I reflect on this edition I think about one of the major contemporary political issues of our time that reaches into the past and into the future.
Nature. The Earth. Climate. The human body. The human soul.
Many of these pieces evoke the cries of the earth under the scorching fury of our activity as humans. These pieces speak to the earth and the earth speaks back to them, creating a dialogue that begins in the soil and moves into the soul. Earth to Human. Human to Human. Human back to the Earth. I see these pieces, in collection, as a journey from the soil into the human mind. And if we are to regard media as a means of communication between humans, we can therefore understand how new media is an apt form of art for reflecting the current dissonance between the earth and the people who call it home: technology has both bridged the distance between humans, allowing us to communicate with people across the globe, as well as being the force that has damaged people’s lives; we as humans have a better understanding of the earth and its physical and biological systems than generations before us, while also almost unable to hear its cries—or, rather, we are not ready to truly listen.
(Source: http://thenewriver.us/editors-note-for-the-new-river-fall-2019/)