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The idea of the “meso” is quite new in physics. Microphysics is well known, it’s the stuff of physicists’ dreams. The macro in physics is also familiar, it’s crystals, liquids, and bodies that can be characterized by general, measurable properties. But the meso is neither of these. It concerns not matter, but material. Why does glue stick? Why do metals tend to stress and break? This is a science of the interstices and the cracks. It’s a science of defects. It is the kind of science where it is always a question of this material, rather than Matter, and which encounters “procedures,” like those of metallurgy. Why must the iron be beaten as long as it is hot? The macro is matter in general. Gas is marvellously “in general.” With the meso, on the other hand, it is necessary in each instance to redefine topically how the relations between the micro and the macro are assembled. In other words, it’s about everything that the macro does not allow to be said, and everything that the micro does not permit to be deduced. No, the questions that must be asked are utterly specific. Questions which bring characters into existence. What is a crack? How does this propagate? How is that encountered? What brings this to a threshold, where it breaks? 


Isabelle Stengers in Conversation with Brian Massumi:

History through the Middle: Between Macro and Mesopolitics, 2008

WHICH MATERIAL TO USE? AND HOW? AND FOR WHAT? 

METAL, CERAMIC, TEXTILES, GLAS, RUBBER, PLASTIK...

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious about it, whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point that those properties are the product of human labour. It is as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than "table-turning" ever was.

Karl Marx, Capital, 1867, Volume 1, Chapter 1

Ed Convey, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization

WHY METAL?  

Keywords

Interdependence

Complexity 

Salts > Salary

Dependence

Steel

Economic Justice

Copper

SIDNEY W. MINTZ

SWEETNESS AND POWER: THE PLACE OF SUGAR IN MODERN HISTORY

The Human Being in the Thing, a film by Tom Tykwer, 9 min,

German with Engl Subtitles. 

Jean Tinguely, Méta-Harmonie, Basel 1978

Museum Tinguely 

On-Trade-Off worked on the contemporary dimensions of a question as old, as mythical, and as strategic as our relation to energy. Taking the recent run on lithium as a starting point, the project explored a broad range of questions surrounding raw materials for technological industries, financial speculation, and the history of electricity.


On-Trade-Off was sparked by the ‘discovery’ of a large lithium deposit in Manono, a mining area in the DRC. The mine is not only a place of historical extractivism but also plays a key role in the promise of green energy. As Manono is currently transformed into a site of speculation and future exploitation, On-Trade-Off simultaneously unfolded as a structure for counter-narratives and alternative forms of collaboration and artistic creation.


 

Initiated by: Picha (Lubumbashi, DRC) and Enough Room for Space (Brussels, BE)

 

Involved: Alexis Destoop, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Femke Herregraven, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Musasa, Alain Nsenga, Georges Senga, Pamela Tulizo, Maarten Vanden Eynde

 

Formerly involved: Sammy Baloji (2018-2019), Daddy Tshikaya (2018-2019), Oulimata Gueye (2020-2022), Lotte Arndt (2020-2022), Dorine Mokha (2020-2021†), Gulda El Magambo (2019-2022)