<div dir="ltr"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Hello empyre- subscribers,</font><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I don't know how you all feel but all the interesting thoughts and inside about contamination by Catherine, Marisa, Renate, Ellie, Bishu, Christina and now Rahul I sense my brain is in a good way "contaminated". In my original german language contamination means Verunreinigung, from latin <i>contaminare</i>, "beflecken, beschmutzen" -obviously we think about the word as something negative that brings our health and that of the nonhumans in a state of change. </font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I will enter this discussion on a personal level of experience - thinking what does it take for us human to measure, to sense, to feel the visible and invisible contamination such as Rahul mentioned:</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">"The argument has often been that while smog is perceptible, ionizing radiation is not. Indeed, one sees/feels the haziness of particulate matter (PM 2.5) in New Delhi right now, but then there are imperceptible (invisible and odorless) air polluters like carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide as well."</i><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">As a species we have our daily movement pattern. We decide what we want to hear, see and smell and what we want to ignore. We can make choices to practice an embodied approach to our world …we can practice "awareness of our kinesthesia and senses". I practice somatic embodiment since years and as a Somatic Movement Therapist I guide others to find their movement patterns (awaken their senses). With that there is a bless but as well over years a "curse" for me because I sense now all the changes in my environment very quickly and my body gives me signals and often ask to response and encounter this changes if they feel "unpleasant" "even feel dangerous to my organs, brain and even to others around me -> and I started to extend to do "embodied science" by extending the approach to "nonhumans (plant life).</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">With that I do ask myself what is it about all the daily "invisible" contamination I don't can receive as change or could we or do we?</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Let me focus on the "visible" one - such as car, gasoline fumes in NYC air and soil and how I as a white privileged person felt OK to react to ask for change but how my neighbor Hollywood, a 70 years old car repair freelance worker decided to live with it and takes other measures to handle the "fumes".</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I citate here Catherine: <span style="color:black">Catherine:' Funny enough, when that work lead me to work with post-industrial / urban / contaminated sites, I distanced my somatic awareness and retreated to the safer space of cerebral, critical discourse"</span></font></i></div><div><i><span style="color:black"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></i></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">When in 2013 I took on a 5 year movement based art project -> the renting of a raw urban, former auto -repair garage with a 1900 square foot lot in Crown Heights in Brooklyn - where the place became the art project itself-> I told myself <b>"<i> <span style="color:rgb(17,17,17);text-align:center">to find </span><span style="box-sizing:border-box;border:0px;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(17,17,17);text-align:center">LOVE</span></i></b><span style="color:rgb(17,17,17);text-align:center"><i><b> in this contaminated urban feral landscape</b>"</i></span></font></div><div><span style="color:rgb(17,17,17);text-align:center"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div><span style="text-align:center"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I had no idea what that really meant to my health, my neighbors health and to the health of plants. I decided daily to expose myself to the site and question what the site has to tell me. The first year it told me it makes me sick - sometimes I was only able to stay for a couple of hours because of the wind carry the contaminated soil into my nostrils (I did not had a door to the garage yet) . I actually developed panic attacks that year. I coughed a lot. I was feeling tired. Felt dizzy when the auto repair guys on the block would leave their truck on running. As summer came in the first year Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort) came so dynamic I did not know what to do with it. The pollen was so intense I decided to "landscape" the feral urban landscape ( took some plants out)- I felt better but then the wind brought more soil into my lungs. I saw the plants can handle this soil and as well they seemed to take on the fumes of the car repair neighbors. how about I would learn from the plants. Meanwhile every time a truck engine would go on and I got dizzy I would talk with the car repair guys and hear their story - they all felt this fumes but got resisted to it — we came to an agreement how long they can leave the car on so they could do their job ( car body work) and I could my job of body work...… Hollywood, the now 70 year old car repair men told me what he would do to clean his "lung system": he drinks Coca Cola and eats white bread to clean out his system. The last couple of years together with the EPA collaborators we let the plants be - my airing out means only give space to plants that need sun and often Artemisia overshadows them…When I observe the plants- the plants by the gate are grey full of dust from the street cars (it is a good thing the lot faces the street and not as often it is back of the house) . The leaves further away from the street are nice green. I can stay now hours in the space and I don't feel getting sick-The dynamic wild landscape teaches me about what even means companionship- such as Lambsquarter leaves suddenly got all patterned because it took on the virus from his neighbor plant so that plant could grow - What does it mean if we took on our neighbors "virus'</font></span></div><div><span style="text-align:center"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div style="text-align:left"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> I don't know quiet what point I try to make but may be where is our personal stories of contamination. "who is really affected" and who has more choices- class, race plays a deep role in this — attached is the landscape of transformation of the 5 year project from 2013 to this October this year and as well an image of the resilient men Hollywood.</font></div><div style="text-align:left"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">And a plant dialogue Artemisia had with me and my letter to Artemisia</font></div><div style="text-align:left"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="text-align:left"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Love to hear your story.</font></div><div style="text-align:left"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="text-align:left"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">andrea (haenggi)</font></div><div style="text-align:center"><font color="#111111" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">-----------------------------------------</font></div><div><pre><span style="color:black"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></pre><pre><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Ruderal Artemisia (Artemisia vulgaris L. - common name mugwort) is present and speaks </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(255,38,0)"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I’m standing strong and upright – up to the sky - rooted down and spreading sideways through the soil - human fleshy hands around my stem - What am i supposed to do → pressure sensed → squeeze the life out → vertical uprightness in danger → root canal failure → your hand becomes a violent wind → then my vertical and horizontal existence hangs in the air → dangling → a Coca-cola can entangled in my roots → the can does not give me any life support → you put me on the concrete surface -> life continues on the concrete ground -> I dry out in the sun. </font></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Dear Artemisia, </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">– it stopped raining – afternoon - grey – feeling good - I’m growing very tall and upright inside my body –stillness </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">What do I want from you? </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Your presence – always in my memory – do you remember? – I sensed a tug of resistance from you – I pulled on you – to come towards my hand - you resisted even more – in the end you gave in. – I was standing next to the corrugated metal wall </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Do you remember? You were not alone – a Coke can gripped by your roots – or maybe you gripped the can? – deliberate, decisive, desiring, on purpose – you surprised me –– all the talk about Anthropocene was right in front of my eyes – in my hand - you brought the trash to me </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">What do I want from you? - Nothing – nothing – or, more accurately, no thing </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I know what you want? - do I? – maybe not. </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I know you are a plant – first & always </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I know this was brief. </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">see you soon, my friend. </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px;text-indent:36px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">See you soon. Love, </font></i></p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
</font><p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 72px;text-indent:36px;line-height:normal;color:rgb(44,39,40)"><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">andrea </font></i></p></pre>
<pre><span style="color:black"><br></span></pre></div><div><br></div><div><div><br></div><div><br></div>
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</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 11:29 PM, Renate Terese Ferro <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rferro@cornell.edu" target="_blank">rferro@cornell.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
Thanks Rahul,<br>
I just ordered Living on a Damaged Planet and am looking forward to reading it myself. Hope many of you were also inspired by Cristina and Ellie’s discussion last month.<br>
<br>
Rahul can you talk a bit more about MCSers or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/environmental issues and the vishoka/katiya boundaries just to pick through this amazingly dense and interesting post? In doing a quick search it is my understanding the MCSers can be reactive to an environmental pathogen such as paint fumes but the reaction is attributed to the perception of the pathogen not actually the chemical pathogen itself. In essence there may be a apparently physical response that is activated by the simulation of a pathogen. It’s possible to feign the reaction which I am hoping that Andrea will offer to comment about.<br>
<br>
How does the vishoka/kitiya boundaries play out in India? Hope you don’t mind talking just a bit more about the details especially in relationship to contamination and media.<br>
More soon.<br>
Renate<br>
<span class=""><br>
Renate Ferro<br>
Visiting Associate Professor<br>
Director of Undergraduate Studies<br>
Department of Art<br>
Tjaden Hall 306<br>
<a href="mailto:rferro@cornell.edu">rferro@cornell.edu</a><br>
<br>
</span>On 11/20/17, 6:20 PM, "<a href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre-bounces@lists.<wbr>artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a> on behalf of Rahul Mukherjee" <<a href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre-bounces@lists.<wbr>artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a> on behalf of <a href="mailto:rm954@cornell.edu">rm954@cornell.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
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