to tap, to lean, to twist, to warp

dennis dizon

to tap, to lean, to twist, to warp explores methods of pine resin-tapping in parts of the European Mediterranean prone to wildfires. The research follows resin workers and pine trees in resin-based communities, including the Maritime pine in the Castilla y León region of Spain and the Aleppo pine in Northern Evia, Greece.

Known colloquially as “tapping,” pine trees ooze resin as a form of repair. For humans, pine resin is a natural antiseptic for cuts and wounds, and when burned as incense, a homoeopathic relief for anxiety. In Spain, renewed interest in resin-tapping, or “bleeding,” could offer a solution to the country’s rural exodus; according to Blanca Rodríguez-Chaves, an environmental policy expert from the Autonomous University of Madrid, resin could also be an eco-alternative to products made with petroleum, such as plastic.¹

A commercial plot of Maritime pine trees near Armuña, Spain.
Dennis Dizon, 2022.

Despite its characteristic relief and presumed economic repair, the research examines an ecological paradox: pine resin is also highly flammable, which—for example—amplified the destruction of forest fires on the Greek island of Evia in 2021.² The ongoing research looks at the paradoxes in climate change discourse at-scale: how can humans nurture intimate relationships with the more-than-human under economic pressures and climate urgencies?

Bob with an Aleppo pine, Evia, Greece.
to tap, to lean, to twist, to warp, 2023-ongoing.
4K video, composite detail, still. Dennis Dizon, 2023.

Experimenting with dissonance as a methodology, the entry point to this research strand follows “the practice of cruising as an unexpected model for a new… ecological ethic more deeply attuned to our impersonal intimacies with the human, nonhuman, and elemental strangers that constitute both our environment and ourselves” (Ensor, 2017). Through queer relationality, the research seeks the “impersonal intimacies” between the resin worker and the pine tree, shaping a “formation of new alliances… [from] unforeseen lines of force” in encounters with crisis (Bersani, 2008; Foucault, 1984). Does the erotic, for example, have potential in planetary thinking?

to tap, to lean, to twist, to warp proposes a deeper immersion in intentions and risks, uncertainties and pleasures, creating other means of recognising, expressing and (dis)embodying sensitivities—all while under pressure—in varying scales of crises.

to tap, to lean, to twist, to warp is part of ‘too cool to burn’—a long-term research project that reimagines “climate sensitivity.” In climate science, “climate sensitivity” is a modelling equation that measures how much the earth will warm based on increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Poetically (and paradoxically), “climate sensitivity” gives certainty to uncertainty.

For additional reference about the ongoing project as explored in Greece, click here.

bio

Dennis Dizon (b. Manila, Philippines) Research-based artist and writer. Their practice interrogates intersections of technology and ecology. Placing value and care on research and methodology, they play with rhetoric—in the spectra of the connotative—applying queer relationalities and decolonial practices through poetics and aective attachments from media and techno-science.

Recent contributions include CARPARK (Berlin, 2023), Immerse! at Tallinna Kunstihoone (Tallinn, 2023), a model, a map, a fiction at transmediale (Berlin, 2023), and the Weather Engines Symposium at Onassis Stegi (Athens, 2022) along with an artist’s intervention in Neural (Strange Weathers, Winter 2022).

Grants, awards, residencies and fellowships include the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (New York, 2019), Furthereld (London, 2020), Beyond Matter at Tallinna Kunstihoone (Tallin, 2020), The School of Innite Rehearsals IV: Everything Equally Evolved (2021) plus a Tailor-made Fellowship (2023) with Onassis AiR (Athens), Becas de Investigación Artística from La Escocesa (Barcelona, 2022), the Gwärtler Stiftung (Basel, 2022) and an honorary mention from Arts at CERN’s Collide International Residency Award (2020).

They hold a Master of Research degree in Advanced Practices from Goldsmiths, University of London, with distinction.

www.reason-less.com

¹ Susana Girón, “Spain's untapped 'liquid gold,’” BBC, October 15, 2021,
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211014-spains-untapped-liquid-gold.

² Joanna Kakissis, “Climate Change Destroyed A Way Of Life On The Once-Idyllic Greek Island Of Evia,” NPR, September 11, 2021,
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/11/1033718496/climate-change-forest-fires-greek-island-evia-greece.