Embodied Soils

The geoscientific outcome of the initial WWTF funded research project “The Anthropocene Surge” – where anthropogenic sediments of Vienna were characterized and the atmospheric nuclear fallout from the 1950's was measured at the Karlsplatz section in Vienna – sets the starting point to create an artistic performance at the “Belvedere 21, museum of contemporary art”. The project revisits the proposed beginning of the geologic Anthropocene – the Great Acceleration – and follows its material and cultural traces into the present day. The artistic format created, transfers the scientific knowledge generated in 2 workshops over the project period into an artistic performance in order to open the research to a broader audience on a sensorial level. The performance is conceived for a specific site - the former Expo1985 pavilion, which is the museum Belvedere 21 today. An artistic format for the follower transfer project is chosen, based on the hypothesis of the Anthropocene as a sensorial phenomenon – “Art, as the vehicle of aesthesis, is central to thinking with and feeling through the Anthropocene.“ (Davies & Turpin, 2015, Open Humanities Press) This proposal focuses on how the complex relationships of the "Nuclear Anthropocene" can not only be thought, but how they can be experienced and embodied - and thus become more tangible, imaginable, negotiable and locatable. It investigates how the effects of human interactions (mostly caused by the global north) inscribe themselves on a planetary scale and how this complex archive can be made productive for a broader target group.