#2 Fuzzy Earth

00:00:07: Hello and welcome to episode two.

00:00:09: My name is Irene and I'm very happy to have you back.

00:00:12: Today we are taking you on a journey to the belly of the universe, literally.

00:00:16: We will be talking to the Archist of Fuzzy Earth.

00:00:19: and also the curators Veronica Hackel and Stefan Kuss from Kunsters Wien.

00:00:24: About the new exhibition at Kunsters Wien, The Belly Knows Before the Brain.

00:00:28: It's about digestion as a collective process, microorganisms as co-creators of our world and the question of how we as humans can live together with other species.

00:00:39: Hello, I'm Becla, I'm from Fuzzy Earth and I'm very excited to be here.

00:00:43: Hello also from me, from Sebastian Kschanes.

00:00:46: I'm the second part of Fuzzy Earth.

00:00:48: Hi, my name is Stefan Kuss.

00:00:50: Thanks for having us.

00:00:51: Hello, this is Veronica Hackel from Kunsthaus Wien and I'm also very happy to be here.

00:00:56: My name

00:00:56: is Fasi Erf and we are an ecological artist duo and all our topics are around agriculture, the landscapes, the food we eat and the species around us and how we live together.

00:01:09: On your website you say that you build alternative worlds.

00:01:13: What do these worlds look like and is there something missing in this world, in the real world for you?

00:01:18: That's an interesting question about the alternative worlds.

00:01:20: And yes, we do build alternative worlds through our work, through our installations, through the workshops, where we create these scenarios, these alternative scenarios of futures that might happen or might come.

00:01:35: And what are not problem, but we have some issues with, I think everyone has issues with the world we live in.

00:01:41: And especially now in the times of climate crisis, of displacement, there's this political conflicts.

00:01:48: I think it's really important that we all train ourselves to look into positive futures and that is in our understanding really hard because all the environment around us all the culture tells us or shows us how easy it is to think about futures that are negative like this topic futures and it is easy to think about these things.

00:02:09: On the other hand it's really hard to think about positive futures and that's what we try with our work and we are struggling.

00:02:16: So it's not so easy, but we keep on trying.

00:02:18: You work in a research-based way, but also with soil, plants and wood.

00:02:23: How would you describe your approach?

00:02:25: And why do you choose the materials you are choosing for your art?

00:02:29: Maybe it's a good time to introduce our background.

00:02:31: I am coming from the field of architecture, design and critical studies and Sebastian studied gardening and landscape architecture.

00:02:39: So we do not come from a fine art field.

00:02:41: Also in our families there are histories of farming and gardening and working with the soil.

00:02:47: So when we work in the art field we bring in the mediums and the materials we know.

00:02:52: So it is a mixture.

00:02:53: We compost knowledge from our ancestors, from generations behind us.

00:02:58: We bring traditional knowledge from farming from our grandparents and classmates and researchers around us, as well as science.

00:03:07: As an architect, as a designer, we learn to work with others, we learn to work and combine knowledge from many different fields of science.

00:03:16: So in the art we brought in this approach of gathering, collecting information and curating this information through our pieces, through the materials.

00:03:26: and because of our background in design, we also create objects that are meant to be used.

00:03:31: And the materials that these objects are made of, they're always reflecting on the context.

00:03:36: In this case we work with natural materials such as soil, clay and wool.

00:03:41: In other cases we work with recycled materials, we work with puppy mercy, but also textiles.

00:03:47: So there is a huge range of variety of techniques.

00:03:51: materials that each exhibition brings together.

00:03:55: But the research-based aspect is super important, so we do research through field trips, visits, interviews, and actual work with the material.

00:04:03: We have experimental gardens, so to say, where we grow plants for the exhibition.

00:04:09: We did the research with bell peppers, and we started to grow our bell peppers, so to really get in touch with whatever object, subject, other species we would encounter.

00:04:19: So clay, for example, is a very new medium for us.

00:04:22: We did tests, we did experiments with clay before, but it never got this key focus.

00:04:28: So it's very exciting and it's something that I think will stuck with us because we really enjoyed working with it and we felt like it has so many more possibilities and how we can bring it into our work.

00:04:39: So you're actually starting with the material and go into research or is it the other way around?

00:04:46: And how long does it take to build an exhibition like this?

00:04:49: exhibition in Kunstuswien.

00:04:51: I think usually we start with the research.

00:04:54: So we start diving into the topic and there very quickly actually we identify what could be the medium or in what direction it could go.

00:05:03: I mean in this case we were really intrigued by this whole geological past.

00:05:09: I mean this exhibition is about digestion but not only the digestion of humans.

00:05:13: It's more of the digestion of bacteria in that sense.

00:05:17: And if you read about And very quickly you find out that bacteria.

00:05:21: they were one of the first organisms here on the planet.

00:05:24: So after this lava ball what we call now earth solidified billions of years ago bacteria evolved out of single cells and They started really early with digestion.

00:05:36: So they started to eat the rocks.

00:05:38: So we were reading a lot about geology or the geological past and when you read about that you identify that the material you might work with is something geological.

00:05:49: So we were thinking of, is it some rock?

00:05:52: Is it some stone?

00:05:54: Or is it some clay?

00:05:55: And then that's how we ended up with clay, I would say.

00:05:57: But materiality also plays an important part in the theoretical framing of the artworks itself.

00:06:04: So for example, we follow the thing.

00:06:06: There is a research methodology.

00:06:08: We borrow from anthropology and human geographies, which is literally called follow the thing.

00:06:12: So in our works, we identify key materials that we get.

00:06:17: obsessed with and we follow it through history, through scales, through different species.

00:06:22: The whole installation actually was sparked by our interest into agricultural fertilizers, especially the material phosphorus and we did a material research how we feed the land and how this matter that's coming from deep time shoot by bacteria as Sebastian mentioned, then is feeding war and climate chaos and then how it built into our own bodies, how we can find it in supermarkets.

00:06:49: We became extremely interested in these cycles of metabolism, nutrient cycles, and how very, very literally our bodies connect different times and different scales of the planet.

00:07:01: And then this sort of thinking really builds into the physical materiality that we use in the space.

00:07:09: So to build up an exhibition like this is, well, it can take endless time.

00:07:12: It depends on, there's always deadlines, so you always stop working.

00:07:15: at one point but we never consider a work finished.

00:07:19: We start with these questions and then they never end.

00:07:22: We always look at opportunities of exhibitions, residences and workshops as just different moments of continuing that conversation and building on it and one project for us builds on the next one.

00:07:34: So they always look into each other, they follow each other, we work with agriculture and food.

00:07:39: so everything we do is extremely connected and we highlight different aspects or different questions within these exhibitions.

00:07:46: but the belly of the universe is not closed for us.

00:07:49: so we are very much going forward and after this one year of working here together with everyone in Kunsthaus I think I have more questions than when we started.

00:07:58: Your exhibition is also or a big part of your exhibition is also workshop with other people.

00:08:04: Is this also this part you just said about the process and building more out of it and not just stopping at some point?

00:08:11: How important are the workshops for this exhibition?

00:08:14: example.

00:08:14: The workshops absolutely pay a key role in the creation of the works and they also feed into the research because when we talk about food and digestion we also consider everyone an expert.

00:08:26: We all eat, we all share food, we all have traditions and we all have gut feelings about what we eat.

00:08:32: so the workshops is a continuation of that inquiry into planetary digestion and we do bring a topic, we do share our own narratives.

00:08:41: but during the workshops we also get other knowledge and other experiences from that temporary community that we shape for these three hours.

00:08:50: So it's also for us a learning process.

00:08:53: And of course the workshops are also important in shaping the entire setup of the installation itself.

00:08:59: The installation is rather made to host workshops.

00:09:02: It's a static moment in between workshops that we leave behind.

00:09:06: So the workshops are even more important for us than a static installation in a way.

00:09:12: to host life, more than human life, microbial life, but also human life and conversations.

00:09:18: So the whole installation changes during the next month?

00:09:22: Yes, so that's the idea that the whole installation is changing.

00:09:25: Just for example, the first workshop will be about making sauerkraut.

00:09:30: Making sauerkraut is just the first hookup, you know, to bring them in.

00:09:33: But at the same time, we're talking about much bigger topics and problems and how we are all connected, how we are feeding the bacteria and the bacteria.

00:09:42: feed us and by all the participants touching and massaging this crowd.

00:09:47: we all share bacteria and it all adds up and then later on the crowd will remain in the exhibition space and it will breathe.

00:09:55: there the bacteria will breathe and they will exhale and they will fill the room with their scent and with their gases.

00:10:03: so it will be a living space and it will transform the space quite sensorial.

00:10:08: Just as you mentioned, the bacteria we bring into the room, I think there's been this very, very nice story that you shared with Veronica and I in the very beginning of making sauerkraut.

00:10:17: When you said back in the days, people didn't wash their feet for weeks to keep like their feet very, very full of bacteria.

00:10:23: And this was super important for the sauerkraut to develop.

00:10:26: And I really like this story of how the importance of bacteria joining us in processes and to come up with something that's like a multi-species gathering at the end of the day.

00:10:37: exhibition bears the poetic title The Belly knows before the brain.

00:10:41: What is behind this gut feeling and how did the concept come about?

00:10:45: The Belly knows before the brain.

00:10:46: The title came actually quite out of the belly, if I have to say it like that.

00:10:51: And again, this is about the whole situation we are living in right now.

00:10:56: I think all of us we somehow feel that something is not right right now in the world we are living in and our stomach feels it already before even our intellect knows it.

00:11:08: I mean we have a lot of intellectual people who know a lot about what is going on on the planet.

00:11:13: still the whole society or the population of this planet is yet not acting accordingly.

00:11:19: we have the feeling.

00:11:20: so I think from this bigger scale point of view this gave the title.

00:11:24: I think

00:11:25: so.

00:11:26: The title The Belly knows before the brain for me speaks very well about the exhibition because on the one hand it talks about this gut feeling and the intuition that we have.

00:11:36: this trust in our body that it has knowledge and that we have this intrinsic knowledge that we might not grasp all the time.

00:11:43: But on the other hand, there is actually scientific research about it and there is proof that there is a very strong connection between the digestive system and the brain and our immune system and our brain functions and also our psychological health has so much to do with the microbiome in our digestive system, actually.

00:12:02: So for me, it combines these very natural intuition and intuitive way of perceiving the world with the scientific research and the knowledge that we have.

00:12:12: that also builds very much into the exhibition.

00:12:15: And also, this exhibition should not be all about humans.

00:12:18: As the title suggests, the belly knows before.

00:12:20: the brain is also that you as a species, you as an individual, you don't need a brain to digest.

00:12:27: And there are so many species around us.

00:12:29: They don't have a brain, but they all do digest and they do the thing and it all works in this planetary metabolism.

00:12:37: So it's just us and the exhibition should show us that it's not all about us humans here in the planet.

00:12:44: Another highlight is the compost heap in the courtyard outside the exhibition space.

00:12:49: What is its role in the exhibition and what will happen to it over the month?

00:12:53: and what is so important with the concept of composting?

00:12:57: Compost is a key symbol and thinking process and thinking about compost happens to conceive this exhibition in many ways.

00:13:07: First of all, our work together with Stefan and Veronica also started in the composting facility of Vienna at Emma Achtungvirtig, because we visited how Vienna gathers its organic waste and how it is transformed.

00:13:22: So the compost is this shared pile of things that everyone or most of Viennese people were eating and gathering.

00:13:30: and how is it mixed with the green leaves and and waste of the outskirts?

00:13:36: and it is a shared collaboration and a shared thinking process where humans and non-humans all bring this knowledge together and within compost.

00:13:45: it's very important for us to highlight that rotting and decay and nourishment in this sense is not opposites of each other.

00:13:53: so when we eat and construct food, then we also think about what happens with the waste afterwards and how it gains new lives.

00:14:03: And nourishment and decay are part of the same movement, the same cycles of nutrient cycles and they are not appreciate it the same way, while there is a lot of fear and preconceptions about decay and decomposition, nourishment and eating is a celebrated subject.

00:14:22: So we want to connect them closer to each other and create links and use the process of cooking and eating together in a way to also introduce composting and the afterlife of everything we eat.

00:14:34: We want to highlight that nutrients is not something we can own as a person.

00:14:39: reality even though of course we buy food in the supermarket but in reality we don't own this.

00:14:44: these are all nutrients to be shared within a planetary cycle with other species so with temporary carriers of these nutrients and compost.

00:14:52: a really great way of having that collective visual pile that really is so simple.

00:14:59: it's really just a pile of leaves and food scraps but in reality this is all that collective leftover that we bring together and it already carries the possibility of new life in itself.

00:15:10: so the compost is a great metaphor.

00:15:13: it's a very interesting pile And it's also transforming such a quick time.

00:15:18: When in weeks you can feel the heat, it reacts to you, it reflects on you.

00:15:23: So there is an actual conversation with the microbes.

00:15:26: So it's a beautiful way to involve other people in it.

00:15:29: So the compost pile in the garden is actually going to be alive throughout the exhibition.

00:15:34: People have the chance to feed it with.

00:15:36: We also placed some bird food around it, hoping that other species will contribute with their materials to nourish the compost pile.

00:15:44: And I'm very excited to see how it will look in January and what happens to the leaves.

00:15:49: I think the notion of the compost is a quite interesting one because it helps us to live behind the human.

00:15:55: It helps us to think of we actually live in the Anthropocene and thinking of compost that we all are compost.

00:16:01: Everything that is happening here ends up as compost at the end of the day, helps us to live behind the human that we don't only think of.

00:16:08: now there's the time of the human and afterwards there's the posthumous era.

00:16:11: It helps us to think in cycles that We're all part of different nutrient cycles.

00:16:16: We all die, we all become decay, and we all become new life at the end of the day.

00:16:20: So the notion of compost is super important, not only to the exhibition, but also to how to think of us humans and to think of our role as humans.

00:16:29: And if we could even leave our role of being humans behind us a little bit, so we all just become one big whole collective.

00:16:36: So there are many cooperation and collaborations inside and outside this exhibition.

00:16:40: Can you tell us a bit more about the importance of these collaborations?

00:16:45: I

00:16:45: think the whole process of the exhibition is a collaborative process between the four of us, between everybody we engaged with.

00:16:53: And it continues as such a collaboration now that the exhibition has opened.

00:16:58: It is really a process of collective thinking, brainstorming, rearranging thoughts and research that we do together with other experts of different fields.

00:17:10: The way Stefan and me approach the project space garage and the way Fasi Earth is working is very much in line considering everybody as an expert in their life and in their field.

00:17:23: And to connect these expertise and finding out how to add the common brainstorm that we did into an exhibition is actually the process that we have been going through the last month or the last year.

00:17:37: And this starts with the visit to the compost facility that we already talked about, but also with different site visits, different talks that we had with natural scientists, with human beings of all different expertise, but also really thinking and acting this process of collective work towards a non-human vision as well.

00:18:00: There

00:18:00: will also be a publication which is also kind of a collective work.

00:18:03: So you're selecting different contributions from different people and expertise.

00:18:08: So maybe you can talk about that and also when will it be launched.

00:18:12: Yes,

00:18:12: the publication that we have been working on is also a big part of the exhibition because we found that it's important for us to share a little bit of this process even more with others because there were already a lot of different people and other beings involved in the process.

00:18:30: But sometimes in such collective processes, it's not so visible what has been done until that point where, for example, a visitor enters a space and gets to know this somehow and result of it.

00:18:41: And the publication for us was really a way to include more voices, even more than we had before, to also have different perspectives on the topics that we were talking because Tecla, Sebastian, Stefan and me, we were talking and I just so much about these same terms that we always use.

00:18:59: and then it was important also to say, okay, how could you

00:19:02: see

00:19:03: decay from a different perspective?

00:19:05: What is gut feeling for somebody who is working in a different field?

00:19:10: And to mix all this up also in a way of a compost.

00:19:14: So the publication that we have is also designed as a compost and also with this concept of many different elements that then work together and become something new.

00:19:24: will be launched during the artist's talk that we have on November thirteenth.

00:19:29: So we took this approach of writing an essay together.

00:19:34: So Tecla, Sebastian, Veronica and I, we thought of how could we show our process of collaboration also on terms of the publication.

00:19:41: So we took the approach of thinking what planetary digestion, what the belly of the universe could actually be.

00:19:46: And we collectively wrote an essay that highlights four different possibilities.

00:19:51: I think it's a big theme of the exhibition not to come up with soul answers on things, but to highlight the different possibilities that there are.

00:19:59: So each and every one of us wrote a different ending to this essay.

00:20:03: So this is kind of where we start thinking of.

00:20:05: this is how planetary digestion looks to us, but we also engage with a reader starting to think how could a planetary digestion look to them?

00:20:13: What could it be part of?

00:20:15: What could it do?

00:20:16: So the publication brings up different views on how we see planetary digestion and how other people could also see it.

00:20:23: I think for us the whole publication has the function of an archive of all the collaborative work we did in the last year and to bring it together to one big whole pile of knowledge, a big compost of knowledge.

00:20:34: And we're composting our last year with the publication.

00:20:38: There are many objects in the exhibition and some of them get activated from visitors.

00:20:44: Some of them I can interact with during the workshops.

00:20:47: Are there objects that are your favorites and why?

00:20:50: Yeah, that's a really difficult question.

00:20:52: because it's hard to say a favorite objects because they all play together like sort of long and they're all somehow needed to tell this specific story.

00:21:03: now at this point.

00:21:04: There are some which I find have an interesting story behind.

00:21:08: Let's say there's.

00:21:09: we have these seating elements which are called the gut threads.

00:21:13: And these are made from wool, wool which was produced here around the city.

00:21:18: I think it was in lower Austria.

00:21:20: And we were very lucky and we were gifted this wool from the farmers.

00:21:25: And our idea from the beginning was to use this wool.

00:21:28: It's a natural wool.

00:21:29: It's untreated.

00:21:30: It's like some sort of felt.

00:21:31: And from our research we know that felt is really good for the soil.

00:21:36: So you can add felt to the soil.

00:21:39: And this information sparked the idea for our last workshop.

00:21:42: very end of the exhibition, which is to take the exhibition or parts of the exhibition apart and turn it into fertilizer or some soil healing materials.

00:21:53: So in the last workshop, for example, we will take apart these gut threads and we will turn them into fertilizer.

00:21:59: And we also were really open with this idea to the sheep wool producers.

00:22:04: And they were happy about it.

00:22:06: They liked this idea that this material is not going to waste or we don't give it back, but it nurtures the soil in the end.

00:22:13: Furthermore, the filling material of these sitting elements is the compost from the Emma Achtundvierzig hier in Vienna.

00:22:19: So it's a locally produced filling material, which we will also alongside the wool share with our guests and visitors at the end.

00:22:27: Take care.

00:22:27: Do you have a favorite object or a story behind an object?

00:22:31: Yes, I am actually very lucky because this year I inherited a new family heirloom which is my grandma's sauerkraut dressing stone.

00:22:40: This is a stone, it's a crumble from the Carpathian Mountains that arrived to my grandma's village with the river and the flood and it's not even her stone because she inherited from her mother's.

00:22:50: Honestly no one remembers who had this stone first, they also have two more stones.

00:22:56: so but I get one of them and it went from women to women in my family.

00:23:00: and this sauerkraut making has a long tradition in this region and they use this river stone to weigh down the cabbage during sauerkraut making that it stays below the liquid and keeps the crowd fermenting in a healthy way so to say.

00:23:16: So this stone also carries all these bacterias and traces of the recipes that my grandma used to produce.

00:23:25: so it's very exciting because I used the first time this stone here in Kunsthaus.

00:23:30: I never had such a huge pot before to put it in.

00:23:33: So until now it was on the shelf and this is the first time it's activating with a sauerkraut that I and many other produced together.

00:23:42: That's

00:23:42: very nice.

00:23:43: Thank you.

00:23:44: Finally, one last question.

00:23:46: If your belly could talk, what would it say to us?

00:23:49: There is a certain feeling that I do feel in my belly and it's this feeling of humility.

00:23:55: I do chase that feeling.

00:23:57: I'm very excited when I get to experience how small, tiny am I in this universe.

00:24:04: I'm very fascinated to learn about deep time.

00:24:07: I'm very excited to talk with natural scientists because they travel across times that is so much bigger than us.

00:24:14: and when I get to talk about rocks and stones or look at the stars and understand that there are many more timescales and that my life is so short but I'm still carrying that material from deep time from different timescales then there is this feeling that takes over my body and it does settle in the belly this uncanny feeling of connectedness with the planet and with materials and this sort of warm bubbly uncomfortable and also it makes you feel weak.

00:24:46: but it also makes me extremely happy because at that moment for that short time I realized that nothing really lasts.

00:24:52: this is the moment I don't always know what does it mean to compost society or political structures but at that moment it makes sense because you feel like oh everything will pass.

00:25:02: So there is really new beginnings and that is a comforting, uncomfortable feeling at the same time which I wish to bring across in workshops or when I talk to people.

00:25:12: If someone does look at their body and feels that feeling I'm very excited and happy for that.

00:25:17: What does your belly tell us right now or in the future?

00:25:21: I don't know.

00:25:21: My belly often tells me or directs me mainly towards hunger and for my body what I do, how I translate this is I do gardening and that's what I did since I was small and since a short time I have a garden again or the access to a garden near our atelier and as soon as the garden was ready to access I started to produce vegetables again because probably my belly told me that this is the right thing to do.

00:25:51: but producing vegetables or producing food in general is not just to steal your hunger it's much more.

00:25:58: it's a little empowerment and I think everyone who out there who does produce vegetables or their own food even in small quantities they know a little bit what I'm talking about because it makes you free up and then also preserving these vegetables vegetables.

00:26:11: So during winter, when it's like outside in the garden, there's not so much to take.

00:26:16: You can still have the taste from the summer.

00:26:19: On the other hand, talking about this gardening and what you experience during a whole year of gardening, that you have seasons and every season gives you gives you something.

00:26:29: It's very different than going to the supermarket in January and buying fresh tomatoes.

00:26:33: That is unnatural.

00:26:35: And I think My belly tells me like that is not right and what my belly told my brain throughout this last year or since probably earlier also that something is not right here and probably we all live in a world which is much too comfortable a little bit and we should rather listen to the seasons and attune more with what is out there.

00:26:55: I actually have to say sometimes it's really hard to hear what the belly actually is talking.

00:26:59: For me it's constant work of really leaving behind my brain, not always being led on what my brain tells me and I can really feel it as much as we proclaim it in the exhibition to listen more to your belly, to your gut feeling.

00:27:11: It's a constant learning for me to finally listen to my gut feeling.

00:27:14: I'm way too focused on the logics, on how my brain works and what my brain tells me and I'm too little focusing on the instinct that I actually have inside me.

00:27:23: So I think my belly says a lot.

00:27:25: it's screaming at me trying to reach me and for me it's the learning of finally listening to what my body actually wants to tell me the stories my belly has to tell me and yeah it's trying to find back to my to this human instinct of me.

00:27:37: Yeah, well, my belly is talking a lot and it is actually already speaking.

00:27:42: And I think I feel that we are speaking belly as well very much.

00:27:47: So there are so many proverbs that have to do with the belly in all different directions.

00:27:52: If we are nervous or if we are excited, we can also feel it in the belly.

00:27:57: And so this is also for me a part of the belly speaking.

00:28:00: And this excitement is what my belly feels right now and also tells me because we have just started something.

00:28:06: And there is, as the sauerkraut that we produced, that is fermenting and that is working, I feel that we set something up in this exhibition that is now growing and working and I'm very excited to see how it turns out and how it will transform in the next couple of months.

00:28:21: So thank all of you for this wonderful conversation and also our listeners.

00:28:25: Come by, the belly knows before.

00:28:27: the brain is on display until January twenty-five and the project room is to visit in Kunsthaus Wien.

00:28:34: And if you want to experience more, It's a great accompanying program with workshops and future talks and more.

00:28:40: Check out our website for more details.

00:28:42: Until next time, thank you for

00:29:00: listening.