ARTISTS
Gardens Beyond Eden: Bio-aesthetics, Eco-Futurism, and Dystopia at dOCUMENTA (13)
Given that “we live in a state of permanent crisis, a state of emergency and thus of exception,” according to dOCUMENTA (13) director
T.j. Demos / The Brooklyn Rail
01 Oct, 2012
Given that 鈥渨e live in a state of permanent crisis, a state of emergency and thus of exception,鈥� according to dOCUMENTA (13) director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, it may seem surprising that she chose to respond to that state of crisis with numerous gardens in her exhibition.1 Nonetheless, the show was overgrown with experimental planters and creatively landscaped areas, relating variously to agriculture, farming, and natural life forms, which made the 2012 iteration of the international mega-exhibition that occurs every five years in central Germany the most 鈥渆co鈥� yet.
The garden-as-art included: Kristina Buch鈥檚 鈥淭he Lover,鈥� an open-air butterfly micro-habitat installed in front of Kassel鈥檚 Staatstheater, comprised of plants ideal for indigenous varieties of the insect, some of which emerged from their chrysalises during the length of the show; Christian Philipp M眉ller鈥檚 鈥淪wiss Chard Ferry,鈥� a group of barges floating on one of the canals in the Karlsaue Park, filled with different edible varieties, realized in cooperation with the Department of Organic Agricultural Sciences at the University of Kassel in Witzenhausen; and Song Dong鈥檚 鈥淒oing Nothing Garden,鈥� a six-meter-high accumulation of rubble and organic refuse, sprouting grass and flowers and sporting neon signs reading 鈥淒oing鈥� and 鈥淣othing鈥� in Chinese, found on the Karlswiese lawn in front of the Orangerie.
Gardens may seem irrelevant to our world of crises and emergencies鈥攖he specific circumstances of which Christov-Bakargiev neglected to identify鈥攂ut in fact they concern the most urgent of global conflicts鈥攊ncluding the corporate financialization of nature, realized by the patenting of genetically modified seeds by agriculture and pharmaceutical corporations; the production of greenhouse gas emissions, via a monoculture- and export-based agribusiness reliant on the fossil-fuelled transportation industry and chemical fertilizers; and the destruction of unions and small-scale farmers, displaced by the mechanization and monopoly ownership of the means of production.
About these various pressing emergencies the curators (including the director鈥檚 鈥渃ore agent鈥� Chus Mart铆nez) had little to say,2and as such the various biotic artworks risked becoming mere green embellishments to an already organically adorned Baroque environment, especially given the Karlsaue Park鈥檚 18th-century redesign as a landscape garden. Claire Pentecost鈥檚 vertical gardens, for instance, adorned the Ottoneum鈥檚 front grounds, rendering her eight-foot high dirt-and-plant towers extensions of the natural history museum鈥檚 landscaped grounds, and suggesting an organic approach to sculptural decoration. Yet far from evident was the radical nature of her proposals, meant as prototypes for self-sufficient food production in land-poor urban areas, unless one dutifully read the exhibition鈥檚 Guidebook or was already familiar with the artist鈥檚 politico-ecological activities.
Aptly鈥攂ut, in my view, not flatteringly鈥攄escribed as an exhibition without a concept by the director in the run-up to the show, dOCUMENTA (13) largely outsourced the definition of the show鈥檚 conceptualization to its impossibly multiple and sometimes internally conflicted 鈥�100 notebook鈥� publications.3 While that overwhelming panoply provided little immediate service to visitors at the show, the publications do open up fertile territory for considerations of certain pressing environmental matters (when one has the time to read them). The series assembles short essays by a range of artists and theorists, including some of the ecological, such as Donna Haraway, which suggest numerous productive, if competing, ways to approach the exhibition鈥檚 gardens. Let鈥檚 start with Haraway鈥檚 Documenta 鈥渘otebook,鈥� SF: Speculative Fabulation and String Figures, which rehearses the terms of an aesthetic of techno-organic hybridity, familiar in her well-known work on cyborgs, which finds inspiration in the science of gene research and bio-engineering.
鈥淪F,鈥� for Haraway, extends to such meanings as 鈥渟peculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, science fact, [and] science fantasy,鈥�4 each exemplifying the joining of oppositions that her cyborg also signifies as 鈥渁 creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction,鈥� one modelling and thus stimulating a world beyond the oppressive binaries of Western modernity (male-female, culture-nature, technology-biology, etc.).5 Haraway鈥檚 conceptual presence was discernable in the exhibition鈥檚 spatial dispersion鈥攚ith its dozens of offsite locations comprising a rhizomatic display geography鈥攁nd in its conceptual diffusion鈥攚here a hundred approaches eclipsed any single reigning theme. It was also perceptible in the 鈥渘atureculture鈥� and 鈥渋ntra-actional鈥� aspects of the 鈥渂ecoming-with鈥�-ontology of the gardens, suggesting environments that both play a role in organizing, and provide socio-aesthetic support systems for, human life.
Yet mobilizing Haraway as a model for eco-aesthetics is tricky, especially when placed in relation to the many political garden practices at dOCUMENTA (13), such as that of Ayreen Anastas, Rene Gabri, and their collective AND AND AND, which embraced an 鈥渁nti-capitalist,鈥� organic, and localist character, and whose garden kiosks sold regional food and produce on the exhibition grounds.6 The political ecology implied here is perhaps best articulated by Indian eco-activist Vandana Shiva鈥攁nother of the exhibition鈥檚 鈥渘otebook鈥� authors鈥攌nown for her struggle against the patenting of indigenous knowledge of seeds and plant life by multinational pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations.7While Haraway too opposes the patenting of life-forms, her postmodern aesthetic of eco-feminist science-fiction ultimately crosses Shiva鈥檚 anti-corporate globalization climate-justice activism, leading to a conflict of global visions. For Shiva, 鈥渓iving organisms, unlike machines, organize themselves鈥� and 鈥渃annot be treated as simply 鈥榖iotechnological inventions,鈥� 鈥榞ene constructs,鈥� or 鈥榩roducts of the mind.鈥欌��8Against corporate 鈥渂iopiracy,鈥� Shiva insists we must fight to protect the legal sovereignty of non-commercialized knowledge systems and the free and universal access to the life processes that comprise humanity鈥檚 shared heritage.9
Haraway鈥檚 cyborg, conversely, 鈥渄oes not dream of community on the model of the organic family,鈥� and 鈥渨ould not recognize the Garden of Eden,鈥� as s/he is 鈥渨ary of holism, but needy for connection.鈥�10For her, the 鈥渓ively area of transgenic research worldwide鈥濃�攇iving rise to such hybrids as 鈥渢he tomato with a gene from the cold-sea-bottom-living flounder, which codes for a protein that slows freezing, and the potato with a gene from the giant silk moth, which increases disease resistance鈥�11鈥攊nspires visions of new forms of emancipation. Haraway, moreover, remains suspicious of activist positions that oppose corporate science with the values of the local and organic: 鈥淚 cannot help but hear in the biotechnology debates the unintended tones of fear of the alien and suspicion of the mixed. In the appeal to intrinsic natures, I hear mystification of kind and purity akin to the doctrines of white racial hegemony and U.S. national integrity and purpose.鈥�12 Yet, with Shiva鈥檚 politics in mind, one cannot help but hear in Haraway鈥檚 enthusiasm for G.M.O.s a questionable support for corporate practices like Monsanto鈥檚, with its global threat to the livelihood of farmers, indigenous eco-knowledge, and human health itself.13
There was thus a profound divergence within dOCUMENTA (13)鈥檚 discursive positioning of its gardens鈥攂etween Haraway鈥檚 postmodern constructivist approach to biotechnological hybridity as a model of creative liberation on the one hand, and Shiva鈥檚 postcolonial commitment to an ecological justice opposed to corporate property claims on organic resources pilfered from the Third World on the other.14The problem is that this clash of positions鈥攚hich concerns pressing global conflicts over food production and the status of the natural world鈥攚as not explicitly engaged in the exhibition鈥檚 framework (only by individual authors and artists). As a result Christov-Bakargiev鈥檚 project betrayed a (non)position of uncommitted pluralism, a tendency familiar in the liberal milieu of contemporary art, happy to allude to crises and emergencies but take no clear stand in relation to them.15
The exhibition also included numerous artistic visions of potential dystopian futures, such as News from Nowhere (2012), by South Korean artists Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho. An example of sci-fi aesthetics, the multi-media project comprises a film, installation, and a publication, and builds on a scientistic iconography of genetic engineering and biotechnology that resonates with Haraway鈥檚 cyborg-poetic eco-futurism. In this regard, it reveals further ways to consider the relations between science, nature, and advanced capitalism in contemporary art.
Inspired by the eponymous 1890 story of a future agrarian worker society by socialist artist William Morris,16 Kyungwon and Joonho鈥檚 presentation visualizes a post-apocalyptic time to come when humanity, owing to a series of catastrophic 鈥渕ajor climate changes,鈥� is reduced to an endangered species, and survivors are left to reconsider their philosophies of life that now lie in ruins. Referencing utopian socialism and science fiction, the film, 鈥淓l Fin del Mundo鈥� (The End of the World), portrays a late-21st century earth permeated with radioactivity and hazardous waste, where raised sea levels necessitate floating settlements and the corporate giant Tempers rules over all. Those seeking citizenship, including the film鈥檚 male and female protagonists, volunteer to collect samples in the surrounding toxic environment, without realizing their real mission is to serve as living research specimens exposed to atmospheric contamination. The accompanying archival installation, 鈥淰oice of Metanoia鈥� (2011 鈥� 12), assembles an array of futuristic products such as clothes and tools that, created collaboratively with other artists, designers, and architects, are presented as if they come from the film鈥檚 fictional corporation.
As such, the project makes apparent a further risk of Haraway鈥檚 model鈥攊n this case, a sci-fi poetics that aestheticizes crisis but establishes no political traction. Much like the 鈥渟peculative fabulation鈥� of pop-cultural variants like Star Trek or Avatar, the piece sidesteps critical knowledge about the present, opting more for visual gratifications of our desire for futurist fantasy. Indeed, it pays mere lip-service to the failures of the present, without identifying the causes of鈥攐r better, providing alternatives to鈥攖he 鈥渕ajor climate changes鈥� that serve as its fiction鈥檚 generic foundation. Seduced by futuristic style, a corporate-scientist social order, technological redemption, and the imagery of a transfigured posthuman cyborg-body, the film and installation construct a problematic utopian imaginary within our otherwise catastrophic circumstances.
A counter-model is offered by the Otolith Group鈥檚 鈥淭he Radiant鈥� (2012), which exchanges Moon and Jeon鈥檚 dystopian futurism for a focus on the real existing corporate-science complex and its disastrous failure that is itself worthy of fiction.17The approximately one-hour long film takes March 11, 2011 as its point of departure, when the Great Tohoku Earthquake occurred off the pacific coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami that left more than 15,000 people dead, and caused a catastrophic nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Mixing appropriated historical media reports and live footage of interviews with scientists and locals, the film joins the erstwhile promise of nuclear energy to the coming threat of a radiation-ruined environment, forming an explosive equation that opens critical rifts in the forsaken present. Resonating with the premise of 鈥淓l Fin del Mundo,鈥� the evacuated Japanese villages and untouchable plant life within the contamination zone serve as an experimental laboratory in which elderly volunteers expose themselves to what the Otolith Group calls 鈥渢he necropolitics of radiation鈥� served up by the global nuclear regime for scientific research, exemplified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
鈥淭he Radiant鈥� thus exemplifies what Fredric Jameson calls 鈥渘egative utopianism,鈥� one that 鈥渢ransform[s] our own present into the determinate past of something yet to come.鈥�18 And that future doesn鈥檛 look pretty. Rather than giving itself over to the sci-fi seductions of some future bio-technology, this work finds the future immanent in specific conditions of our present. The result is that the future projected by 鈥淭he Radiant鈥漺orks like a mechanism to make the present different than it appears, sparking a political energy to resist what is already occurring.
dOCUMENTA (13)鈥檚 concept-less exhibition tended more to the bio-aesthetics of sci-fi, even a neo-surrealist-inspired futurism (given its inclusion of a group of paintings by Salvador Dal铆). As such it failed to engage the philosophical and political controversies surrounding the status of life today, let alone position itself within them.19 Still, it remains significant in that it opened paths for artists to explore the biopolitics of nature, the mixed economies of food production, and the contested modes of environmental governance, present and future. These questions lie at the heart of contemporary debates over what kind of world we want to live in, how it will be organized, and what role art might play in its creative imagination, representation, and realization. With each passing day, the stakes of those debates only continue to grow more momentous.20
Gardens may seem irrelevant to our world of crises and emergencies鈥攖he specific circumstances of which Christov-Bakargiev neglected to identify鈥攂ut in fact they concern the most urgent of global conflicts鈥攊ncluding the corporate financialization of nature, realized by the patenting of genetically modified seeds by agriculture and pharmaceutical corporations; the production of greenhouse gas emissions, via a monoculture- and export-based agribusiness reliant on the fossil-fuelled transportation industry and chemical fertilizers; and the destruction of unions and small-scale farmers, displaced by the mechanization and monopoly ownership of the means of production.
About these various pressing emergencies the curators (including the director鈥檚 鈥渃ore agent鈥� Chus Mart铆nez) had little to say,2and as such the various biotic artworks risked becoming mere green embellishments to an already organically adorned Baroque environment, especially given the Karlsaue Park鈥檚 18th-century redesign as a landscape garden. Claire Pentecost鈥檚 vertical gardens, for instance, adorned the Ottoneum鈥檚 front grounds, rendering her eight-foot high dirt-and-plant towers extensions of the natural history museum鈥檚 landscaped grounds, and suggesting an organic approach to sculptural decoration. Yet far from evident was the radical nature of her proposals, meant as prototypes for self-sufficient food production in land-poor urban areas, unless one dutifully read the exhibition鈥檚 Guidebook or was already familiar with the artist鈥檚 politico-ecological activities.
Aptly鈥攂ut, in my view, not flatteringly鈥攄escribed as an exhibition without a concept by the director in the run-up to the show, dOCUMENTA (13) largely outsourced the definition of the show鈥檚 conceptualization to its impossibly multiple and sometimes internally conflicted 鈥�100 notebook鈥� publications.3 While that overwhelming panoply provided little immediate service to visitors at the show, the publications do open up fertile territory for considerations of certain pressing environmental matters (when one has the time to read them). The series assembles short essays by a range of artists and theorists, including some of the ecological, such as Donna Haraway, which suggest numerous productive, if competing, ways to approach the exhibition鈥檚 gardens. Let鈥檚 start with Haraway鈥檚 Documenta 鈥渘otebook,鈥� SF: Speculative Fabulation and String Figures, which rehearses the terms of an aesthetic of techno-organic hybridity, familiar in her well-known work on cyborgs, which finds inspiration in the science of gene research and bio-engineering.
鈥淪F,鈥� for Haraway, extends to such meanings as 鈥渟peculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, science fact, [and] science fantasy,鈥�4 each exemplifying the joining of oppositions that her cyborg also signifies as 鈥渁 creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction,鈥� one modelling and thus stimulating a world beyond the oppressive binaries of Western modernity (male-female, culture-nature, technology-biology, etc.).5 Haraway鈥檚 conceptual presence was discernable in the exhibition鈥檚 spatial dispersion鈥攚ith its dozens of offsite locations comprising a rhizomatic display geography鈥攁nd in its conceptual diffusion鈥攚here a hundred approaches eclipsed any single reigning theme. It was also perceptible in the 鈥渘atureculture鈥� and 鈥渋ntra-actional鈥� aspects of the 鈥渂ecoming-with鈥�-ontology of the gardens, suggesting environments that both play a role in organizing, and provide socio-aesthetic support systems for, human life.
Yet mobilizing Haraway as a model for eco-aesthetics is tricky, especially when placed in relation to the many political garden practices at dOCUMENTA (13), such as that of Ayreen Anastas, Rene Gabri, and their collective AND AND AND, which embraced an 鈥渁nti-capitalist,鈥� organic, and localist character, and whose garden kiosks sold regional food and produce on the exhibition grounds.6 The political ecology implied here is perhaps best articulated by Indian eco-activist Vandana Shiva鈥攁nother of the exhibition鈥檚 鈥渘otebook鈥� authors鈥攌nown for her struggle against the patenting of indigenous knowledge of seeds and plant life by multinational pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations.7While Haraway too opposes the patenting of life-forms, her postmodern aesthetic of eco-feminist science-fiction ultimately crosses Shiva鈥檚 anti-corporate globalization climate-justice activism, leading to a conflict of global visions. For Shiva, 鈥渓iving organisms, unlike machines, organize themselves鈥� and 鈥渃annot be treated as simply 鈥榖iotechnological inventions,鈥� 鈥榞ene constructs,鈥� or 鈥榩roducts of the mind.鈥欌��8Against corporate 鈥渂iopiracy,鈥� Shiva insists we must fight to protect the legal sovereignty of non-commercialized knowledge systems and the free and universal access to the life processes that comprise humanity鈥檚 shared heritage.9
Haraway鈥檚 cyborg, conversely, 鈥渄oes not dream of community on the model of the organic family,鈥� and 鈥渨ould not recognize the Garden of Eden,鈥� as s/he is 鈥渨ary of holism, but needy for connection.鈥�10For her, the 鈥渓ively area of transgenic research worldwide鈥濃�攇iving rise to such hybrids as 鈥渢he tomato with a gene from the cold-sea-bottom-living flounder, which codes for a protein that slows freezing, and the potato with a gene from the giant silk moth, which increases disease resistance鈥�11鈥攊nspires visions of new forms of emancipation. Haraway, moreover, remains suspicious of activist positions that oppose corporate science with the values of the local and organic: 鈥淚 cannot help but hear in the biotechnology debates the unintended tones of fear of the alien and suspicion of the mixed. In the appeal to intrinsic natures, I hear mystification of kind and purity akin to the doctrines of white racial hegemony and U.S. national integrity and purpose.鈥�12 Yet, with Shiva鈥檚 politics in mind, one cannot help but hear in Haraway鈥檚 enthusiasm for G.M.O.s a questionable support for corporate practices like Monsanto鈥檚, with its global threat to the livelihood of farmers, indigenous eco-knowledge, and human health itself.13
There was thus a profound divergence within dOCUMENTA (13)鈥檚 discursive positioning of its gardens鈥攂etween Haraway鈥檚 postmodern constructivist approach to biotechnological hybridity as a model of creative liberation on the one hand, and Shiva鈥檚 postcolonial commitment to an ecological justice opposed to corporate property claims on organic resources pilfered from the Third World on the other.14The problem is that this clash of positions鈥攚hich concerns pressing global conflicts over food production and the status of the natural world鈥攚as not explicitly engaged in the exhibition鈥檚 framework (only by individual authors and artists). As a result Christov-Bakargiev鈥檚 project betrayed a (non)position of uncommitted pluralism, a tendency familiar in the liberal milieu of contemporary art, happy to allude to crises and emergencies but take no clear stand in relation to them.15
The exhibition also included numerous artistic visions of potential dystopian futures, such as News from Nowhere (2012), by South Korean artists Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho. An example of sci-fi aesthetics, the multi-media project comprises a film, installation, and a publication, and builds on a scientistic iconography of genetic engineering and biotechnology that resonates with Haraway鈥檚 cyborg-poetic eco-futurism. In this regard, it reveals further ways to consider the relations between science, nature, and advanced capitalism in contemporary art.
Inspired by the eponymous 1890 story of a future agrarian worker society by socialist artist William Morris,16 Kyungwon and Joonho鈥檚 presentation visualizes a post-apocalyptic time to come when humanity, owing to a series of catastrophic 鈥渕ajor climate changes,鈥� is reduced to an endangered species, and survivors are left to reconsider their philosophies of life that now lie in ruins. Referencing utopian socialism and science fiction, the film, 鈥淓l Fin del Mundo鈥� (The End of the World), portrays a late-21st century earth permeated with radioactivity and hazardous waste, where raised sea levels necessitate floating settlements and the corporate giant Tempers rules over all. Those seeking citizenship, including the film鈥檚 male and female protagonists, volunteer to collect samples in the surrounding toxic environment, without realizing their real mission is to serve as living research specimens exposed to atmospheric contamination. The accompanying archival installation, 鈥淰oice of Metanoia鈥� (2011 鈥� 12), assembles an array of futuristic products such as clothes and tools that, created collaboratively with other artists, designers, and architects, are presented as if they come from the film鈥檚 fictional corporation.
As such, the project makes apparent a further risk of Haraway鈥檚 model鈥攊n this case, a sci-fi poetics that aestheticizes crisis but establishes no political traction. Much like the 鈥渟peculative fabulation鈥� of pop-cultural variants like Star Trek or Avatar, the piece sidesteps critical knowledge about the present, opting more for visual gratifications of our desire for futurist fantasy. Indeed, it pays mere lip-service to the failures of the present, without identifying the causes of鈥攐r better, providing alternatives to鈥攖he 鈥渕ajor climate changes鈥� that serve as its fiction鈥檚 generic foundation. Seduced by futuristic style, a corporate-scientist social order, technological redemption, and the imagery of a transfigured posthuman cyborg-body, the film and installation construct a problematic utopian imaginary within our otherwise catastrophic circumstances.
A counter-model is offered by the Otolith Group鈥檚 鈥淭he Radiant鈥� (2012), which exchanges Moon and Jeon鈥檚 dystopian futurism for a focus on the real existing corporate-science complex and its disastrous failure that is itself worthy of fiction.17The approximately one-hour long film takes March 11, 2011 as its point of departure, when the Great Tohoku Earthquake occurred off the pacific coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami that left more than 15,000 people dead, and caused a catastrophic nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Mixing appropriated historical media reports and live footage of interviews with scientists and locals, the film joins the erstwhile promise of nuclear energy to the coming threat of a radiation-ruined environment, forming an explosive equation that opens critical rifts in the forsaken present. Resonating with the premise of 鈥淓l Fin del Mundo,鈥� the evacuated Japanese villages and untouchable plant life within the contamination zone serve as an experimental laboratory in which elderly volunteers expose themselves to what the Otolith Group calls 鈥渢he necropolitics of radiation鈥� served up by the global nuclear regime for scientific research, exemplified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
鈥淭he Radiant鈥� thus exemplifies what Fredric Jameson calls 鈥渘egative utopianism,鈥� one that 鈥渢ransform[s] our own present into the determinate past of something yet to come.鈥�18 And that future doesn鈥檛 look pretty. Rather than giving itself over to the sci-fi seductions of some future bio-technology, this work finds the future immanent in specific conditions of our present. The result is that the future projected by 鈥淭he Radiant鈥漺orks like a mechanism to make the present different than it appears, sparking a political energy to resist what is already occurring.
dOCUMENTA (13)鈥檚 concept-less exhibition tended more to the bio-aesthetics of sci-fi, even a neo-surrealist-inspired futurism (given its inclusion of a group of paintings by Salvador Dal铆). As such it failed to engage the philosophical and political controversies surrounding the status of life today, let alone position itself within them.19 Still, it remains significant in that it opened paths for artists to explore the biopolitics of nature, the mixed economies of food production, and the contested modes of environmental governance, present and future. These questions lie at the heart of contemporary debates over what kind of world we want to live in, how it will be organized, and what role art might play in its creative imagination, representation, and realization. With each passing day, the stakes of those debates only continue to grow more momentous.20