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TOWARDS THE

ECO-EROGENOUS VILLAGE

Multiyear Beurs Trajectory Report

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With ‘Towards the Eco-erogenous Village’ my idea was to speculate about The Power Plant, a trans-material Village centered around a green power generator, that converts sexual energy into electricity and produces hormones/molecules that enable people to experience trans-dimensional realities.

 

In 2022 the Beurs trajectory focused on the research of The Village Body practice, Technology, Morphology and Politics on a theoretical level. In 2023 The Village maquette and narrative were developed for research sharing.

 

I) 01>09 2022: The Village Body practice, Technology, Morphology

 

Body practice: With Tantra Monk Elke Van Campenhout we had a week residency at The Monastery (BE). Taking a queer ecologies approach, we came up with the Swirling Bodies idea. Bodies that in the process of having brain orgasms increase bioelectricity and swirl, releasing all kinds of happy hormones. With this in mind, I traveled to Tao Gardens Chiang Mai (TH), to deepen my sexual Kung Fu practice with Taoist Master Mantak Chia. Through a 3 week training, we looked at how the neuro, endocrine and microbiota systems transmute sexual energy and eventually release hallucinogenic neurotransmitters. Additionally I had mentoring on queer identities intimacy with Hindu healer and transman Aditya Duta.

 

Technology: With artist/medical doctor Antye Guenter, whose artistic PHD spotlights 3D brain imaging technologies, visited Maastricht University Neuro-cognitive Lab; meeting with Professor Alexander Sack, leader in EEG and brain stimulation. Speculating on electromagnetic/thermodynamic electrical conversions of the neuro-sexual pathways. Furthermore, I looked into quantum mechanics and had mentoring with electric engineer/scenographer of A two Dog Company Vincent Malstaf and artists/hackers Marthe Van Dessel and Hans Andreas. Together we contemplated on the idea of a technology that could harness/transfer the sexual energy.

 

The Morphologies included looking at regenerative farming systems and electromagnetic sensory/kinetic materials. I followed the webinars Bio-Futures for Transplanetary Habitat Symposium (Newcastle University UK) and How to Grow Herbs, Vegetables and Fruits in Small Spaces (Biodynamic Gardening Club UK). Participated in Oils Maceration & Healing Plants Seeding Workshop by Marguerite de Crayencour (BE), had mentoring with Giulia Bellinetti, head of Future Materials Lab Jan Van Eyck Academy (NL), and with artist/gardener Kobe Matis on permaculture (BE). With these at hand, I started wondering on ways in which the happy hormones released by the swirling bodies could be incorporated into the crops that we grow. Even more, in order to imagine the Morphologies, I did a photographic register of children playgrounds in Brussels.

 

II) 10>12 2022: The Village Politics

 

To envision The Village Politics, inspired on post human and indigenous nations perspectives, I collectivized ‘How can the Village be a self-regulating community that embraces multiplicity?’ question.

 

In October I curated Topos 4 Residency at wpZimmer addressing: How Sci Fi can the body be?. Assisted by co-curators Ingrid Vranken and Gosie Vervloessem, we invited artists/researchers Antye Guenther, Marthe Van Dessel, Peggy Pierrot, and Olave Nduwanje. At the end of 3 weeks we produced a radio intervention (Radio Central Antwerpen) and a presentation moment. Based on multiple media i.e. electronics and spoken words, we presented the body as a multitude of micro and macro entities performativities that can be affiliated with difference through affinity, beyond biological kinship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, in a coproduction between apass, ERG, wabo, nadine and KVS Theater, we invited Mapuche Medicine Woman María Quiñelén (CL) to Brussels in November, where I curated activities and workshops. María Quiñelén is feminist and spokesperson of her people. Her practice involves knowledge about medicinal plants and magic, resistance and community. As a whole, María shared how for the Mapuche Nation nature is culture and together they are medicine, and how this represents technologies behind indigenous politics.

 

 

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III) 01>09 2023: Towards The Village Maquette and Narrative

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January 2023 started with the arrival of intern Nora Allegaert, a master's student from KASK. Together we conducted electrical experiments to understand how harnessed electricity works, finding the commodification of matter in an atomic level. As a result, the research perspective shifted to: How do we power what? And, from which state of consciousness do we power the future? This is how I started a new science fiction investigative story that collectivizes the ecstatic, not by harnessing electricity, but via molecular power transmissions that awaken superpowers, such as enhanced senses and intuition, premonition, time travel, etc. Moreover, I decided to visualize the Morphologies by using environmentally friendly materials.

 

In March 2023, together with Nora and therapist Camila Montero, I transformed the backyard of my house into a wet media playground for the Morphologies research. During this process, Bubble Ponics was imagined, a system in which a de-growth agriculture could be activated by the Swirling Bodies, who release happy hormones (such as oxytocin, dopamine, endorphin) into a pond, irrigating the crops we grow (germinations and healing herbs) via a steaming process. Between the Spring and Summer I invited specific guest to freely navigate through The Morphologies playground in short parkours, in order to picture this fabulation and give feedback.

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In June 2023 I facilitated Earthly Bodies Electro-currents Workshop at the Kersnikova Institute (SI) makers lab. There I reproduced some of the electrical experiments to collectively analyze the problematics around harnessed electricity. Even more, I tested the physical translocation of some of The Village's Morphologies in an enclosed space, by reproducing them with small scale devices, inviting the participants to get involved.

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Furthermore, in July 2023 during my residency at wpZimmer, together with scenographer Marzia Dalfini and craniosacral therapist Agnes Schneidewind, we investigated recycled conductive/insulating materials. Envisioning possible devices that could also be a part of The Village Morphologies. In this process I had mentoring with VIERNULVIER curator Marieke De Munck. Moreover, in September I traveled to Ars electronica (AU) to have mentoring with Kapelica Gallery (SI) curator Jurij Krpan.

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IV) 10/2023 > 01/2024: Research Sharing

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In early October 2023 I was invited as a guest of honor by MUSEUM DHONDT-DHAENENS Ghent, to shape the contents of the Autumn Academy coproduced by KASK. As a theme we explored: Who and what are we talking about when we say ‘we’? I proposed to entangle aspects of The Village research by bringing some materials from my garden, to share my research with the students and collectively explore the research contents and questions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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At the end of October 2023, nadine and Buda co-produced Etat des Lieux, a week-long residency with a semi-public moment at the end at Buda in Kortrijk, where I was invited to share my research. Together with the creative advice of artist Einat Tuchman, Marzia Dalfini's space design, Dari Gatti's Village map illustration and 'villagers' models, we proposed a tour through The Village Maquette. This included translocating some of the Morphologies from my garden, as well as setting up some of the devices developed during the wpZimmer residency. The tour offered a parkour through an erotic-green powering system, where the public was welcomed to engage, as a tool for me to observe performative/interactive potentials and for getting feedback.

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The research process concluded in January 2024. Kapelica Gallery (SI) invited me to curate and moderate a symposium based on ideas I developed during my research trajectory, besides giving a talk and lead a workshop. All this in the context of Creative EU Inspiration Forum Lab, with participants artists from all over the world. We named the symposium: Embracing Transmaterial Futures Symposium, Narratives on Hybridity and the Labyrinth of Interconnectedness. The speakers, artists and researchers Peggy Pierrot, Antye Guenther, myself and quantum physicist Andrej Detela, presented stories in which science, fiction and spirituality collide, to embrace the wisdom of diverse knowledge systems, including diasporas futurisms, indigenous traditions and creative thinking. With the intention of reimagine power, not as a process of subtraction, but as a transformative journey of added values that connect sources.

For the workshop, I transformed the experiment that we carried out at Buda into a workshop format.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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With my research process I made a leap forward in my artistic development. First, I learned about new topics from different disciplinary spectrums and experimented through artistic, performative, visual and intellectual research, which renewed my artistic research methods, practice/repertoire and political discourse. Second, my curatorial and workshop facilitation practices grew along with my intellectual and pedagogical skills. Third, I anchored my work through collaborations and exchanges with fellow artists, researchers and various cultural partners at home and abroad, through which I built a multidisciplinary network. Finally, I gathered a theoretical and material Sci-Fi archive of artistic, scientific, political and design assets, for the next phase of development, where Viernulvier Ghent, nadine Brussels and Kapelica Gallery Ljubljana, want to co-produce the further development.