Description Long

At CreaLab’s (masked) Future Forum Lucerne 2020 the philosopher Sabine Baier drew from the knowledge of the alchemist tradition to deduce new approaches to sustainable developments. Sabine Baier’s impulse led us to create workshop where we seek to recreate or use performative metaphysics. The alchemists were experts of material knowledge, and you can perform metaphysics by simply engaging with material in your surroundings. In this workshop we use the interaction with Nature’s material as an access point to alternative views of the world, we seek to understand how these can be experienced and be ‘habitable’. The workshop contains discussions, observations, immersion, and a shared outlook. Through this common experience, a team can be prepared for further work and locate itself individually. The immersion in natural surroundings, especially in the engagement with growing and live material, bring impulses that are not pre-structured. It refreshes and establishes a basis for new ideas about how to develop and expand world views.

Performative Metaphysics is based on these 5 key lessons:

1.(you need) Patience and seclusion

2.(it is essential to) Repeat, repeat, repeat...

3.Always start with something imperfect / alchemical DIY

4.(you will generate) Caput mortem or the alchemical waste

5.(there is) The price of the new

Illustration

Preparation

1) Workshop leaders meet and consider key questions for the walk. For example: What is substance? What can I know, what can I hope? What is your alternative, habitable worldview? Is performative metaphysics collective or individual? (These questions are afterwards written on the cards, which will be distributed and discussed during the walk).

2) It is worthwhile to walk the path to the forest and to investigate and experience the site in advance.

3) The material is collected and prepared: Per participant: 4 cards with core questions  | Cloth (approx. 70x150 cm, old sheet) | Wooden stick (approx. 80 cm) | Closable glass (e.g. Confiture glass) | A3 paper (paper funnel for focused observation) | tape

Execution

1) 10 minutes: Meet-up at the agreed place and short introduction about the topic.

2) about 30 minutes: Walk to the forest, discussing the core questions on the cards

3) 10 minutes: Arrival at the forest, the material is distributed.

4) 20 minutes:  You can choose a place in the undergrowth alone or in groups of two, max three, depending on size of the cloths. Sit under the cloth (held up with one or more sticks to form a small tent) and observe for about 20 minutes. Collect material in the glass.

5) 10 minutes: Check-in, gathering

6) 20 minutes: Repeat. Not in the same groups. If you were not alone before, then try it this time

7) 30 minutes: Gather again. Discussion of experiences and results.

8) Open end: Comfortable picnic

Hints from experience

As a workshopleader you have to prepare well. Read about alchemy and metaphysics. Find a good place/forest not too far from the meeting point. Walk the path to the forest. Prepare for bad weather (don't cancel but be sure that the participants have appropriate clothing).

If in summer bring spray against ticks.

References

Sabine Baier: Feuerphilosophen. Alchemie und das Streben nach dem Neuen, Chronos 2015

For questions regarding the workshop: Urs Gaudenz urs@gaudi.ch oder Julie Harboe julie@harboe.ch