exercises

Preparations:

Connect the 3 elements (air, water, earth) by drawing/placing a triangle on the floor

Surrounded by the dots: raw, rotten, cooked and Afrika, Americas, Asia, Europe, oceania

Place all ingredients in the center of the triangles: not yet goods, nor products, nor resources

Gather participants around

The rules of the game

Choose an object in the center of the map.

Move the object through the map by answering the following questions and trace your path:

ROUND 1

Earth - Water - Air

Where does the object come from?
(Explain to the group)

Should it be smoked, combusted in a social gathering of fire and air? Or boiled, alone in a kitchen over a pot of water? Or consumed raw, in its most original state? To this we re-iterate the triangle on our own terms. Should it be synthesized, subject to extraction, or gathered as is?

Raw - Cooked - Rotten

What do you want to do with your object?
(Explain to the group)

At this point the player must also consider their own geo-social context. This game emerged in Utrecht, Holland. The Treaty of Utrecht defined the terms of the “Triangular Trade” of humans as commodities, the exchange of slaves from Africa for gold and grain from the Americas, led by the Anglo-Dutch alliance with Spanish and Mediterranean sea-power and Labor.

Africa - Americas - Asia- Europe - Oceania

Where is your object going?
(Explain to the group)

Here the game takes another turn. We are no longer tracing history, but tracing and perhaps training
for the Not-Yet. Step into the future and choose an area of affiliation. Into what zone will you step, geographically, politically, socially, affectively?

ROUND 2

Place your body in the region with which you choose to affiliate yourself.

Make a collective assessment of your commodity resources.

Choose how to manage your resources collectively or individually by directing them through the map.

ALL CATEGORIES ARE NOW OPEN

Where does your resource belong?
What does your resource stand for?
How do you share your resource?

Gather your resources, and make a choice. Protect what you have, steal from others, or collaborate for a common goal. Will you re-tell the political history that has formed your region of choice, making the same choices, mistakes or otherwise? Or will you chart a new path? Nature, or nurture?

The Scene of Crime

Inspired by three forms of triangular iterations of socio-cultural power and flow, “The Scene of the Crime” is an invitation to act out, to play at, the relations between nature and nurture, culture and capitalism.

Beginning with elemental relations between earth, water, and air, the game is one of categories. The introduction of Claude Levi-Strauss’ “Culinary Triangle” demands the reorganization of these elemental categories, and asks the player make a choice - how to process this matter?

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