18th May - The Penzance Covention, The Story of NPK: Agriculture as Extraction
FIELDCLUB was asked to develop and lead a fieldtrip as part of the Penzance Convention:
Beginning with the sun’s eternally extravagant glare beating down on the hunter gatherer’s primeval forest, and concluding with computerised food production systems dependent on globally sourced synthetic inputs, 'The Story of NPK: Agriculture as Extraction' offered an agrosophical examination revealing the changing dynamic of extraction in agricultural techniques from prehistory until today.
Accompanied by local experts, and our agricultural-system modelling tool FieldMachine, we traced the history of Cornwall’s agricultural industry through the landscape, visiting examples of Iron Age, Medieval, Pre-Industrial, and contemporary farming. We looked closely at the relationship between the scientific advances of the Industrial Revolution and their influence on the Agricultural Revolution, the effect of geological and chemical contingency on plant evolution, and the plant itself as kleptomaniacal scrounger – whose ability to disrupt the dissipative flow of the sun’s energy facilitates all higher life.
The very nature of the agricultural ‘cycle’, was up for debate as we scrutinized the change in agricultural production from cyclicality to linearity, and consided what, in the context of agriculture, can be meant by the term extraction.
13th June - Designing Alternatives Symposium, Edinburgh
Paul Chaney and Kenna Hernly will present 'Am I Here Yet? - The Materiality of Place' at:
Designing Alternatives
A Symposium of Contemporary Radical Design Practice
Wednesday 13th June 2012, 11.45 – 17.00
Edinburgh College of Art/University of Edinburgh
Design plays a vital role in tackling the economic, environmental and social challenges facing us today and tomorrow, and both design practitioners and educators need to be equipped with the right tools to address these unprecedented scenarios. Bringing together a number of speakers engaged in 'alternative' approaches to design practice, this symposium will examine how we can find ways to educate, interpret and communicate the different design approaches these challenges entail. Designing Alternatives has been organised by Dr Sonia Matos and Dr. Catharine Rossi and has been made possible thanks to the University of Edinburgh's Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee Fund.
Please see the blog http://designingalternatives.tumblr.com
May - Ord & Bild
Whey to Go: On the Homanid Appropriation of the Pig Function is re-published in the latest edition of Ord & Bild - Sweden's longest established cultural journal (Piglet Round-up is used for the front cover).
2012 - 4th May to 7th June - Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art, Amsterdam
THERE WAS A COUNTRY WHERE THEY WERE ALL THIEVES - Curated by Natasha Ginwala
Artists: Gary Colclough, Jasper Coppes / Stijn Verhoeff, FIELDCLUB, Gauri Gill, Pil & Galia Kollectiv, Helen Mirra Abigail Reynolds, Edward Clydesdale Thomson
'What might it mean to be overexposed to a land? Such that one is like a glacial striation on bedrock – a pattern of selfness and crystal.
The countryside is as much an imagined terrain as it is an assemblage of components: rock, crops, air, people and histories. Hence, the look and shape of land is a production of labour, industry and capital as much as it is a factor of wind speeds and sedimentary formations. This exhibition is an accumulation of fictions that are registrations of/from place, taking the form of immersive dispatches, field notes and temporal mediations.'
www.jeaninehofland.nl/
November 25th - Late at Tate St Ives 'FIELDCLUB and Friends'
This event was realised within the framework of Late at Tate, an experimental programme taking place at Tate St Ives on the last Friday of each month. ‘FIELDCLUB & Friends’ featured a series of projects that occuped different spaces across the gallery.
The evening included an introduction to FIELDCLUB’s practice and premiered the FieldMachine 1.0 (Interactive Meaty Master: Self-Sufficiency Calculator Table) and showcased 24hr FIELDCLUB Wildlife Museum, an ongoing collection of archaeological artefacts found during farming activities at FIELDCLUB.
The event also featured themed contributions by other artists. These included a live psycho-acoustic performance by Nigel Ayers accompanying his latest work, Compost, and screenings of recent films by Adi Gelbart, James Kelly, and Pil and Galia Kollectiv.
In addition, musical collective The Busk Stop Crew played a lively session of traditional tunes at a barn party in the Café - complete with strawbales and bunting.
Image: The Busk Stop Crew playing the Tate Cafe.
October 16th - 'Being Here Now Tour'
Kenna Hernly led a guided tour of the Lizard in Cornwall, linking geological contingency with folk culture and historical land use, accompanied by Steve Patterson (folklorist) and Dr Robin Shail (senior lecturer in Geology - Camborne School of Mines). This tour was conducted as part of The Cornwall Workshop.
Image: Steve Patterson giving the final address of the tour while standing on a section of exposed mantle - an example of the Lizard's subductive refusal.
October 15th - Serpentine Gallery Garden Marathon
Paul Chaney presented 'Some Aspects of Neo-agrosophy' at the Serpentine Gallery Garden Marathon .
July 3rd - Published Paper
Whey to go: On The Hominid Appropriation of the Pig Function
Published in COLLAPSE - Journal of Philosophical Research and Development Vol VII - Culinary Materialism.
July 3rd - Public Talk at Outset HQ
To coincide with the official launch of Collapse VII, FIELDCLUB will present an overview of the FIELDCLUB project at Outset HQ, 33 - 34 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6NN.
2010 - May 21st - Public Talk for The Falmouth Convention
FIELDCLUB will present some agrosophical aspects of 'Kernovian Syndrome' and Hydroplutonics to participants of a field trip hosted by Urbanomic as part of The Falmouth Convention.
January - Published Paper
'Slug'o'metrics: How many Slugs Maketh the Man?' and 'Bound Excess Diagram' published in: COLLAPSE - Journal of Philosophical Research and Development, Vol.VI Geo/philosophy, published by Urbanomic, 2010.