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Workshop
Earth Peel workshop, APO33 Nantes, France 21-22.01.2016
The workshop introduced a basic technique originally used by geo-archaeologists and soil scientists for the study of local earth stratigraphies. The technique traditionally allows for the preservation of selected earth profiles to exhibit their micro-macro interrelations and interactions between diverse soil components at various levels of organization.
In the workshop participants learnt how to make their own earth peels by applying a reinforced latex lining to the exposed earth face and then peeling it at a later date. The process is very open to détournement through additional embeddings/interventions, including electronic, in the process.
Installation/Performance
The performance/installation with two earth slices are based around 19 C telegraph circuit technology where the earth was used as the ground while the signal was sent along the telegraph wire - the apparatus simply inverts this to use each earth slice to carry signals which, because of its multiple pathways, allows for the signal's distortion. Movable hand wound induction coils replace the electromagnetic receiver element of those early circuits and are used to pick up the distorted signals and send them to the PA.
For the performance signal sources included the electrolysis of 9 clay-earth cells with electrodes of piezos and copper and the redox reaction powered by a battery of 18 earth cells; a recitation of King Nebuchadnezzar's Dream from part of John Gower's Confessio Amantis where the kingdoms of the human world are described as having conglomerated, mutated and distorted the earth; and rhyming on the subject of earth by Romain Papion aka. Cambia, to whom I give my warmest thanks.
384x288 de julien_ottavi
Many thanks to APO33 for inviting and hosting me.
More images here: http://apo33.org/index.php/fr/2016/02/06/reportage-sortie-de-residence-jonathan-kemp/
