Digital Photography and Film, 30x30cm.
Topic
Plants have inspired movies, countless poetry, or paintings among
many others art forms. The realm of plants occupies way more space on
earth than humans or any animal presence, and will probably be the last
presence on earth when our atmosphere becomes inhabitable and hostile to
any life forms.
The idea of plant intelligence has generated heated
debates, and plant neurobiology has been proposed by Brenner et Al. (1).
If intelligence is understood as a capability to adapt to a situation,
then plants might be intelligent and thus might not need neurons or
brains. However, in a letter signed by 36 scientists (2), it was claimed
that “we begin by stating simply that there is no evidence for
structures such as neurons, synapses or a brain in plants.” For this
LASER Nomad in Berlin, where it is based, we team with Iopenerart, an
organisation operating in the area of ecological behaviour, and with
Café Botanico, which focuses on permaculture, gardening techniques and
food. We invite an artist, Ana Hupe, and an art critic Maykson Cardoso
to address questions about plants, forests and gardens.
References
1.
Brenner ED, Stahlberg R, Mancuso S, Vivanco J, Baluska F, Van
Volkenburgh E. 2006. Plant neurobiology: an integrated view of plant
signaling. Trends Plant Science, 11(8):413
2. Alpi, Amedeo et al. 2017. Plant neurobiology: no brain, no gain? Trends in Plant Science, 12 (4): 135-6
Text: Luca Forcucci
Ana Hupe (1983) is visual artist as well as Associate Researcher and Lecturer in Art History at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle, Germany. She is a doctor in Fine Arts by Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with a one-year PhD internship at University of the Arts (UdK), Berlin. Hupe’s artistic practice is research-based, process-oriented and often in dialogue with other disciplines and people. Her projects rewrite histories of resistance in installations with plural narratives, attentive to blind spots of representations, building counter-memories to colonial archives. Her work employs a wide range of techniques and media, including lens-based media, writing, printmaking and sculpture.
http://anahupe.com/(link is external)
Tropisms [seclusion, trap or burst], Poetics of Relation and Migratory Movements
Consciousness is only possible through change,
Change is only possible through movement
. - Aldous Huxley, The Art of Seeing
Many tropical plants have fascinating movements with various purposes: defense against herbivores, capturing light or dispersing seeds. Mimosa Pudica, or the Touch-me-not, is one of the best-known moving plants; its leaves react immediately to human touch and close, or fall asleep. Encounters with the power to generate transformative reactions have been described by Édouard Glissant as the Poetics of Relation (1990), a philosophy of encounters and movement, of finding ways to coexist.
Like the restless seeds of the Impatiens Walleriana, which accumulate bit by bit until an external contact–an insect or the wind–make them explode and be thrown far away, this presentation visits vocabularies borrowed from biology to refer to human migratory movements. The terms “invasion”, “native”, “exotic” are some of those that cross the two fields. Migration is more than just a movement derived from necessity, it is a human characteristic. From a bio-inspired perspective, we will reflect at some dynamics of adaptation, resistance and transformations in human societies based on mass migratory movements and how they are framed in public discourses.
Text: Ana Hupe
Maykson Cardoso (Brazil, 1988) is a poet, essayist, art critic and translator, and has previously worked as an independent curator. He is a PhD candidate in Visual Arts/Art History at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His research focuses on Walter Benjamin’s work, approaching it through the motive of archaeology to articulate an “archaeology of violence/Gewalt”.
From Hortus Conclusus to Tropical Forest:
Against the Western Notion of Heritage For a Radical Concept of Justice
By analysing pre-Renaissance paintings depicting horti conclusi and other types of medieval walled gardens, we can identify certain elements that expose the Western way of relating to nature. In this presentation, I propose juxtaposing these images with others that represent or document Amazonian Indigenous communities living within the forest. This juxtaposition allows us to evaluate the effects of the clash between these two worldviews, from the invasion of the Americas to contemporary land disputes involving Indigenous peoples, land grabbers, and large landowners in Brazil. The Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa refers to non-Indigenous peoples as the “people of merchandise”, thus denouncing the centrality of capitalism in our way of life and our relationship with nature—viewing it solely as a source of extraction for finite natural resources and, consequently, as an “inexhaustible” supply of commodities. Kopenawa’s critique can be linked to the writings of Walter Benjamin, particularly On the Concept of History (1940) and his Notes Toward a Study on the Category of Justice (undated). In the former text, Benjamin fiercely critiques the “ideology of progress” underpinning the political projects of both the left and the right in the West—an ideology still evident in the colonial mindset embodied, for instance, in Brazil’s positivist national motto, “order and progress.” In the latter, Benjamin asserts that “justice is the striving to make the world into the highest good,” proposing a radical inversion of the Western legal paradigm. Rather than basing justice on property rights—which he considers inherently unjust—he advocates for recognising the intrinsic right of the good to belong to itself. By connecting the critiques of Kopenawa and Benjamin, we can envision alternative ways of engaging in politics that are less centred on disputes over property, while also calling into question our notions of heritage, legacy, and justice.
Text: Maykson Cardoso
Chaired by
Luca Forcucci
Moderated by
Luca Forcucci & Juan Oliver
Host
UBQTLAB.ORG is the platform presenting LASER NOMAD. It focuses on arts and science research by producing talks, podcasts, and collaborative concerts in specific geographical sites. It is led by Luca Forcucci. A virtual network of expertise—based on real exchanges and experiences—acts as both a virtual and a real community. Questions about phenomenal consciousness are addressed by fusing theoretical writing with artworks as research-creation. It also counterbalances a dominant visual and Western, techno-scientific perspective. However, a single global mind cannot produce ideas for the whole of the world; rather, each region has its own specificities with various local solutions and knowledge. The collaborative aspect is an essential part of how the future of arts-based research—and probably how the arts (and science) per se—will evolve. LASER Nomad focuses on interdisciplinary strategies to foster global collaborations involving contemporary and ancestral indigenous knowledge in the arts and science. Since 2018, LASER Nomad has presented in nine countries on five continents, leading to 13 LASER Nomad Talks and 18 podcasts, in French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English. The disciplines addressed thus far have been widely diverse, including chemistry, architecture, quantum physics, robotics, computer science, mathematics, anthropology, sociology, artificial intelligence, gender studies, media arts, neuroscience, forensic archaeology, and sonic in the arts. LASER NOMAD is a mobile research laboratory for fieldwork. The vision of LASER Nomad is as follows:
1. To establish a global, interconnected, and always evolving dynamic network, comparable to a living organism.
2. To implement strategies to address the decentralization and decompartmentalization of knowledge.
3. To develop a system promoting wider international cooperation for innovative ideas regarding contemporary human, nonhuman, and planetary challenges.
Partners
Café Botanico
Anyone who appreciates good quality food, is interested in permaculture, celebrates sustainability, likes to socialise with friends in a homely atmosphere and wants to visit an enchanted garden in the middle of the city will feel at home with us. In our garden everyone can look around and get to know the botanical diversity. Hence our name "Café Botanico". You will find exotic and familiar plants that you know from forest walks, parks or even from the tree in front of your house. Here at Café Botanico you can touch them, taste them and experience them in lovingly prepared dishes, bursting with flavour.
I-opener
Founded in 2019, the Berlin-based non-profit collective I-opener is a continuously evolving group of international artists engaged towards education for sustainable development. Through workshops, exhibitions and talks around the world, they aim to cultivate a sense of ecological consciousness. The science behind our impact on Nature is hard to grasp because it is so complex. For this reason, I-opener devises aesthetic, immersive and interactive approaches that makes participants feel their role in our global ecosystem instead of just learning impersonal facts about it. I-opener collaborated with activism and scientific groups alike such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and the Society for Social Studies of Science in places such as Budapest, Tbilisi, Hawaii and Berlin.
Berlin, BE 12043
Germany