project 33/

A COMMON LANGUAGE

WITH THE TREES, ROCKS, BEASTS ...

N. Sokol, Researcher, Minsk

As is well known, direct contact with nature itself is inaccessible to a human being: the language of the animals, insects, birds, trees, and dead nature remain incomprehensible to him. Yet nevertheless, the dream of such a language of understanding remains, it continues to be an exciting mystery. And the matter rests not in the discovery of some sort of special "code," but in the direct perception and direct, unmediated contact with that world to which we also belong. This contact and understanding are possible, but they are muffled in us by specifically human "codes" of our consciousness. The project of the "direct contact with nature" envisages an intensification of the perception of the signals of nature, and simultaneously, the "extinguishing" in us of the noises of specifically human "civilization." A special rain-coat/antenna of very fine wires is attached behind the human body to fulfill this function and it tunes us into the unified world with the environment from which we have been torn away.

A COMMON LANGUAGE

WITH THE TREES, ROCKS, BEASTS ...

1. Build a table 100 x 100 cm and 80 cm high.

2. Build a semi-oval surface on the table (the height in the highest parts is 16 cm) with a skewed front surface.

3. Cover the entire surface with green "grass."

4. Make two figures 8 cm high and surround them with a wire antenna like in the sketch.

5. Make trees, bushes, a rock and a cow.