Still Remains

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Within the framework of the Notes for a Time Apart programme, elii [oficina de arquitectura] and Orkan Telhan present the installation Still Remains, which, distanced from Anthropocentrism, sets forth research around the microbiome: the community of micro-organisms that inhabit a certain environment, both inside and outside the human body, and are governed by their own logics and temporal scales.

The microbiome in our guts, armpits, genitals and mouths could be considered our most private landscapes, the place where our interspecies identities reside, made up of bacteria, fungi and viruses living parallel lives, resisting and working around the clock in our daily life. They sustain the hormones and chemical substances segregated by our anxious selves, withstand the stimulants, amphetamines and cognitive enhancers we consume to fight the stress caused by unresolved tasks. They endeavour to adapt to our bodies, which are increasingly conceived to work, more and more and more efficiently, all of the time.

This installation seeks to approach this invisible community through a variety of leftover food. The first step was to invite a group of professionals to share a meal in the Museo during their break time at work. As they enjoyed a specific menu, they chatted and asked each other questions about managing time and work: “What do you normally do when you take a break?”; “How do you manage stress”; “How much coffee do you drink?”; “What do you do when you need to concentrate?”; “What is your favourite energy drink?”. Before finishing this conversation, they were asked to leave their leftover food behind. What was left was the remains of shared food between people from different contexts, professions, social classes and worldviews.

These leftovers were transferred to a network of fridges to keep them in a type of capsule frozen in time. On these refrigerated surfaces, the microbes of the eaters go on to become part of these shared and slowed food landscapes, eroding and mutating. They change to a state of suspended animation which affects their cycles of conservation. They become prolonged “conversations” between micro-organisms, food supplements and people, unfurling a plural temporality that belongs to no one. As Still Remains. At least, while the cold lasts.

Participants