ARTIFICIAL
PRIMITIVISM 1
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this project was intitally created while participating at: KAM WORKSHOP 2015 "Artificial Natures" Chania/ Greece
by: Stella Livieratou & Dimitris Chatziioakeimidis
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Workshop Brief Artificial Natures appear in a broad spectrum of scenographic representations in post-internet culture. Within the anthropocene discourse, nature is described as a system which integrates critical human interventions. Nature has lost its significance as the opposite of human technology. It is a hybrid of the two spheres. The relationship between technology and nature, and the dialectics between them, organized both concepts through a strong philosophical opposition. Since nature has become, by definition, artificial – produced, to a certain degree, consciously or otherwise by mankind – the architecture of its presence and its artificiality becomes a new matter for investigation. If nature is a lost object, its glorification in the post-internet era already necessitates a different relationship to it. The breadth of human nostalgia and the ongoing effort artificially to bring back what has been permanently lost, is in the center of this workshop. The KAM workshop of 2015 focuses on nature and Modernity, critiques on the borders between the natural and the human-made; video game environments experienced through avaTUTORS: Yannikos Vassiloulis , Stavros Vergopoulos, Evi
tars, techniques of reproduction, copying and synthesizing, assembling artificial natures for material or digital environments; fake mountains, rocks, trees, vegetation, lakes and gardens.
Chantzi, Petros Moris, Heike Schuppelius, Ian Warner, Jenny Rodenhouse, Mona Mahall & Asli Serbest, Valentina Karga, Elina Axioti, Juli Vlassi, Aristide Antonas more info: www.kamworkshops.com
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ARTIFICIAL PRIMITIVISM
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II. Effetti del Buon Governo in campagna , 1338-1339, Lorenzetti
I.Val d’Orcia, Tuskany
The Val d’ Orcia, that is seen in the first image, is a region of Tuscany, that was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2004 for its idealized agrarian and pastoral landscape. Although it is know for its natural beauty, the truth is that it is an artificial landscape. Based on a 1338-40 fresco that Lorenzetti made in Siena’s town hall, it is an example of the way landscape was rewritten in Renaissance times, in order to reflect the utopic ideals of good governance. The second image, is a typical depiction of a beach in Greece, during summertime. According to it’s name, it is a Paradise, a natural scene paradoxically filled with territorialisation procedures such as organization, control, and individualization of sand and shadow. If we assume that naturality and artificiality are more complex notions, constructs of civilization, then maybe it’s not so important to search what is or isn’t natural by itself but to investigate the context, the frame around it, that is, civilization itself. According to Georg Simmel1, a frame is not characterized by its content but rather by the IV. Super Paradise beach, Mykonos
distinctive way in which it transforms the meaning of the content. That being the case, what should be investigated is how humans -as civilization’s representatives- affect the meaning of a landscape, through their behavior.
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This brings in mind Gilles Deleuze’s text entitled Desert Islands.2 There, he assumes that an island doesn’t stop being deserted simply because it is inhabited. In order for this to happen human beings should be absolutely separated from civilization, absolute creators of a new beginning. In fact this is never the case, though people who are shipwrecked approach such a condition. Even in this case, humans are never truly detached, as Deleuze explains by criticizing the classic novel of Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe retrieves everything from the shipwreck. Nothing is invented. Instead of 1. Wolff Kurt, “The Social gathering, (Party)”, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Free Press, 1950
creating a new way of life he reconstitutes the everyday bourgeois life from a reserve of capital. Ignorance is supplanted with education, animism by organized religion, nature must be dominated to serve man, and
2. Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953–1974, Semiotext(e), 2004
other territorializations of the sort seem to take place. Based on Deleuze’s text and his paradigm, the project’s intension is to investigate: under which conditions a modern Crusoe would be allowed not to spoil the ‘aura’ of the island? Basically what the project proposes is some kind of an essential civilization kit. Assuming that nowadays internet is the most precious fruit of civilization, what should be retrieved from this modern shipwreck? Which is the necessary filtering that has to be done?
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Have you ever wondered which would be the only thing that you would like to have with you in case of a shipwreck? Artificial primitivism is a service that allows you to be a modern-day Robinson Crusoe only with the help of a smart phone. Instant connection to an online platform with unlimited material on how to survive in nature, DIY tutorials and relevant bibliography. An artificial way of coexistence with nature in the most natural way.
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"Choose your island and live the ultimate experience!"
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http://artificialprimitivism.tumblr.com/
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