relational presences requiring continual practices of care and renewal.

⁶ This understanding resonates with Hans-Georg Gadamer's account of artworks as events of participation rather than objects of detached observation Truth and Method.

⁷ The notion of orientation employed here differs from simple spatial direction. It draws upon phenomenological accounts of orientation as the manner in which bodies become situated within meaningful worlds. Compare Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology.

Orientations *

The reflections and ideas developed above arise within a wider ecology of thoughts. The listed works below are offered as orienting texts rather than as direct sources. They are offered as neighbouring conversations whose concerns resonate with those explored in this essay.

Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006.

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press, 1972.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Continuum, 1975 (original German edition 1960).

Heidegger, Martin.The Question Concerning Technology and other essays. Vorträge und Aufsätze, 1954 (Pfullingen: Günther Neske Verlag)

Ingold, Tim. The Perception of the Environment. Routledge, 2000.

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social. Oxford University Press, 2005.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill, 1964.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, 1962 (original French edition 1945).

Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. Harcourt Brace, 1934.

Nishida, Kitarō. An Inquiry into the Good. Yale University Press, English edition 1990.

Shanin, Teodor (ed.). Late Marx and the Russian Road. Monthly Review Press, 1983. (For discussions of reciprocity and communal relations.)

Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch. The Embodied Mind. MIT Press, 1991.

* Footnotes & Orientations generated by free chatgpt 2026