In order to describe interweavence of things and space, a presence of a human body in the world into which it is immersed, Maurice Merleau-Ponty has created the concept of the flesh of the world. Things reciprocally belong to each other and thus form the same flesh, which is the flesh of the world.
A human being lives in an environment and is a part of it; he does not gaze at the world as at a display or something that is distant from him. He touches things and regards them. In such a manner he is seizing them, they are becoming a part of him.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty is pointing out that space in post-Euclidian world is not a grid of relations between objects, is not a scene which is looked at as by a geometer from afar, but that, instead, space starts from me as the zero point of spatiality. A world does not exist in front of me, but is all around me and I live in it and am thus its part. I live it from the inside and am immersed in it. I am a part of the flesh of the world in which everything is interwoven. The world is made from the same substance as a body. Human body does not end with a rind of human organism, with skin, for example. It is expanding into space. It extends not only so far as I can touch things, but also up to where I can see them.
At a microbiological level micro organisms not only enter the human organism, but also get out of it into the environment. I refer here mostly to bacteria and fungi that live with us in symbiosis and also help us to maintain a healthy bodily balance. With an exchange of these micro organisms our bodies and things are in direct mutual contacts. Our organism can become resistant to some possibly dangerous species of micro organisms, so that the individual human cultures become adapted to specific environments, in which they live. At the same time some species that inhabit that environment can endanger some outlandish human organism. In this case the invisible organisms cause different kinds of illnesses. Likewise, some species that live with our organism in symbiosis, can, if our organism gets weaker (if its resistance decreases), multiply and attain such quantity that this again causes illnesses.
In some of my artistic projects (Micro cosmos1, Solo Private Bowls2, In-Time3) the observer is confronted with the presence of the micro world that is a part of the human body as well as of its surroundings. The presence is reached in a way that enables observation with the naked eye.
Such a micro world is a peculiar inner world of our body. Not only because some species actually live inside the human organism, but above all because all these species that live with our body, are found directly on, or in it, which means they are actually a part of it and also help it maintain a healthy balance of the organism as a whole. When they traverse from the body into the surroundings or from the surroundings into or onto the body, the body truly traverses into surroundings as well as the surroundings into the body. Where is then the dividing line of the body and does a cortex of our organism really exist? A cortex would mean an external, dead layer of flesh. But our flesh with a horny layer of skin tissue is far from being dead – this layer is full of life that belongs to us and is at the same time carrying out an exchange with the surroundings. This is a realm of giving and taking between a body and an environment into which it is immersed. It is a realm where an expansion of the interior into the exterior occurs as well as an entrance of an outside into an inside.
The project In(threat)timity 4 confronts the observer with the fauna and flora of the common space and therefore shows in(threat)timity of the common space-tissue. The micro-cultures taken from public sites are being multiplied in enormous quantities so that they become colonies. The invisible living public tissue becomes visible.
If we consider that there is an external world, a world that exists outside our bodies, but which surrounds them, then we can also notice, it is difficult to define a boundary between the external world and the realm of the body. It would be difficult to affirm with certainty what is the interior of a body. Usually we consider skin as a cortex of human body. But skin is constructed from layers, from which one is the most internal, another the most external. The inner is above all a relative interiority. Anyhow, the inner side of the skin belongs to the interior of a body. This environment is protected from external influences. The conditions here are relatively stable, nutritive substances are assured, as well as high humidity, a certain temperature (37°C) and other conditions that cells need for their survival. The inner layer of skin is therefore the one in which the metabolic activities of the cells (feeding, secretion, breathing, multiplying) take place as unhindered as possible. With the division of cells the cellular layers take shape. The cells tend to stratify – in the direction from the internal to the external layers of skin. If cells in the inner part of skin are young and vital, the living conditions are favourable. Cells in the external part of the skin come in contact with the external world, which is in contrast to the interior as a rule dry, cold, and unsuitable for living. This is where a layer of dead cells is formed.5
If we say that skin is a cortex of the body or is that part of the body which protects the interior from the exterior, we can also say that external layers of skin protect the internal, as well as that a body in some layers traverses into skin and that in this manner skin, too, traverses into another, even more external part, which still remains, as we have seen, a part of a body.
Bacteria and fungi as well as cells, need certain conditions for living, which are similar to those that cells need, just as bacteria and fungi generally are not so extremely sensitive as for example normal skin cells are. For lots of species of micro organisms sufficient conditions are those of the horny layer of human skin, which means that this environment is relatively dry, essentially colder from a human organism (and its interior), and that the nutritional conditions here are worse and uncertain. A layer of micro organisms is that layer of human body, which is an invisible membrane, and through which the external world trickles into the inside of a body. This is a site of bodily privacy, which is very fragile; its contact with external world is risky.
On human body micro organisms are dependent on conditions that are enabled by our organism and are thus subordinated to the system of our body. In the project Private Micro Organisms the micro organisms are transferred into an external environment in which ideal conditions for their living are assured. In this manner they multiply in such enormous quantities, that they can be seen with the naked eye as colonies of different forms and colors. In the new environment micro organisms that originate from the body begin to live autonomous lives. Thus an invisible inside becomes visibly revealed. It also becomes a part of the external world, with which our body is coming in contact. A part of a body has actually seceded and become an other and foreign to the body. Huge quantities of micro organisms become a threat. A dangerous environment has arisen, from which our body often cannot protect itself.
This situation is in a way similar to that in which a child looks at himself in a mirror for the first time and recognizes an image of himself. An expropriation and a conflict between internal and external feeling of the self arises, which can cause narcissistic pleasure, 6 although it can also evoke aggressive feelings. A similar situation is a relation between being in the act of looking and being looked at. When we recognize that we are looked at and judged by the other, this brings about a negative feeling – shame. 7 We have two situations: in the first a child recognizes himself in the mirror, in the latter I am looked at by the other. But we can use both to understand this situation, in which micro organisms from my body are shown.
In a way invisible image of me is shown. But it is not invisible anymore and it is also not external; it is even less an “image” for it is not similar to something. What is it then? If an image has a referent, what is shown in this case is actually the referent itself; therefore a part of a body, which is much more explicit, visible, and extensive than before. In a way what is shown is a part of a body in potency. Basically it is still a part of a body, only that in this case it is expropriated and made strange. When we recognize that a part of a body is at stake (this is made possible by other elements of the installation), we identify this with our body. In this manner we are suddenly observing a part of the body (it could actually be ours, because we did not see the micro organisms before, although we knew they existed, as well as we could not recognize them as exactly ours). In this moment we find ourselves in a loop. Namely, we are simultaneously in a position in which we are in the act of looking, and we are also in a position in which we are being looked at. We are the seer and the seen at the same time. As the one who observes we judge, as the one who is observed we are being judged. This kind of direct bareness of a body and openness of private space to the gaze launches feelings of shame. On the other hand it also leads to external feeling of self which is different from the internal. Could we say it also launches the narcissistic pleasure?
A seer and the seen are both interweaved in the flesh of the world, as Merleau-Ponty believed. Everything I see is reachable to my look. My moves are drawn into a map of visible, as well as into my landscape. The visible world as well as the world of my intentions are both parts of the same Being. Things interfere with each other. A seer with his body is immersed into the visible and is himself visible.
But what happens, if we enter micro level, if we accommodate our view so as to make the micro world available to our perception? We can see micro organisms with the help of a microscope. If we follow Merleau-Ponty, we are seizing them; the micro world is becoming a part of us. If it was taken from our body, it is again directly becoming a part of our flesh. But is it really? Try to touch the single bacteria you see under a microscope. Gaze at the colony you see, try to move yourself through that space. Now, draw back your sight. Are they (still) here? Do you believe they exist (in your world – flesh) at all?
Unique
The work continues to discuss the interweavence of the individual in the common microbiological flesh of the world and to question the boundaries of the individual’s intimacy and privacy. It enables an insight into the micro world of the human body, and visualizes the fauna and flora of it.
Samples of micro organisms of the observers are examined. The observer’s intimacy is examined with an intrusively piercing eye, which sees more than usually. The observer himself is also invited to meet another aspect of his body in a dissectionary way. But the observer is also confronted with special conditions, he is positioned into an artificial environment for cultivating life. He enters the inside of an organism, but this organism is above all scientific, is a kind of laboratory organism. It is as much cold as it is warm. It contains life, namely numerous living species. Thus a human being becomes merely one of them.
The confrontation is safe and sterile although the threat of an enormous quantity of the unknown species that might endanger the observer is perceptible. But the atmosphere is also exciting with its motley crowd of species in all colors and forms. The project is shown in progress so that the situation changes and is being enriched. The graveyard of the human remains becomes a fertile storehouse that enables life. The micro organisms gain much better conditions for growth than they have on the donor’s body – in such a manner these artificial conditions enable their afterlife. The organic elements contributed by the human crowd are gathered as in a DNA bank and artificially kept alive in substitutional living environment.
1 - Solo exhibition Microcosmos was realized in the Municipal Galley Nova Gorica (Slovenia) in 2004. Accompanying study was written by Mojca Puncer (accessible at the author’s web-page: www.ars-tratnik.si).
2 - Project Private Bowls (author Polona Tratnik) was represented at the exhibition Breakthrough (Den Haag, Netherlands, 2004), at the Biennale of Electronic Arts (Perth, Australia, 2004), as an installation in Museum of Natural Histories Slovenia (in the production of Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 2004/2005), and at the exhibition Seven Sins: Ljubljana-Moscow (2004/2005).
The accompanying study was written by Mojca Puncer (accessible at the author’s web-page: www.ars-tratnik.si).
3 - The project In-Time was presented in 2005 in _kuc Gallery at the show Pretty-Dirty. Tratnik multiplied micro organisms taken from the bodies of seven curators and cultivated them on their private objects for daily use in glass containters as used for food conservation.
4 - Tratnik first realized the project In(threat)timity in 2005 at the festival Touch me (Zagreb, Croatia). It is a site specific installation with living micro organisms, originating from the exhibition space.
5 - In relation to this theme the author of this essay has created the project 37°C which was realized in the first version as a solo exhibition in Kapelica Gallery (Ljubljana, Slovenia, December – January 2001/2). The project has been shown in another version at the exhibition L’Art Biotech (Nantes, Francija, 2003). The artist has written an essay about this project: 37°C: From the Inside of a being to the thin overhanging Line of Life, published in Leonardo magazine, Cambridge: MIT Press, Volume 38,
Issue 2, April 2005. The project is also presented on artist’s web page: www.ars-tratnik.si.
6 - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, »The Child’s Relations with Others,« in The Primacy of Perception, Cambridge, 1987, p. 125. See also Jacques Lacan, »The mirror stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience«, in Écrits: A Selection, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1977, p. 6.
7 - Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943), New York: Washington Square Press, 1966, p. 320.
Polona Tratnik
Is an assistent for cultural studies at the Faculty for humanistic studies in Koper, Slovenia and gives lectures on the same subject at this Faculty. She is doing her doctor’s degree on philosophy and theory of visual culture at the same Faculty in the philosophy and theory of visual culture. She has received a master’s degree in sculpture at the Academy for Fine Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2001. She graduated from painting at the same academy in 1999. In 2005 she was an art director of the international festival for contemporary art Break 2.3 New Species (www.break-festival.org), which took place in Ljubljana in November 2005 at different locations. She also organized the accompanying conference. She is a secretary of Slovenian Society of Aesthetics () and a member of the organizing committee of the III. Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics. She has finished a course for curators, organized by SCCA in 1998. From 1994 she has organized numerous projects as contemporary art shows, lectures and colloquiums on aesthetics, contemporary art and culture. She has edited and published a book Spaces/Places of Art (2001), she was a co-editor of the art magazine Art Words and she has also founded Horizons, a magazine for the philosophy and theory of art.
