◊w w w . k a p e l i c a . o r g ◊ Tr u s t M e , I ’ m a n A r t i s t ◊

ŠPELA PETRIČ◊Confronting Vegetal Otherness: Skotopoiesis◊

performance: 10/9/2015◊12noon – 12midnight◊11/9/2015◊10am – 5pm◊ethics committee discussion: 11/9/2015◊6pm – 8pm◊

Galerija Kapelica, Kersnikova 4, Ljubljana◊

◊Uvodnik◊JURIJ KRPAN◊Zaupajte mi, jaz sem umetnik je ena od mnogih iteracij

sklicevanja na zveličavno deontologijo poklicev, ki v druž-bi veljajo kot absolutnega zaupanja vredni. Zdravniki, inženirji, odvetniki in drugi zveneči poklici s spretnim negovanjem cehovske pripadnosti v javnosti ustvarjajo vtis koherentnosti, družbene superiornosti in blagostan-ja. Toda sklicevanje na cehovski sij že dolgo ‘ne pije več vode’ in je kot predmet posmeha uporabljan predvsem v satiričnih opisih situacij, v katerih je strokovnost več kot očitno spodletela.

◊V našem primeru je sklicevanje na poklic še posebej hu-morno, saj umetniki poklicnega kodeksa, ki določa deon-tologijo poklica sploh nimajo, in je zato poziv k zaupanju takorekoč oksimoron. Toda v vsaki šali leži tudi en del resnice, ki se lahko sprejemljivo povnanji prav zara-di šaljivega formata, ki jo uokvirja. Neglede na očitno nemožnost sklicevanja na zaupanje, se projekt Zaupa-jte mi, jaz sem umetnik (Trust Me, I’m an Artist), ki ga izvajamo skupaj s sedmimi evropskimi partnerji loteva topike, za katero je krinka humornosti v resnici medij,

◊Introduction◊JURIJ KRPAN◊Trust Me, I’m an Artist is one of the many iterations of ap-

peals to the exalted deontologies of professions that en-joy a widespread trust within our society. Doctors, engi-neers, lawyers and other reputable-sounding professions carefully groom their public image to create the impres-sion of coherence, social superiority and prosperity. But such appeals to professional brilliance have long since lost any credibility and are more often than not used as a form of ridicule in satirical portrayals of situations where professionality has gone horribly wrong.

◊In our case, the appeal seems particularly humorous, since artists do not have a professional codex that defines their deontology, which means that the appeal for trust is essentially an oxymoron. Yet there is some truth in this jest – a truth that can be freely expressed precisely be-cause of the humorous context it is presented in. Despite the impossible appeal for trust, the project Trust Me, I’m an Artist, which we are organizing in collaboration with seven European partners, deals with a topic that employs humour as a disguise, a camouflage, allowing us to tackle subjects that would otherwise be barely acceptable or en-tirely unacceptable for the public.

◊The format of events that we partners organize as pre-production phases of various artistic events is iden-tical for everyone, and is meant to encourage the gen-eral public to actively participate in the consideration of the ethical boundaries that the artists have to walk as they create their works. The Transfer festival, which we organized in the Kapelica Gallery in 2013, where we simulated an ethics committee solely with a selection of symposium participants, shifts in this new event to an ad hoc ethics committee as part of the audience, who actively debate with the artist about the work that had been presented in advance. By promoting a participatory approach, our goal is to encourage the general public to accept partial responsibility for the experience of an art-

s katerim lahko v javnosti odpiramo teme, ki so sicer za javnost na meji ali celo onkraj sprejemljivosti.

◊Format dogodkov, ki jih partnerji organiziramo kot pred-produkcijski del različnih umetniških dogodkov, je za vse isti in želi vzpodbuditi javnost k aktivni participaciji v premišljanju etičnih mej, po katerih hodijo umetnice in umetniki pri ustvarjanju svojih umetnin. Za razliko od festivalskega simpozija Transfer, ki smo ga v Kape-lici organizirali leta 2013 in kjer smo simulirali etično komisijo zgolj z izborom nastopajočih na simpoziju, je v tokratnem dogodku ad hoc sestavljena etična komisi-ja del občinstva, ki aktivno polemizira z umetnikom, ki predhodno predstavi svoj projekt. S spodbujanjem par-ticipatornosti želimo spodbuditi javnost k prevzemanju soodgovornosti za dogajanje umetniškega dela, saj per-formativnost le tega ni postavljena na varni oder umet-nostne inštitucije, temveč v aktualno družbeno realnost.

◊Projekt Špele Petrič in pogovor sta del serije dogod-kov v okviru mednarodnega projekta ‘Zaupajte mi, jaz sem umetnik: Premišljanje etičnih okvirov za umetnike, kulturno-umetniške institucije in javnost, ki se v evrop-skem prostoru soočajo z izzivi ustvarjanja in izkušanja novih umetniških oblik vključujoč biotehnologijo in bio-medicino’, ki ga je zasnovala umetnica Anna Dumitriu v sodelovanju z Bobbie Farsides, profesorico klinične in bi-omedicinske etike. Evropski projekt v koordinaciji Waag Society (NL) izvajajo Brighton in Sussex šola za medicino (UK), Arts Catalyst (UK), Ciant (CZ), Galerija Kapelica / Za-vod Kersnikova (SI), Medical Museion (DK), Capsula (FI) in Leonardo Olats (FR).

◊Soočanja z rastlinskim Drugim– raziskava rastlinskih principov s poudarkom na interkogniciji rastlina-človek◊ŠPELA PETRIČ

◊Organizacija življenjskih procesov, ki so jo na svo-ji evolucijski poti razvile rastline, je skrajno različna od

work, since the performativity of the work is not confined to the safe boundaries of art as an institution, but rather, it acts within contemporary social reality.

◊The performance by Špela Petrič and discussion are part of the series of events of the project ‘Trust Me, I’m an Artist: Developing ethical frameworks for artists, cultural institutions and audiences engaged in the challenges of creating and experiencing new art forms in biotechnology and biomedicine in Europe’, led by the artist Anna Dumi-triu in collaboration with the ethicist Professor Bobbie Farsides. The European project is run by the Waag So-ciety (NL) in collaboration with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (UK), The Arts Catalyst (UK), Ciant (CZ), Kapelica Gallery / Kersnikova (SI), Medical Museion (DK), Capsula (FI) and Leonardo Olats (FR).

◊Confronting Vegetal Otherness – An Inquiry into Phutonic Principles with an Emphasis on Plant/Human Intercognition◊ŠPELA PETRIČ

◊Plants have undergone an evolutionary history resulting in organizational principles radically different from those of humans. When looking towards their embodiment, we stare at aliens living amongst us - vegetal beings we have recently come to scientifically understand as complex, continuous multi-species communities operating at time-scales and in expressions not perceptible with the innate human sensorial apparatus.

◊Artistic and scientific interfaces, which mediate plant time, their internal molecular processes and physiological responses, have been employed as the aperture through which the commonplace plant is given a human-friendly articulation. However, utilizing the crutch of interfaces, informing as they may be, somewhat misplaces the true challenge of post-anthropocentrism, which would not only bring the plant into proximity of the human, but also recognize the distinct properties of each organismal type

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INSEPARABILITY

◊Etiolacija pomeni morfološko prilagoditev rastlin, ki rastejo v pogojih šibke

svetlobe. Molekularni senzorji zaznajo svetlobni spekter in preko kaskade

signalov povzročijo, da se celične stene zrahljajo, stebla in listi podaljšajo,

rastline pa postanejo bledo rumene. S tem rastline poskušajo uiti senci in

zrasti k svetlobi.

◊Etiolation is a morphological adaptation of a plants whose molecular light

sensors tell them they are growing in low-light conditions; their cell walls

weaken, their stems and leaves elongate and their body becomes pale yel-

lowish white, all in an attempt to escape the shade and grow into the light.

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INSEPARABILITY

◊Ključna razlika v organizaciji organizmov med ljudmi in rastlinami leži v

odprtosti oziroma integraciji sistemov. Če smo ljudje navidez nerazdružl-

jiva enota vse do ravni posameznika, značilnosti rastlin - na primer

pluripotenca, medsebojna fizična povezanost in nespolno razmnoževan-

je - otežujejo zamejitev osebka, zaradi česar se z našega stališča zdi, da

rastline niso pravi subjekti.

◊One of the key differences in the organismal organisation between humans

and plants is the openness/integration of the systems. Whereas humans

seemingly remain a tightly interdependent unit up to the level of the

organism, the plants’ pluripotency, physical interconnectedness and vege-

tative reproduction make the level of the individual indeterminable, posing

a conundrum to the definition of the plant as a subject.

človeške. Znanost postopoma razkriva njihovo komplek-snost in jih razume kot neprekinjene medvrstne združbe, ki delujejo na daljša časovna obdobja in z izraznimi zmožnostmi, ki jih človek s svojim senzoričnim aparatom ne zaznava. Ko zremo v rastlinsko bit opazujemo tujce, ki živijo med nami.

◊Umetniški in znanstveni vmesniki, ki nam razkrivajo rastlinski čas, njihove molekularne procese ali fiziološke odzive, so okna preko katerih vsakdanje rastline približa-mo človeški zaznavi. Kljub informativnosti pa vmesniki nekoliko zastrejo resnični izziv postantropocentrizma, ki teži ne le k približanju rastlin človeku, temveč k prepozna-vanju ključnih razlik obeh tipov organizmov ter njunih od-nosov v ekosistemih.

◊V zadnjem času smo priča vrsti postantropocentričnih pristopov k rastlinam (avtorji Matthew Hall, Michael Marder, Paco Calvo, Stefano Mancuso in drugi), vendar v naši zahodni kozmologiji težko proizvedemo pragmatično formulo, ki bi omogočila vključevanje novega znanja pri etični obravnavi ne-človeških vrst. Rastlinski svet je v tem pogledu zlasti zapostavljen, saj mu tradicionalno pripisujemo manjko notranjščine, avtomonije, esence in individualnosti, zaradi česar so rastline v okviru sodobnih etičnih diskurzov najpogosteje spregledane.

◊Z vse bolj naturaliziranim tehnološkim posredovanjem rastline dobivajo razumljivo obliko in pojavnost, ki je določena z zmožnostmi vmesnika. Vmesniki kot proteza našega sicer omejenega dojemanja rastlinskega sveta v opazovalcu vzbudijo začudenje, redko pa izkustvo pusti trajne sledi, ki bi označile vsakdanji odnos z rastlinami. Po drugi strani tudi rastline človeka samo bežno zaznav-ajo; je le eden izmed številnih organizmov, s katerimi so tekom evolucije stkale bolj ali manj utilitarno relacijo, na-jsi temelji na tekmovanju ali sodelovanju.

◊Cilj umetniškega raziskovanja rastlinskih principov je od-krivanje možnih presečišč biološko-znakovnih (t.i. biose-miotičnih) procesov, ki potekajo pri rastlinah in človeku

as well as their relational context in ecosystems.◊Although there has been a recent surge of post-anthro-

pocentric conceptions of plant life (e.g. authors Matthew Hall, Michael Marder, Paco Calvo, Stefano Mancuso), Western cosmology struggles to find a pragmatic for-mula that would aid in incorporating this new knowledge and awareness into our everyday experience, precluding a change in the ethical perspective on the non-human Other, wherein plants represent a particular challenge since they are traditionally attributed with lacking inte-riority, autonomy, essence and individuality and hence fall through the sieve of contemporary ethical discourses.

◊As technological mediation becomes naturalized, the non-human subjects with which we interact become dis-cernable, even though their expression is refrained to the milieu of the interface at hand. By overcoming our lack of perceptual capacity, these technological hallucinations inspire awe and fascination during a particular mediat-ed contact, but the experience is scarcely transferred to plant life we encounter on a daily basis.

◊The plants’ disregard seems to match our own. With the innumerable animal, fungal and bacterial organisms at the reach of a leaf, a root or a flower, plants have sought partners and curtailed enemies throughout the natural world, (r)evolving around the human as mundanely as the human approaches them – through utility on one hand and damage control on the other.

◊My goal during the artistic research into phutonic princi-ples (phuton (gr.) meaning plants, but also growing being) is to explore the possible biosemiotic cross-section of hu-mans and plants at various levels of organization, chal-lenging the prospect of intercognition – a process during which the plant and the human exchange physico-chem-ical signals and hence perturb each other’s state. Atten-tion is brought to the materiality of the relation, which results in a perceptible manifestation, a change that can be observed in both partners of the exchange.

na različnih organizcijskih stopnjah (celice, tkiva, organ-izmi). Tekom interkognicijie rastlina in človek izmenjata fizikalno-kemijske znake in tako vzajemno vplivata drug na drugega. V ospredju je materialnost odnosa, ki se izra-zi na obeh partnerjih.

◊Proces interkognicije, ki naj bo umeten, nov in avtentičen, tako za rastlino kot za človeka predstavlja napor. Soočen-je z radikalno različnimi življenjskimi principi je poskus človeka, da se preda rastlinskemu, pri čemer ne zahteva enakosti za to, da doseže enakovrednost. Ta enakovred-nost izhaja iz spoštovanja (ne)primerljivosti z rastlinskim Drugim.

◊Cilj serije del v sklopu Soočanja z rastlinskim Drugim ni funkcionalna hibridnost, temveč podrejanje določenih sposobnosti rastlin in človeka z namenom raziskovanja meja združljivosti, empatije in post-antropocentrizma. S prakso želi umetnica preizkusiti svojo sposobnost ra-zumevanja rastlinskega na njemu lasten način. Kratkotra-jna, potencialno neuspešna interkognicija in njeni arte-fakti tvorijo umetniško delo, ki zahteva etično obravnavo, saj na primeru rastlin sprašuje, “kako obravnavati Druge-ga, ko se na empatijo ni moč zanesti?”

◊Skotopoeza (pomeni narejeno s temo) je prvi perfor-mans v seriji, ki vzpostavlja interkognicijo med rastlino in človekom. Tekom dejanja je kaleča kreša osvetljena s svetlobo, umetnica pa jo delno zastira s svojo senco. Zastôr deluje kot element biosemioze, ki pri rastlinah povzroči etiolacijo (podaljševanje stebel in rumenenje listov). V rastlinskih celicah se namreč nahajajo posebni receptorji za svetlobo, fitokromi, ki s pomočjo hormona avksina spremenijo njeno morfologijo tako, da se rastlina z rastjo začne ogibati senci in poišče svetlobo. Medtem ko se rastlina steguje k svetlobi, se umetnici zaradi dolgotra-jnega stanja pri miru poseda hrbtenica. Fizične spremem-be obeh partnerjev v interkognicijski umetnini so dokaz napora medvrstnega soočenja.

◊The process itself - artificial, novel and striving towards authenticity within the perceptual milieu - exerts im-mense strain on both vegetal and human entities un-dergoing the experiment. The confrontation of radically diverse living principles is an attempt by the human to humbly put her animality aside and surrender to the plant, transgressing the need for equivalence to achieve equality – an equality stemming from respect in the face of the subject’s (in)comparability with the Other.

◊The result of Confronting Vegetal Otherness is not to be read as a pursuit of functional hybridity, but rather a con-ceptual enslavement of particular capacities of plants and humans with the purpose of recognizing the limits of com-patibility, empathy and post-anthropocentrism. Through this liminal practice the artist hopes to test the capability of herself as a human to address and express her frustrat-ing desire to understand plants on their terms. The tran-sient, potentially unsuccessful intercognition and its arti-facts make the body of the ephemeral artwork requiring ethical justification, calling for a discursive response on the topic of “how can we know the Other when empathy fails?”

◊Skotopoiesis (meaning shaped by darkness) is the first performance from the series attempting plant-human intercognition. In this durational piece the artist and the germinating cress face each, illuminated by a light pro-jection. The biosemiotic process occurs through the ob-struction of the light – the artist throws a shadow onto the cress for 12 hours a day, which results in the etiolation (blanching, whitening) of the plants. The effect is mediated by phytochromes, one of the plants’ non-photosynthetic light sensors. The diminished light intensity stimulates the production of auxin, a plant hormone that acidifies the cell wall, facilitating its elongation. The stems of the cress become long and pale; the leaves are sparser, all in an effort by the plant to grow from the shadow. As the cress elongates, the vegetalized artist shrinks – standing still for a prolonged amount of time decreases the artists body height due to fluid loss from the intervertebral disks. Thus the evidence of intercognition is observed through the physical changes of the plant and the human partner.

◊avtor/author: ŠPELA PETRIČ ◊oblikovanje/design: MIHA TURŠIČ ◊pro-

dukcija/produced by: GALERIJA KAPELICA / ZAVOD KERSNIKOVA, LJU-

BLJANA, 2015 ◊mentorstvo/mentors: JURIJ KRPAN & LUCAS EVERS

◊producentka/producer: SANDRA SAJOVIC ◊izvršna producenta/executive

producers: PETRA MILIČ, SIMON GMAJNER ◊tehnični vodja/technical direc-

tor: JURE SAJOVIC ◊laboratorijska podpora/lab support: KRISTIJAN TKA-

LEC ◊tehnična izvedba/technical realization: SCENART D.O.O. ◊zasnova

kostuma/costume concept: DUNJA ZUPANČIČ ◊izvedba kostuma/costume

realisation: M SENKA ŠIVA KOT NORA ◊dokumentacija/documentation:

MIHA FRAS, HANA JOŠIĆ ◊DTP: DEJAN VERANIČ ◊koncept/concept of

TMIAAA: ANNA DUMITRIU ◊intervju/interview: ANNICK BUREAUD ◊etič-

na komisija/ethics committee: DR MONIKA BAKKE, ALJOŠA KOLENC, DR

MICHAEL MARDER, RÜDIGER TROJOK ◊zahvale/acknowledgments: DR

ANDREJ MEGLIČ (University of Ljubljana, SI), DR GUENTHER BRADER (Aus-

trian Institute of Technology, AT), DR AMAL ARYAN (Austrian Institute of

Technology, AT), WILLEM VELTHOVEN (Mediamatic, NL), DR TOBY KIERS

(Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL), DR MATTHEW WHITESIDE (Vrije Uni-

versiteit Amsterdam, NL), DR JENS HAUSER (University of Copenhagen, DK)

◊WWW.KAPELICA.ORG ◊TRUSTMEIMANARTIST.EU ◊WWW.SPELAPETRIC.

ORG

◊podpora/supported by: PROGRAM EVROPSKE UNIJE – USTVARJALNA

EVROPA, LEONARDO DA VINCI VŽU / EUROPEAN UNION PROGRAMME

– CREATIVE EUROPE, LEONARDO DA VINCI LLP, MINISTRSTVO ZA KUL-

TURO REPUBLIKE SLOVENIJE / MINISTRY OF CULTURE OF THE REPUB-

LIC OF SLOVENIA, MESTNA OBČINA LJUBLJANA / MUNICIPALITY OF

LJUBLJANA, FUNDACIJA ZA UMETNOST, AMSTERDAM / AMSTERDAMS

FONDS VOOR DE KUNST ◊Izvedba projekta je financirana s strani Evropske

komisije. Vsebina komunikacije je izključno odgovornost avtorja in v noben-

em primeru ne predstavlja stališč Evropske komisije. / This project has been

funded with support from the European Commission. This communication

reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held

responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained

therein.