COLLECTIVE
SURFACE //
terraforming bodies
We consider us as humans independant from our environment, our planet and all species living in it. We are disconnected from the fact that we are part of it and see ourselves in this world, but not with this world, which seems to serve us. Our extracting behaviour towards the environment from which we think we are detached, points to a deconstructed and catastrophic future - a human-made future. The notion of considering ourselves detached from our environment is challenged in this speculative project, in which our bodies become the shelter of our environment - terraforming bodies.
Living off vs/plus living with the world.
Made by which humans - global, social, red as what?
Terraforming or terraformation is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on.
POPULATION
PLANETARY HEALTH
Deconstruction and exploitation are driving forces for both environmental decay and increases in human well-being. One result is overpopulation and general wealth, which in turn consume more resources. One advantage, however, is the size of the population, which provides more bodies as surface area - a kind of surface enlargement of humanity. More people means more surface and a collective motion.
Sounds like quite an economic term similar to the graph to the right. How can we talk about "populations" in numbers without lossing the emotional connection? Should a graph be allowed to stand alone or always in combination with a graph thats covering other aspects?
The graph is inspired by Lotka–Volterra equations, also known as the predator–prey equations.
The soil is dead. The air is sticky. No planetary resource is intact, and everything is motionless but the human bodies. The human motion supplies a wearable technology that makes human life possible in these dystopian circumstances - suits created from the waste of a forgotten industry that makes planetary resources useful to us again and purify them. Soil is made fertile, air is filtered and dirty water is cleaned through condensation.
WORLDBUILDING
What even is considered a resource? Where is the re- in resource?
The human bodies as moving collective surface enlargements wear a technology that unites them as an organism where everyone is dependent on each other. The technology is tackling the lack of natural resources. A constant exchange of cleaned resources enables not only survival, but also the long mission to make the earth habitable without a suit again.
A utopian human exchange behaviour within the symbiosis of each human community is created within a dystopian environment. A world is created in which the human is not detached from the environment, but the human body becomes the shelter for it, it becomes terraformed. A sacrifice to be made.
The projected world is highly unstable and forces people to work together in groups. As the world becomes more unstable, don't we also see the tendency toward more traditional thinking? How can we transform this shift less into conservative and traditional patterns and more into collective efforts?
The surface (...) or other body is modifyed to be similar to the environment of the Earth.
EXCHANGE BEHAVIOUR
The individuals of an exchange group are constantly dependent on each other and exchange their goods generated by the suits through a trunk. The exchange is reciprocal. Through the act and necessity of exchange, new traditions and ways of living are explored. One representative event is the holy birth of a new human being.
..which does not imply 50/50.
Birth, as an ever-present sign of hope, continuity, and survival, is also a sacred moment in this culture. It symbolizes the short-term values of the mission: survival, exchange, and a stable population. It is a reminder that restoration of planetary health can and must be achieved in the long term by wearing suits and motion. But the road is long, and the sacred moment of birth and choosing a function of the new being as a resource also is used to remember the long-term goal.
BIRTH CEREMONY
text pdf click:
The water tower in Växjö is a popular place for excursions, singers and spirituals. The forming echo below the tower is unique. Not only an echo is created, but an audio space in which the echo can be heard, but if you step out a few meters, the experience is over. The echo is sensitive - sounds can be amplified and the smallest movements can be heard loudly, at the same time loud sounds are distorted and unpleasant. Speech is not recognizable as such. This place, the center of the tower should be the exhibition place of the experimental sound - a ritual should be created here.
MAKING THE RITUAL PUBLIC
Those standing in the vault opposite can also whisper words to each other through the echo.
Audio testing inside the echo.
Two audio sources were installed @ the echo tower. One was in the center of the echo and consisted of the speaker voice announcing the start of the ritual, as well as the part where the choir speaks and makes noises. The other audio source was placed outside of the echo space on the edge of the tower - between concrete and grass.
Slightly obvious metaphor for now and the world which is speculated on. Nevertheless, it was mysterious and vague for the audience.
Exhibition 06/22
It was more a prototype of an exhibition.
More guests by luck than invitation.
Setting up an exhibition prototype, but missing a few more guests as the constant struggle in a smaller town. Nevertheless, thats a fact to work with.
