Title. Mantling, Re-mantling, Dismantling: Reverting to Pre-Plastic Practices

Description.  A participatory performance by Matthew Fink of Four Second Decay.

​

Stripped of its mantle the earth is mere molten core, radiating intolerable heat, hanging in vacancy. The earth’s crust and mantle contain the biosphere, all of human (and most of geological) history—save for space junk. We are, in this sense, creatures of crust and mantle. If we add the lower atmosphere, we have all we know and all we need to know.

​

But dismantling comes to us as second nature. We would sooner destroy than preserve. That includes the earth’s mantle, which we are obliged to dis, while struggling not recognise what we are doing.

​

Mantling, Re-Mantling, Dismantling assumes that we are adult enough to acknowledge the shame of the Anthropocene and, if given the proper tools and understanding, we would be happy to progress backwards to a pre-plastic dispensation. To this end there will be exercises and training to help us indentify our voracious inner dismantler. The  once productive Falla site will be taken as an object lesson in growth and decay, mantling (as in cloaking the earth) and dismantling. Participants will be asked to sketch alternatives to existing models of Dismantling and Mantling. Pencils will be provided.

​

45 minutes, to be performed both Saturday and Sunday.

​