Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, the
Understory of the Understory.
I'm Lucia Pietroiusti.
I'm curator of General Ecology, and with me is Filipa Ramos, writer and general genius
and general genius Filipa Ramos.
And I don't know if you want to say hi so that some people can see you.
So, this is the fourth instalment, as Bettina has said, and thank you so much, Bettina,
for the wonderful and warm words of welcome.
As Bettina has said, this is the fourth instalment in a long term research publication,
events festival series that we started in two thousand and eighteen to look at these
questions around consciousness and intelligence and language across across species and
beings. And it was kind of the, really, kind of the founding event in the development of
the General Ecology Project, which has been a little bit maybe quiet for a little while.
But just to give like the fastest introduction of what the General Ecology Project is at
the Serpentine, it was an attempt.
It's now a few years old and it was an attempt to kind of embed ecological principles,
concerns, work and research through both the programming that we planned for through kind
of live events and activations and activities and, and the infrastructure and the systems
that we used to do that work.
So something about ecology through ecology in some way, and we've spoken about this at
all of the different fish.
So I probably shouldn't go on too long.
But whilst Bettina has mentioned a little bit at the beginning of this, this, this event
and this and these various past iterations that we've had of the fish, it's worth saying
that the first half of the title, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, was
inspired by this fantastic genius pufferfish, this tiny animal that makes these big
circles in the sand and by really thinking very kind of by being very puzzled about how
on earth could that tiny creature really draw these elaborate circles, but not so much
how it could, because it does.
But how can something be conceptualised differently across different forms of life and
beings that that share the planet?
Now the second half of the title is The Understory of the Understory and maybe Filipa,
you want to get us started by talking a little bit about what that means to you.
Thank you Lucia, hello, everyone.
So it's very nice that we started by looking at the fish and we started looking at the
fish in relation to the dance the fish was making with with the other fishes and with the
sea. And we started thinking in the beginning, so what is the language and the
intelligence and the sensibility that brings us all together?
And then gradually we start thinking about other processes connected to this fish.
How is this fish existing in itself as an individual, but also by being constituted by
all the lifeforms that reverse this this fascinating creature and then thinking also
about the environment of the fish and the environment of ourselves.
Humans, ones, fishes in connection with the natural world and with plants.
And now all of a sudden we decided, what about the place where the fish with which the
fish is dancing with this fish is dancing with the soil and this fish is together with
the soil, creating this incredible form that has been the starting point of all our
questions, which is how is this mandala like shapes so fascinating for the fish as it is
for us no?And so, as Lucia was saying, we decided to look at the ground, to look at the
soil and understand what was happening there and what is this incredible surface
membrane skin that allows not only for pufferfishes to communicate that desire and love
with and creativity with other fishes, but also that allows us to exist in life, to
flourish and also life to be regenerated.
And again, as we always do, we start with questions and we started asking ourselves what
is happening in this layer of ground and soil.
And the first answer we encountered was exactly that.
Life is what's happening no and life is what's happening in this understory.
So for each story, for each words and narratives and accounts and memories and and
histories that we have, there is this layer that allows them to ferment, to multiply, to
incubate themselves and to start emerging, no.
And so the other story specifically, also because it's a poetic and and very visual term,
but it's also a term that comes through from botany.
It's exactly this layer of vegetation, of of forests and of of of natural areas where the
light is very low, the humidity is is high and temperatures are relatively stable.
And this is fascinating that the ground is a place of a different time with time and the
different temperature seems like a microclimate in itself no.
And because of this low light, high humidity, stable temperatures, multiple life forms
from ferns and shrubs to fungi to animals and plants and microorganisms, they can
cooperate in known and also unknown manners to ensure let's say the continuation, the
renovation, the of of nutrient cycling and therefore of life and and it's exactly this
asking ourselves what are the stories that we're telling?
What are the stories that are emerging?
And from here embracing a concept that in itself in botany and biology contains this term
of story and of narrative.
It's not the, under history.
It's the understory.
So it's already opened for fabulation and speculation, the narrative to emerge while
looking at the ground in doing so.
That was our our our starting point.
I don't know Lucia, what are your I mean, we've been speaking so much together, but at
the same time, we've been also.
We've been like summoning the minds and the gestures and the hands of those who have been
thinking with us, and sometimes we we spend less time and this is our opportunity not to
go on on these ideas and think,
Well, I guess a couple of thoughts, one of them was that, in fact, this event maybe before
it was named that, but I don't fully remember now what's supposed to happen in May.
And as Bettina said, we had more time.
But it was at the time also very reliant on the fungal and the and thinking through and
with mushrooms mycelia and fungi and that over the course of time it
sort of complexified little bit more.
And we started to really kind of run through all these words that we have for in English,
at least that's that's the language that we use for the exercise.
But one could do it in various but run through all these words that we have for that
thing that we stand on and realised that when you talk about soil, you kind of bring in a
layer of imagination and research and thinking that harks, often from the agricultural or
scientific, when you talk about land, then you're a well, when you're talking about
ground to your thinking philosophically about sort of I suppose existence, when you're
talking about Earth, you're thinking about the planet as a system and then when you're
talking about land and I leave this to last because it's probably the most.
The most the most layered and complex one, because when you're talking about land, you're
also talking about land sovereignty and land rights and how by sort of
holding this material thing,you could kind of fall upwards and
outwards into this kind of stack of ecology's economies, geopolitics, uh, relationalities
that are more than human and human and more than human in a kind of cycle.
And so we with the the the festival slightly changed and it became like, well, how can we
speak to those things?
And to throw up out words, this kind of constellation of different positions that respond
to reflect on these various ways of thinking about.
You know, down here, down there.
And and I guess it's in that, I guess, cosmological.
And disposition of of presentations that something.
Not one thing, not a singular thing, but a series of complex kind of simultaneous things.
We hope emerge.
It's it's something that I I mean, we all we learn a lot from these from organising each
of these events and these festivals, but I think that we've learned particularly
outlandish and surprising things, organising the Understory of the Understory and also
one of the things that has been staying or has been fermenting with me is the multiple
layers with which the soil exists, the soil as a site of as the site of
redistribution, of redistribution of life, a redistribution of of time and history and
memories, but also a space of redistribution of of wealth through the circulation of
nutrients and through their reach, the reconstitution of of nutrients, but also
redistribution of tolerance in the sense that the shrubs and the lifeforms that inhabit
the Understory are generally extremely light, tolerant.
They don't need a lot of light.
And it's just they they they adjusted to to coexist in fascinating ways, as if they
didn't need some of their essential components because of the richness that they
encounter, but also as a site of redistribution of toxicity.
Because everything we produce we make we, Humans as animals and as agents of
outstanding creators of of infrastructures and of forms of altering the planet that then
have a series of chain effects onto the world, all these processes and transformations go
again to the soil.
All our gestures are brought back and are re elaborated and transformed and and
redistributed in its wealth, in its richness, so it's a society of celebration, but also
a sign of mourning at the same time.
And we see how these two elements, the concrete humid, land relationship and the upmost
spiritual form of understanding, a transition to another state are
embedded into one another, and it's this connection and deep connection between the
material, the real fight and the utmost spiritual that emerged throughout this encounter
constantly in in really fascinating ways, I find.
So whilst most of this event has been pre produced and pre prepared for you today,
hopefully in the interests of technical functionality and also just editorial
consistency, and we also have invited our participants to join us back online following
the event with us and responding to any questions that you might have by using the
hashtag #understory on Twitter.
And you should see to my right you should see a Twitter feed that picks up on that
hashtag on understory story. So hopefully, if you would like to contribute, ask a
question. If our participants are online and we're so grateful to each and every one of
them for joining us in so many ways and so many times.
But if they are online, they will, I'm certain, be very happy to respond, so please join
us on Twitter #understory.
OK, so a word of thank you to everyone that participated in making this happen.
Of course, the our family general ecology family, Holly Shuttleworth and Kostas
Stasinopoulos who are really a you know, holding the roots underneath and letting these
trees grow, so to them always endless and enormous thanks from both of us.
To Giles Round, who has been working on the visual identity of the general ecology project
for years. And now what is a phenomenal new vision for an online platform version of this
event, which is was up to this point so focused and rooted on kind of life presents to
Sean McCallum, who coded and programmed and devised the website.
And to our supporters, we The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish was supported by
Norla. So we're incredibly grateful to them and also to our collaborators.
We decided to we agreed to work in partnership with a couple of really, really phenomenal
organisations, one of them being the Willowherb Review so a huge thank you to Jessica J
Lee from Willowherb for her collaboration and sort of embracing of this proposal and
invitation. And to Adam Huggins and Mendel Skulski at Future Ecologies, the podcasts that
we've been featuring on our podcast feed in the lead up to today.
And we cannot recommend it enough.
Subscribe right now.
And then the General Ecology Project is also kind of in the process of developing a
slightly more organised and formal relationship with its own network and so and we are
very grateful to have the support of some really fantastic institutions and organisations
and individuals that will support and are supporting the General Ecology Network,
Fiorucci Art Trust, Nicoletta Fiorucci De Li Galli and Outset Contemporary Art Fund so as
always, gratitude to them as well.