Soilkin

Relational Exercises with Soils and Stones

Exercise 1. Stone heat transfer event

Take a hot stone from the fire and hold it close to the body.

Pass it between hands and feet. Dissipate the heat.

Exercise 2. Observe a stone

Listen to a stone with whatever means and methods available.

Push a stone through the sand until it pushes back.

Take part in a geologic survey, or design your own.

Exercise 3. Become a stone observing itself

Inflate a boulder-shaped avatar of yourself as a stone and float it above the horizon. Send aerial photographs, weather data, and hover-selfies back to the surface.

Send surface data back to your hovering stoneshaped self.

Float like a stone in the pedon.

Exercise

4. Soil knowledge transfer event

Variation 1: Dig a body-sized hole in the soil and curl up in it.

Listen to the music of capillary action and fall asleep counting roots.

Variation 2: Hug the surface of the soil with entire body.

Make sand-angels lying face down. Smell the leaf litter.

Exercise 5. Observe a soil

Observe a soil with whatever materials and methods available.

Try a new sport. Go soil-judging.

Exercise 6. Get to know neighbors

Introduce a soil to its neighbors – place mirrors in adjacent soil pits so they can gaze at each other.

Exercise 7. Possible Flux performance for the Post-Anthropocene

Dance with soil for one minute.

Dance with a stone for one millennium.

Exercise 8. Practicing reciprocity Unseal sealed surfaces.

Replace concrete beds with mulch blankets. Compost as if your life depended on it. Give thanks.

Exercise 9. Strength training

Move soil from one place to another using only hands, spades, and shovels.

Try a new sport. Weight-lifting with stones.

The Soilkin exercises were developed in the Biosphere Reservation Schorfheide Chorin in Brandenburg, Germany from 2020 to 2022 as part of a practice-led research project on soil ontology (pedontology) in the Anthropocene. The Soilkin project proposes a series of Fluxus-inspired relational exercises and re-enactments that invite reflection on the individual and collective agency of more-than mineral intimacies and the boundaries of what it means to be alive. The exercises are envisaged as embodied thoughtexperiments, to be tested and developed in different ecologies with different actors, seeking kinships across spheres, knowledge cultures, generations, and communities of practice. Methodologically speaking, the Soilkin exercises can be seen as a citational practice beyond footnotes, re-interpreting specific event scores penned by Fluxus artists Ken Friedman and Yoko Ono, among others, while thinking with later forms of artistic inquiry, from relational aesthetics to ecovention, speculative design, and ecosexual positioning. In reference to Ken Friedman, 1970, Heat Transfer Event. „Glasses: one filled with ice water, one with boiling tea, one or more empty glasses. Liquids are transferred from glass to glass until the tea is cooled to drinking temperature.

Milan Knizak, 1977. Ceremony. 5. breaking a stone (to find its soul); Yoko Ono, 1963. Stone Piece. Take the sound of the stone aging. 1963 in reference to Edwin Abbott (1884), Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Satirical novella first published in 1884 by Seeley & Co. and Tomás Saraceno (2015). Aerocene Project. collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Department of Earth, Atmospheric

Exercise 12. Making playgrounds and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), Braunschweig University of TechnologyInstitute of Architecturerelated Art (IAK). in reference to Joel Tauber (2000), Seven Attempts To Make A Ritual. in reference to Ana Mendieta (1973–1980), Silueta Series, and Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens (2014), Dirty Wedding to the Soil, Krems, Austria, 2014, and documenta14, 2017.

Variations: Build temporary playgrounds for snails; make eggshell-onion-peel oatmeal cookies for earthworms; give a dung beetles hayrides to the nearby piles; design millipede shoes for the “Arthropocene”; build midden playgrounds for small creatures; build birdand-tire proof amphibian crossings.

In reference to herman de vries (2015). Stones on plinths. Venice Biennale, Dutch Pavilion. in reference to Robert Smithson (1969). Yucatan Mirror Displacements 1–9. In reference to Luce Fierens (1987) Possible Flux Performances or Postfluxgames. „Ask a child to dance with you. 1 minute“

In reference to the instructions for the Honorable Harvest, retold by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) and Peter Frank’s Thank You Piece: „Thank you. (repeat 15 times) Politeness is no crime.“ reproduced in Friedman et al. 2002 Fluxus Performance Workbook. In reference to Francis Alÿs (2002) When Faith Moves Mountains, and Jana Korb (2019) #ablobodiesandstones. In reference to Tim Ingold (2004). Culture on the Ground: The World Perceived Through the Feet. Journal of Material Culture Vo, 9 Issue 3. In reference to Ela Spalding (2018). In Our Hands. In reference to Toland and Milicevic (2010). Wishgarden – Wild Urban Offshoots.

Landlooking Tenets, wip

1. Lean back

2. Practice protracted thoughtful observation*

3. Forest dwell

4. Be close to the source

5. Be thankful and giving

6. Slow, roam, meander, amble

7. Lead from the belly, from the heart, from the pelvis

8. Live by the moon

9. Wake with the sun

10. Listen to the dream seas

11. Feel the cosmos within

12. Let art be a meditation

*Bill Mollison, Permaculture, 1990

Drawing Recipe for Growing a Garden Inside

By Anna Chapman

TOOLS:

Graphite pencils: 4B & 6B

Drawing pad

Ink + Brushes

Scissors or xacto knife

Tape

PROCEDURE:

Find a place outside where your spirit calms and you feel a desire to stay put. Make yourself comfortable and get out your drawing pad and pencils, or paint brush. I like to use an easel and chair, but sitting on the ground will do just fine.

Drawing from life can be hard, but it gets easier with practice. Don’t be afraid to mess up. Staying curious is the most important ingredient.

Slowly and confidently begin to draw the plant leaves, stems, and roots before you. Maybe you spot some interesting insects or rocks to draw as well. I like to begin with whatever feels most fascinating in the moment.

Drawing life size will help your body remember its spatial relationship to these plants, rocks, or roots when you bring the drawings back inside. When you run out of space on your paper, continue your drawing onto a new sheet. It can help to tape the old sheet to your new sheet so you know where to connect the lines. Let the plant dictate the space it wants to take up, however many pages that may be.

Once you’ve finished drawing, bring your papers back inside and cut them out with a scissor or xacto knife. Then begin piecing and taping them together and hang them on your wall. Over time, your garden will grow and take up as much space as you let it.

If you would like this garden to become a more permanent fixture in your space, consider wheat pasting it to the wall. Wheat paste recipes are easy to find online, all you need is flour and water.

Silence your inner dialogue whenever you notice it. Just be.

Acknowledge your emotional responses as you connect with yourself and the life web - joy, gratefulness, fears, grief, or whatever emerges.

And then, when it feels right, without using words, let it all flow out through improvised singing.

Immerse