Stinky Mirrors
[ 9 min ]
Stinky Mirrors – transformation is imminent! A sculptural research practice.
Stinky Mirrors is part of my new multi-year research Death, Decay & Detrivores, a plan that that connects art, science, ecology and spirituality in a search for meaning and reflection in times of ecological decline and social transformation.
Central to this plan are a number of visual installations and/or infrastructures that consist of a cross between science and visual art, natural and (un)natural techniques. One part of the plan is the creation of large wooden figurative sculptures that are consumed in controlled atmospheres by, among other things, detrivores(1), fungi, but also by acids.
The first step of this research however, will take place at the EWKC, where I will make large figurative ceramic basins in which bacterial water can be held. Both sculptures hold up a mirror to us about the current and coming times.
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Working at the EKWC!
From april to June, I will be working and living for three months at the European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) where I'll be focussed on creating large 1.5 meter diameter ceramic bowls in which water with bacteria, algae and other organisms can live with heating elements and sensors.
The surface of the basins contains figurative images of ecology, climate change, famine, war and logos of technology companies that are shaped with the help of AI. We also see figures of merged water species such as frogs and insects combined into mystical entities. The sculptures seem out of place in time, it is unclear whether they come from a bygone era or from a post-apocalyptic future.
Around these artistic infrastructures and sculptures I want to create a participatory program at a later date, including lectures with scientific knowledge about processes of decay and death, cultural-historical discussions about the beginning and end of capitalism, and the impact of (tech)industry on the climate and on spirituality.
The trouble as oracle device?
In today’s world, Western cultural frameworks determine what is a “plague” and what is “desirable”, what is a wasteland and what is ideal farmland, what belongs and what does not. These binary and colonial concepts cut the land, the people and the mind apart, so I will do the opposite: I want these ceramic sculptures to contain the things we consider “plagues”, such as mosquitoes, algae, swampy green water, cyanobacteria and other water “plagues”(and yes, the controversial use of AI).
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Through placing undesired substances at the centre of a artstic intervention, I want to create a kind of mirror of the time in which we find it difficult to connect with decay and less “beautiful” events. By honoring and centering substances that we normally want to get rid of I try to reconnect with them. Not just 'staying with the trouble', but learning to be with, listen to, and honor the trouble!
In some fantasy of mine, these bowls are consulted/stared in or at, transfixing your gaze on the surface of the water or the mirror images produced there, of inverted cultural depictions. One might stare in the bowls like a seer or haruspex(2) would have, when inspecting the entrails of a sacrificed animal, gathering insights, warnings or wisdom.
As said, the surfaces of the basins contain figurative images of ecology, climate change, famine, war and logos of technology companies, which I will gather and assemble by cut/collage techniques but also with the help of AI tools. We will also see figures of fused water species such as frogs and insects combined into mystical entities that perch and circle the bowls as guardian spirits. Ultimately I am also looking to attach metal and/or wooden legs, and scientific climate-regulation technology to the basins.
Working at the EKWC will help me on many fronts with strengthening my ceramics skills both within this project and after. Forming large bowls created by and covered with archetypical images made with color-pigments, texture techniques and by 3D shaping of the surface appeals to me enormously. For this I will try to make 3D printed plaster molds to stamp in the clay, among other things.
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Why AI?
Yes, why? So I believe that most (if not all) artistic processes use energy and pollute in ways — albeit not in the same degree as commercial industries and the military. There are incredible sustainable, land-based and/or recycling art projects that I wholeheartedly support also. I could say that good art manages to transform energy or perception; recharges people, offers space.
In the process of this new project, I found it striking to fabricate "warning bowls" or "mirrors of the time" that address environmental pollution and the decay of fresh water, by using a technology such as Midjourney AI which is known to consume large amounts of water in its process.
According to de Volkskrant it takes the same amount of energy to charge one full phone battery as it does to make one AI image(3) — foremostly through the use of cooling waters.
For me, the part-taking in this energy-consuming process and the warping of ancient craft with contemporary tech is part of the ritual of Stinky Mirrors. The odd and controversial image-copyright infringements that image generators such as Midjourney are implied in oddly speak to me of the possibly (or the need rather) of commonly understood images and depictions of doom such as war, famine, climate collapse and the environment — Midjourney used databases of images and cross-references it with keywords it learned, in order to create a 'new' image.
In this way it reflects a certain subconscious (perhaps biased) western imaginarium.
An Archetype for eternity?
Why would we need images to merge-together in a sort of post-identity melange of AI-yuck?
In a conversation with peers a few weeks back, we wondered for example what image we would put on a Nuclear Waste storage site to successfully warn our decendants? What image would be able to warn off people in 1000s of years to come, to keep them from opening those sites in curiosity, when current day languages are no longer understood?
The pioneering work of eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, who wrote about Nuclear Guardianship(4) —the idea to creatively think-tank the unfathomable human-caused problem of nuclear contamination, inspires me a lot.
Nuclear Waste is perhaps the longest-lasting thing on our planet: it will outlive us, and our systems, and we need to somehow not forget about it.
So, the idea of making symbols, works of art, or yet another trace of how humanity KNEW of it's demise inspires me, as it did for my 2019 drawing series Trans Neolithic Future.
Art, Science & Participation
Doom aside, in the intended installations, different media and art forms come together with natural and scientific elements; think of sensors, pumps, tubes, lamps, food dispensers. Living organisms come together with sculptures depicting cultural-historical references to transformation, death, and to times in which the climate seriously affected or marked human life and the landscape.
With the support of a Seed Grant by Stichting Stokroos, and a grant from Werktuig PPO, I give am able to give an impulse to a new process of research and making which encompasses what I believe to be a powerful duality: non-living artistic artefact coming together with a living source that is the source of it's destruction — mirroring each other.
But how do you keep spoiled acidic water "good" for a long time? How do you keep the sculptures safe, and still exciting? How do you work with life in this way? These are questions I am hoping to answer as well, as the installations of the masterplan Death, Decay & Detrivores have to "function" as habitats for possible insects, fungi, and water organisms.
I also plan to organize live-programs around the installation:
- scientific lectures in which we pay attention to the ways in which death and decay occur in ecology and nature in a more zoomed-in way;
- a reading/discussion/creative think-tank about nuclear guardianship, as coined by Joanna Macy;
- a review of hightech/industrial implications on climate, and/or hightech solutions for the climate;
- a philosophical/Socratic conversation about the place of grief and decay and our dealing with it from a cultural and social and spiritual perspective;
- a more somatic, participatory, grief tending workshop, as inspired by the GriefToolkit developed by Camille Sapara Barton.
- your idea?
One idea is to warp the design-process of the sculptures into a collective process: meaning that we would gather in circles to assemble and discuss the images and depictions we will use as a source material for the Stinky Mirrors; a workshop or performative gathering where we form collages/cut-up images manually and/or feed our ideas into Midjourney to see what that monster will make of things?
To support me in this, I want to collaborate with a biologist/scientist, students, and several venues for which I am currently on the look-out. Any tips are welcome!
In sum: I want to make contemporary climatic changes tangible, poetic and confrontational, so that (natural) processes and changes that we often want to mask, become visible and can serve as a mirror.
XOXO
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Footnotes:
(1) Detrivores are organism that lives on solid dead organic material or detritus. These waste eaters do the groundwork for the decomposers, micro-organisms that further break down organic waste (mineralization) into inorganic substances.
(3) In the ancient world, "A haruspex was a person trained to practise a form of divination called haruspicy; the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry." Found here.
(3) Hoeveel water en energie gebruikt uw favoriete chatbot? found here. Thank you Xandra!
(4) What is Nuclear Guardianship? Read more here.
Interesting reads:
- https://medium.com/@TravisAtria/send-in-the-haruspex-11982b52380c
- https://www.context.org/iclib/ic28/macy/
- Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (1984), Joanna Macy
- World as Lover, World as Self (2021), Joanna Macy
T͟h͟a͟n͟k͟ ͟y͟o͟u͟ ͟
Stichting Stokroos (Seed Grant)
PPO Werktuig
EKWC (OCW, Province of Noord-Brabant and Oisterwijk Municipality)