jonathan kemp

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Working Title: Black Earth Farmer / Techno-Gong Farming October 2015

What:

The proposed project creates a 'techno-biosolid' production cycle that incorporates synthetic
'technosols', to explore the notion that contemporary shit is irreversibly marked by a technological
origin.1

Why:

Utilising a concept of 'techno-biosolid' provides a particular point of entry, via the body and its
inputs/ouputs, into understanding the cycles of a technologised Earth (cf. the Anthropocene).2
This extends the ecological narrative through an aesthetic strategy that shifts examination of techno-industrial processes from the magnitude of the Earth to the realm of the human body so as to explore the particular micro-ecologies and economies formed by the industrial-technological inscription of our being.

The project thus provides fertile material to explore the double bind of both a material economy
(shit-into-gold) and an economy of subjectivation (the production of techno-beings).

How:

I am proposing a year+ long project, with appropriate expert collaboration, in three phases:

  *to create synthetic technosols made from computer motherboards/processors and local earth in which to grow a variety of edible hyper-accumulator plants (mustards, cress,rapeseed, tepary bean etc), to encourage remediation and uptake of metals/silicon.
  *to supplement a real diet with these accumulator plants so that comparisons can be visualised in gut/biosolid profiling of pre- and post- techno diet faeces.3
  *returning these solids back to the technosol as fertilizer to reboot the cycle of technosol > techno-flora > techno-diet > techno-biosolids.

Several public outputs are envisaged at each phase including open workshops and seminars,
exhibition and publication (online/offline), and open access documentary AV outputs.
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1 The US Geology Survey recently quantified biosolid content and discovered unexpected amounts of precious and
rare earth elements. Research is now centred on developing an economy of extraction from these waste outputs,
including using processes adapted from mining. Personal communication with Dr Kathleen Smith of UG
Geological Survey, September 2015.

2 The new geological epoch defined by irreversible Earth-magnitude changes caused by human activity.

3 This can also be executed by feeding a gut-intestine-colon fecal processing model if toxins are too high to subject to
myself. Personal communication with Christine Edwards, Professor of Nutritional Physiology, Univ. of Glasgow

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Notes:
pick up on older idea of gut mining (cf. phytolith, silicon, gold etc)
jonathan kemp

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