Claire Pentecost @ Rice: Cultures of Energy



Claire Pentecost, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

“Of Waste and Work,” paper given at the Cultures of Energy 2nd Annual Spring Research Symposium, April 19–21, 2013



Cage quotation
the public amateur
Edward Said on the amateur
Critical Art Ensemble: doing experiments on genetically modified seeds (which is illegal)
documenta 13 << repression of decadent art
Bateson: the unit of survival is organism plus environment
how to think this re: seeds
clumps of bacteria: create glues that create the structure one wants in a good soil
a teaspoon of soil contains more bacteria than all the humans who have ever lived on earth
William Bryant Logan: “Radical disorder is the key to the functions of humus. At the molecular level, it may indeed be the most disorderd thing on Earth.” Thus dirt is futural
Pentecost, Proposal for a New American Agriculture: composted flag
form: art is different from everyday life
form is either inherited (designated as art), or the artist complicates it (makes an issue of the form itself)
new unit of value made of soil and work
quotation from Bernardi (Bifo) on capitalism
to take a sign and pass it through the flesh of the world
the ingot made of soil
Warren Buffet: in 100 years farmland will be gold
vertical growing systems for dense urban spaces; Nairobi; you can grow a lot of food this way
Kassel Museum of Natural Science, Ottoneum, oldest geological vertical section, layers of Richelsdorfer mountain chain
Pentecost had one made at the top of which is a worm bin
land grabbing since 2008: nations and hedge funds and pension funds are buying huge tracts of land in places like Africa, Asia, Australia, South America for different reasons, to grow food for their own country or cash crops or biofuels
then of course there are people on that land...who are getting kicked off...
our agriculture is so fossil fuel intensive
how to use biomass

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