In this text, I trace my first encounter with the concept of sympoiesis as developed by Beth Dempster. After briefly revisiting the concept of autopoiesis, I go on to analyze the boundarylessness of sympoiesis as presented by Dempster in a diagram accompanying one of her texts (1999). The absence of boundaries can be puzzling. How can alliances or assemblages form if there are no distinctions? How does sharing take place?
Dempster’s visual diagram recalls the blurred edges produced by the gradient tool in digital image-processing software. This option makes use of dithering. In English, the word dithering refers to hesitation, wavering, trembling, or indecision. What role does this disturbance play in understanding the dynamics of a boundaryless ecosystem through sympoiesis? Through the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer, it becomes possible to grasp what animates processes of sharing that occur in turbulent zones, along contours of openness and confluence between forces and materialities, expressing varying degrees of association or turbulence between organisms and ecosystems, and between the felling and stump removal of trees.
Calling on the Other
n the draft working text written by Thierry Bardini for the first edition of the Hexagram Interdisciplinary Encounters, he notes in a footnote the work of M. Beth L. Dempster and her master’s thesis (1998), completed at the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. At first glance, I paid little attention to it. The reference to Dempster [2] appeared fleetingly, relegated to a marginal note without immediate consequence.
Haraway (2016) later brought Dempster’s concept of sympoiesis into feminist theory, combining it with ontology and politics in remarkable ways (White & Wilbert, 2010, p. 12). For Haraway, sympoiesis is a call to sharing, wonder, and novel forms of association in the context of the sixth mass extinction. She advocates for other relationships, continuations, alliances, and multiple “naturecultures” emerging through multispecies and machinic experimentation.
Blurred Boundaries
Let us return to Dempster and the neologism she formulated in response to the concept of autopoiesis developed by Maturana and Varela (1980). Highly influential during the second wave of cybernetics, autopoiesis emphasizes the self-regulation and homeostasis of organisms, privileging a dynamic equilibrium between organism and ecosystem through constant adaptation to external conditions.
Dempster clarifies that the autonomy of an organism is not equivalent to independence from the larger system it inhabits (1998a, p. 4). According to her, the concept of boundarylessness is best understood through the complex processes of a whole that lacks fixed spatial or temporal boundaries. Yet this whole is not maintained as a unified entity. Rather, it consists of a dynamic web of interdependencies among components, processes, and influences that continually feed the complex system. This dynamic is constantly recomposed through mutual and interactive tensions between organism and ecosystem (2007, p. 94).
Dempster recognizes that the most controversial aspect of sympoiesis is precisely its characterization as “boundaryless.” Her approach is provocative. Without denying the existence of actual boundaries, she argues that we should question the prior assumption of boundaries as self-evident categories, which often produce artificial and binary distinctions. Sympoiesis thus becomes an alternative way of conceptualizing interactions among systems and rethinking dominant understandings of boundaries.
In this sense, Dempster seeks to renew the assumptions through which we think with phenomena capable of activating thought and action in relation to ecosystemic processes. Her provocation invites us to think beyond binary frameworks, even though she admits that her own proposal may itself be binary, having or not having boundaries.
If there are only two categories, if there is only black or white, what then of gray, that interstitial color composed between and through the polarities?
Dempster challenges conventional modes of categorization and hierarchical rational thought. Through her critique of autopoiesis, she encourages reflection on the complexity of relationships co-constructed with what is called the environment, particularly when the latter is reduced to a system of “inputs and outputs.” Thinking with the environment instead animates the forces at play, revealing a sympoiesis of collective and complex systems without boundaries.
From an autopoietic perspective, Dempster explains that when attention is directed toward a component such as a plant, tree, soil, or fungus, distinctions are necessarily required. These components sustain themselves through the continuous production of self-similar relations (1998a, p. 7). However, when we turn to the forest as an ecosystem rather than a component, the notion of boundary no longer holds. Dempster reaffirms the importance of emphasizing relations and interactions both among components and between components and systems (2007, p. 101).
Relationships open the possibility of becoming otherwise. Dempster’s contribution lies in highlighting what emerges between components and ecosystems, shifting attention away from the reproduction of the same.
A sympoietic system remains perpetually organizationally ajar to the action of difference; the boundaries of a system merge into one another (1998a, p. 8). Relations between autopoietic components and sympoietic systems are distributed, continuously co-constructed processes (1998a, p. 10). Such relations transform the spatial and temporal trajectories of both components and systems, contributing not to their reproduction but to their ongoing evolution.
Dempster defines a sympoietic system as “homeorhetic, evolutionary, distributively controlled, unpredictable and adaptive” (1998a, p. 1; our translation).
Here, the word unpredictable is particularly significant.
Dithering
Let us consider the diagram Dempster created to visually clarify the relationships she discusses.
Diagram from Dempster, B. (1999), Relinquishing Boundaries: Metaphors for Conceptualizing Institutional Systems. Waterloo: University of Waterloo, p. 21. Reproduced with the author’s permission.
Enlargement of Dempster’s diagram at 800%.
Her technique for visualizing the ecosystem relies on a circular gradient transitioning from a black center to a white background. One can detect differences in density between the center and the perimeter. The gradient tool produces a series of clearly delineated concentric rings in shades of gray that nest within one another while remaining distinct. The dithering function enhances the three-dimensional quality of an image on a flat surface by creating depth of field [3]. When activated, the software adds a small amount of “noise” to the gradient, improving the transitions between concentric rings. The resulting level of noise corresponds to a particular dithering option.
Recreation of a blurred boundary in image-processing software inspired by Dempster’s diagram.
Enlargement of the gradient process at 600%.
To visualize the relationship between organism and ecosystem and their varying degrees of openness and closure, Dempster skillfully chose a gradient-filled circle scattered with fragments, evoking an irregular or partial weave [4]. This gradient cleverly conveys the porous quality of sympoiesis in its openness to “noise,” that is, change or unpredictability.
The transition between black and white illustrates the importance of gray in coproducing the polarities in question. Moreover, by foregrounding the action of dithering (defined as being in two minds), whose synonyms include uncertainty, hesitation, wavering, and indecision, Dempster offers a powerful visual model for rethinking feedback loops through the contours of a gradient transformed by noise.
Between Bodies and Air Movements
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s work (2003) helped me better understand boundary zones through her discussion of mosses and their interaction with air, sunlight, rain, and wind. She describes three interrelated strata that enable mosses to live: the boundary layer near the ground, the turbulent zone directly above it, and the higher laminar flow zone where fluids move directionally with little resistance (2003, pp. 16-17).
Wall Kimmerer notes that every surface possesses a boundary layer, whether it is a leaf or a mountain. She recalls the experience of lying on the ground and gazing at the sky (2003, p. 17): the body occupies a zone where wind force is reduced. By contrast, when standing upright, the body becomes an obstacle around which air must flow. This difference resembles that between a rooted standing tree and a felled one.
As air encounters obstacles, friction develops between movement and surfaces. Air slows, creating turbulence. Higher up, within the laminar zone, air encounters fewer obstacles and moves more quickly and linearly.
Wall Kimmerer’s description of these three zones helped me establish correspondences with Dempster’s distinctions between organism and ecosystem. Near its own boundary, an organism’s self-production is maintained with relatively little variation. In the intermediate turbulent zone between organism and ecosystem, sympoietic sharing occurs: air brushes against bodies, generating friction through movement. Turbulence is precisely the action of a system capable of responding to multiple flows. At the broader scale of the atmosphere, these intermediary sympoietic processes regain relative stability. Dempster’s diagram makes it possible to visualize this turbulent activity between adjacent zones.
From Stump Removal to Ecosystem
A recent event led me to reconsider Dempster’s diagram and its resonance within physical environments. After seeing several large trees cut down and their stumps removed in a neighborhood park, I became aware of their long lives extending between underground networks, the soil, and the atmosphere.
From former verticality to horizontal and circular dispersion, what was once a tree and its autopoietic exchanges becomes the beginning of a new process activating the ecosystem. This “noise” transforms what had previously been the stability of the tree into a new site of transformation. [5]. The stump grinder produces wood chips that remind me of the fragmented patterning generated by digital dithering.
Stump removal
The gradient
Wood chips
Unexpected regrowth
Continuing Forward
The middle zone, the place and moment where all things and processes meet, becomes a space of shared agency and autonomy, a flexible boundary between organism and ecosystem. Autopoiesis and sympoiesis continually relaunch one another in this zone, through fragmentary patterns of gray or brown that connect them.
Dempster’s diagram and the stump removal of old trees helped me understand the “boundaryless” character of sympoiesis through an analysis of dithering as an operative concept. The complex disruptive actions of sympoiesis open bodies and environments to becoming-with through a limitless trembling.
Notes
Color photographs and dithering images: Gisèle Trudel
1 I discuss footnotes in order to highlight their unique capacity to open up new pathways for those who follow their lines of flight. Footnotes are often relegated to a secondary role, serving as anecdotes, parallel paths, complementary thoughts to be shared, or even as the opening of a new field offered as a gift or a distraction. The footnote drifts, and we follow it, although this remains a matter of chance. A footnote is enticing; it calls out to us. It can function like a hyperlink, allowing us to explore a certain expanse, to lose ourselves within it, to move along with the flow of thought, and to follow an unexpected new path. Footnotes shelter, and inhabit, an intermediate zone where new issues emerge through the contact between differences and their effective operation of sharing. [Back to text]
3 The process of dithering is also used in audio file compression.[Back to text]
4It should be noted that the quality of Dempster’s diagram has also been affected over time by image compression resulting from digitization and by digital file formats such as PDF. [Back to text]
5 Tree felling and stump removal may result from a variety of causes, including potentially destructive practices such as clear-cutting. [Back to text]
References
Dempster, M. Beth L. (1998). A Self-Organizing Systems Perspective on Planning for Sustainability. Waterloo: University of Waterloo. Master’s thesis in Environmental Studies.
Dempster, B. (1998a). Sympoietic and Autopoietic Systems: A New Distinction for Self-Organizing Systems. Waterloo: University of Waterloo.
Dempster, B. (1999). Relinquishing Boundaries: Metaphors for Conceptualizing Institutional Systems. Proceedings of the Parks Research Forum of Ontario (PRFO) Annual General Meeting. Waterloo: University of Waterloo.
Dempster, B. (2007). “Boundarylessness: Introducing a Systems Heuristic for Conceptualizing Complexity.” In Brown, C. S. and Toadvine, T. (Eds.), Nature’s Edge: Boundary Explorations in Ecological Theory and Practice. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Wall Kimmerer, R. (2003). Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press.
White, D. F., & Wilbert, C. (Eds.). (2010). Technonatures: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-First Century. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Biography
Gisèle Trudel is an artist and professor at UQAM’s School of Visual and Media Arts. She co-founded the Ælab research group with Stéphane Claude in 1996. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Arts, Ecotechnologies of Practice and Climate Change (2020-2025), through which she collaborates with scientists involved in the SmartForests program.
