In nature, “all waste equals food.” All waste becomes a biological nutrient. On the contrary, our technological waste is a toxic element rather than a nutritious one.

We should be able to extract the technological nutrients before we excrete our waste. There is a missing organ in our social metabolism which would work as a stomach or intestines. The Recyclone is a device made of plastic containers that fit into each other. (The plastic boxes are the equivalent to the “vellum”, which are the tiny hairs that stick out from the intestinal wall to absorb nutrients). The permutation of this plastic bins could be customized to satisfy anyone’s recycling needs.

While doing research in a dump, my feet sank repeatedly into the trash. Inspired by snowshoes, I designed footwear for walking over garbage. For the time being this footwear can be very useful for dumpster diving, however, if the waste management problems of the world are not solved, it could prove to be an everyday item in the near future.

In this variation of a see-saw there is a clear asymmetric relationship; one person equals in power a group of nine others. However, the single player needs the group to wield his influence. At first this seems a materialization of the hierarchies and power inequities found in almost all human organizations. The “oppressor” against the “oppressed”.

Another interpretation could shift from problems into opportunities, a potential “social leverage”, or the power of an individual to transform his group. If you change your own habits you are multiplying your efforts by one. If you manage to introduce some change within your group the effect is multiplied by ten, by one hundred, a thousand...

I was invited to work with a group of teen of the Boston metropolitan area most of them at different back grounds and were first generation immigrants so I wanted to work with a mythology that was unknown for all of them and play with the idea of been alien.

Over a week I conducted a number of guided meditations in order to trans- create for themselves a fictitious persona and how were they as an extraterrestrial entity visiting earth.

After this meditation they were handed an immigration form that they had to fill with the profile of their true alien identity for their visit on earth they were provided with a human body to be used and do the research they wanted in contact with the earthlings. They prepared questions and went out to the streets introducing themselves as a extraterrestrial alien visiting planet earth they issues their address to people on the streets propel their conversation instantly to some sort of invisible tether where conversation reach epistemological levels in an effortless way.

Premise: In epistemology “common sense” is defined as a state in which we believe that the way we perceive the world is the way the world actually is.

The Necker Cube is one simple example that challenges the prominence of common sense. It is a wire-frame drawing of a cube in isometric perspective. The picture does not show which is in front and which is behind. When staring at the picture, it may flip back and forth between the two valid interpretations. In this phenomena called multistable perception each part of the picture is ambiguous in itself. What we call “Facts” are nothing but interpretations. What we call “Truth” may be irrelevant in a different cultural environment. One could argue that it is impossible to arrive at pure objectivity, that reality is not only what we see, but to a large extent what we project or choose to believe.

Perhaps only someone alien to the context would see reality as it really is. To become suddenly alienated entails considerable imagination. ALIEN REPORT is an encounter game where fantasy is used not as an escapism but on the contrary as a method to achieve objectivity. This strangeness allows the participants to take a fresh look at their world and engages them effortlessly in deep philosophical conversations.

Script of the Guided Meditation:
...Slowly, very slowly, you are awakening from a long, long sleep. Right now you are traveling in outer space, you are traveling in your spaceship. You have been lying like this throughout the entire journey, in hibernation for light years waiting for your arrival in a distant solar system.

...Each of you has fallen to earth in a different spaceship and landed in a different area. In order to visit this planet, you will assume a human form.

...You have left your original appearance and you have abducted the bodies of chosen humans.

The body that you are inhabiting is not injured or impeded in any way and continues to function, except that now you, the alien visitor, are in command.

Was your spacecraft damaged?

How did you make your way to this city?

Was your spacecraft damaged?

How did you make your way to this city?

Did you have to take over various human and animal forms?

How did you take over this body?

What was she doing when you took over?

Take your time to observe earthlings and their customs.

You will find them everywhere: restaurants, stores, bus stops, and the like.

Feel free to ask each other questions about what you observe.

Is there some sense behind the various activities of people?

Try to understand why they behave in certain ways and what they think about.

What do human beings like best?

What do they like least?

Who are the true leaders of the human beings?

What is on the minds of human beings?

Is what they think about different from what they talk about when they meet each other?

In your opinion, will the human beings destroy themselves?

How do human beings feel about other human beings who differ from them, like those who talk in different ways, or have different skin pigmentation?

Do human beings believe they are a byproduct of a superior being?

Do human beings think of themselves as the best living creatures in the universe?

What do most human beings believe happens when they become nonfunctional (die)?



CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN ALIENS AND HUMANS (THE ALIEN REPORT)

Alien: What are you most scared of?
Human: Rejection and feathers.

Alien: Why do humans have pets?
Human: Unconditional love.

Alien: Do you think violence or war achieves peace?
Human: Yes, because it creates peace through fear.

Alien: Why do you humans say that you believe in equality, but then use other earth species as your slaves?
Human: How would one pay a cow? Animals do not understand currency; they are not the same as humans. Some farms treat animals humanely. Anyway, we don't have farms here in the city.

Alien: Why do earthlings obsess about their appearance?
Human: Our species selects based on looks. If you look good, you have a higher chance to mate.

Alien: Why do humans have eyebrows?
Human 1: I have no idea
Human 2: To look good
Human 3: To go with the eyes
Human 4: When you sweat, the eyebrows block the sweat so you don't sweat into your eyes

Alien: Why do humans walk in a hurry down the streets?
Human: I'm always saying 'oh I won't be late'. Then one minute later I look at the time and see that I am late.

Alien: How often do you look at the sky?
Human 1: I never look at the sky.
Human 2: Yes, I love watching the stars and the planets.

Alien: What are the major changes you think will occur in the next five years?
Human: A straw where dirty water goes in and clean water comes out.

Alien: If you could tell aliens one thing about earth, what would you tell them?
Human: I would tell them to watch out for cigarettes, because you might start smoking them and then you might die.

Alien: What is what you call love?
Human 1: An emotion
Human 2: An undefined notion
Human 3: It doesn't exist, unless you want to go out with me...

Alien: What types of humans do you interact with during the day?
Human: I mostly interact with banking professionals.

Alien: Why do you kiss each other?
Human 1: To show affection.
Human 2: Boobs.

Alien: Explain to me the difference between earth “art” and earth “entertainment”?
Human: Entertainment is created for others, art is created for the creator, but sometimes art can be entertainment as well.

Alien: Explain the human emotion hate.
Human: This word is not part of my vocabulary. The more it is used the easier it can exterminate you and your relationships from the inside out.

From conductist psychology to highschool projects rats are often used to model human behavior. There are thousends of experiments with “mice in the maze” like, will the mouse will cross the laberinth faster lisening to mozart or heavy metal? For this piece I took a drawing made by Mathias Goeritz and made it tridimentional. In this drawing can be seen the symbols from cristianity (the cross), judaism (the star of david) and islam (the moon and the star). Three kinds of rodents were sharing the laberinth, alhough I was advised to stop the experiment before they had a chance to hurt each other.