Tasting Bubbling Naturecultures and Touching M/other’s Hands : Aesthesias of Microbial Touch Points

• Main Author: Fähndrich, Laura
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för design (DE) 2020
• Subjects: More-than-Human; Interdependencies; Hand-Taste; Fermentation; Reveal; Shared Culture; Nature-cultures; Community; Microbes; Slow-Design; Design
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-96876

This project explores co-being and interdependencies between human and more-than-human, the microbes, through the medium of fermentation and the (hidden) communities this practice embodies. Therewith not only resisting commodification and alienation from our food but facing our very own identity, and the human-made construct of human exceptionalism and detachment of nature and culture. The cells in ’our’ human body are outnumbered by the cells of other microorganisms. They even actively influence many of the bodily functions associated with the concept of ’self‘ (our brain, immune system and genome).1 Considering this, what does it even mean to be human? What does it mean to be me, If not cherishing and embracing the more-than-human, more-than-one-culture collective? The Korean word 손맛 ’son-mat’/ ’hand-taste’ refers to the inherited quality, love and care that went into preparing the (often associated with mother‘s) dish, something uniquely connected to the cook. While the microbes in sourdough can be linked to the baker‘s hand microbes, the baker‘s microbes have also shown to beaffected by the interaction with sourdough (Herman‘s (see picture to the right) microbial culture) with the scientific findings exposing our mutual interaction. This son-mat within fermentation I see as a symbolized touching point where our human realm and the microbial invisible microcosmos meet and become tangible. To emphasize this co-being, I work with our bodily senses, using design to bridge, making the insensible sensible, tangible, and audible. Staying curious and sprawling with my design approaches of creating narratives with the more-than-human, aimed to evoke questions and reflections of us and our culture. What happens when we share culture (human and microbial)? Through our hands, eating and digesting parts of others and becoming-with. To share culture means to see that humans and ’non-humans‘ are one. To taste that our culture is shared. And to feel that nature and culture are not two but one. Can you taste it?