“We need to rethink our relationship with energy”

From the university magazine Zett

“Meteorit” at the exhibition Refresh. Photo: David Jäggi.

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Author Sophia Prinz

A conversation about the complex relationship of the human with the non-human world. Sophia Prinz, professor for Design Theory and History at the Department of Design, discusses artistic strategies based on ideas of “care” with researcher/artist/educator Miranda Moss and ZHdK Fine Arts alumna Leandra Agazzi.

SPR: In posthumanist discourse, “care” is a very broad concept: it means caring for a whole network of relationships in which the well-being of humans cannot be separated from the well-being of other species and resources. This emphasis on the genuine entanglement of nature and culture is opposed to the extractivist logic of traditional Western thought. To what extent has this discussion influenced your artistic and design practice?

MMO: I am almost obsessed with the subject of energy and am constantly thinking about our relationship with energy, both as consumers and producers. A key question I have been working on is how we can think of ourselves not as consumers of energy but as stewards of energy. How can we think of energy as something we live with and something we take care of?

What kind of energy are you talking about?

MMO: A broad, holistic sense of energy. In my practical work, I am particularly interested in electricity. I think now we tend to use energy and electricity as synonyms, but they are not the same. I am interested in electricity as it manifests in nature and how electricity works in different environmental currencies. Or as a currency with different organisms. I have done a lot of work with electro-active bacteria, for example. How they interact with their environment and how we can benefit from the electricity that they produce in a non-extractive way. This involves taking care of them and the micro-ecosystem.

And what role does the concept of “care” play in your artistic practice, Leandra?

LAG: I use different kind of materials for my sculptural and installation practice. That is the first moment when I think about ecological issues, which also involves care. I am interested in where the material originates from and, for example, what ecosystem I’m sourcing it from. In my installations, I often work with plants that require intensive care. For the project I exhibited at REFRESH, I was working with a special light that allows the plants to grow. I am curious to learn from other species to know them better. I am not talking about it in an analytical way, but in a sense of creation and creating a relationship with other creatures.

We have to change our entire way of relating to our environment in order to make a real difference. This also means that we need to address the global and postcolonial dimension of the current climate crisis. Miranda, you also deal with post- and decolonial issues: how does your interest in energy intersect with these questions?

MMO: I am from South Africa, and unlike in Europe, the so-called postcolonial reality is very present. You can see it in Europe too; you just have to wear stronger glasses. The postcolonial reality in South Africa has been important in my thinking, alongside queer thinking. My practice deals with the redistribution of power in many ways. For example, it is reflected in the education that I do. I see educational workshops as an art practice through having workshops that do not take place in institutional spaces. Another crucial aspect is how you situate people; they are not just consumers but active agents who are able to make or hack things and feel comfortable or confident enough to enter into conversations about these issues. This is an empowerment process that needs to happen. My Master’s thesis was about the oppressive infrastructure of energy, water and sanitation in my home city, Cape Town. How could the infrastructure be decentralized? I think that the infrastructures are still embedded in colonial systems. My question was, how can we dismantle these in every facet of society, including energy and water?

But the art business follows its own rules and value structures. In my opinion, it is quite far removed from reality.

Miranda Moss
So “empowering” needs to be taken quite literally: also electricity and infrastructures are about “power”.

MMO: I think so, I have a slogan “energy and power have resistance in common”.

The question of power is, of course, also at play in the art field. Recently, many art institutions have jumped on the topic of ecology and care, but without engaging with it on a deeper or even self-reflective level. In this way, art runs the risk of becoming a mere ornament of critical discourse (as can also be observed with other topics). However, how can this extractivist logic be overcome? What do you think, Leandra?

LAG: My installation practice is always about creating an experience in space. It is a sensual experience, and through it, I question the position of the human body in the world. In my artistic practice, I am concerned with the contrast between geometric shapes and organic structures. The clear lines between the two become blurred. This happens on an experiential level.

The ontological status of the plant actually changes when you put it in an art gallery: it automatically becomes a ready-made. But let’s come back to the question of reception: Leandra, you said that your work challenges the viewers perceptual habits: One should become aware of one’s own bodily entanglement in ecological systems – an insight that modern forms of knowledge have more or less convincingly suppressed. In this sense, art can also serve as a medium for practicing other ways of perceiving and dealing with the world, right?

MMO: I think the physical experience is crucial. I am completely tied to the concepts that have brought us to where we are now, and just trying to explain something with words is often not enough to make a really meaningful change. Therefore, some kind of sensory experience is important. It is the same with scientific development. Art and science have not been separate disciplines for very long, and the last time they were separated was during the rise of the industrial revolution. Which goes hand in hand with messing up the planet and carbonizing the world. I think putting them back together is necessary to break down issues of climate change. I think that as an artist working with science, it is a nice safe space, like a third discipline. Therefore, I think it is my safe space to practice transdisciplinarity. I always say I am an artist when people ask me what I do, but when I think about it, I wonder if I am really making art.

The question is whether we need to radically challenge the disciplinary boundaries between art and non-art or art and science in order to deal with the world in a more caring way. The same holds true for the established rules and practices of the art field: its inherent logic of competition and individual authorship is not really sustainable.

MMO: No, absolutely not. I mean, we can draw parallels with technology and science, like the open source movements. Then I think it is a really insidious capitalist practice to get artists who are competing for scarce resources to stick to the system. Of course, we have to dismantle it, but we also have to eat. How do we do that and how much should be on us? You asked earlier how we could deal with the existing structures of contemporary art that are appropriate to these discourses. I see us as artists working with sacred ecology and transdisciplinarity as actually appropriating these art spaces to put in our work. It is just one space among many, isn’t it?

Of course, it cannot just be up to the artists to crack the capitalist logic of the art world. That would be hopelessly overburdening. The education system, for example, also has a responsibility to encourage transdisciplinary and collective ways of working.

LAG: There are some people in the Master’s programme who are striving to do exactly that, but they are still outsiders. It is one thing to understand art, but quite another to do something really different from what everyone else is doing. That takes courage! MMO: For a long time now, I have been working almost exclusively collaboratively. When I am invited to an exhibition, I am put in an uncomfortable position where my name is there and I don’t know how to acknowledge everyone else’s work. I am working with people who are for open knowledge, but the art complex has an interesting set of value structures. It is a bit detached from reality.