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Kaplan, Anna "Soil and the concept of “grounding” in art&science projects." Master
, ITMO University, 2021
Keywords/Fields of Study : soil, humus, posthumanism, new materialism, Dokuchaev, Vernadsky
Abstract: Global environmental problems of our time, often associated with the expansion of human influence, lead to a revision of the relationship between human and nature. Current process of forgetting nature is partly related to such fields as linguistic turn philosophy, representationalism and social constructivism. In response, the New Materialism, which emerged in the 1990s, suggests a critical look at the existing consensus. The ontology of new materialism acts indirectly and often refers to narratives and metaphors borrowed from other areas. For example, some theorists turn to natural sciences that study nonlinear dynamic processes. One of the potential allies of the theory of new materialism could be be Soil Science, founded by Vasily Dokuchaev.
Given research proposes that the ideas of Dokuchaev can serve as a matrix for a modern theory, in particular the new materialism. The comprehension of the surrounding world can be changed by turning to the basics of soil science: its paradigmatic nature, complex genealogy, fundamental ideas related to the name of Dokuchaev and the nature of the soil itself. Thus, the purpose of this work is to revise the scientific ideas underlying soil science and expand them with the approaches of the theory of new materialism and contemporary artistic practices. Based on this intra-action of given theoretical approaches, a new grounding optics for interaction with the surrounding world will be formulated and outlined. The application of this optics can be traced in the concept of the Grounding exhibition project at the Dokuchaev Museum of Soil Science in Saint Petersburg.
Department: Art & Science in Natural Sciences
, ITMO University
Advisor(s): Ekaterina Nikitina
