Project produced as part of the Useful Fictions Symposium,

LAB 5: MAKING, ENGAGEMENT, AND REFLEXIVITY.

Hosts: Manuelle Freire, Aniara Rodado

Collaborators: Teresa Margaret Carlesimo, Elisheba Fuenzalida, Matthew Ledwidge, WhiteFeather Hunter.

Year: 2019

​

(Lab)yrinth mapped a foreign territory through the scientific and the human sensory apparatus, in ways that reinstate approaches and narratives that have been excluded from the modes of deriving knowledge that are currently privileged on this site of theÉcole Polytechnique, Paris.

 

We performed rituals to resensitize the body, recognition walks, potion making and explored DIY methods, alongside material and digital sampling of the soil in order to characterize 8 identified units of space. Each site was characterized according to a pre-established protocol to determine what is possible to qualify and quantify in these specific data points in space. As a result, instead of acronyms and the names of donors and funders, each site regained identities, mythologies and names, drawn from their botanical and topological specificities.

 

In future iterations, more elaborate analysis could cross-reference the data collected in our inquiry with the data collected by the SIRTA ground station.