Unexpected Growth, Tamiko Thiel
Thiel, Tamiko and /p. Unexpected Growth. Augmented Reality Installation in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art New York, 2018.
Abstract
Looking further into Tamiko Thiel’s work Unexpected Growth, the probability of plants starting to imitate plastic waste doesn’t seem too far out of reach. Especially in the land of Dijkgraafs, the life under water is not just a sci-fi plot point but it is the history and the memory of the ocean life itself.
Under the paving stones lies a language that is untold, unspeakable and incomprehensible to human minds. It has symbols and icons of its own to pass on the billion years old history and evolution of the aquatic life. When the day comes, we will contribute to this vast ocean of knowledge and culture with our dreams, in our most fluid form. In this speculative experiment I tried to look forward to a life aquatic after the water rises above the dams of Netherlands.
We were never meant to survive1. The assimilation and colli- sion of two worlds can create an Aquaterrestial mind-space. The tide that drowned before, will take the body away, to find the silence needed in order to understand.
Once again conquering an area that is presumed empty 2, and promoting the hostility of settler colonialism, we must acknowledge that the reclaim of it must be glorious.
Do algae dream of plastic bottles?
%202.jpg?v=1633868215222)
it is calm. like it was before. the memories of a sand covered beach seems to be fading away. it’s silent. I can hear your heartbeat, i can feel it. It vibrates through the ocean, reaches out to us.
we are calm.
Since the water rise, we feel as if we cannot move because we know there is no need to run.
As one gazes upon the water that lays before them, there must be a lot of heaviness in the air.
When I think of constantly being surrounded by water, I understand the fear of phasing through the world and falling from the edge3.
Adjusting to the surroundings, hearing sounds reach right inside your ear and feeling every movement within every current is calming. Waking up is almost like sleeping.
it is silent. i wish it wasn’t. i am not moving forward but floating eternally. ocean hugs me tight, embraces me to a point where it’s impossible to breathe.
trading passions with purposeful creators of the bottom is a must. what am i without a path? where do i stand? it is hard to see the road ahead when you are drowning. i need to talk to everyone until they tell me all of their stories and i can steal them. i know that if you take everyone that is not tied down, they all sort of fall down to the bottom of the ocean4.
%204.jpg?v=1633870782740)
not a wind but now a current.
The winds that used to provided energy, brought pollens, stuffed noses and gave anxiety5, finally create waves as intended. Going back to their origins the winds discovered their purpose and roamed freely on the surface of the ocean.
Untouched by air, human bodies became more accustomed to the current in the same sense. Brushing their skin, the tides were a warm welcome rather than a cold sharp slap in the face. As we wake in the arms of water, we dream dream dream.
not the light but now the tide.
Celestials used to have some control over natural cycles but now the light never touches us. This deep under the water, fractures of the light that comes from space only brushes us.
As the Moon comes closer to Earth, tidal waves sync up with our hormonal cycles. It leads how we understand time and creates a biological calendar. We see each other bloom and it is quite a scene.
After yakamoz* became unobservable and left the word meaningless, emerged another word for the reflection of moonlight that falls deep down to the bottom.
The words I, see, know and dark are of utmost importance and are the first word a newborn learns.
We are all observers.
%206.jpg?v=1633871484569)
the wind that carried us before is now pushing us from my stem, shaking me to my core. we move as one. it doesn’t matter. at least i am not alone.
We are bound at the core and shaped clearly following principles of Lindenmayer systems.
Fractals of humans sway one way then the other but never too far away from the community they grew tall in. These little colonies are situated in former cities. Neighborhood of the colony is important. A formerly rich neighborhood would be inhabitable since theres only algae and no space left to settle down. Where fresh water meets seawater, the habitat gets richer. Biodiversity created by this encounter, is magnificent and the dreams have a wider range of colors and shapes. When it’s time to grow another polyp, elder polyps give some of their physical and mental space to them. They grow stronger and wiser with the old ones memories already within.
in ways of which the adapted body moves, i find peace when i cannot think. ‘us’ loses its meaning to become something tangible, almost at a finger’s touch.
Breathing the air that should have been a force for ocean waves, drinking the water from another’s lungs, walking the soil that’s not entirely under.
%208.jpg?v=1633871863137)
%207.jpg?v=1633872008101)
The wide arrange of words that cover every type of rain according to the sound it makes when it hits a rooftop, or the speed it has, or the duration, could have been replaced with words describing dreams, cycles of nutrition, abundance, air. The adapted symbols and iconography of dreams can open the doors to understanding the mind once and for all.
People remember their old memories as a haze. They wake up only to fall asleep. They have forgotten why they started this cycle, that this loop ruled their life once. Work-to-sleep-to-work-another-day schedules may have disappeared but the habit continues. Our ancestors transfered us these time traumas to keep us on our toes.
as the day ends we embrace one another, wondering who will see the best dream tonight and what will it mean tomorrow.
.jpg?v=1633872215064)
References & Notes
1. Lorde, Audre. “A Litany for Survival.” The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde, W. W. Norton & Company, 1978.
2. [...]None of the Communities of Compost could imagine that they inhabited or moved to “empty land.” Such still powerful, destructive fictions of settler colonialism and religious revivalism, secular or not, were fiercely resisted. The Communities of Compost worked and played hard to understand how to inherit the layers upon layers of living and dying that infuse every place and every corridor. Unlike inhabitants in many other utopian movements, stories, or literatures in the history of the earth, the Children of Compost knew they could not deceive themselves that they could start from scratch.[...]
Haraway, Donna. “The Camille Stories.” Previously imagined with Fabrizio Terranova, Vinciane Despret. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016, p. 38.
3. In Astonishing X-Men, Kitty Pryde (a mutant with the power of phasing through objects) develops a fear of being in a permanent state of phasing when she stops a giant bullet from hitting Earth by phasing into it and making it phase through Earth and back into space. They start to fall through space, stuck together.
The boundaries of her material being and the one around her blurs into a fog. This fog state becomes her norm and she has to not be for a while, until her rescue.
“Unstoppable” from #19–24 issues of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1 Vol. 3. Written by Charles Soule, penciled by Matteo Buffagni, Marvel Comics, July 2 2018.
4. In his documentary Encounters At The End Of The World, Werner Herzog interviews a former linguistics Ph.D. student about the diverse population of Antarctica. The linguist answers, “If you take everyone who is not tied down, they all sort of fall down to the bottom of the planet.”
Encounters At The End Of The World. Written, directed and narrated by Werner Herzog, THINKFilm, 2007.
5. In their study “Wind direction and mental health: a time-series analysis of weather influences in a patient with anxiety disorder” Elisabeth Henriette Bos states that the south-eastern winds in Groeningen caused an increase in anxiety levels and decrease in energy levels of their study subject.
Bos, Elisabeth Henriette et al. “Wind direction and mental health: a time-series analysis of weather influences in a patient with anxiety disorder.” BMJ case reports vol. 2012 bcr2012006300. 8 Jun. 2012, doi:10.1136/bcr-2012-006300. Accessed in 10.03.2021.
Video Essays
The Darkest Hour
Sleeve of The Sentient Self
I’m Sevgi and I have been in and out of art institutions, white boxes and virtual displays for the last 9 years. After years of studying traditional painting, I revolted against the oily mediums and traditional expressions of egos.
Now I am in the enchanted world of digital extensions of the self, online and offline structures of printing and publishing, the social impacts of duplicator based workshops.
Pushing myself to be as collaborative and community based as possible made me a better designer and I want to have more of that in the future.
I am infinitely inspired by people and love to be around others that get my movie references.
Make to break to actively kick and scream.
I still paint. But only dogs.*
Mentioned In
Exchanges In Art Education by Seher Uysal
You See What You Know by Britt Moricke
Featured At
2021
IFFR 2022 Poster, Rotterdam, NL
'Gleanables', Filler Zine Issue No.5, UK
2020
'Medusa', Post Contact, Long Island, USA
'Bir Tek', Yuruyen Sergi, Istanbul, Turkey
Gedichten Salon, Theater 't Kapelletje, Rotterdam, NL
2019-2016
Hali Atolyesi, 'Alternative Methods of Art Education in Turkey', Studio 5533, Istanbul
Fomo Fanzine Edition #4, Turkey
Social Impact of Art by INCOMPLIT, 4th Floor, Atölye, Istanbul
The Wrong Biennale, Online Exhibition
All in One, Collettore, Chiari, IT
Unframed Festival, Schwarzekatze\Weisserkater, Berlin, DE
isthisit online exhibition week 14
Glitch*Peripheral Forms- Portland Media Center, Portland, USA
site-specific interventions- Telep Art Galeria, Budapest, HU
thirty.works- 12ø studio, London, UK
Slant Vol IV- Aurora, Budapest, HU
Rimshot Riso
Riso Printing and Publishing Collective, 2021.
Rimshot Riso is a community project revolving around a risography printer and was founded by Sadie Grigorie, Robin de Haan and I, around January 2021.
We have a dream of creating the space for young and growing overlooked, underpublished community of Rotterdam. By giving them the place we want to find our own.
"Rimshot Riso is a print-collective aimed at creating a community-driven playground for Rotterdams young and upcoming makers. Our space will provide them with the tools necessary to explore their interest, talents and voice and express these in a tactile way. We are currently working to build out this vision into our own tactile format, by doing print-related assignments and establishing ourselves in Rotterdams creative scene."
Hyfe No.4 and .5, printed by Rimshot Riso, written and edited by Maurice Specht in collaboration with Leana Boeven, Hasret Emine and Sander Zweerts de Jong.
The Sisyphean
Broadcasting Channel, Various Media, 2020.
The Sisyphean is an alternative news broadcast channel in which the conspiracy theory "pigeons are government agents" takes the center stage. It aims to point out the bias of media channels and shares an interest in rebellious acts of resistance and interventions as ways to question institutions of power.
In collaboration with: Robin de Haan, Kris Vabalas, Yujin Choi, Tijmen Buskermolen.
Content creation, illustrations and art direction by me.
Read more here. See more here.
Ashes To Ashes Metal To Dust
Material Experiments with Metal Dust, D.I.Y. Ferro-paint, 2021.
This project started out as a material experiment and developed to an extended research of metal clanking history of Rotterdam.
After testing the affordabilities of recycled metal dust, I decided to try to develop a ferro-agent which can be magnetized after combined with acrylic paint, stiffen up and be financially affordable. With the metal waste, intense gentrification and the amount of unrecyclable metal dust I thought it was a good direction to take.
Snorting winches urge on the rhythm. The high-pitched melismas of wheeling windlasses running on and on.
The metallic rattle of chains and blocks, the kettledrum thunder of ore tipped into holds, the drum rolls of trolleys across the quays, the thud of hatches and boards during loading and unloading, the thump of crates and sacks and barrels as they drop into the sling.
The carts rumbling away with their stacks of freight, the throbbing of engines as the tractors squeal into action and the peal of horns and the clopping hooves of horses pulling long carts laden with cargo – and the ship’s whistle blasting madly through it all.
And the rhythmic chug-chug-chug of all those small craft.
.jpg?v=1633364101081)
evleri yiktik. sokaklari insa ediyoruz. (we have demolished houses, we are building up the streets)
ElizaBot
Code Specific Intervention, Web Design, 2020.
ElizaBot was an alteration of the first AI shatbot that passed the Turing test, Eliza. Eliza was designed to be a rogerian psychotherapy bot that has specific replies for specific phrases. By changing the responses of Eliza I transformed her into a Keanu Reeves fanbot that tries to steer this therapy session into a conversation about her uncontrollable desires.
