Karola Lüttringhaus

290 colloquium
Reflection paper on a performance by Quimera Rosa and students at UC Davis, 2018

The performance 'Trans Plant' by Quimera Rosa in collaboration with students at UC Davis was an
evocative experience that led to much contemplation about the topics explored as well as the nature of
performance ethics and intentions.

I did not witness the process of creating the performance and the installation. Coming to it as an
outsider I left with the impression that the project was conceited or self-absorbed. However, the
performance was very complex and many aspects of it were very inspiring and moving.

Entering the building, I was met by a space that was 'herbaceous' in feel. Some areas were lit and
others remained in darkness. One could choose to be seen or observe; but by exploring all areas of the
installation one inevitably became part of the work and hence an object of investigation as well. The
room was not altered per se, but the elements that the artists placed within it, and their particular
arrangement, spatially delineated from one another like fascia, did change its aura substantially. It was
a bit like an alien life-form had moved in and begun to nest. The choreography of space allowed
audiences and performers to hide in shadows, or seek the light; like little bugs we situated ourselves
under a thick layer of leaves, perhaps. The space was transformed into somewhat of a lab, like the
messy office of a scientist with notes, samples, and experiments all over the place. Things were
displayed on the floor, on tables and multiple projections illuminated the space in a three-dimensional
manner. Sound was sparse and restricted to the immediate vicinity of its sources which, created a sense
of intimacy and secrecy.

The performance struck me as a heavy collision of body versus steel, integrity versus probing,...it
confronted me as an expression of people viewing their bodies as objects of investigation and intrusion.
How many different ways can we merge cold instruments with soft flesh? We encountered live and
dead material, dying kombucha yeast, chrorophyll extracted for ingestion, embellishment, and for
scent. Living plants are part of electricity/sound experiments, that are not much more than a gimmick.
The plant is not the actual source of the sound. The plant is an object that forms a resistance in the path
of the electricity, a barrier; the plant is forced to be a conductor that allows for the creation of various
sounds; a slave of the artistic creation.

We saw people, both clothed and naked, protected and vulnerable. The performance was richly
exploring the topics of becoming plant, of piercing skin, of growing and shriveling. The eclectic
collection of viewpoints and elements to be examined included a meditation led by Kevin O'Conner
that sensitized us to the assumed experiences of a plant. I think that it was successful at changing our
anthropocentric nature to a more open sensitivity. His words led us through imagery that looks at life
from the point of view of a plant. It changed my way of looking at the space, at light, warmth, air,
sound, and the other people around me as connected to me within a network of roots.

We witnessed some of the violence of human inquisition. A woman inserted multiple small vials that
contained saliva from other people into her vagina with the help of gynecological instruments. She laid
on the table, naked, invaded, for a long time. A videocamera and projector transfer the closeup of the
intruments and flesh onto the wall behind her. One audience member kept standing in the path of the
projection, blocking our view from the closeup images. Was she aware or completely oblivious to what
she was doing? Later the actress stated that she thought it was, quote: 'fun' to do that scene; fun to do,
and fun to make people see that... Fun... I don;pt think I fully understood what she was after.
Another woman had placed herself supine and naked on the floor, immobile, hear breath barely visible,
to not ever move again throughout the entire duration of the piece, while people placed little wooden
sticks dipped in chlorophyll around her and in between her feet, thighs, arms and torso. I can't
remember what the meaning behind this section was.

Carolina Novella took off her clothes to bathe with kombucha skin in a tiny tub, skin on skin, two life-
forms meeting. One active the other passively enduring. We will never know if the kombucha liked it
or not.

Anuj Vaidya placed live kombucha sheets onto a drying rack and throughout the majority of the
performance was busy sewing several dried sheets together to form a projection screen. Gentle
violence.

Arielle Estrada Sol and one of the company members of Quimera Rosa were closely engaged in what
to me had a feeling of Bacchus-like love and grooming; crushing chlorophyll and glitter to make
toenail polish, lip-gloss. Their nature seemed to be less human than the others in the room, extremely
self-absorbed and private.

A video tells the story of a woman being injected with a microchip that will slowly change her into a
plant, invading her body, taking over, changing her senses, her thoughts, her being. The film play son
loop on a TV.

Another station was an interactive installation; an offer for audiences to sort and categorize items.

Only female bodies took off their clothes. All the male bodies stayed fully dressed in street-clothes or a
costume. Only female bodies were penetrated, offered themselves up for the invasion. It seems that all
objects of investigation either were, or identified as, female or plant to some degree. Women and plants
under the microscope. Yet the role of the physically male participants is not clear. Are they at the edge
of femaleness? Do we see degrees of femaleness, of vulnerability? The more masculine, the more
protected? We see Kevin and Anuj in the role of leaders and guides. These messages, whether
intentional or not, seemed not clear to me.

The event left me with many questions and uncertainties. What was the point of the installation and the
performance? How aware are the performers of the cliches that they explore and perpetuate? How
intentional was the gendering, the othering? Certainly we were exposed to the intersection of lifeforms,
the similarities between human and non-human, between spectator and subject, life and death, intruder
and intrusion. How do we perceive the inside of female bodies? Is it good that someone finally just
allows for the female body to not have anything to hide or be ashamed of, of is it yet another moment
of exploitation and sensationalism? When will we know which is which? I suppose the audiences are
the key element, our society, humanity, even. Only when audiences seize to misinterpret, to objectify, to
lust after rather than to see the person. The vulnerability of the female performer makes me angry at the
audience. I take it personal.

The piece ended on a somewhat hopeful note, with science as the savior that can heal cancer. But the
science seems fake, as the simplicity of blue or white LED light is what does the curing. All you have
to do to cure cancer is buy an LED flash-light. A strange mix of snake-oil salesmen and new
technological breakthroughs. This performance certainly expressed the childlike ignorance with which
the general public views and applies science and technologies. We know a lot, and use a lot of
technologies, but don't really understand any of it and misapply it to conduct pseudo experiments and
create a new scientific romanticism and mysticism.