Mountains and Slow Tech. Evolutionary Processes at the Interface with Natural and Virtual Ecosystems.

There they are, you will have to go a long way round if you want to avoid them. It takes some getting used to. There are the Alps, fools! Sit down and wait for them to crumble! [1] These lines by the poet Basil Bunting capture a sense of the human as an infinitesimally small biotic part of a web of abiotic and biotic immensity, relating the enormity of the spatial and temporal dimensions embodied by mountain ranges like those of the Alps to the multiplicity of human reactions to them: a sense of frenzy or of calm, acting to reduce or eliminate obstacles, ignoring or contemplating, denying or accepting. In the following personal reflections, Luca Giunti and Elena Camino explore many aspects of such dimensions and reactions as they consider ways in which natural and virtual worlds meet and interact, while the photos taken by Luca Giunti capture their essence. [1] Basil Bunting (2000), Complete Poems , New York: New Directions