The Water Runs Through Us Experimental Water Filtration Systems and Practices

Think back to an experience in your life you shared with water. Were you caught in the rain? Swimming in the ocean? Walking on a frozen lake?

Technology is only part of the answer to our challenges with water. What’s missing is our relationship with water. How will life change as our relationship to water transforms? How might our participation in urban hydrology nudge society toward an ecological balance? How can we be radical dreamers of utopia while keeping our feet on the ground, or in the water, as it may be?

This book shares the story of organic water filtration systems and other practices relating to water at Floating University Berlin. The manuscript flows through strategies and manuals, oral histories and infrastructures concerning the four main types of water filtered on site: rainwater, basin water, blackwater, and the many shades of greywater. Embedded in the literary representation of Floating University’s public pedagogy, this text collection includes artifacts of seminars, workshops, performances, practices, and discussions that ruminate on our position in the water cycle.