Some of My Best Friends Are Germs at DOC

Artists: Etienne Courtois, Nick Fisher, Gina Folly, Luca Francesconi, Ilana Harris-Babou, Laub, Gaëlle Leenhardt, Jennifer Moon, Raphaëlle Serre, Anna Solal, Andrew Norman Wilson

Exhibition title: Some of My Best Friends Are Germs

Curated by: Ana Iwataki and Marion Vasseur Raluy

Venue: DOC, Paris, France

Date: May 13 – June 4, 2016

Photography: Paul Nicoué, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and DOC, Paris

fermentation, noun

The chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat.

1.1 The process of fermentation involved in the making of beer, wine, and liquor, in which sugars are converted to ethyl alcohol.
1.2 archaic Agitation; excitement:

Practical animism is knowing something by ingesting it. For ten days I ate the minimum to stay alive. Doing my best to keep it all out. But I drank bottles of water, bottles of beer. For ten days I let myself be intoxicated.

Fermented foods can help one adjust to a foreign climate and culture.

ferment, verb

1.1Cause the fermentation of (a substance).
2 Incite or stir up (trouble or disorder).
2.1 (Of a negative feeling or memory) fester and develop into something worse.

noun

1 Agitation and excitement among a group of people, typically concerning major change and leading to trouble or violence.
2 archaic A fermenting agent or enzyme.

There are trillions of microbes residing in our guts – regulating our physical well-being, as well as our feelings and temperament. They call it the second brain. They maybe made us stop hunting and gathering so we could drink beer.

Food makes us fatter – it acts on us. Act-ant. We’re all matter available to be acted on.

Plants and bacteria are probably having their way with us. Corn is probably using humans to take over the world.

inflammation, noun

A localized physical condition in which part of the body becomes reddened, swollen, hot, and often painful, especially as a reaction to injury or infection.

The microbiology of human desire. “…a child may rebuff its food because what it really wants is some impossibly immaterial gift of affection.”

inflame, verb

Provoke or intensify (strong feelings, especially anger) in someone:

1.1 Provoke (someone) to strong feelings:
1.2 Make (a situation) worse.

There’s a kind of orchid that mimics female bees in order to trick the males into sexual excitement. That’s how they get to where they need to go.

Female agency, plant agency. We’re all just stumbling around, trying to get where we need to go.

putrefaction, noun
The process of decay or rotting in a body or other organic matter.

They warn you about the food there, don’t drink the water. Psychologically mixing up fecal with food. Hand sanitizer and paranoia. The erotics of disgust. “Disgust is revulsion at the prospect of oral incorporation of an offensive object.” And anal? And vaginal?

What’s the most intimate way in?
How to tell what’s offensive?
What belongs in and what belongs out?

Pasteur and antibiotics fucked us all up. There are more cases of allergies and asthma in the Western world and we think we know why.

The French call orgasms the little death. Fermentation is a little death too.

metabolism, noun
The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.
Two kinds of metabolism are often distinguished: constructive metabolism and destructive metabolism.

Up in them guts. I went to a foreign country and let foreign bodies in. Replenished my impoverished Westernized microbiome. My mother had a C-Section and fed me organic. I’ve got catching up to do. Some bacteria, with their mere presence, make it impossible for other more destructive bacteria to survive.

Vorarephilia is the erotic desire to eat or be eaten by someone else.

transformation, noun

1 A thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance:
1.1 A metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal.
1.6 Biology The heritable modification of a cell from its normal state to a malignant state.

The secret desire of the American female that has always lived within me, mastery over the biological need to eat. And sleep. Mastery over the weakness of the flesh. Think of a diet as a series of beliefs and affirmations. To regulate yourself and your materiality.
We’re downcycling and upcycling, fall into a state and wake up in another one.

This is a dirty, nasty story about loving shit.

Etienne Courtois, Apples on Cardboard, 2014

Etienne Courtois, A Less Than Optimal Strategy, 2014

Etienne Courtois, Conehead Cabbage, 2013

Nick Fisher, Fermentation Ceremony, 2016

Gina Folly, Domestic Problems, 2016

Gina Folly, New Season (Ling Zhi) I , 2016, New Season (Ling Zhi) II , 2016, New Season (Ling Zhi) III , 2016, New Season (Ling Zhi) IV , 2016

Luca Francesconi, My Stomach Walking, 2016

Luca Francesconi, Snake of the paddy fields, 2016

Ilana Harris-Babou, Cooking with the Erotic, 2016

Laub, Kimchi House, 2014-2015

Gaëlle Leenhardt, From: Pancevacki put bb (Dunavska obala), Beograd – Krnjaca Beogradska deponija, Vinca Rue Pelleport, Paris Rue du Docteur Potain, Paris, 2016