Invited as part of the PhD programme in »Art and Design«, Prof. Rachel Armstrong and Prof. Rolf Hughes (Design, Artistic Research, Experimental Architecture at KU Leuven) will offer an artistic research presentation titled »Soil Dialogues«, in which they explore art and design contributions to the sourcing of knowledge and experiences in the realm of soil and earthly materialities.
Date:
Saturday, 2 April 2022, 18 h
Location:
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Fakultät Kunst und Gestaltung
Van-de-Velde-Bau, room 116
Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 7
99423 Weimar
And online via BBB: https://meeting.uni-weimar.de/b/ale-xol-4hp-99u
That was the year the founder took a long spoon from his pocket, plunged it into the earth and scooped a spoonful of organic matter into his mouth. He chewed for a few, silent moments then spat the dirt onto the ground.
»Bitter! By the time we leave this site it will taste of magic.«
This presentation offers a series of provocations and case studies specific to the realm of our soils. There is not just one kind of soil, but many different types, which form giant bodies that are permeated with liquid life and are teeming with living systems and creatures. They reach down deep into the physics and chemistry of Earth’s planetary system, occupying the interface between air, water, ground, biology, the land and chemistry.
Soil is not unalive. It is a mixture of broken rock, pollen, fungal filaments, ciliate cysts, bacterial spores, nematodes and other microscopic animals and their parts. ‘Nature,’ Aristotle observed, ‘proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation.’ Independence is a political, not a scientific, term.i (Margulis, and Sagan, 1995, pp.19–20)
Drawing on storytelling, poetry, performance, experiment, exploration and discovery through the soil, the contributions of art and design to this realm are explored via diverse subjects such as, ecology, composting, relationships, nature, spaceships, kinship, ethics, monsters, “unspeakable dialogues”, and magic. Taking a geostoricalii perspective, we invite a re-reading of the incredible creativity of the natural world starting with its building blocks. Performed by non-human agents for most of Earth’s existence, we look for opportunities to engage with the countless creative events that have shaped the world’s unique materiality, and made possible our ‘breathable’ atmospheres, unruly dirts, and life-giving oceans. By paying care and attention to these elemental fabrics we may yet engage with modes of dwelling capable of re-enlivening and re-enchanting the world.
ABOUT RACHEL ARMSTRONG
Senior TED Fellow and Professor of Regenerative Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture | Department of Architecture, Campus Sint-Lucas, Ghent/Brussels, KU Leuven Rachel Armstrong, researches the inner life of »things« seen and unseen and experiments with the very stuff of life to ask how we may design and build our world differently.
Armstrong is a Rising Waters II Fellow with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (April-May 2016), Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and a 2010 Senior TED Fellow. She was coordinator for the EU Living Architecture and Active Living Infrastructure: Controlled Environment (ALICE) projects, which are worlding elements within Project Persephone, part of the Icarus Interstellar group portfolio of work that aims to construct a starship research platform in Earth’s orbit within a hundred years. Persephone takes an alternative approach to environmental design within the vessel that couples the computational properties of the natural world with the productivity of soils. She calls the synthesis that occurs between these systems and their inhabitants »living« architecture.
ABOUT ROLF HUGHES
Prose poet and Professor of the Epistemology of Design-Led Research at the Faculty of Architecture | Department of Architecture, Campus Sint-Lucas, Ghent/Brussels, KU Leuven, Rolf Hughes weaves disciplines, ideas and experiments together to explore how the world and our senses are entangled through conjuring the conversations of monsters.
Hughes is a disciplinary nomad, actively promoting innovative forms of artistic and transdisciplinary research over the past twenty years. He has been expert advisor for artistic research at the Swedish Research Council, the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, and the Austrian Programme for Arts-based Research (PEEK); Guest Professor in Design Theory and Practice-Based Research at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (2006–2014); Senior Professor in Research Design at Sint-Lucas School of Architecture (KU-Leuven, Belgium), where he helped create and develop an international, design-led PhD. programme (2007–2013).
He has also served two terms as Vice President of the international Society for Artistic Research (elected by the SAR membership 2011-2013, unanimously re-elected 2013–2015). Hughes is Persephone’s official poet and the first ever space poet. He holds a First Class degree in English and Related Literature (University of York), an MA (with Distinction) in Creative Writing and the first ever PhD. in Creative and Critical Writing funded by the British Academy from the University of East Anglia, UK. With Rachel Armstrong, he is co-founder of the research group Regenerative Architecture, Arts and Design (RAAD), a third millennium experimental research laboratory. Storytelling through performing arts remains central to his endeavour to link diverse forms of experience, expertise, and knowledge.
This event takes place as part of the Ph.D. programme »Art and Design« at the Faculty of Art and Design.
i Margulis, L., & Sagan, D. (1997). Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution. London: University of California
Press, pp.19–20)
ii Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climactic Regime. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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