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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

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“Luminal” as a planetary lens

By Sarah Houterman (6244505)

Mathijs Munnik was inspired by the “Ganzfeld chamber” and its ability to change museum visitors perspective and way they view the Earth. The “Ganzfeld chamber” and “Luminar” both strive to change the viewers perception of himself and the way they relate to the planet. This notion of changing to a planetary perspective is also what our curatorial event focusses on. We want our audience to become more aligned with the planet and this installation could help achieve this mission. Munnik is a 28-year-old Dutch artist born in Leeuwarden, Friesland. He studied at the Minerva art academy in Groningen and the art academy of the Hague. He was nominated for multiple awards for his installation work and did a residency at the prestigious Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam in 2015.[1] Munnik specialises in light installations but also in media and performance arts.[2] In his work the elements of light and sound play an important role. His immersive audio-visual installations allow for the spectator to get carried away into a world of Munnik’s making.[3] He creates sensory experiences of phenomena that normally are beyond our perception. With the Art & Space initiative Munnik strives to promote collaborations between artists and scientists that specialise in outer-space. For this he works with the ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology center) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Munnik strives to broaden his knowledge about electronics, astronomy and fluid dynamics. In terms of theory he wants to gain a better understanding of cybernetics.[4] The installation named “Luminal” was created in 2016 and was on display at the Fries museum in Leeuwarden in the exhibition “Phantom Limb”.[5] For this installation Munnik was inspired by the psychedelic effects of light and sound with which was experimented in the 1960s and 70s. Munnik sought to create a similar experience as the Ganzfeld chamber. This chamber was created in 1968 by artists Robert Irwin and James Turrell for NASA. After visiting this room people saw the real world with new eyes as if they were astronauts returning to Earth.[6] To recreate this effect Munnik developed his own lighting and colour system in a space without corners. The installation consists of a sound and light show inside a white cylindrical space. The cylinder was handcrafted and tailored to the specific space.[7] By climbing up three stairs the visitor walks on to a small wooden platform. The rainbow lights switch through an array of different shades accompanied by a high pitched sound. Due to the shape of the room in combination with the sound and lights it feels infinite. This feeling is intensified by the fact that only two visitors are allowed on the platform at the same time. When standing in the middle of the platform the visitor’s eyes are constantly adjusting to the changing light. The eyes are also seeking for a point to fix upon but fail due to the construction of the space. The ears are stimulated with a high-pitched sound, without words or rhythm. The combination of these three elements allows for a surreal and almost psychedelic experience. This foreign and slightly unsettling feeling stays with you for a period of time after you’ve left the chamber. It allows for you to look at the world through this “Luminal” lens.[8] “Luminal” is an example of how artists strive to change people’s perception and show them alternative ways of viewing the world. Much like the planetary lens adopting multiple perspective is key in understanding contemporary problems and can serve as a way to find solutions to issues we struggle with. The “Ganzfeld chamber” was an experiment that originated in the science sphere and crossed over into the arts. The “Ganzfeld Chamber” created by the Californian Light and Space movement, was conceptualised as a way to make visitors aware of their own visual experience One of the creators, James Turell, became an influential sound and light artist. With his work he strives to make light tangible.[9] In a way Munniks work does this as well, bringing about a change in perspective through the means of awareness. When we are aware of something it is easier to act upon it. Thus making a meaningful change is our viewpoint.

Footnotes:

[1] "Matthijs Munnik () | Resident." Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten. Accessed December 17, 2018. https://www.rijksakademie.nl/ENG/resident/matthijs-munnik/about. [2] "Matthijs Munnik - Stroom Den Haag." Www.haagsekunstenaars.nl. Accessed December 17, 2018. https://www.haagsekunstenaars.nl/cv/76013/Matthijs+Munnik. [3] DordtYart. "Matthijs Munnik." Centrum Voor Hedendaagse Kunst. Accessed December 17, 2018. http://dordtyart.nl/archief/sense_of_sound/matthijs_munnik. [4] "Matthijs Munnik." Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie. Accessed December 17, 2018. https://stimuleringsfonds.nl/nl/talentontwikkeling/matthijs_munnik/. [5] Winter, Agnes. "Sollen Met De Werkelijkheid - Phantom Limb in Het Fries Museum - Reviews." Metropolis M. Last modified August 5, 2018. https://www.metropolism.com/nl/reviews/35925_phantom_limb_fries_museum. [6] Exhibitiontext at ‘Phantom Limb’ in Fries museum. Leeuwarden. Consulted 15 December 2018. [7] "Stucwerk Voor Kunstwerk 'Luminal in Fries Museum." Jorritsma Bouw. Last modified February 8, 2018. https://www.jorritsmabouw.nl/stucwerk-kunstwerk-oneindigheid-fries-museum/. [8] S. Houterman, visiting “Phantom Limb” in the Fries museum, Leeuwarden, 15 December 2018. [9] "James Turrell." Kunstbus. Accessed January 22, 2019. https://www.kunstbus.nl/kunst/james+turrell.html.

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michaeldooney · 7 years

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Always keep learning - more #HolidayReading #MerryChristmas - How to write about contemporary art, #GildaWilliams @artforum @goldsmithsuol @sothebysinstitute. @artmonthly @thamesandhudson #AcademicEssay #CatalogueText #GalleryGuide #WallText #ExhibitionReview #AuctionCatalogue #MuseumWebsite #ArtBlog #ArtWriting @serpentineuk @tate @parkettart @artinamericamag @timeoutart #Handbook #Reference #ContemporaryArt #LittleRedBook #HowToWriteAboutContemporaryArt #HowToWrite #NeverStopLearning #AlwaysKeepLearning #StudyMaterial #ReferenceBook via Instagram http://ift.tt/2Dg7Qh3

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amygow-blog · 6 years

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The System of Stability (2016)

Sasha Litvintseva in collaboration with Isabel Mallet

Film / 17 min / 2016

Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URodDlzjM1Q&t=3s & https://vimeo.com/168080539

By Amy Gowen

The System of Stability by Sasha Litvintseva, 2016

Artist, researcher, and curator Sasha Litvintseva’s uses film, lecture and text to explore the theory of geological filmmaking. Such filmmaking contemplates the uncertain thresholds of human/nonhuman, inside/outside and visible/invisible through the intersections of media, ecology, history and science in an attempt to challenge typical human-centric narratives. Through geological filmmaking, understood as a form of “experimentation, imaginative invention, and radical thinking,”[1] The System of Stability is key to the aim of this exhibition, to initiate creative, perceptual and philosophical shifts in cognition in order to offer new ways of comprehending ourselves and our relation to the world.

Sasha’s project of Geological Filmmaking includes a larger body of works that each focus on the relationship between humans, non-humans and their direct environments. Through this she engages with the limits of current Anthropocentric narratives by entangling human voice and agency with other geological matter including the likes of volcanic rock faces, desert sinkholes and molecules of poisonous Asbestos in the atmosphere, with a view of engaging with the in/visible power structures at play between humans and non-humans.

The System of Stability by Sasha Litvintseva, 2016

The System of Stability in particular acts as an encounter with the landscape on its own terms, where the inorganic takes the narrative lead, commanding the attention of the viewer. The film is divided into three parts, the opening animation and voiceover is of a mathematical point, a single white dot against a black background. The point narrates itself through a monologue that describes its transition from nothingness to existence, inviting its audience to contemplate the lives of matter we typically assume to have little or no agency. The middle section builds on this notion and is composed of mostly static frames of the rocky terrain of the volcanic island of Lanzarote, accompanied by an intrusive and jarring score that reflects the power and omnipresence of the landscapes on screen. Finally a closing scene of the landscape in motion is accompanied by a new narrator, one that is positioned clearly from a human perspective - we see the landscape from a moving car as the camera “blinks” to mimic human sight. The landscape moves by at increasing speed as the human narration begins to contribute to the loss of subjectivity that the film evokes. After having lived on Earth for millions if not billions of years, the rocks we see on screen help narrate quite different stories about the world than the ones told by human beings, making it clear that it is not the human who exerts the dominant voice within this film, cuing us to consider that the living planet is not only for us.

Litvintseva takes inspiration from critic and filmmaker Jean Epstein who wrote in 1923 that “if we wish to understand how an animal, a plant or a stone can inspire respect, fear and horror - those three most sacred sentiments - I think we must watch them on the screen, living their mysterious, silent lives, alien to the human sensibility.”[2] In The System of Stability the camera eye is in essence non-human, unburdened by the knowledge and meaning of the objects it captures, therefore granting it the ability to represent other nonhuman agencies. Sasha states that through her geological filmmaking she is “trying to visually disrupt the hierarchies governing relations between subject and object, nature and culture – the dichotomies inherited from modernity that have not served us well.”[3] From this her theory of filmmaking can be understood as a visual strategy for the Anthropocene in order to think and feel on geologic scales and time frames that incorporate the other-than-human as much as the human, in doing so The Stability of the System probes into the vibrancy of matter and the creative agency of nonliving things.

The System of Stability by Sasha Litvintseva, 2016

This is a key work within Planetary Awareness for Earthlings in a Post-global Age as Sasha Litvintseva successfully challenges our current unconscious dependence upon globalist, anthropocentric perspectives and frameworks. Described as depicting a “quiet catastrophe,”[4] the film attempts to test preconceived attitudes through the (re)thinking of ideas such as natureculture, non-human agency and deep time to encourage an increased planetary vision of a world which portrays multiple perspectives, as well as illustrating an alternative frameworks that can acknowledge the ecosystem of the living planet. Through such a narrative reframing, we witness the entanglement of human and non-human agencies to produce a more nuanced, emphatic and layered perspective, aiding in our aim to (re)member, (re)shape and (re)join our relationship with the living planet. Moving away from the human-centric and towards the Planetary perspective.

References:

[1] "Sasha Litvintseva Texts." Sasha Litvintseva. Accessed December 21, 2018. https://www.sashalitvintseva.com/gftext.

[2] Transformations Journal – Transformations Journal of Media, Culture & Technology. Accessed December 21, 2018. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Trans30_03_mulvogue.pdf.

[3] "Visual Strategy for the Anthropocene." INRUSSIA. Accessed December 21, 2018. http://inrussia.com/visual-strategy-for-the-anthropocene.

[4] Transformations Journal – Transformations Journal of Media, Culture & Technology. Accessed December 21, 2018. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Trans30_03_mulvogue.pdf.

Further Reading:

http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Trans32_7_litvintseva.pdf

http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Trans30_03_mulvogue.pdf

http://inrussia.com/visual-strategy-for-the-anthropocene

https://culturetechnologypolitics.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/sonic-acts-essay-compressed.pdf

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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

Text

The System of Stability (2016)

Sasha Litvintseva in collaboration with Isabel Mallet

Film / 17 min / 2016

Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URodDlzjM1Q&t=3s & https://vimeo.com/168080539

By Amy Gowen

The System of Stability by Sasha Litvintseva, 2016

Artist, researcher, and curator Sasha Litvintseva’s uses film, lecture and text to explore the theory of geological filmmaking. Such filmmaking contemplates the uncertain thresholds of human/nonhuman, inside/outside and visible/invisible through the intersections of media, ecology, history and science, in an attempt to challenge typical human-centric narratives. Through its geological filmmaking form of “experimentation, imaginative invention, and radical thinking,”[1] The System of Stability initiates creative, perceptual and philosophical shifts in cognition that offer new ways of comprehending ourselves and our relation to the world.

The System of Stability by Sasha Litvintseva, 2016

References:

[1] "Sasha Litvintseva Texts." Sasha Litvintseva. Accessed December 21, 2018. https://www.sashalitvintseva.com/gftext.

[3] "Visual Strategy for the Anthropocene." INRUSSIA. Accessed December 21, 2018. http://inrussia.com/visual-strategy-for-the-anthropocene.

Bibliography & Further Reading:

-Transformations Issue 32 (2018), Geological Filmmaking: Seeing Geology Through Film and Film Through Geology, pp.107-124

-Transformations Issue 30 (2018), Catastrophe Aesthetics: the moving image and the mattering of the world, pp.40-55

-“Visual Strategy for the Anthropocene.” INRUSSIA. Accessed January 20, 2019. http://inrussia.com/visual-strategy-for-the-anthropocene.

- Screen and Audiovisual Research Unit. Accessed January 20, 2019 https://culturetechnologypolitics.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/sonic-acts-essay-compressed.pdf

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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

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D A R K M O U N T A I N: Issue 9

Merel Overgaag – 3997405

To be humble means to lay oneself low, but also to be grounded, to return to the solid and material.[1] Dark Mountain: Issue 9 – The Editors

The Dark Mountain Project is a collective of creative writers that has been on a planetary mission since 2009. The collective uses the medium of storytelling to challenge the meta-narratives of our societies, that they conceive as myths. They call them ‘the myth of progress, of human-centeredness and of the separation between human and nature’.[2] In this exhibition you find Dark Mountain: Issue 9, a book release from spring 2016 of the Dark Mountain Project. In no less than 300 pages, we are taken on a poetic, literary and intellectual journey into humbleness.

The term humble is derived from the Latin word humus, which means ‘earth’. Humbling then would be a process of grounding down; of realizing that the human self is not the sacred supreme being we ought ourselves to be. However, the artists do not point fingers nor scream of urgency. Instead, by taking on an open and explorative approach, they are on the horizon of raising planetary awareness. In this sense, both The Dark Mountain Project as well as this issue’s topic lie at the heart of our exhibition.

In the category of fictional storytelling, the book offers A Good Place by Kathrine Sowerby. This multi-species fairy tale-like story counts no more than six sentences, and feels like a reminiscences of forest life and human-animal relationships.[3] A writing by Andrea Hejlskov hints towards a certain melancholia that is sensible in our fast-changing societies. In The Loss of Function, Hejlskov speaks of several forms of extinction. Besides the extinction of wild life, our globalizing world also causes certain social roles to fade, such as that of the nomadic female storyteller and the advisory wise elder.[4] Hejlskov has personally chosen to embrace the planetary, by living in primitive wilderness since about eight years.[5]

More in essay-form is Over Yonder Horror by poet, editor and prison tutor Em Strang. Strang carefully explores the question of ‘what does it mean to bear witness to the suffering of others?’ In a search for meaning, she moves from arguments of activism and responsibility, onto Buddhist perspectives of deeply accepting the unchangeable things in our world. Strang concludes that the goal- and solution-oriented ways of responding that characterize Western culture are withholding her form understanding and emotionally processing the atrocities of today’s world.[6] This thought is close to the planetary approach, in that it implies abstraction from globalist frames of thought as a way to deal with global issues.

Furthermore, in Complexity and its Opposite – an adaption of his most recent book The Myth of Human Supremacy - Derrick Jensen offers a philosophical critique in the spirit of critical animal studies and posthumanism. Through empirical evidence and philosophical argumentation Jensen points out to the intelligence of nature. He emphasizes how supremacist thought and fear refrains humans from realizing nature’s intelligence and from developing language skills to communicate with multiple life forms.[7] In this light, Jensen’s work serves as a reminder that in order to raise planetary awareness through an artistic pursuit, participants must both be willing and able to become Planetwary in the first place.

Halfway throughout the book follow several evocative paintings from different artists. Kate Williamson’s intuitive painting Soft Rain relates to the more subtle power of nature, that influences humans in intangible ways.[8] Rebecca Clark’s All Will Be One plays with organic geometry, depicting states of transformation in the cycle of life and death of a leaf.[9] Andrew Phillips Blood of the Earth-series uses primary colors and the physicality of mountains to depict a ‘bloody earth’. The work hints towards the rich mysteries of both life creation and the inevitable processes of decay. As the red soil becomes ‘the record of everything which has failed to live forever, a physical embodiment of deep history,’ [10] Philip’s work reveals the planetary from a historical and evolutionary perspective.

Dark Mountain: Issue 9 acknowledges as no other the immense role of storytelling and narration in exploring the planetary. However, its ambition is not to enfold a universal true tale of our world. Rather, the artists hope to come up with stories that seem more honest and just responses to the increasing effects of climate change, alienation and mass extinction. Besides, the book serves as a reminder that integral to being Planetwary is to obtain an attitude of humbleness. Both the theme as well as the approach lead this publication to a central place in our exhibition. A place that is perhaps more prominent and outstanding than its humble makers might accept.

Footnotes

[1] Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain: Issue 9 (Croydon: Dark Mountain Project 2016, 2016), 2.

[2] Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, "About the Dark Mountain Project," Dark Mountain, accessed December 21, 2018, https://dark-mountain.net.

[3] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 43.

[4] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 44-48.

[5] Andrea Hejlskov, "The Forest Life," Andrea Hejlskov, last modified August 21, 2018, https://andreahejlskov.com/the-forest-life/.

[6] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 74-83.

[7] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 90-101.

[8] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 123.

[9] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 122.

[10] Hine and Kingsnorth, Dark Mountain, 124-125.

Bibliography

Hejlskov, Andrea. "The Forest Life." Andrea Hejlskov. Last modified August 21, 2018. https://andreahejlskov.com/the-forest-life/.

Hine, Dougald, and Paul Kingsnorth. "About the Dark Mountain Project." Dark Mountain. Accessed December 21, 2018. https://dark-mountain.net.

Hine, Dougald, and Paul Kingsnorth. Dark Mountain: Issue 9. Croydon: Dark Mountain Project 2016, 2016.

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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

Text

Forest Law (2014)

Ursula Biemann & Paulo Tavares 2-channel video installation, maps, documents, objects, publication

Nicole Horgan

Forest Law (2014) is an exemplary illustration of the artist, researcher and video essayist Ursula Biemann’s pluralistic practice which examines and confronts planetary concerns such as asymmetries of wealth, unequal ecological exchange and climate change by interweaving experimental video, interview, text, photography, cartography and materials. For this particular piece Biemann collaborated with architect and urbanist Paulo Tavares, whose own practice deals with the visual and spatial politics of territorial conflicts and climate change in the Amazon and other frontiers across the third world. Through Forest Law’s two-channel video installation and accompanying documentation including publications, photographs, maps and wall texts, Biemann and Tavares broach the frontiers of the Ecuadorian rainforest to bring to light the work of indigenous lawyers and experts whose work in amending the country’s constitution led to the establishment of fundamental rights to natural eco-systems.

Where the Amazon floodplains meet the Andean mountains, the Ecuadorian rainforest is not only home to indigenous nations and great ethnocultural diversity but also one of the most biodiverse and resource-rich regions of our planet. It is also as a result under extreme pressure from large-scale mineral and oil extraction and exploitation, despite the region being considered the sovereign land of indigenous nations. Forest Law focuses on a series of landmark legal battles held in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights where claims were made for the rights of nature in the face of this thereat of human destruction. A pertinent case that is included within the piece was won by the Sarayaku people, whose legal argument centred on the centrality of the ‘living forest’ in their community’s cosmology, modes of being and ecological survival. For the Sarayaku people, nature is not a passive background against which our human political and economic disputes play out, but instead should be an active legal subject bearing rights of its own. Forest Law brings together various narrative voices to re-tell these cases through personal testimonies and by mapping the historical, political and ecological dimensions of the trials. By doing so, the Forest Law enters into a conversation concerning the entanglements between a plethora of pertinent issues and conflicts such as environmentalism, post-colonialism, social justice, and of the human and the post-human.

Biemann and Tavares’ theoretical intervention narrates a changing planetary reality while figuring and reconfiguring human-planetary relations. Throughout Forest Law, Biemann and Tavares refer to Michel Serres’ text Natural Contract in which he proposes that humans should adhere to a contract with the Earth and its other inhabitants ‘in restitution for and recognition of climate change’. Echoing Donna Harraway’s multi-species concept, the interlocutors within Forest Law imbue this ‘natural contract’ by espousing a move away from an anthropocentric point of view towards a geocentric one in which an approach of radical connectedness serves to deconstruct the hegemonic notion of the human and promotes a unique model of equality. Further to this, in Jennifer Gabrys’ compelling text Becoming Planetary she posits the forest as a form of planetary media on account of it acting as a proxy that records and registers the effects of climate change. For Gabrys, the forest has the potential to enact a crucial role in transforming human-planetary relations as ‘it at once resists a universal and singular view, while also bringing into focus a multiplicity of subjects and inhabitations’. This notion of the forest as a site through which planetary inhabitations are manifested is particularly powerful when one considers the rendering of the forest as a physical, legal and cosmological entity in the cases represented in Forest Law.

Crucially, Forest Law urges us to reconsider our position in the world and of being with the planet. One could argue that the Sarayaku and other narrators featured within Forest Law embody the planet-wary; their planetary perspective is manifest through a greater capacity for empathy and response-ability for our living planet and has resulted in a direct and active confrontation of the dominate globalist and problematic political frameworks.

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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

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The Dark Mountain Manifesto

Catalogue Text by Janne de Kock After both quitting their jobs as esteemed journalists, Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine decided to join forces and create a platform on which new (and different, and better) stories could be invented. Having both a history as serious environmental activists, they foresaw that in order to come close to a possibility of solving environmental issues, it was crucial and instrumental to first clearly see the kind of thinking and acting that created these issues. They resigned from their activists’ activities, and put their focus on the disentangling of our civilization’s stories. The result of their initial findings is presented in Uncivilization: The Dark Mountain Manifesto.

The publishing of the Dark Mountain Manifesto in 2009 counted as the official start of the Dark Mountain Project. Where most artistic manifestos imply the notion of a dogmatic standpoint, the Dark Mountain Project uses it as their starting point towards further development. The manifesto ultimately stools upon eight principles, but if there is any dogma contained within, it is the questioning of the stories our culture is telling itself. The authors have named this ongoing process of questioning uncivilisation: a twofold enterprise where artists raze the beliefs upon which our civilization is built to the ground, and create new stories from the soil of this cultural debris.

The manifesto is a first example of this uncivilisation. It puts forward several myths on which contemporary (Western) society is built, of which the most important one is the denial of the existence of myths. The authors define a myth not as a lie, or as a fiction, but as a founding narrative: a myth is a way in which we look at the world. Humans have become to believe in the myth of science, where the outcome of scientific research is regarded as ‘the truth’. The authors are not denying the relevance of science, they are simply emphasizing its functioning as a founding narrative.

Uncivilisation and the Planet-wary The motif of a dark mountain symbolizes ‘the great, immovable, inhuman heights which were here before us and will be here after.’[1] By learning the prevailing human myths, and consciously unlearning them (i.e. by uncivilizing), we will re-realize our unconditional connection with planet Earth. In other words: we will become Planet-wary. By uncivilizing, we will reach these ‘dark mountains’ and ‘from their slopes we shall look back upon the pinprick lights of the distant cities and gain perspective on who we are and what we have become.’[2] As we loosen our grip on the frame of civilization, we become more and more rooted into the soil of Earth: uncivilisation and the Planet-wary go hand in hand.

As the first of the eight principles which bring the manifesto to a close, goes:‘We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.’[3] The Mountaineers don’t want to ‘solve’ our ecological crises if it means we try to come up with more sustainable sources of natural power to use for the enhancement of the human species. They are not trying to blame anybody (but acknowledge that everybody is to blame) for causing current environmental crises. Instead, they accept the consequences of the anthropocene, and root for a new way of living on (not working with) planet Earth as it is today.

The curation of the Planet-wary centres around the art of invitation and its resulting encounters.[4] The Dark Mountain Project is one of the art projects that develops an (un)learning process - as it unfolds. It focuses on the art of reframing and acknowledges the absolute necessity of a new language. The manifesto in that sense counts as an example of an exercise in unlearning (or uncivilizing, as the authors would say). Because it emphasizes the importance of new communications, and because the original object that goes as the manifesto is the text (not the print), it will not be conventionally displayed as a book. Instead, visiting the Dark Mountain Exhibition is an immersive experience where the visitor finds himself dwelling in Augmented Reality unspoiled natural landscapes, where the principles of the Dark Mountain Manifesto will present themselves in literal (as the displayment of text) and metaphorical form. The latter implies that the visitor is challenged to discern the myths of the exhibition space and encouraged to perform the uncivilisation.

Under intellectual guidance of Kingsnorth and Hine, the Dark Mountain Project developed into a network of artists, writers, poets and thinkers. Since the publication of the manifesto in 2009, they have published periodicals in which its contributors (‘Mountaineers,’ as they are called) keep uncivilising via essays, artistic images and poetry.

References [1] Kingsnorth and Higins, “Dark Mountain Manifesto,” 14. [2] Ibidem. [3] Kingsnorth and Higins, 15. [4] See also our Curatorial Vision & Mission Statement: https://thinkingartsandsocieyii.tumblr.com/tagged/curatorialvision .

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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

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CITY ASTRONAUT – Marjolijn van Heemstra

Fiep Nijhof (5551315)

“If we want to save our planet we have to live like astronauts, said astronaut Wubbo Ockels on his deathbed.” This quote is from the introduction text of Marjolijn van Heemstra’s new performance City Astronaut (Stadsastronaut). “Astronauts say we need to zoom out. Seeing what we are and what we have to lose gives us the perspective that we currently lack.” Marjolijn van Heemstra describes herself as a “writer, poet, theatre maker, columnist, sometimes journalist but preferably a combination of all that,” and she also says she is a fan of astronauts.[1] Most of her performances are described as documentary theatre, as van Heemstra often makes the theatre a stage for her research. Her latest work confirms this: in 2017, van Heemstra made a performance where she analyses the Dutch children’s book Crusade in Jeans by Thea Beckman. In that same year, she made the performance Zohre, where she discusses Dutch refugee issues together with Zohre, her Afghan friend.

The performance City Astronautcan be seen as a report about an astronaut training program van Heemstra developed for earth residents. She created a lifestyle in which earth residents live like astronauts and tested this with neighbors in an old neighborhood in Amsterdam. VanHeemstra made the performance City Astronautto explain how concerned she is about our future world. During the performance, her idea is to “find a manual for the future”together with space-specialists, futurologists and science fiction.[2] Because of light pollution we are unable to see the universe and the stars as we used to see it a few decades ago. She explains in a Dutch journal that her search to this manual for the future is a reaction to this view we lost of the universe. [3] In an interview with Annemiek Schrijver for the Dutch TV show De Verwondering, Marjolijn van Heemstra explains she wants people to look from an astronaut’s perspective in order to save the earth. She says: “there are already a lot of people attempting to save the world by living differently. An astronaut’s perspective could help with that. We should zoom out, see the planet and understand what that is.” City Astronaut explores this perspective.

Inspiration

In the De Verwondering, van Heemstra also explains that, in order to reach the astronaut’s perspective, “you must be willing to lose your own perspective.” Van Heemstra finds inspiration in a letter written by president Jimmy Carter in 1977.[4] Carter suggests life on other “inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations.”[5] He addresses his letter to species we have not yet met, writing: “we hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations.”[6] Van Heemstra explains this letter was sent into space together with recordings of “hello” in two hundred different languages and with pictures of human civilization (a little girl eating an ice cream for example). She admires the way Carter looks at the planetary; losing his own perspective in order to see a possibility of life outside of our own world. This letter literally moves beyond the global – to look for life in the planetary.

Other work

In addition to De Verwondering, Marjolijn van Heemstra made other work that reveal her interest in other perspectives to look at the world. In her podcast Sør, she talks about the times she went to secondary school in Rotterdam. The podcast discusses how her history teacher Ronald Sørensen inspired her at the time. She illustrates this on the basis of a specific memory where Sørensen says to his pupils: “if you always only look out of this specific window in this classroom, you will never see the entire reality. If you really want to know what our reality is like, you have to change your position regularly.”[7] Van Heemstra explains she sees this statement as a way to look at life; a way to relate to the other and a way to look at our future world.

Van Heemstra also developed a project in Rotterdam, called RASA – the Rotterdam Academy for City Astronauts. This is an initiative of van Heemstra with Christiaan Fruneaux and Edwin Gardner from Monnik, an organization that “assists storytellers and innovators with speculative worldbuilding.”[8] The RASA academy's guideline is the overview effectthat occurs at a large number of astronauts who look at the Earth from space. Many of them experience an overwhelming sense of connection with and responsibility for our earth.[9] RASA organizes events for and about astronauts, such as lectures and performances in the city of Rotterdam.

[1]Marjolijn van Heemstra is schrijver en theatermaker. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.marjolijnvanheemstra.nl

[2]Stadsastronaut - Marjolijn van Heemstra

[3]Marjolijn van Heemstra. Zonder uitzicht op het heelal is de mens opgesloten in een zelfgemaakte wereld. | Trouw. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.trouw.nl/samenleving/zonder-uitzicht-op-het-heelal-is-de-mens-opgesloten-in-een-zelfgemaakte-wereld~abcef8d8/?fbclid=IwAR2pAzxrXJtCPAE72Gcpgakp1rau-6POzjjZ8HUJI2LkNE2ZJfqI1EomvVE

[4]Voyager Spacecraft Statement by president Jimmy Carter, 29 juli 1977

[5]Marjolijn van Heemstra - De Verwondering [Video file]. (2018, October 21). Retrieved from https://www.kro-ncrv.nl/deverwondering/seizoenen/seizoen-2018/marjolijn-van-heemstra

[6]Ibidem

[7]Sør. Deel I [Podcast] (2018, August 3). Retrieved from https://www.sordepodcast.nl/afleveringen/2018/7/31/deel-i

[8]About Monnik – Monnik. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.monnik.org/about/?lang=en

[9]Toekomstlab #4 | Overzichtseffect | BrabantKennis. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.brabantkennis.nl/activiteit/toekomstlab-4-overzichtseffect-1

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planetaryawarenessproject · 6 years

Text

Getting Down and Dirty with Mother Earth: naturalization through ecosexuality

By Claire van der Mee

“WE ARE THE ECOSEXUALS.

The Earth is our lover. We are madly, passionately, and fiercely in love, and we are grateful for this relationship each and every day. In order to create a more mutual and sustainable relationship with the Earth, we collaborate with nature. We treat the Earth with kindness, respect and affection”. [1]

Dirt Bed is the title of a performance that took place in 2012 in Grace Exhibition Space in New York. Artistic collaborators and lovers, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, explore the ways sexology and ecology intersect through performance art and visual installations. The two artists were participants during Documenta 2017 where they contributed multiple works, including cuddling performances in bed, public actions on the streets of Athens, and an Ecosex walking tour in Kassel. Stephens and Sprinkle not only figuratively embrace the planetary, they literally embrace the planet-(ary) with outstretched arms and open legs by participating in acts of love with the elements of the Earth. They have even gone so far as to marry these elements. Over the course of seven years, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have pledged their love to the Appalachian Mountains, the sea in Venice, the coal in Spain, Lake Kallavesi in Finland, the moon, and the sun through their public wedding rituals.[2]Their artistic displays of public affection, which reach beyond the human body and seep into the components that constitute our planet, transform our attitudes towards the things around us. How deep is our love if it can plummet beyond the human into the darkest crevices of a lake or when the sky truly is the limit? How are movements such as ecosexuality and ecoqueerness changing the way we perceive our planet?

Through these performative acts, this artistic duo leads the participant-observer into a meta-narrative. “Sprinkle and Stephens’s ecosex workshops and actions are laboratories for the transformation of subjectivity.”[3] Within the frameworks of art one accepts the coyness of the project and may take on the role that is presented to them; the free spirited lover whose love knows no boundaries. Sprinkle’s and Stephens’ esthetics are camp and they are queer in their sexual orientation as well as in the definition of the word, in a non-conventional sense. Due to these playful expressions the members of the audience approach the act as a spectacle, a glittery festivity that invites them to step into a comedy about radical love-expression. Yet it this radical ‘pretending’ that dislocates us from our initial notion of the elements around us. The audience is seduced into a new perspective and relationship with the natural.

This transition into ‘the natural’ is of an intersectional nature. As you explore the sexual urges within your body and learn to extend them beyond the gender binaries, you also learn to reach beyond the binary of affinity between two human bodies. Eco-queerness criticizes the ‘naturalness’ assigned to peoples’ genders and sexuality[4]and as a reaction the movement queers nature. The ‘natural order of things’ is re-ordered through Sprinkle’s and Stephens’ radical acts as the audience is encouraged to ‘come to their senses’ by invoking sensuality and focusing on sensitization. As Joshua Sbicca writes:

“By taking a more fluid and spatial approach to understanding the makeup of the eco-queer movement, I have found that ideas, symbols, and discourse matter as much as the materiality of space.” [5] In Dirt Bed different ingredients compose the sexual or loving act: the earth (the dirt), the bed, the people lying in the bed and covered in earth, the voyeurs in the room, the room itself and the objects contributing to the atmosphere (for example the candles) are all presenting this deed.

Sprinkle and Stephens lure the audience into a reality where the relationships between people and Earth are not bound by human-centric scripts. While we as curators encourage you to “undertake a cognitive shift with us, to test and perhaps jump into the water”[6]this collaborative-duo actually jumps into the water in an act of collectively raising our planetary awareness. Their gestures are bold, yet tender: intertwining language and matter, spreading human rights onto the non-human, guiding us in our relation towards nature through ethos and subjectivity. Ecosexuality and eco-queerness are provocative and arouse sensitivity in our thinking about earthly elements. Sprinkle’s and Stephens’ movements allow us to step over the threshold of binaries, of the human/non-human, male/female, subject/object, nature/culture, and help us to grasp that our interactions are constituent elements of that what we call planet Earth.

[1]From the home page of Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens website: http://sexecology.org/

[2]http://sexecology.org/ecosex-weddings/

[3]Preciado, Paul B. “Documenta 14: Daybook” 2017. https://www.documenta14.de/en/artists/13487/annie-sprinkle-and-beth-stephens

[4]To read more about ‘naturalness’ being attributed to gender and sexuality read: Butler, J. “Undoing gender”. 2012. New York, NY: Routledge.

[5]Sbicca, Joshua. “Eco-queer movement(s) Challenging heteronormative space through (re)imagining nature and food” 2012. University of Florida, USA

[6]https://thinkingartsandsocieyii.tumblr.com/tagged/curatorialvision

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