Anahat

/We come from stardust

/Stardust coming together to make (shared) matter - that makes all of us

/If entropy/ disorderness is the ruling principle of the universe, how did we come to be?

/Matter as a witness to this development

/Tying this approach to an object (/being) to hopefully move away from this vagueness - Many (all?) everyday 'commodities' we use began their existence in outer space.

/Primordial Soup!!

we come from stardust

/Rendering the world sensible
/Sparking an interaction between human and non-human

the sun - source of nourishment - closest star -

the moon as the observer - push and pull? - spirals - orbits - symbiosis

"Heterotrophic origin of life theory"

//"warm little pond" (Darwin)
// "prebiotic broth"

/'Stirring the soup'

/Chance + a heavy dose of the ideal ingredients

/ Gaudi's la sopa primordial tiles at Passeig de Gràcia

Some science-y inspiration for the dinner object:

The primitive Earth's surface had a thick red-hot liquid, composed of heavy elements such as carbon (in the form of iron carbide). This nucleus was surrounded by the lightest elements, i.e. gases, such as hydrogen. In the presence of water vapour, carbides reacted with hydrogen to form hydrocarbons. Such hydrocarbons were the first organic molecules. These further combined with oxygen and ammonia to produce hydroxy- and amino-derivatives, such as carbohydrates and proteins. These molecules accumulated on the ocean's surface, becoming gel-like substances and growing in size. (Oparin)

Ultraviolet rays from the Sun induced reactions on a mixture of water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia. Organic substances such as sugars and protein components (amino acids) were synthesised. These molecules "accumulated till the primitive oceans reached the consistency of hot dilute soup." The first reproducing things were created from this soup. (Haldane)

Nothing Exists per se Except Atoms and the Void (Lucretius: of the nature of things)

atoms make up everything in the world, from physical objects to the mind to the soul.

Chaos is at the root of everything - but because chaos exists, tranquility/life/order emerges.

Chaos is arbitrary & entropic, and this makes us anxious/induces discomfort. It is in our nature to seek patterns in the randomness to assign meaning/make sense of the arbitrariness. But what we find solace in can be equally arbitrary, so why don't we embrace chaos itself as post-paranoia.

the reptilian brain - matter as witness - fossils - cosmic elements

How did we come to be if entropy is the ruling force of the universe?

Chaos is arbitrary and entropic. It triggers fear. Why not embrace chaos as post-paranoia?

let's bring chaos into the dinner

chaotic possibilities

White noise

a noise that contains all frequencies across the spectrum of audible sound in equal measure. A concept that sounds incredibly chaotic, but is used as a source of comfort - to sleep, to focus, to think

Primordial soup

a hypothesis on the origin of life on earth. A chaotic mess that life emerged from. The transition from chaos to life itself

Using my process

panic-inducing and VERY chaotic

Recreating a complex system

Primordial soup is the direction I went with. Not only does it create an immediate association with food, it also ties in well with my interests and the existential questions I wanted to ask in my research

Approaching chaos as comfort. The clarity that came through the chaotic brew of thoughts I had was in essence what my project was all about.

The research was triggered by an exercise we did with Angelo - of documenting thoughts and processes. The sketch I drew for this took the form of celestial bodies – using it as a metaphor for how bodies of thoughts emerge. I found it interesting that phenomena at different scales can have parallels of this sort. Here I approached it as thinking in ‘fractals,’ fractioning down or scaling up ideas and concepts to create new associations and connections. There’s certainly discomfort I feel using these terms – firstly, not in their usual (traditional?) context, and second, using them while I’m still piecing together what their meaning could be and what I’m trying to express through them.

I decided I wanted to tie my research to the universe – which is equal parts terror and comfort for me. The incomprehensible vastness of it can be panic-inducing to think about but because of it, we're practically inconsequential, so nothing really matters and we can just have fun with it. With this approach, I also wanted to use this trimester to grow out of certain damaging habits I tend to have with my process.

We come from stardust; all matter has the same source, assembling and disassembling over and over through time. An idea I wanted to explore with absolutely no idea of how I’d go about doing it. The cyclical nature of this matter being used and re-used was fascinating. Somewhere down the line, consciousness emerged and we began to perceive. Lots of branching out here, and it was hard to pin down where I wanted to go with my process.

Through the question of entropy, I went down a rabbit hole of endless tabs on theories and myths surrounding the origin of everything. This helped me distill my prompt down to - Chaos is arbitrary and entropic, which makes us anxious and induces discomfort. It is in our nature to seek out patterns in the randomness and assign meaning to the arbitrary. But what we find solace in can sometimes be equally arbitrary. So why not embrace chaos itself as post-paranoia?

I went about it by trying to create an association between chaos and comfort. The primordial soup stood out to me – a concept that works well to make my project more tangible and helps narrow down from the initial vagueness I was talking about. And the name creates an immediate association with food. Tying it to a concept that can be materialized did take a while to reach, but once I got there the details of the project flowed with more ease.

The journey started in a void of darkness, transitioning into the earth being formed from the chaotic clouds of stardust long after the big bang. And the guests were invited to build their ecosystems in a prehistoric earth as part of a guided eating moment to reflect on the nature of existence, and the cyclical nature of matter.

With this, I wanted to create a participative gesture to invite a transition from paranoia to post-paranoia through existential pondering as the opener for the evening. Keeping with the core approach of my project, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I had this moment be a performative live narration instead of the easy, pre-recorded instructions I was initially tending towards. The first recipe for sparking this interaction between the human and non-human was fairly straightforward to write – the narration worked well for it. I realised that the arms of my research were initially feeding each other but at some point, they blended into the same entangled thing for me. I wanted this to reflect in my materialisation as well.

Through my chaotic brew and all its iterations, I found that even for the design process, inviting chaos in and sitting with it can be uncomfortable – but sometimes that’s exactly what we need to move forward. Transitioning from existential pondering, the second phase of the recipe was a prompt to scale back up towards my initial questions and trigger new chaos for new clarity to emerge from. This phase wasn’t one I was completely satisfied with - I struggled to express what I wanted to communicate and I don’t think I managed to push the idea as far as I would’ve liked. The world strives for order and structure. I am curious to see how this framework could be disorganised – exploring unpredictability and destabilisation as a generative approach - if it's possible and what it could look like. This is how I'd like to take the research forward.

an attempt at an essay