MAP-FILTER
UNSTABLE COMPOUNDS PROJECT AND RESIDENCY
CURATED BY POSTHUMAN STUDIES LAB (EKATERINA NIKITINA, NIKITA SAZONOV, IPPOLIT MARKELOV, MARIA MOLOKOVA)
CURATED BY POSTHUMAN STUDIES LAB (EKATERINA NIKITINA, NIKITA SAZONOV, IPPOLIT MARKELOV, MARIA MOLOKOVA)
COVER IMAGE BY VERA VISHNEVA
PHOTO BY ALINA BROVINA
VIDEO BY NIKOLAY YARIN
VYKSA
2021
Map-filter is one of the objects of the Feral Automated System: ULTB-1 installation displayed at the Ars Electronica 2022. Feral Automated System: ULTB-1 explores local geographies and histories bringing together human and non-human, vegetable and mechanical.
Participants were engaged into a collective exploration of industrial territories in search of vanadium in order to collect plants which absorb it from soil. Participants chose territories somewhat related to their personal or family history. I chose the city of Yaroslavl and its surroundings where I spent numerous summers and winters in a house as a child. According to local beliefs, the surface of wide lakes repels rains and storms, and attracts sunny weather.
Map-filter is a hub that evaluates filtered rainwater in the treatment facilities of the Yaroslavl Oil Refinery. The map contains the layout of the pools, information about the level of water is measured by a humidity sensor located in one of the reservoirs. Oil plant swabs containing oil sludge and heavy metals, vanadium among others, are collected in these pools. Along the banks of the treatment reservoirs participants collected feral agricultural plants which were then dried and transformed into ash in the laboratories of the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia.
These plants growing over polluted industrial territories act as filters which absorb heavy metals from soil and accumulate them in their vegetable tissues. Structure of xylem, vascular tissue of plants, resembles tubes referenced by the lover part of the object.
The final installation brought together hubs designed by all the participants into one network operating on the vanadium battery. This network system references the unrealized Soviet cybernetics project OGAS (National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing) aiming to decentralize information on production and to restore the agency of plants in labor relations.
