salt body (circulation #0008)
2015
PSi#21 On Titled Earth, Harbour Square + Lunetta seafarers recruitment area, Manila.
6-8 November
this body meets the high tides of Manila Bay
twice a day over three days
this body has exchanged and collected salts
from diverse oceans, seas and lands on earth
this body is a harbor amongst oceans and deserts
currents and confluences, waves and islands
this body harbors the passage of salts
from regions of the earth that pass through its mouth
this body is an island
porous and planetary
this body draws out harbored liquids
at the turning of the tide
this body releases liquids to other bodies
other salts, other liquids, other atmospheres
this body circulates with hydrological cycles,
oceanic systems, maritime practices,
mythic encounters
this salt body
performance 1: Friday 6 Nov. morning 4:30am – 5:30am
(high tide 5:03am / 0.78 m) ~ at Seafarers recruitment area Lunetta
performance 2: Friday 6 Nov. evening 7.30pm – 8:30pm
(high tide 8:21pm / 0.61 m) ~ at Harbour Square
performance 3: Saturday 7 Nov. morning 6:00am – 7:00am
(high tide 6:32am / 0.71 m) ~ at Seafarers recruitment area Lunetta
performance 4: Saturday 7 Nov. evening 8:00pm – 9:00pm
(high tide 8:27pm / 0.67m) ~ at Harbour Square
performance 5: Sunday 8 Nov. morning 7:00am – 8:00am
(high tide 7:48am / 0.65 m) ~ at Seafarers recruitment area Lunetta
performance 6: Sunday 8 Nov. evening 8:00pm – 9:00pm
(high tide 8:40pm / 0.75 m) ~ at Harbour Square
The Circulations series employ salt to activate encounters in the dynamic inter-relationships of globality and locality. Salt is a ubiquitous form of matter; material in the hydrological cycle that is essential to life and a potential cause of breakdown of living systems; substance of historically significant social and economic exchange, whose cultural usage gave rise to food preservation and sedentary lifestyles. Salt is a material in cyclical movement and transformation – through bodies of water, through the bodies of humans and living organisms, through land – that elicits awareness of the porosity of entities and raises questions of equilibrium and change. The Circulations series draw upon regional resonances of salt: the historical emergence of mercantile practices and wealth through dominating salt trade in the Adriatic; the loss to local economy with the closure of foreign-owned salt pans on Long Island Bahamas; the oceanic imaginary in the Pacific islands; the post-tsunami consequences of seawater flooding agricultural lands in northern Japan and the symbolism of spiritual purification through salt; the rising salinity of lands in SE Australia exacerbated by excessive agricultural irrigation practices and the cultural investment in seawater de-salination infrastructure technologies to meet metropolitan Melbourne’s water demands. Our attention is directed to the range of human negotiations with natural systems and resources – commonly containing and capitalising – whilst circulations of salt continue to exceed control.