Caressing fish, singing nettles, listening mushrooms by curators Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Solvita Krese, Inga Lāce
In 1989, the French psychotherapist and philosopher Félix Guattari wrote that if “we are to understand the interactions between ecosystems, the mechanosphere, and the social and individual universes of reference, we have to learn to think ‘transversally’. As the waters of Venice are invaded by monstrous, mutant algae, so our television screens are peopled and saturated by ‘degenerate’ images and utterances.” With uncanny, almost prophetic accuracy, he continued: “In the realm of social ecology, Donald Trump and his ilk – another form of algae – are permitted to proliferate unchecked. In the name of renovation, Trump takes over whole districts of New York or Atlantic City, raises rents, and squeezes out tens of thousands of poor families. Those who Trump condemns to homelessness are the social equivalent of the dead fish of environmental ecology.” In contrast to a system primarily based on economic growth, Guattari argues for ecosophy, an ethical, political and aesthetic articulation of three interrelated ecologies: the environment (nature), social relations and subjectivity. For him, the “ecosophic problematic is that of the production of human existence itself in new historical contexts”. Thus, the three ecologies can be summed up as: environmental ecology, social ecology and mental ecology. They are present as sites of negotiation and reconstruction, and also interchangeable perspectives. Rather than existing as distinct categories, they form relationally and transversally. In Guattari’s words: “they are gov- erned by a different logic to that of ordinary communication between speakers and listeners [...] It is a logic of intensities [...] or eco-logic, [which] is concerned only with the movement and in- tensity of evaluative processes. Process, which I oppose here to system or to structure, strives to capture existence in the very act of its constitution, definition and deterritorialisation.” Such a process and intensity of exchange has been our point of departure for this year’s festival, which takes form and place in the former Faculty of Biology of the University of Latvia and its museums of zoology, botany and chemistry, as well as the nearby park. Rather than a new system, we’re looking for a moment of transformation – an act of becoming.
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